Just Snap

I'm taking a class that looks like a photography class but is really an inspiration and creative pursuit class. It's just six weeks long and I already wish it was at least double that. Last week, we explored taking photos from a completely judgment-free, be wild and crazy and see what happens, place. We were to do things like spin around and take a photo, not look through the viewfinder and take a photo, climb trees or lie on the ground and take photos. Just snap and see what happens. 

Finally. Photography instructions I can follow. 

The message, of course, was just to loosen up and take photos. Some people render themselves so immobile with fear of taking a bad shot or the wrong shot or whatever that they never take shots at all. Our instructor is trying to help us get beyond that. I dare say it worked. I've never had more fun in my own backyard. It was one of those blistering hot days (not unlike this one) and I didn't venture more than ten feet from either door. In fact, I wasn't even outside more than 15 minutes and managed to take well over 80 photos. (When you're not stopping to analyze and set-up and you know, focus, you can get quite a few pics under your belt.) 

I am blessed with a yard full of pines and white birch trees (two of the most photogenic types of tree, I would say) and they were my subjects. I laid under them and shot up, climbed into them and shot out, stood back and shot through… I did whatever I could to really see those trees.

There's a small set on my Flickr page where I'll be putting shots from the course and you're welcome to peek in from time to time. I didn't get to take the photos from my second assignment yet (we have a photography scavenger hunt going on) but look for those soon. The Flickr set will probably be a hodge podge of subjects and sometimes they may not make sense at all (a photo of a box lid, really?) but it's all part of the learning. If you have no idea why I took a photo of something, remember --- scavenger hunts rarely have rhyme or reason. Thank goodness. 

To Do and Ta Da

And just like that, the first half of the year is over. 

I'm taking stock today of what I have left to do in 2011 and figuring out where to focus my energy now. It is a good time to reenergize and prioritize and determine to make the next half even better than the first. It feels like there is so much left to do.

To Do 

• Find a realtor. I want to find someone who knows the area I am thinking of buying in because while I want to find a house I love, I also want to find a house that will be a good investment. This has been a bigger struggle than I imagined it would be but I have some new ideas to try later today. Hopefully I can check this off within the next few weeks.
• Continue eliminating possessions. I have gone through every closet, drawer and cabinet but I can do that again. The clearer the vision of my new house becomes, the easier it is to look at something and know if it will or will not work in the new space. I would like to get rid of 90% of my furniture, too, but that will have to wait until after the house is sold, I'm afraid. I need it for staging the house for potential buyers. (But if any family members or lovely locals need furniture, I can probably hook you up in a few months.) 
• Start packing the non-essentials. Last month I happened across an ad on our company's notice board that a fellow employee had moving boxes to sell. I now have a huge stack of boxes and five boxes of packing paper sitting in my garage, waiting for their next gig. 
• Sell, buy, pack, move and unpack. Seems easy enough, eh? Good golly, Molly.
• Incorporate a regular exercise routine. While I have been eating really well and exercising a time or two a week, I really need to step it up. This whole moving situation is going to be stressful, work isn't getting any less so, and I'm going to need a consistent exercise regime to help me face each day. I am worth it.
• Start accepting those social invitations. Ugh, let's not even talk about it. It might take me another month or two to brave this one. Talk about stress.

But as a good friend told me the other day, I can't just focus on what is left to do. I need to also take a moment to celebrate all that has been accomplished. And, go me, I have done a lot of what I intended to do this year already and my touchstone word INVEST has been at the heart of it all.

Ta Da

• Find creativity inspiration. Oh my stars. I have spent countless hours in writing, photography and painting courses the past six months. I have loved learning the technical aspects as well as just letting go and playing. It's been great. And I have more photography workshops and writing fun lined up for the last half of the year, too.
• Prepare the house for sale. Done, inside and out. And it feels good. You should see the perennials outside my front door. And my new kitchen counter. Gorgeous. 
• Pare down the possessions.  I used to need two closets to hold all my clothes. Now everything is hanging in 3/4 of one… and that's summer and winter clothes! I've taken so many boxes and bags of books, tchotchkes and dishes to Goodwill, the volunteers there know more about me than you do. The sense of freedom and light that comes from a good unburdening is immense. I highly recommend it.
• Focus on healthy living. I wanted to adopt a more holistic approach to living this year and I'm making progress. I did everything from taking up yoga and Tai Chi to packing a healthy lunch for work every day the past six months. I also wanted to do something about my sleep issues and attended a sleep seminar (sponsored through work) to learn what I needed to change to get more rest. I bought light-eliminating shades for the bedroom, started running a fan for white noise (and to keep the room cool for the best sleep) and started meditating before I turned in. Though it took a few weeks to readjust, I am happy to say I'm sleeping again. I feel great. 

How about you, dear reader? Have you made changes this year? Have changes you'd like to make? I would love to hear about them and cheer you on. 

Happy July and the best of 2011 to you.

Gems

The only thing I enjoy as much as stringing together the perfect sequence of words and knowing that I have conveyed my intended message is reading something that someone else has written that does the same. I have come across several such gems this week and I wanted not only to remember them but share them. I hope they bring joy and inspiration to you too.

***

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing. ~ Gene Wolfe

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. ~ E.L. Doctorow

The changing landscape of my social life has been a curious thing these past few years but it’s nice to have a reminder that nothing is static, and that there is no telling who is out there, waiting to enter your life, who you may have just met that will prove to be a significant player, who you may find yourself celebrating with in the future.  I want to always be open to new people. ~ mollykath

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant. ~ Maya Angelou

A lot of people talk about life purpose. They say it’s something you’ve got to find, something you have to figure out. It’s this elusive, intimidating thing, that if you don’t discover, will cause your life to be forever devoid of meaning. ... You do have a purpose, but it’s not what you think. It’s not something “out there” that you need to find. It’s not hard to figure out, like a mesmerizing labyrinth or ambiguity. That’s because your purpose is to become who you are. That’s it. ~ illuminatedmind

As soon as your dream becomes stronger than your doubts and fears, your dream begins to manifest. ~ Marc Allen

You can be standing in the fluorescent-lit aisle of the paint store contemplating the merits of White Linen as opposed to Bavarian Creme when you are suddenly seized with the fear that your life is quietly passing you by, and when you die it won’t matter what color you painted your family room. I’m never going to be as young as I am today. I’ll never hear my favorite song for the first time more than once. My skin is going to wrinkle. My children are going to move away. Someday. Still, I do not want to predict my life like a tarot card or a one hour session with some spiritual medium. The future can not be known or manipulated. It has to be enough to stand rooted in this minute with the thrill of possibility in the next, and the next, and the next. None of us are going to escape grief, not by writing, or affairs, or travel. You will not avoid grief by accumulating friends or by loving your children. These things only increase the chances of grief showing up unannounced on your doorstep on some random Tuesday while you are still in your robe. ~ Kelly of Ordinary Art

Characters in your novel are a lot like real people - they want to know and be known. Use that. ~ Novel Doctor

The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. ~ Ivy Baker Priest

A writer runs her hand across a rotting, broken fencepost and finds a story in every splinter. ~ Novel Doctor

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. ~ Unknown

Living In Mudville

I am not enjoying life. 

That was a hard sentence to write and an even harder thing to realize but it is true. My days are chaotic, stressful and unrewarding, full of conflict and anger. My nights are solitary, emotional and restless. My weekends are a blur of sleep-deprived furious energy moving towards targets: writing x number of words, exercising x number of minutes, cleaning out x number of items… all which are supposed to bring me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment but only just leave me exhausted.

I need joy.

It was not that long ago that the majority of my days were happy ones. Dark moments would pass through but overall, I was a joyful person. I can no longer say that. I feel like every day is something to endure, to get through, not something to rejoice in and celebrate. This is not the way I want to live. 

I sat down the other day and wrote about what an enjoyable day for me would be like. I was not interested in a ‘shucking it all and lying on a beach’ kind of day, I wanted to figure out what it would take to change the days I am living now into days that I want to be living: a new normal day. What I came up with was not too shocking. I found I need more fulfillment and purpose in my career, and I want to easily find time for the other things that matter, writing, running, spending time with the people I love. The isolation I feel at work and being alone outside work is wearing on me even more than I knew. I wake with an overwhelming sense of dread every day.

Before anyone fears for my mental health or well-being, I am looking at this realization as a positive thing. I have not been in this state of mind for long so I have every hope that I can turn it around in short order. Facing an issue is the first step in conquering it, and I fully intend to conquer this one.  

This is going to be my summer of joy. I am going to identify and work toward adding more light and relaxation and reenergizing activities and spending more time doing the things that matter, with the people that matter. It is obvious to me that things need to change. This is just my declaration that they will. 

I No Longer See It

From the time I was very young, I have always lived in two worlds, the one here with the rest of you and the one I had built inside my head. The world inside changed over the years, as I grew and matured and experienced new things, but one thing was constant. There was always a hallway with a door at the end and I would sneak down that hallway from time to time and kneel at that door to peek through the keyhole. What I saw inside was my future.

I have always had a vision of my future, I suppose because I have always had goals and dreams and some idea of the direction I wanted to take. I do not remember what was behind that door when I was very young, probably something to do with living amongst hundreds of kittens and ponies or something. From my teenaged years, behind that door was a life in the city. If you could squeeze in my mind with me, I would give you a tour of my apartment with the exposed brick walls and the loft bedroom and the wide plank floors, the color of dark golden honey. It is as clear to me as the room I am sitting in. 

In my thirties, that apartment morphed into a stone cottage on a mountain, overlooking a lake. Again, every detail of that home is imprinted on my mind, from the butterscotch leather comfy chair in the corner of the cozy living room to the little purple wildflowers growing by the door and the towering evergreen pines all around. I could see myself at a large wooden desk in the den, drinking tea, watching the sunrise, and writing novels.

It was all so clear.

This weekend I stole down that hallway in my mind to take a peek through the keyhole in that door again. I looked but I could not see anything. I pulled back, cleaned my glasses and tried again. I squinted. There was nothing to see.

I have been analyzing that now for hours on end. What does it mean? Where did my future go? If I try really hard, the farthest I can see into the future is maybe... Thursday. Why? What happened?

Is it because I have not one goal now but many? Is it because each dream I hold for myself is independent yet intertwined with the others so that any of them could come true on their own or together as one and that leaves my future just too unpredictable? 

I do not know. 

I refuse to believe that because I did not see anything that means there is nothing there. Instead, I want to believe that there is a dark, thick, velvet curtain hanging over the inside of the door obstructing my view. If I were to kneel at the door again and put my ear, rather than my eye, to the keyhole, maybe I would hear movement, construction noises perhaps, meaning my future is being built even as I think about it.

But I did not put my ear to the door and listen. Instead I turned away from the door and left. I guess I am not yet ready to know.

Like Oxygen to a Writer

I can sometimes generate ideas for my writing by reading a favorite book that left an impression on me in the past, or by reading something never read before that may spark new ways of thinking, or by simply sitting in my favorite chair with my eyes closed and letting my mind run free until it finds something I can use. Other times, I turn outward. There are several authors and publishers that I follow on Twitter, or whose blogs I read, and they provide endless support to novices like me and are always shedding new light on the writing process. I could spend hours (and have) reading back through their archives for nuggets of wisdom on getting past writing obstacles. The LDBF is a great source of encouragement and thought-provoking conversation as well. These are my most oft-used sources of inspiration.

But then there are days. You know the ones. The days when it seems like your brain has been completely emptied of all contents and none of your stand-by idea generators are working. Feeling the desire to write and being bone-dry of ideas or mental energy is a horrible feeling. At its least severe, you feel as though your arms are tied behind your back. On the worst days, it can feel like the air around you is being sucked away and you cannot breathe. Your chest aches, your head pounds and the world begins to go dark. And, you feel as though your arms are tied behind your back.

Inspiration, defined by Dictionary.com, is an inspiring or animating action or influence; something inspired; a result of inspired activity; a thing or person that inspires. That is all well and good, and probably what we most often think of when we think of inspiration, but I like the alternative meaning provided below all that, which is, the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation. 

Exactly.