In This Lifetime: You Can, So Do

If you can make a donation, send it out.

If you can canvas a neighborhood, bring a friend.

If you can talk with conviction, speak your mind.

If you can find your voice, write a letter to a politician.

If you can march in the streets, go forth with conviction.

If you can make a statement on social media, don't be afraid.

If you can assist a person in need, give them a hand.

If you can run for office, be yourself and tell it like it is.

If you can debunk a myth, correct the record.

If you can read and educate yourself, seek enlightenment.

If you can offer a shoulder for someone hurting, offer your kindness.

If you can write a treatise and publish it, get busy.

If you can listen, find your compassion.

If you can open your mind and heart, understand the perspective of someone other than yourself.

If you can be receptive, learn something you didn't know. 

If you have a patch of land, put a sign on it.

If you can sing, give it your all.

If you can shed your fear and hardness, fall in love with all the possibilities of this life.

There's always hope and a way to instigate change.

If you seize your potential, others will be inspired, too.

Hopelessness shelters in inaction. You can make a difference, so do. I believe in you.

The Year of Living Large

This isn't a New Year's resolution post.

One summer, on a trip to Chicago with my small children, I optimistically wore a hot pink graphic tee that read in silver glitter letters: The Joy is in the Journey.

What a mistake. The flight was a complete disaster, my kids misbehaved in ways I've conveniently forgotten, and it ended in me all but containing a seething yell across the airplane aisle: "Just you wait until we get off the plane!" My naughty children smirked, snickered even.

So, I don't set myself up for such epic failure. I don't emblazon inspirational sayings across my chest because life just isn't a party cruise. It smacks you down. Oddly, Ariana Grande's breathin is playing in the background right now.

But, I'm optimistic about 2019. Maybe because I feel good. Good, as in, life is an open book to me right now. I'm feeling energized and happy. Like I could accomplish just about anything I want to this year. Can one be happy? A counselor once told me that true happiness is impossible. Contentment was more like it. But, no, I'm happy.

Even though there are so many reasons not to be:

• the glaciers are melting at incredible rates
• plastic and micro-plastic are clogging our beaches and ocean
• my word count is still pretty sucky
• financial security is a myth
• hell, security of any sort is elusive and easily lost
• my dance card is empty (again. i'm open to dates, if you're available.)

But but but but. My unfinished books, they're calling. My travel plans, forming. My dreams (mostly about motorcycles) still keep me up at night. Let's see what 2019 will bring. C'mon, 2019, let's get sweaty.

A Theory of Life and Death and Writing

This is my theory. It is unproven. It is not dogmatic. It is not based on any religious theory. It makes semi-logical assumptions. It speculates about life and death. And, for me, about why writers write.

Zero is the moment of birth. The Positive Finite Years begin at birth. These are the years of knowing. We learn how to live. We become self-aware. We become other-aware.

Then, we die.

The Negative Infinity Years are the years of not knowing. They are the ultimate unknown. We do not know them. We are not self-aware. Nor are we aware of anything. Death erases knowing.

But, let's go back. Here's what we know about the Positive Finite Years:

We must survive. As part of survival, we must learn skills. We must work. We must learn to interact, to be with others. There is suffering involved. There is love. We must process pain and rejection while also experiencing joy and the mystery of the unknown, aware that these years are precious and finite.

Here's what we know about the Negative Infinity:

In the Infinity, we are not required to survive. We do not need people or skills. There is no suffering. There is no love. We are not required to process pain or contemplate mystery. These years go on unendingly.

Expressed in another way:

Finite Years = Survival + Suffering + Love
Infinite Years = No survival + No Suffering + No Love

Which is nirvana?

Fear plays a factor. We FEAR in the Finite Years. We fear everything:

• lack of resources
• bodily harm
• betrayal
• rejection
• success
• failure
• the unknown

But, there is no fear in the Infinite Years.

How do we take fear out of the Finite Years?
Some use dogma and creeds, hence religion.
Some use reason, hence intellect.
Some use science, hence research.

Our blindspot is always fear.
Fear, I believe, can be defeated by wonder.

What if ... ?
Wonder is our asking, what if?

What if ... we lived forever?
What if ... no one ever starved?
What if ... racism didn't exist?
What if ... I could play the piano?
What if ... we could travel in space?
What if ... my neighbor and I got along?
What if ... there is life on another planet?
What if ... the Infinite Negative doesn't exist?

What ifs take away some of the unknowing and fear and replace it with wonder. I know I must use my mind now. I must maximize the what ifs. And I do this, partly, by writing. I write by asking what ifs. Not large, existential questions, like in this post, but smaller questions. What if one person loved another in this story? What if it didn't work out? And, then again, what if it did?

Hello, Dishes

Thank god I waited until this morning to start a new post. Writing after drinking wine on a weekend night when the most exciting thing on the agenda is emptying the dishwasher probably isn't a good idea. Those are the times the f-bombs lob liberally from the ol' noggin. My goal here isn't to f-bomb you. We have enough violence in the world without me adding to it.

Ironically, I'm reading "The Book of Joy," a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. The book is based on a week-long conversation between the two friends facilitated by a writer, who wrote a book about their discussion. A friend suggested it to me. Though it may sound ludicrous, these guys would make a good morning show. The Lama/Tutu Coffee Hour. Reset your life with advice from the enlightened.

Far from it, I can't claim to be enlightened yet. And, generally speaking, my thoughts assume bad patterns. Negative outcomes. Dwellings on the past. Doggy downers. Basically, a rewinding shitshow (sorry about the vulgarity, couldn't get through this post without one). The Lama/Tutu duo advise that in order to overcome the negativity: think more of others than yourself. And meditate (if you're a lama/Buddhist) or pray (if you're an archibishop/Christian). One main focus should be on compassion. And, in a chemical combo of these two -- caring and compassion -- you'll be a better, happier person.

I'll buy that. Let me take an ohm break. Ah, there, now on with the post.

Do you have enough?

Back to the mundane dishes. To reframe, the Lama/Tutu way would reconsider the dishes as a representation of abundance. I may have a pile of dirties, but in reality, the dishes show that I've been able to feed myself, my kids, the occasional doe-eyed pet. The dishes also show that there's an element of leisure regarding when I actually need to clean them, because I have a machine that can do the hard work in less than an hour. I don't have to spend a soggy session soaping, rinsing, and drying those dishes, because the dishwasher does most of the work. What a miracle. Most of the world doesn't have this luxury. So, in many ways, the dishes, piled high, crusty and gross, aren't deleterious at all. They are symbolic of privilege and the vast resources available to me.

That certainly puts a different light on those dishes. Does it put a different light on my life?

Yes ... and no. Living in a modern culture, all the trappings of cultural expectations (usually, consumer items) make feeling contented an impossible ideal. How can I feel contented when I don't have X, X, or X, like my neighbor, or co-worker, or that beautiful model in the ad? Admittedly, I consume far less of the "false feed of need" by not watching commercial television or clicking on every idiotic Facebook ad, but it's there, nonetheless. The message is loud and clear: You won't be happy until you do/have/become THIS (insert car, vacation, relationship, book, method, status symbol, coffee grinder, retro LP collection, etc.). Ack. How will we ever overcome the bombardment?

Well, I start with the obvious, which is recognizing the messages never end and are constantly incoming. And, they sometimes are quite sneaky, i.e., "Why, of course, I want to be healthier by doing that new supplement regime touted by Oprah!" (Remember acai?)  

And, I'll read the book. And, I'll reread the book. Maybe, I'll even start to meditate. Would that be reaching for X, too? Depends, I suppose, on what I meditate on. Perhaps, just on my abundant dishes.

Grief is a Moment

Writing morning pages is supposed to help me lead a healthy creative life, according to Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way. Grief has affected my creativity. I'm more reluctant to write on personal projects that don't necessarily have an immediate pay-off versus projects that have a client attached to them. More money would be nice and give me a buffer I don't currently have.

But this allusion of security is a false prospect. If I have all that I need in the moment – my wits, my health, a warm place to call home, food to eat – then everything else should be superfluous. Everything else, including my pets, furniture, fancy clothes, a closet full of shoes, jewelry, my car, books, smart phone, all just extras. Props for the real living. If I'm not happy in the moment, then all of those things, even if they are the finest items of their kind in the world, will not make me happier.

Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days in the woods and figured that out for us.

On the evil-twin flipside, studies show that people who live without financial strain are generally happier. This makes some sense if money is a constant worry, but I don't necessarily have severe financial strain. If I reallocate resources – toss out my phone or downsize my vehicle – that would improve my ability to travel more or have an emergency fund (other than my credit card).

But this idea of being 100 percent secure is a falsehood. Death teaches me this. Death comes whether you have your car paid off or a life insurance policy in place. Death comes whether you've finished writing your will or your novel, or have sent your kids out into the world. Because death is definitive, it makes forming future plans feel foolish. It's not like I'm throwing up my hands entirely and indulging chocolate cake everyday (though I have announced to my daughters that I will do so upon turning 75), but the finality and inevitability of this breathing existence puts everything else under a different lightbulb.

Should the small stuff be elevated to the level of “precious”? Breath consciously, for it could be my last? That sounds ridiculous, but the idea behind it -- being conscious of the stuff we take for granted -- does not.

My youngest daughter wanted to go on a walk in the freezing snow one night this week. I didn't immediately say yes. Quite the opposite, my motherly knee-jerk thoughts were: Absolutely not! There's no way that's going to happen! But then I thought, really what's the harm? It's just cold. No one was out on our street. She rarely expresses a desire to take a walk, and it's a plea-fest to get her to take the dog. So, I told her to bundle up, scarf, mittens, hat, heaviest coat.

She was gone for a long while. I worried. Then I saw her. Standing motionless on the sidewalk, looking at the snowy street. She was in the moment.

Blood, Love and Steel Toasted with Champagne, Friends

Without friends, family, and support, a book is a pile of paper covered in ink. It needs a community to succeed. Last night, my North Carolina community came out to celebrate my book's first months in the light. The evening brightened a few of the dark spots in the past six months and recharged me for continued challenges. Thanks to my dear friend Amy Monroe for taking the lead. The party wouldn't have happened without her.

A selfie with Amy.

We sold a few!

We toasted and nibbled.

Smiling because of great friends Kricket (L) and Michele.

Camera caught more than it should have.

Battery Park Book Exchange, excellent venue.

Don't Judge a Draft

The time spent writing a draft of a new project is not the time to edit. Or judge. Or critique. Or in any way disturb the creative flow. Got it?

Yeah, right.

Maybe because I've started writing again after a too-long-to-mention dry spell, I'm telling myself, willing myself, begging myself, screaming back at my inner editor to shut the shit up.

Ollie, whose attitude I like.

So far, it's working. I want to write two hours a day for 50 consecutive days. I haven't quite lived up to my goal (I've written every day but not for two hours each time). I'm not letting the downers creep in. The single thing propelling me is my determination not to self-edit as I go. I'm just laying down the tracks. Playing around. Slapping down some ideas and not looking too critically at what's come before or what might come after.

Kinda the way I blog.

The time to judge is every second AFTER the draft is finished. How many of us start a project and never finish it? I see you nodding back at me. We become wrapped up in the outcome or overwhelmed by the enormity of the project or think the idea isn't worth finishing.

There's plenty of time for doubt later. Push it aside. When the draft is done, then I'll have plenty of readers, reviewers, crabby old <insert relative's name>, and hopefully, sales, to judge whether what I've done was worth doing.

It's Day Six. Time to get railroading.

Why I Write...

... the same reason I get out of bed. I feel compelled. It's not an obsession (we'll revisit that). It's not an unnatural act. I write because it is a joy and feeds a yearning to discover. I feel both joy and discovery when I wake and when I write.

Fiction writing is very new to me. I never wrote a piece of fiction until August 2009, unless you count in 2nd grade when my parents went out on "date night," and I scribbled a story on loose-leaf titled "The Girl with Blue Fingernails." Awful. But I wish I still had it. What was I a really trying to say? (that's a joke)

I "discover" by pulling my imagination in sometimes obscure and always interesting directions from experiences still available in my brain. I'm more of a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants) than a plotter, in that respect. I like to see what bubbles up. I plot but in a loose sort of way.

One of my favorite lines from a children's book, The Hello Goodbye Window, is delivered by a grandfather, who, upon the day's start, rises and declares: "Hello world. What have you got for me today!" That pretty much sums up my philosophy for waking and writing.

A Shot of Something in My Coffee

Write, and be thwarted. Negativity follows writers, especially fiction writers, like an unshakeable head cold. Even (or should it be, especially) in the places where encouragement should be found. The NYT Book Review published this lead on a review, a good review, over the weekend:

"Just because something happened to you doesn't make it interesting. Anyone one who has suffered through an overly indulgent blog post or cocktail-party anecdote is familiar with this thought . . . "


Turn away now from my overly indulgent rant. God bless you, writers. Every last stinking, ego-maniacal, selfish one of you. The act of sharing is a thankless risk. The world doesn't need you, you know. The world needs more fissionable material and automatic handguns and racial rhetoric and toxic assets. We definitely need more religion and morals and pornography. And please, at least a score more talking heads and idiotic threads of user comments. So, writers, put your pens and keyboards away now. It's pointless.

Unless, big exception coming, there's room for something else. There might be room in the world for the small story you have inside. Whether it's insufferable or not. It could be one is and the next isn't. Write it. From it tumbles all sorts of possibilities. Personal fulfillment. Connection with people. Turning nuance into meaning. Transferring love. The creativity, and the crap, are worth it.