fridaville

I'VE MOVED!

2010-02-23T16:20:00.005-05:00

Fridaville has been redesigned. Please find me at www.fridaville.com, and be sure to sign up to receive "Postcards from Fridaville" for creative prompts, fun finds and weekly inspirations, coming soon.

Thanks,

Nikki

Searchlight

2010-02-21T17:14:00.003-05:00

I went to an amazing workshop led by the poet David Whyte this weekend, and when I came home after the last session today, I pulled out this print by Olivia Jeffries that I bought on Etsy a year or so ago and decided to use it again but in a totally different context this time. It was on my mind because I realized I've been asking myself for months now, "What am I looking for?" and trying to push my way through to an answer right now. And for months, I've come no closer to finding it, becoming more agitated and frustrated as time went by. But at some point during this retreat, my question changed to, "What is looking for me?" That is a huge shift for me, because it suggests that there is a calling waiting for me that I need to spend time preparing the ground for, but not trying to force into bloom like paperwhite bulbs in the dead of winter. I'm only two months into this Year of Change that I've declared for myself, but just making it an official pilgrimage, if only to myself, has made me attentive to all sorts of messages coming to me from seemingly random sources that I might have ignored a year ago. A year ago I wouldn't have signed up for, didn't sign up for, this transformative workshop when it was offered. A year ago the poems that were read might not have lighted up the darkness for me in the way they did this time. A year ago I might not have been ready. But looking back, I can see that all the while, the field was being prepared in the darkness, the seeds being planted. The search that I'm on, the big decisions and change that I'm aiming myself toward, seem a bit less arduous and maddening knowing that while I have work to do on my part, something is looking for me as intently as I am looking for it.

Doing my Homework

2010-02-17T19:42:00.006-05:00

I'm slowly making my way back into keeping a regular journal, working at it from different directions. The gluebooky way above in which I slap on some gesso and glue down things that seem to want to go there. I'm also keeping a journal of my year of change, trying to figure out if synchronicity is working in my life, if what seems to be chance is really a harbinger or messenger of change. I'm thinking about what happens in my life every day to see if I can find instances of change at work or if I'm taking steps myself to prepare for change in this transitional phase of my life. The other journal I'm keeping is the one-sentence-a-day diary proposed by Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project. I'm writing that one in the little 5 Year Diary by Tamara Shopsin. Oops and I forgot...Fridaville is being redesigned with some fun things planned like weekly "Postcards from Fridaville" sent out to people who sign up for them, so I'm keeping a journal of ideas on that. All in addition to my day job, for which I have a Skirt! Magazine notebook to keep me focused on coming issues. Just writing all of that down makes me feel unfocused and crazy -- should I just have one notebook that all of this goes into? The separate ones seem to help me keep my different roles and goals separate, but I don't know...maybe I'm just spinning my wheels. And I don't want one of those 5-subject spiral notebooks from school because they make me think of warm cafeteria milk and math assignments I never finished. Big shiver down my spine just imagining it. How do you keep track of all your projects?

Nana Says...

2010-02-16T06:00:00.008-05:00

I grew up clueless about so many things: how to use eyeshadow; how to eat an artichoke; how to pronounce "forte"; how to drive a stick shift. So I'm amusing myself by periodically adding to a list of advice for the little girls in my life. Most likely they will have figured all this and more out by the time I give it to them and laugh behind their backs at poor benighted Nana.

1. Learn how to apply lipstick without a mirror.

2. Put your napkin in your lap as soon as you sit down.

3. Don't date men who wear baseball caps indoors.

4. You may be the apple of someone's eye, but don't act like you're the center of the universe.

5. No one looks good chewing gum.

6. There's probably a time and place for blue eye shadow, but no one has discovered it so far.

7. Never talk on a cell phone when you're checking out in the supermarket.

8. Those no-parking fire lanes in front of Starbucks? They don't mean "no parking except for your car."

9. For god's sake, spell check your resume!

10. Your wedding shouldn't be the high point of your life.

11.There's no such thing as "settling down." Life happens.

12. Always wear red underwear in case you take a fall in your high heels.

10 Things to Do This Week

2010-02-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

1. Have one fresh, green idea. Not just the dull, rusty I'm-in-hibernation green of my frostbitten jasmine vine or the I-might-be-dying green of the bamboo plant I'm nursing on my porch. I want sap-running green, neon green, spring-onion green...tender green shoots promising succulent, tasty projects.

2. Make a map of my day, inspired by Sara Fanelli's kids' book on maps.

3. Work my word for 2010: Change!

4. Make one drawing/watercolor a day no matter how amateurish it looks.

5. Pick something to work on from The Happiness Project.

6. Plan a winter party. Guest list, pinata, new dress, cases of Prosecco, candles candles candles, party cds, glitter.

7. Believe someone is going to rock my world in a good way this year. Please, no rocking my boat, only my world.

8. Love my wrinkles. Or at least be good friends with them. Okay, maybe shake hands with them and have a cup of coffee.

9. Think sexy thoughts. Absolutely necessary for creative mental juiciness.

10. Try writing in the new coffee shop near my office. New thoughts? New ideas? New sense of selfiness?

Styrofoam Heart

2010-02-14T00:00:00.010-05:00

I found two odd objects on my desk on Friday: a pack of Fun-Dip candy powder from a sweet friend and a discontinued condom package we were thinking of using in the magazine. Sadly symbolic because there's going to be no fun-dip happening for me on this doily-edged, red- velvet day. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have a heart-shaped void where a relationship should be. Not that I haven't had more than my fair share of overnight hook-ups and years-too-long live-ins. But I lack the knack of day-to-day living together that grown-ups my age should have developed. I like the falling-in-love part better than the through-thick-and-thin part. Yes, I know that's incredibly immature, but my teenage marriage was a terrible love accident that I never really got treated for. Lots of casualties as a result, and over the years, I built up a protective carapace of scar tissue where the wound was. After I had lung surgery years ago, a deep scar formed along my ribs and under my breast that for a long time was numb to feeling. I think it sealed off the terror I felt through that time, and in the same way, my love scar sealed off the sadness I didn't want to feel. Unfortunately, it also sealed me off from the sweetness that can come with love. At some point, the scar on my ribs lost its numbness and became a badge of honor, but the one on my neglected, protected heart is more stubborn. I keep it mostly hidden because I feel to blame for it, but my word for 2010 is Change, so maybe there's still time for me to have a change of heart.

My Word for 2010

2010-02-07T13:53:00.006-05:00

...is Change. I veer between thinking that change is inevitably bad or that I'm too old/comfortable/sensible to change. That the house of my life is framed in, dry-walled, insulated and picket fenced. As it should be after years of trying to get to just that state. All the years of not being able to pay the bills on time, of owing the IRS, of driving crap cars, of career ups and downs, of crazy self-drama and unbridled emotionalism, of cobbling together a living until I accidentally hit on something that became a sweet little success. Why would I court Change? Especially when I'm convinced it always means someone leaving, something ending, something falling apart. Early sorrow teaches you to lowball your expectations. So this is my year to sidle up to Change with a carrot in my hand and make peace with that wild unpredictable beast. What if Change means someone new comes into my life. What if Change means an unexpected new beginning or project or talent? What if Change means me letting go instead of hanging on? What if I start dismantling my old ideas about Change? I figure there's a 50/50 chance of Change being positive, so I'm going to work the odds and envision my 17 year old self getting on an outbound bus again without a clue to the destination. What's your word for 2010?

Weak or No Signal

2010-01-26T20:03:00.003-05:00

It's very quiet here tonight in Fridaville because I accidentally hit some invisible Darth Vader button on the side of my flat screen TV that made it go haywire. I can't turn it on or off -- it's in TV limbo -- and no matter what buttons I push, I get the message above. So who do you call when your TV has a mental breakdown? It used to be a TV repairman, but they are as extinct as the wooly mammoth. The next option is to set up an appointment with Comcast and take half a day off work waiting for them to arrive. "Oh that's okay, I have a trust fund and nothing better to do, so I can leave work and hang around waiting for your guy to show up within the allotted frame of time--or not." Or the other choice, after stomping around, changing batteries in the remote (which I had to steal from my vibrator) and feeling the blood pulse in my eardrums, is simply to do without TV for awhile. Maybe the "weak or no signal" is my signal to read, write in a jounal, work on storyboarding a little movie, clean out a desk drawer, take a walk when it's warmer, visit a friend on Thursday to catch 30 Rock, make soup, draw, listen to the silence, play some moody Miles Davis, put a 30 minute hot oil pack on my hair, take a photo, order something extravagant online, watch Hulu.com or an instant-play Netflix movie, write a haiku, put the batteries back in my vibrator, glue something in my journal, call my daughters, load cds onto iTunes, take a Lynda.com online class, exfoliate. I grew up without TV, but we had stories to tell in front of the fireplace, corn to be popped over the coals, sparks to fly and the dozy comfort of firelight instead of HDTV light. I can't get that back, but maybe I can light some candles, tell myself some stories and bring a little of that slow winding down into bedtime back into my life. I don't think it will be easy because I'm a thoroughly gadgetized, mechanized product of my era. I want my HBO, Bravo, Law and Order and Turner Classic Movies running while I blog or email. I'm already uneasy, unsure of what to do with myself, antsy, angsty and on edge. I kind of like it.

Deer in Headlights

2010-01-25T19:52:00.003-05:00

I was terrified about presenting a slide show at our local Pecha Kucha ... 20 slides, 20 seconds each so you have only that tiny slice of time to make your point. You can view mine by bringing up the You Tube video on the sidebar--it started off a little rough but picked up speed and went over well. It was a sold-out house -- 350 people -- and usually I panic in front of a crowd. But this time I overprepared, rehearsed the narration a million times, had a friend give me feedback and kept tweaking it til two hours beforehand. Rehearsing it out loud over and over helped me almost memorize it, but the best part was the slide show because it anchored me and calmed me (in addition to the beta blocker I took beforehand!). It made me realize how, although I'm no artist or photographer, having a visual component to my writing is so exciting and inspiring to me. I loved "storyboarding" my ideas in a primitive method of using a desk blotter monthly calendar and filling in the squares with my ideas for each slide. Then moving the slides around and timing and editing the script was incredibly satisfying in a different way than writing is for me. The whole process opened so many doors in my brain. As soon as I can conquer Keynote and iMovie, I want to take a digital storytelling workshop and make a little 3 minute "movie-ette." Not for any particular reason but just to tell a story in a different way. It makes me sad that in the past I've said a mental "no" to things I've wanted to pursue because I didn't know enough or couldn't be the best at it or thought it wasn't worth doing if I couldn't make money at it. What have you been postponing out of fear or inertia or perfectionism?

Report from the 3rd Eye

2010-01-20T19:41:00.002-05:00

This chakra connects you to your sense of intuition, or Inner Guru. A bindi placed in the middle of the forehead reminds you to tap into this higher power. As a native of Kentucky, I'd feel kind of fake displaying a bindi in public, but at home, it might remind me to trust my Guru Girl, to listen to her when she tells me:

- If he never takes you out in public, he's someone you should be ashamed of.

- as Gretchen Rubin writes in The Happiness Project, the actions of love are the proof of love.

- true friends don't ditch you for a guy ... they let him come along when you go out.

- Your best friend is always your designated hitter, designated driver and designated spokesperson in case of a family tragedy. Class acts don't bare their souls to Ann Curry.

- You don't have to go home again.

Back When I Had Eyebrows and Opportunities

2010-01-12T19:10:00.006-05:00

This is my 1961 high school graduation photo, and I look pretty confident. Big smile, sassy pixie haircut, Brooke Shields eyebrows. Ready for the adult world, ready to move on. But I wasn't. I was 17, kissed too many times, not many options left in my own mind. I was timid on the outside, tumultuous on the inside. I didn't fit anywhere. Fast forward to 2010, and I'm in a bar tonight for my regular Tuesday night meeting with my creative friend, and Miss 17 shows up, all "I'm so scared and stupid" on my bar stool -- because I have a biggish public presentation to make next week, so she's freaking out. As she so often does when I'm ready to throw in the towel. Tonight, though, I'm scooching her over on the stool (not kicking her to the floor because she's also my gentle, empathetic side, which I can't live without) and sharing my backbone with her. A backbone that I often deny having ("oh I'm not worthy, I'm so small and insignificant") -- but isn't that just a way to avoid taking responsibility for my accomplishments? A way to prepare myself and others in case I fail? Because I'm so sensitive to criticism? I'm annoyed -- no, I'm mortified -- that I refuse to take kudos for what I achieve and responsibility for when I fail. That I so often try not to try. Dear Miss 17, let's do it.

Bridge to the Weekend

2010-01-08T21:21:00.005-05:00

Oh darling Friday! I love the relief you give me of work well done for the last five days, your red wine and chocolate, your promise of pajamas and fuzzy socks, your 2-hour special on Elvis so lost and broken, your twinkle lights turned on outside, your command to stop thinking about exercise missed or opportunities lost, your promise of a completely unelevating novel waiting on the bedside table, your tantalizing come-hither murmur of all the work I can get done on Saturday or Sunday but not tonight, your time out from duty and must-dos. Sweet Friday, if only there were two of you a week.

Empty Chairs

2010-01-06T07:00:00.004-05:00

When I go back home, the people and places I knew are like the heat shimmers on an August road. Something you think you can touch it until you get right up on it and then it vanishes. My mother, my husband, my son, all my grandparents, my sweet cousin, all my greataunts and greatuncles. My first love. My mother and father in law. All my aunts but one. The second cousins, the spinsters and distant branches of family whose names I can’t even remember. Best friends. Boyfriends who broke my heart. Teachers. The old brick school building in the center of town. The erasers I cleaned after class. The sounds of basketball games in the gym that no longer exists. The wrist corsages and back seats. The smell of Sunday dinner and reading the funny papers in front of the fire at my grandmother’s house. Summer afternoon shadows.

The Tuesday NIght Club

2010-01-05T20:25:00.004-05:00

I love Tuesday night drinks with my creative companion. We meet once a week "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--." Tonight we discussed our feelings about our mothers, our love of textiles and embroidery, travel, living more boldly, books we've read, dinner parties, cosmetic surgery (should we? should we not? should we waive judgment on friends who have? do dyeing your eyebrows count?) and blogging. Somehow, meeting once a week in a setting divorced from our "real" workaday lives makes it easier to expose our deepest selves. Tonight we agreed that 2010 should be a high voltage year for both of us. My first step: finding a flat to rent in London for a month this summer. I'm afraid to put my hand on that live wire, but how can I resist that dare I've made to myself?

Anchors Away

2010-01-02T19:50:00.006-05:00

The beginning of the year is an artificial construct that tends to make us question what we've been doing with our lives and/or flagellate ourselves about what we've left undone. I haven't made a list of resolutions, but I've spent some time thinking about why I'm not living as bold a life as I'd wish. I could promise myself to go on a cruise, take belly dancing lessons or date a younger man in order to shake up my life, but I think that would be skin deep. I'm more interested in the barnacle-encrusted anchors that I've pulled against for decades: I'm too shy to [fill in the blank]; I'm just not talented enough; I'm no good at relationships so I'm not going to try; I could never [fill in the blank]. I want to remember that my family is a strong anchor, that my job is a welcome anchor, that my house is a safe anchorage, but I also want to try and haul those other anchors up and let the wind fill my sails now and then. I don't think it can happen overnight, and maybe I will always be too shy to [fill in the blank], but I do think it's possible to lessen the drag enough to find an unexplored harbor or an unexpected sea lane of desire. I'm a big believer in kaizen, but believing and doing are two different things. Sometimes it feels like I would need to check into a monastery of the mind in order to have time to rehab my soul. It's always: I'll meditate/cogitate/contemplate as soon as I meet this deadline, drop off my dry cleaning, clean out the refrigerator. I'll meditate tomorrow, I swear. Am I the only spiritual dilettante out there?

Things to do in 2010

2010-01-01T00:50:00.006-05:00

1. Buy a black leather biker jacket.

2. Order Golden Star White Jasmine Sparkling Tea.

3. Take yoga seriously. Yet again.

4. Create a map of Fridaville. Include a Champagne bar.

5. Unpack my suitcase the day I get home from a trip.

6. Learn the lyrics to "Accentuate the Positive" by Johnny Mercer & sing it every morning.

7. Master making the "r" sound in French.

8. Stop checking the Dow and study the Tao.

9. Invest in Forever stamps.

10. Upgrade to 1st class whenever possible and stop apologizing for it.

11. Once I take yoga seriously, design my own mat at Yogamatic.com.

12. Wear a bathing suit when I play Wii synchronized swimming.

13. Fall in love and elope. Wait--I already did that once and it ended in tears.

14. Accept that I'm a poodle ,not a working dog, and stop feeling guilty about it.

15. Dress on the outside the way I feel on the inside.

Brand-New Vintage

2009-12-29T20:30:00.005-05:00

I found these shoes at Urban Outfitters and what I love about them, aside from the cheap price, is that they look broken in and beamed here from a more romantic era. As if they were worn by Zelda Fitzgerald in a night of mad dancing and packed away and stored in a trunk in an attic until they showed up in a Paris flea market decades later. As if they were danced in all night, leaving a trail of sequins behind on a snowy street in Montmartre, like breadcrumbs the owner's lover would follow to her garret apartment overlooking the rooftops of the city. As if they were left behind during the German occupation of Paris, shoved to the back of a closet by a fragile Audrey Hepburn look-alike in her haste to flee to London, where she worked on the Enigma decoder until the liberation. As if they were handmade for a famously reclusive ballerina, lined with linen and lavished with sequins to match her legendary amber eyes. Every time I put them on, I'm imagining another life I could have lived, a path those shoes could have taken.

A Sea Change

2009-12-29T00:21:00.003-05:00

My daughter and son-in-law own a big-bottomed broad of a boat...stable, cozy (even a little gas burning "fireplace") and curvaceous. During the holidays, we went out in Puget Sound looking for orca whales, and even though we didn't find any, it was a spectacular experience. Freezing, but the sunset and Twin Peaks moody landscape made it magical. I hate cold weather and I'm afraid of water, but I piled on hat, gloves and lots of layers to sit outside in the bow until I finally lost feeling in my face. What I rediscovered was that when you surrender to being in the moment, the moment gradually overcomes your misery. I was without my constant companions -- cell phone, books and laptop. No one to chat with because they were all wisely staying warm in the cabin. It was just me and smoky sky and deep silence, except for the sound of the boat and the waves we made. I don't think I would ever be able to live in the Northwest (or Northeast), but winter in all its spareness and solitude is not possible to experience in the same way in the south. Just as I could never live on a boat but I can understand the relief of paring down your possessions to stow in a few cubbies, the freedom of drifting from island to island, the notion of pulling up anchor for the next best place. For a few hours, my life was unmoored ... untied from Costco, CNN, the Comcast bill, dry cleaning, deadlines and the sadness of post-holiday sales (which it seems to me to be a bit like post-coital tristesse). We were messing about in boats and it was good.

Holiday Mayhem

2009-12-13T18:26:00.004-05:00

If you are stringing cranberries and popcorn while you listen to the Kings College Choir boys do their angelic thing, or if you are watching a Christmas parade with your children home on vacation from Ivy League schools, or if you are getting a lump in your throat every time

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" comes on the radio, this is not for you. Because we are two weeks away from Christmas, and I just want to cut Santa's throat. I grew up in a family who created idyllic Christmases, even when all the moms and dads and aunts and uncles were having affairs, lots of times with their in-laws. Later, I married into a large family whose traditions included going into debt for too many gifts and getting shitfaced on Christmas Eve. Untimely death and divorce intervened at Christmas when my kids were toddlers, so the tinsel became even more tarnished for me. Fast forward decades, and I think my adult children and I are still wobbling between A Christmas Story and Bad Santa. Will Mom visit Oldest Daughter in Seattle or Youngest Daughter in Yosemite this year? And whose feelings will be hurt? Will Only Son be living with his ex-wife for the third time, or will they have split up once again? Will I have spent equal amounts on everyone, or will someone get the short end of the stick? Why does it take a psychic to figure out what everyone wants, and where should all the damn presents be mailed (to my son's temporary house or his ex-wife's house?) I know that at some point on Christmas Eve all of this will fall away and I will convince myself that the dog will talk at midnight (probably to complain about his skimpy stocking), but right now, I'm at the bah humbug stage that comes after too much exposure to the Gap TV commercials. (Dear Santa, please take away their Adderall and get those models into plaid rehab.)

When You Wish to be a Star

2009-12-06T18:45:00.003-05:00

I went to a party last night and told several people that I was seeing Precious today. All agreed that it was amazing, but warned me not to expect a happy ending. But, oh my god, there was the kind of happy ending that is always happening in our lives if we can just see it. The friend I saw it with said it was the growth of a soul -- and that's huge, momentous, earth shaking. But we are so used to Hollywood happy endings--the pot of gold, the glass slipper, the inheritance, the bad guys locked up -- that it's sometimes impossible to recognize the little happy endings and beginnings that are occurring all around and inside of us. I'm guilty of it myself. I want a shooting star to be a sign that I'm on the right track. I want a full-on spotlight on myself and my achievements and when that doesn't happen, I'm dissatisfied and angry with who I am. I want to be what I'm not, which I always assume is better than what I am. Why can't I do more, be more, make more? If only I'd had a better education, loving parents, constant encouragement -- I'd be famous by now, wouldn't I? I want to love what I do instead of doing things in order to be loved. My ego needs to feed on a spotlight, but I think my soul needs anonymity in order to grow.

Which Way?

2009-12-02T18:39:00.007-05:00

I'm sitting here tonight contemplating my prospects: a stone wall or a way out? 15 years ago I started a magazine that I threw my entire self into. All the bits and pieces, shards and stories that I'd accumulated over a lifetime. I had been pregnant with all those random voices, ideas and opinions for so long and finally gave birth to them in that publication. It was fierce and funny and thumbed its nose at conventional wisdom. It became so successful that I sold it for an amount of money I thought would help me grow old disgracefully carefree. Then the stock market crashed and so did my money--easy come, easy go for a grasshopper. It always seemed like play money anyway after being broke for so long. So I stayed on with the magazine because I was still in love with it, drew a good salary, watched the new owners grow it into other cities and then watched it change. From what I hear, the change part is a pretty standard story. As Ani diFranco says, "If you want to challenge the system, don't go to bed with it." Now I'm in bed with the Man and the romance is gone, but the money is still good. I wish there was an arrow pointing me in the right direction. This way to the Next New Thing. This way to Creativity. This way to Big Ideas. But how will I know when it's time to leave? And will I have the courage or juice to make it out there in a younger, hipper world? And should I even try? Maybe there's a natural time to quit striving. When I bought a new Honda several years ago, a friend said, "That car will last you the rest of your life." I was aghast, so as soon as the warranty was up, I bought a new one. Damned if I was going to stick with a car just because it would last me to the grave! Now I wonder if I'm sticking with a job just because it will last me til retirement. I feel as if not all of me is being used, and at the same time, I feel used up. Which one of those is right, or are both of them? Do I give up safety, travel, cashmere sweaters, more travel, new computers, expensive wine, Lucky jeans in order to set off down an unknown road that may in the end not lead to Big Ideas, Happiness or Fresh Starts? Do I leap and trust the ideas will be there to catch me up, or do I leap and land on Bag Lady, Dementia and Spending all Day in my PJs? Despite starting my own business, raising kids on my own and putting up my own frigging Christmas lights, I'm not courageous, and not even mildly outrageous--I need prodding in order to move forward and I'm more comfortable in corners than on top of the bar. I'm not proud of that. I wish I could be one of the women I admire who are so gutsy and confident and just pregnant with themselves. They move to cities where they know no one, they travel HAPPILY by themselves, they spend Christmas on Christmas Island just because it's there, they go to Buenos Aires to tango. This Christmas morning, I wish I would find a big blue arrow pointing to Sure Thing, but I know it's not going to be that easy. I guess I'll settle for a Kindle...just in case I hit the road this year for a trial run.

My Heart Still Looks Like This

2009-11-21T19:10:00.006-05:00

On my way to have drinks tonight with a friend whose significant other left her flat, I wondered why our hearts just keep splitting open like green wood even though we're supposedly dry tinder now. For my own part, even though I have recently had a bone density test, EKG, shingles vaccine, pneumonia shot, flu shot, colonoscopy and long-term care insurance discussions, I am still the same 16 year old girl who lay awake every night with my heart pounding over the possibility of love standing underneath my bedroom window wearing a khaki windbreaker and a scar on the side of his face. And I hope I always will be.

Return to Sender

2009-11-18T08:09:00.018-05:00

Daily Om tells me to grow my soul. Daily Bite tells me how to save the planet. Daily Candy incites me to buy, buy, buy. Daily Kabbalah Tuneup warns me to ward off negative thoughts. The Daily Beast keeps me up to date on celebrities and politics in a shouting sort of way. To round off the morning, The Writer's Almanac sends me a poem a day, and Notes from the Universe sends a daily "personal" message geared just to me--and their other 150,000 other subscribers. Inspirational, environmental or just plain eye candy -- I'm not sure all of these daily messages add that much to my life. In fact, sometimes it feels like I'm being pecked to death by virtual ducks. In Ted Mooney's 1981 novel, Easy Travel to Other Planets, some of the characters would drop in their tracks, stricken by a malady called "information sickness," in which the collection of information led to an insatiable hunger for yet more information. I believe the symptoms included bleeding from the ears. When I open my email, I understand how that could happen. And it doesn't help just to delete the messages unread -- their very arrival makes me feel like I'm behind in my homework before I even start my day. So I'm going to have to decide if my world will be rocked if I unsubscribe and try to take care of my own soul, be my own cheerleader, find my own Amazing Finds, start writing my own little poems again and remember to put out the recycling every other week without benefit of a digital elbow in the ribs. It might be like pushing off into uncharted territory since I barely remember life before the Daily Nag, but I'm sure it will leave a little more of the daily silence that ideas need in order to take root.

The Farmer's Daughter

2009-11-17T20:17:00.009-05:00

I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint by buying locally grown produce. I grew up eating tomatoes my grandfather grew, rhubarb from the backyard, corn fresh from the farm, cucumbers straight off the vine. When I left for the big city, supermarkets became my farm, and I got used to apples from New Zealand or edamame from China. Now we've come full circle, and I subscribe to a local farm co-op that delivers a bag of fresh vegetables every week. Unfortunately, my life with vegetables resembles the "I Love Lucy" episode in the candy factory. I'm cooking as fast as I can, but I just can't keep up with the supply. Toward the end of the week, I get frantic and start throwing everything into a massive stir fry just to use it up. Not to mention that I often don't recognize what comes in my bag. Napa Cabbage? Never heard of it in Kentucky. Those chiles -- are they mild or hot? Evidently they're hot, because I rubbed my nose after handling and chopping them, and now it's on fire. Really--my nose has gone to Hell! Can you hear me scream from there? I know it's important to go green, but (please don't despise me!) I hate LED lights (the twinkle lights on my porch are magical), those curly light bulbs (you can't dim or 3-way them), pleather shoes (don't take my Fryes away), reading the paper online (I want ink on my fingers) and stainless steel water bottles (I feel like I'm using a WWI canteen). It's like going green means being on a perpetual diet -- yeah, it's good for you, but so is Pete Seeger and sometimes I want a little rock and roll. But if I have to be on a green diet, I would love to see big business voluntarily reduce their carbon footprint or Japan give up slaughtering whales or Massey Coal just say no to mountaintop removal in Appalachia. But no, we little people press on -- composting in our backyards, recycling our magazines, eating grass-fed beef or going vegan, while the biggest offenders on the planet continue their greedy, grasping way of life and our elected officials take money from their lobbyists. How about a peaceful, powerful revolution?

Rain, Rain, Come Again

2009-11-15T16:23:00.007-05:00

Our weather recently has been a combination of fierce showers, drifting smoky clouds, a promise of peach sunsets and glimpses of Tiffany-box blue sky in between -- all in the space of a day. Living in a place that doesn't have dramatic seasonal changes, I love this kind of meteorological drama. Wild weather shakes me out of my predictable routine, my comfortable rut. I like dashing through downpours, carrying my orange umbrella or wearing my silver raincoat that makes me look like a Space Woman. It reminds me of being a kid and playing outside in the rain, of not having completed that alienation between self and nature that takes makes us as grownups impatient with traffic jams during snowstorms, power outages caused by lightning, the inconvenience of getting our hair wet. Watching the rain clean the streets and sidewalks, gush out of gutters, drip from the eaves, bless the bamboo trees in my backyard makes me feel like I've had an old-fashioned baptism of immersion. One that washes away the accumulated grime and grit of dailiness and adultiness, that makes me feel like a green girl again.

Throw Me a Lifeline

2009-11-03T20:59:00.005-05:00

Last weekend, a friend invited me for a belated birthday dinner and gave me a belated present--my very own life jacket! She was trying to help me get over my last traumatic kayak outing in which I tipped over, went under and struggled to get to shore, kayak in tow, in a life jacket that came up over my head and obscured my vision like an XL shell on an XS turtle. As a nonswimmer, it was right up there on the horror scale with The Perfect Storm. So now I have my own life jacket, and I might actually get back on the water again. But the real lifesaver for me has been friendship itself -- a life preserver that has kept me afloat in the stormy times of my life and helped me tread water when I was becalmed, dull, confused or stuck in place. The friend who was thoughtful enough to help me get over my fear of water, the friend I meet for mutual creative inspiration every Tuesday night, the old friend who shares her life with me in long-distance calls, the friend who is my right hand man, my bookclub friends, my walking friend, my soul-sister friend, the friend who knows all my secrets, the friends at work who have become family, my blogger friends, the high school friends who pop up in my life when I least expect it, the friends who cycle in and out of my life and always leave me richer ... my lifejacket friends.

I love the big maps in airports and shopping centers that have a star with a caption reading YOU ARE HERE. There are so few times in my life when I am absolutely sure I'm where I should be, but when I stand in front of one of those signs, I can stop holding my breath, working my worry, fighting existential confusion. Because someone has given me a solid message I can hang onto for a change. Not a sappy affirmation, a mantra I'll forget or an ego stroke from the Universe. For a brief moment, I am grounded. Like the pilots who overshot their destination due to "a loss of situational awareness" (otherwise known as fucking up), I am often adrift in space and time. I go the grocery and forget what I came to buy. I carry on a phone conversation while my mind is still on the novel I'm reading about 18th century time travelers. I wander into the kitchen and wonder what I went there to get, and when I can't remember, I settle for ice cream. There are so few times when I am solidly HERE: listening deeply to the person talking to me; not listening to TV while I'm working on the computer; enjoying the required time-out of a red light. Instead I am usually sending my anxiety ahead to the office while I'm still in the process of driving there or hopping from one experience to another in a split screen world. Like everyone I know, I've spent a lot of time being lost in my own life, but there are moments when I wish I could pull up a mental map and realize I AM HERE and it's wonderful.

Fridaville Friday Night

2009-10-23T18:20:00.006-04:00

Unfortunately, this is not where I've been spending the last week. No, I've been in my house for 5 DAYS AND NIGHTS battling some interplanetary virus that I swear was released when NASA drove a bus into the moon. While it was kicking my ass, I watched more bad TV than I imagined possible, ate weird food foraged from my kitchen (tomato soup with walnuts on the side), slept on the couch with all the lights on, and in the process, lost 3 pounds (!). All in all, an eventful week. Tonight I have a Z-Pak, Mucinex, codeine cough syrup, a frozen pizza and a People Magazine -- another rockin' Friday in AARPville. (Come to think of it, though, I've known some young Deadheads who would think a frozen pizza and hydrocodone cough syrup spelled P-A-R-T-Y.) But when I think what I could be doing on a Friday night if I weren't an invalid, I have to admit the alternatives aren't all that different:

1. Go to a downtown art opening where everyone is 350% hipper than I am. The men will be wearing porkpie hats, and the women will have on odd, velvet swagged dresses picked up for a song at vintage shops. The dresses will have a patina of Jazz Age authenticity that I mistake for dirt. I will know no one and will wander around with a steno pad pretending to take notes. The art students passing drinks will be dressed as famous paintings. I will probably spill red wine on the boy in Andy Warhol's soup can.

2. Move on to the bar near my office and pretend to be totally unaware of all the meat market men out past their expiration date, because I am oh so absorbed in writing deep thoughts in my journal and looking supercilious and literate. No one hits on me, and I pretend to be relieved.

3. Still at the bar, I check my watch repeatedly and surreptitiously call my gay husband and beg him to meet me at the bar and pretend we had a prearranged date to discuss...something or other. Since he just put a frozen pizza in the oven, it's a no-go. Leave a big tip because I want the bartender to like me.

4. Casually drop by a married couple's house at dinner time (married people generally have regular meal times) ostensibly to replace a lemon I once borrowed, planning to hang around til they're forced to invite me to dinner. Find they are leaving for a church oyster roast. They urge me to join them, but I am afraid of being burned as a witch.

5. Go home, put a frozen pizza in the oven, sip leftover cough syrup in a bottle I find in the bottom of my sock drawer while I wait for dinner to cook. Wait, sip, wait. Burn pizza, fall asleep on couch with lights on while I watch Dateline NBC. Dream I gain 3 pounds being force fed tomato soup.

Name Calling

2009-10-22T11:02:00.006-04:00

I've been hearing about Croning ceremonies a lot recently (I guess I'm eligible now), and I just don't want to be one. Why do men celebrate their midlife crises by buying a sports car, but we're supposed to be rebirthed as wise women and revered elders, who just coincidentally are also invisible in this culture? Crones might be central figures in fairy tales, but for an archetype to have continuing mythic power, doesn't it have to be relevant to the way we live now?Otherwise we're just pretending to each other. If you're lucky enough to gain some power at that age like a Madeleine Albright or Hillary, it's usually at the price of being sexless. You put on your pantsuits and collect brooches and never give off a whiff of musk, just old lady lavender. But if you dare to speak truth to power or speak too loudly, the other side of cronedom is invoked--the hag, the witch, the malicious old woman. Not so men. The older and grayer, the sexier and more sought after. And they're certainly not chasing crones their own age. Maybe women who are involved in the Crone movement and menopause workshops hope to change the way our culture regards older women. I admire them for that, but I don't want to be a Crone any more than I want to be a Cougar. I hope as I age that I'll find more to me than I ever imagined, an identity that doesn't require either workshopping or bedhopping to discover.

Namaste

2009-10-21T11:09:00.006-04:00

I have a hard time asking for help, because I don't want to be a bother or cause an inconvenience. I'd rather do things for myself so that I don't owe anyone or I'm not obligated. I don't think I became independent by choice. First my dad skipped out on my brothers and me, and then my mother checked out, making sure we had everything we needed to survive except for compliments, physical affection or laughs. Soon after, I found a boyfriend who was like my parents in the sense that I was just an extra in his drama. Add to that his penchant for beating me like a drum, and I stopped expecting much. Hoping, always hoping, but too proud and at the same time, too unworthy, to ask for help or favors unless I scrupulously paid them back. This week I've been sick with some sort of trash flu. Along with praying that I would someday be able to breathe through both nostrils again, I obsessed about tall glasses of cold fresh-squeezed orange juice. When I was blowing my nose or using the neti pot, I had visions of that OJ in a tall skinny glass etched with leaves that I use for Champagne. It symbolized wellness, sunlight, health, Vitamin C and Vitamin Hope. So I had to ask a friend to go to the grocery for me. An ordinary favor, not out of her way, and yet how embarrassed I was to need help. Today I ran out of soup and had to turn to another friend. Why was it so hard to ask for help from my loyal, tenderhearted friends? I could ask my therapist about this, but it seems pretty simple: In the process of being frozen out by my family, I gradually froze over. Old habits that once protected us can end up turning into strait jackets. I don't want that to happen to me, but I know it's easier to recognize patterns than it is to break them. I'm going to make a start by simply being grateful when my friend drops off the soup, instead of trying to figure out the cost of a can of soup with tax added in and apologizing over and over for putting him to all this trouble. I'll put my palms together, bow and say thank you. For teaching me to receive.

New Improved Me!

2009-10-19T19:09:00.008-04:00

Can you keep a secret? I just had a facelift! I took some self-portraits with my new Canon Powershot SX10, and the result looked like a mug shot taken of Phil Spector on a really bad crazy psycho-killer day. My neck and jaw wrinkles are quickly morphing into crevices, attesting to my disregard of sunscreen and moisturizer back when I was young and immortal and sure I'd never start looking like my mother. Hahaha, silly me. So I simply blurred those neck wrinkles with the Enhance tool in iPhoto. Instead of 66, I think I easily look 63 now. And it entailed no side effects of blood, swelling, bruising or possible death that surgery might include. I'm so shallow that I always feel pissed when I look at all the bloggers who post wonderful pix of their gorgeous selves. (Are they secretly Enhancing, too?!) But I want to look at myself full on and not wish I were a younger, hipper, thinner version of myself who lives in Brooklyn. I want to Enhance my oddities instead of smoothing them out, Enhance the attention I pay to every passing day, Enhance my ability to love, Enhance my commitment to taking a spiritual journey on this planet. If only there were a Mac tool for all that.

Sunday Solitaire

2009-10-18T16:12:00.013-04:00

When the marsh begins to change color in the fall and it's a chilly Sunday and there are candles flickering on the coffee table while I read and the wind shakes the porch chimes all day, I might get a little homesick. Not for a particular place so much as for things barely remembered, the whatever that's always just over the next hill or beyond a distant stand of trees. Maybe my soul is homesick, longing for something it can't name, something sensed but unseen. Sometimes when I'm meditating, a piece of music like Satie's Gymnopedie No 3 or Ayub Ogada's Kothbiro (which sounds like a vast lonely blue sky seen through a tall window) almost puts me in that place without a name. But then the timer chime sounds or I start wondering about what to have for dinner, and then I land back in my life with a gentle thud. Still me, still earthbound, still happy to be here. But always looking for home.

In the Night Kitchen

2009-10-14T19:24:00.004-04:00

Last night, when I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water, the white hydrangeas on the counter glowed in the dark like natural night lights. I had to get my iPhone and take a photo, but it doesn't capture their ghostly, gorgeous presence in the silent room. Isn't it a gift to be surprised by beauty in the middle of the night? And isn't it crazy to have to grab a camera and document the experience?! I go back and forth about this all the time. I like to think it celebrates the moment like a roadside marker for the soul, but sometimes I fear I consume experiences in order to write about them. But I guess that would be the case even if computers didn't exist and I was scratching away by candlelight with a quill pen. I don't know the answer and maybe it doesn't even matter. That middle-of-the-night moment remained in my mind all day, and I promised myself to be more receptive to these unexpected acts of random beauty.

Looking UP

2009-10-12T01:00:00.001-04:00

I've been very aware lately of how I walk with my head down and my eyes on the ground most of the time. Of course, there are lots of beautiful little things to notice down there, but I don't think that's why I do it. It's a posture that involves a bent neck, a kind of subservient keeping-a-low-profile attitude, and I suspect it's developed over time until it's become not only a way of walking, but a way of thinking about myself. I know intellectually how much I've accomplished with the little I began with and how hard I worked to do it, but that knowledge doesn't seem to penetrate my heart. Deep down I'm still a wannabe, not a winner, according to some arcane emotional math I use to arrive at that conclusion. I've known for a long time that was my particular psychic battle, but until I saw it reflected in my physical posture it never made that satisfying "click" that signals an aha! moment. It may be a lifelong struggle, but now I have a practical weapon to use instead of lobbing happy affirmations to my image in the mirror Stuart-Smalley style. Whenever I catch myself walking with my head down, neck bent in surrender to life, I lift it up and remind myself of something I'm proud of. It might be as silly as pretending I just gained an inch or so in height or that I'm balancing something on my head or as concrete as remembering I finished writing the magazine cover and it was good. I have to do it over and over again every day, but connecting the physical sensation with the mental reminder was a genuine breakthrough for me.

Shaking Up My Chrakras

2009-10-10T20:44:00.004-04:00

I've been sporadically reading A Sacred Primer, a book about sacred time and prayer, because I don't really have enough of either in my life. I have lots of amulets and charms and relics, beautiful statues of Buddha and Kuan Yin and various boddhisattvas that I love, but I lack spiritual discipline. Not that I will go back to spending Sunday mornings in church I no longer believe in, but I know I'm missing some component that would give me courage or calm or depth. In my case, I don't think that will come from thinking happy thoughts or reading Eat, Pray, Love or getting an email a day from Daily Om. All of that might help put me in a receptive state of mind, but too often it seems a substitute, allowing me to skate along the surface of a deeper spiritual pool. Getting my feet wet but never going under. I know what I need--daily meditation, silence and a willingness to be sad or scared or lost. But I avoid the hard work. Am I the only person who has a lazy third eye? What helps you cultivate a meaningful soul-full practice without it becoming the spiritual equivalent of counting points in Weight Watchers?

Ebb and Flow

2009-10-05T18:49:00.007-04:00

I've lived on the coast of South Carolina since 1985. Before that, D.C. Before that, lots of wandering around as a Navy wife. Before that, growing up in Crazytown, Kentucky. The route I've taken from a landlocked state of mind to this water world just minutes from my front door has been roundabout and unpredictable, but I like to think there was a reason. For an insecure introvert like me, it's been instructive to live in a place where the rhythm of the tides symbolizes the flux that is the only constant in life. I hate change. I want all the people in my life to stay in my life. When someone moves, I grieve. The thought of moving to another house, another city, throws me into a panic. At the same time, I know that water that stands still can stagnate like the farm ponds I grew up around. There is always something new and possible in the every-changing ebb and flow of the tides. If I had stood still, I would never have left Kentucky, never gone to college, never started skirt! magazine. Every change has been difficult for me -- I'm not naturally adventurous -- but I know that I can't hold back the tide. The next incoming one might bring new people or projects into my life, and the next outgoing one just might take me to an amazing place I couldn't even begin to imagine for myself.

Yoga Weather

2009-10-01T22:48:00.004-04:00

I know yoga is supposed to help me achieve balance and equilibrium, but there are so many times when I just fall apart in class, when my emotional Doppler radar is just dopey. I can't keep up with the pace. I flounder like a manatee on dry land. Balance? I teeter and totter and take a tumble--or two or three. Yoga is not about ego, but I constantly sneak looks at the people next me, jealously noting their ability to balance on one leg or to jump from the back of the mat to the front while I take baby steps forward. The only thing I didn't do today was fart in child's pose, for which I am so very grateful. I started to cry at one point because I felt like the "worst" student in class, but I know that fear holds me back, not frailty. Fear of falling, fear of failing, fear of making a fool out of myself. All of which plague me in too many other areas of my life. So I'll continue the battle with myself in yoga and hope that what I learn by showing up will eventually show me a different way to be in the world.

Late NIght in Fridaville

2009-09-29T22:21:00.002-04:00

Coming home in the dark, catching a slice of moon through the branches of the cedar tree, turning the key in the lock, dropping the suitcase, closing the door -- home after days away. Home to boxes of new books from Amazon on the porch, mail from an old friend, piles of newspapers past with dire unread warnings (and yet the world kept turning), holy sanctified crisp clean sheets on the bed, the voluptuous curves of the overstuffed chair by the door. Did the house miss me as much as I missed the house? My tiny slice of home, snugged under the cedar tree with the red birdfeeder in its branches. Taking out the trash, I stand in the dark front yard and admire the lighted windows from the outside, the way I've often done passing by strangers' houses in the night. But this time, they shine for me. Coming home in the dark.

Hello, Sunday

2009-09-27T01:00:00.005-04:00

"Trippers and askers surround me.

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and

city I live in, or the nation,

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old

and new...

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself." Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself

Could any words be more relevant in this age? When we spend so much time cultivating our personae on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. When we're inundated with more information more often than Whitman could have imagined. When our identities are so bound up in our possessions or the loss of them. Note to Myself: Read it, remember it, live it.

Not-so-deep Dark Secrets

2009-09-19T18:54:00.006-04:00

I like to run the air conditioner with the front door open. I know, I know--it's bad. But I can't help wanting to do it.
I don't like fruit. I know it's good for me and I eat it because I have to, but I don't ever go, "Oh god I'm craving a mango and some hormone-free yogurt made in Iceland with a scoop of fat-free granola." I grew up eating bread, butter and sugar sandwiches, every apple is a step forward for me.
I think the Guinness Book of World Records is a stupid waste of time, as is so much stuff (any MTV awards show, People Magazine, Vanity Fair, The View, pie eating contests) aimed at taking our minds off the fact of our mortality.
Despite the point above, I have to admit I love Flipping Out on Bravo. Hey, I'm human and like to forget I'm mortal every now and then.
I am utterly lazy at heart.
I worry about smelling bad when I'm old. I also worry that no one will tell me if I do. Is it inevitable?
I'm incredibly bored by reading or hearing about people's weddings. Like dreams, I think they are mainly interesting to the people who are having them or hoping to have them. Marriages, on the other hand, have infinite drama.
My biggest regret is that I wasn't successful at marriage. It makes me feel less-than even though I have an amazing life.
I'm addicted to reading mysteries because I love the god-like character of the Detective (excepting Miss Marple, who totally annoys me) and the possibility it will all come right in the end. Could that be why I was bad at marriage? Living with ambiguity is not my strong suit.

A Room to Grow

2009-09-17T20:27:00.005-04:00

"You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so where you do not know what was in the morning paper, where you do not know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, or what they owe you -- but a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are, and what you might be...At first you may find nothing's happening....But if you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen." Joseph Campbell quoted in A Sacred Primer, by Elizabeth Harper Neeld

I have an office that is crammed with art supplies and writing supplies and computers and books. The colors are aqua and all my favorite things are there, but I haven't really made it my own yet. I haven't lived into it, written into it deeply, settled into its aura. When I think of a sacred place, my mind goes to Villa Spannocchia in Italy, where I spent a magical week writing and simply being in Italy. This little apartment in the back of the villa intrigued me because it seemed so old world and yet very much like a writer's nook. I like having a dream studio in the back of my mind, but I know I have to inhabit the space where I live and turn it into my dream. What will make it sacred is the work that takes place there, not whether it's in Italy or not.

Resisting the Door Trying to Open

2009-09-15T20:19:00.003-04:00

When I start a writing project or even begin thinking of one, I alternate between flashes of excitement and great despair or resistance to the idea. I allow myself to fall into blank discouragement -- and when it happens, it feels like a physical collapse in which I question the idea's uniqueness, wonder if it's useful, convince myself I can never pull it off and then sit down on the floor and stare at the door closed against me, unable, unwilling to push against it. Eventually I put my shoulder to the locked door and shove, or I sneak around it and enter through an open window, and I remind myself that this is just part of my normal way of working. It helps to know this is not something out of the ordinary, that my initial reaction doesn't mean it's necessarily a crappy idea, that I have to go through this to break through to the inner room of my imagination. And after all is said and done, aren't I lucky to be able to do this for a living? What tricks do you use to break through to the other side?

States of Lonesomeness

2009-09-14T21:15:00.009-04:00

When your soul sister moves to a foreign country and you have to accept it's permanent.
When your daughters live on the opposite coast but you can't accept it's permanent.
When the light turns in September and nature begins to wrap up summer and put it away.
When a friend dies, and though it's expected, you're not ready for the empty space.
When you call your father and you can't think of anything to say to each other.
When everyone you know is out of town on the same weekend.
When you realize someone you love is beyond your help.
When a piece of music suddenly opens a door onto a scene from 30 years ago.
When you come across an old photo of yourself as a child taken before you understood sorrow.
When the full moon is leading you on a car chase across town, always just out of reach.

Lonesomeness is so different from loneliness. Lonesomeness stirs things up, while loneliness just knocks you flat. Lonesomeness is that Hank Williams feeling of mournful emptiness, that song we all recognize at some time or another -- the chords of longing and sweet sadness and homesickness for something we've lost but can't remember, all playing at once. It's our national anthem of humanness.

Kicking 60's Ass

2009-09-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

I understand that my bones are getting more frail as I age and that I'm finally paying the price for hating milk from childhood on...but dear god, no one told me I would start getting advice about wearing sensible shoes from almost everyone I know. Today I dropped off a new pair of 3 3/4-inch Tory Burch heels to be stretched a bit before I wear them, and Alex, the shoe guy, suggested taking an inch off them for me! I agree that Tevas, Keens, Merrills and Chacos are safe and comfortable and not horribly ugly, but when I put them on, I'm always afraid I'll start talking to strangers about fiber supplements and Medicare. My 5 year old granddaughter picked out a pair of lace-up high tops for her first day of kindergarten this week and called them her "power shoes," because they would make her strong and keep her safe in her new school. Well, I need some power shoes for this new phase of my life, too, so I can kick ass in my 60's. Shoes that make me feel invincible instead of invisible. Maybe Alex came up with the right compromise -- a little less dangerous but still standing tall.

Hello, Sunday

2009-09-13T17:31:00.003-04:00

"Someday, any day, now, if we are faithful to attend, something will reach out to us, a figure in a painting, sunlight on a door, a place in a dream, and it will woo us toward change, offering us, as well, the energy to make the change. These are transforming and energizing symbols, graceful fugitives coming to us from the Center of Everything!"

(from ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE, Marv & Nancy Hiles)

I stumbled across Sacred Life Sunday on a couple of blogs, but I'm too lazy/disorganized to join the list. I'm trying, though, to dedicate Sundays to being a pause, a stop-time before Monday time commences, and to make a conscious attempt to carve a spot of sacred space out of the day, even if it's just reading something that makes a sound like church bells in my mind, like the passage above.

Barefoot Weekends

2009-09-11T11:44:00.009-04:00

I used to want to go out on Friday night simply because I was released from work worries, and it was a relief to shrug them off and go out to play. I could have done that tonight and sometimes I like to go to the restaurant down the street from my office, sit at the bar by myself, have a glass of wine and write and watch people. But instead, I left the office and went to Whole Foods, bought the ingredients for a bison burger and sweet potato fries, came home and changed clothes, went for a power walk/jog, took a shower, put on my pajamas and walked around my house barefoot and pregnant with possibility. I could work on an outline for a journal course I want to teach; I could start a novel that just arrived from Amazon; I could watch a true-crime mystery on Dateline; I could lie on the couch and finish the NY Times crossword from last Sunday. Whether I do any or many of these things is beside the point. It's Friday and I'm not expected anywhere, nothing is expected of me and I have no outsized expectations. I am barefoot until Monday.

My Happy Hour

2009-09-07T18:19:00.006-04:00

When I had lung surgery in 1996, I went right back to work after a couple of weeks even though though my body felt invaded and wounded. My one-woman office and apartment were both located on a little SC barrier island, and at lunch I would take a chair down to the beach and sit in the sun. My body needed to be kneaded by the sun and lathered with light. Between then and now, I've been back to the beach so many times, even after I moved off the island--spending Sunday afternoons with my friends, going skinny dipping with my book club, taking off my clothes and lying in the moonlight late at night. Recently, though, I've put the beach in my back pocket, shoved it to the back of the closet along with my old bathing suits, ignored the mute message of the beach chairs beached against the picket fence in my suburban yard. But this weekend, I packed a tiny bag with the NY Times crossword puzzle, a magazine, a zip lock with my iPhone and spf Fresh lip balm, a journal and pen, a lime green beach chair and drove to the beach. The first day I only stayed an hour, didn't read, just sat and stared at the water. Maybe I had a tiny inkling of a panic attack at so little to do, nothing needed of me, only just sitting still with my thoughts. Today, I packed the same tiny bag, Vogue Living Australia, a bottle of water and headed back to Station 19, my favorite path to the water. Again, I sat, did nothing, opened my arms to embrace Vitamin D. Scraps of words torn from nearby conversations blew past me on the breeze. Voices were drowsy--bodies were slack, lazy, sun swollen.. I closed my eyes and saw a yellow bowl against my eyelids and wished I could make one on a wheel. A bird sang on the edge of my consciousness. A giant gray container ship rose over the horizon, massive as the heavy rain clouds coming in off the ocean. The scouring sand blew down the beach, reminding us that Tuesday comes. But until then, Unlabor Day is now and now and now.

Sweet Thursday

2009-09-03T21:33:00.003-04:00

I love Thursdays so much more than Fridays because of the anticipation. The hardest part of the work week is done, the weekend is ahead and there's a louche holiday feeling about Thursday night. This evening as a friend and I drove over the causeway to the island near my house for dinner, I could feel Friday coming in on the tide. The marsh grass was a vivid electric green, the boats at rest, the light a blessing on everything it touched. It was a special ordinary moment. Thank you, Thursday.

True Believers

2009-09-01T21:10:00.004-04:00

I used to love watching my grandmother take down her long hair and prepare for bed by putting it into a braid. And then she knelt by the bed and said her prayers. I think my grandfather, a sceptical reprobate, knelt along with her, but I mostly remember my grandmother's devotions. She was a staunch Methodist who taught Sunday School and rarely missed a service. My grandfather would get dressed in a clean white shirt and put on his hat and drive us to church, but he stayed outside with some of the other men during the service, talking, spitting, jutting their jaws. I wish I had my grandmother's faith, but even I never got truly inoculated. During puberty, I loved getting saved, or the idea of being saved, but I could never maintain that state of grace for long. Last night, I was reading poetry before bed, and I realized that it has become part of my ritual of faith, just as the Bible was for my grandmother. Poetry is what I go to for reassurance and transcendence and comfort, but my grandmother had Jesus and the promise of a better life after death, and I suspect that provided more absolute security than Milosz, Kabir or Mary Oliver does for me. With poetry, I usually get more question marks and exclamation marks than full-stop periods, and sometimes I envy my grandmother for having a certainty of an everlasting afterlife. But when I read a piece like Some Kiss We Want by Rumi or Postscript by Seamus Heaney I feel a shiver of eternity, a slight glimpse of a larger mystery, and it's enough.

My D Cups Runneth Over

2009-08-28T18:03:00.004-04:00

Today was my yearly fear day when I have a mammogram. I don't mind having my breasts flattened and arranged like spatchcocked pigeons--once you've delivered kids with no meds or had your ribs split open for some esoteric surgery, a mammogram is child's play. What I hate and why I'm always late getting one is Waiting for the Results. For days in advance of the mammogram appointment, I become suddenly shy with my breasts, afraid to touch them in case I find something wrong, nervous about their well-being, wondering what's happening in there. I've never had a problematic mammogram, but that doesn't stop me spinning the worst-case scenario every time. Always before I've had to wait several days to get the Results, meaning I'm mentally veering back and forth the whole time wondering if silence means it's good and they just slid me to the bottom of the pile because they're busy with more pressing issues, or silence means it's horrible and they're trying to figure out how to break the news without me going all apeshit crazy on the phone. This time, my doctor sent me to a new clinic where -- get this -- they give you the results ON THE SPOT. If my news hadn't been good, I might have wished for a few days of unknowing, but tonight I am incredibly appreciative of these healthy breasts that often seem too large and unruly for comfort or clothes cut for Kate Moss, and the expensive, underwired bras I bitch about having to buy them. I've done nothing to deserve this good luck, but my cups runneth over with gratitude tonight, and tomorrow I'll be treating them to red lace.

How to Turn on the Light

2009-08-27T17:39:00.005-04:00

At the worn-out end of summer, when one more day of wet southern heat seems unendurable, I start to long for fall. For the clothes, the cool nights, for saying adios to mosquitoes. Until we get a stretch of drab rainy days that settles in like the dullest sermon in the longest church service you ever endured. Will winter be this sad, I wonder. Suddenly, everything in my yard looks chewed on and just plain defeated. I can't think of anything I want to fix for dinner. My waistband is too tight and I hate the way my hair looks. I cannot conjure up any happy endings, and it will be a long winter unless I can turn up the creative heat around here. Here's my preliminary list of S.A.D. busters:

* Light the Lux Perpetua candles that languish on my coffee table.

* Vitamin D

* More music, less news

* Learn the words to some songs and sing along even though I can't carry a tune. I think humming and singing off key joyfully might release endorphins, and I have a severe endorphin shortage right now.

* Stop trying to control outcomes for my kids' lives. Trust them to prevail over adversity without my intervention. Pray to some one, some force for them to be okay.

* Remember how good working out feels when it's over.

* Paint my front door a happy color to make me smile when I come home.

* Get rid of possessions that depress me -- the bed in the spare room, the beige area rug that just lies there being dull, the ugly, uncomfortable kitchen table chairs that I've been too lazy to replace.

to be continued...

Things I Love

2009-08-25T20:22:00.004-04:00

* Sunglasses because when I wear them I feel invisible. It's not movie-star hiding-in-plain-sight. It's "If they can't see my eyes, I'm a camera." And red because it's the antidote to my standard black.

* Uncap Hendricks Gin, and there's a hint of herbs, sun-braised fields, cucumbers and what I think it might smell like to ride through the Polish countryside on a farm cart at dusk in the summer of 1935. In fact, "Encounter" by Czelaw Milosz is a poem in a glass...sad, nostalgic, full of longing for a lost beauty.

* Virgin of Guadalupe candles. I would love to believe, but I just don't. But the wanting keeps me lighting her candles just in case.

* Hula glasses. I never wanted to go to Hawaii. Thought it was touristy, gimmicky, Don Ho-ish. And it is. But it's also the smell of flowers that floor you when you get off the plane from the shrink-wrapped mainland. It's hiking through bamboo forests. It's the vistas of the Pacific that make your soul sough in and out with the waves. I can't wait to return someday.

Homesickness

2009-08-24T20:02:00.009-04:00

When I lived on an island at the edge of America, I don't think I appreciated it enough. Yes, I loved the funky, stoned lifestyle. I loved knowing everyone I ran into at the post office or the convenience cum wine store. I loved the feeling of being cut off from the world of ambition, striving, getting and spending. I loved taking a jug of Bloody Marys to the beach on Sundays and sharing gossip, drinks, sun and sand with my friends. I loved living in a tiny two-room apartment that came with a cat and a wacky, legally blind landlord who at one point drove around the southeast with a round table in a trailer that swirled people around to adjust their chakras, chi or something ch-ch-ch-ish. But I didn't fully realize how magical that time was until it was over. Until a big hurricane blew down the hippie era rentals and ushered in the McMansions that insurance payments built. Until the doctors/lawyers/trust fund babies took over. Until the last old-school, gritty bar closed down and a child-friendly restaurant moved in. I could have stayed on, struggling to find rentals I could afford, but I didn't. Now I live two miles away -- inland, as a friend of mine who still lives there says with pity. It's no longer the island I loved, and I'm not exactly the person who once lived there. But every now and then, sitting on a dock in the evening with palmetto trees against the darkening sky, hearing the chink-chink of sailboat rigging in a breeze, it all rushes back like the tide. And it reminds me that sometimes we have to release the things we love in order to hold onto them forever.

Succulent

2009-08-17T20:12:00.009-04:00

* CRUSH: Marlon Brando wearing Levi's in The Wild Bunch (MasterCard using his image to shill for them, not).

* TASTE: Roasted caramelized cauliflower

* LUSH: the shower after hot yoga

* ESCAPE: Peaks Island, Maine

* EYE CANDY: Lighted globes

* LISTEN: "Wild is the Wind," by Cat Power (sad and succulent) and "The Eternal Seduction of Eve," by The Real Tuesday Weld. (sensual and succulent)

* MUSE: Jack Kerouac's Rules of Spontaneous Prose, cut out of Utne Magazine (I think) years ago and carried about with me every time I've moved. Still hanging on my mood board. Online list found via Secret Notebooks, Wild Pages. Print it out, hang it up where your eye will catch it daily.

Ripeness is All

2009-08-12T20:03:00.008-04:00

"O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach."

(excerpt from "From Blossoms")

I thought about this beautiful poem by Li-Young Lee (please read the complete piece!) as I leaned over the kitchen sink biting through burgundy velvet skin into ripe peach flesh, feeling the sticky juice run between my fingers, the stone at the center separate from its nest. When a peach is ready, it can't be put on hold. It's now or never. I wish I could as easily squeeze the moments in my life to see if it's time to act, time to seize an opportunity, time to bite into what life is offering me. Too often, I've let a good idea pass its expiration date instead of going for the juice. I love this reminder that now is the time, that life itself is the peach.

Bless you, Patricia!

2009-08-04T18:28:00.006-04:00

Tonight I stopped at the supermarket at 8pm, trying to dash through and grab some things for dinner. I was running late, feeling frazzled, wishing I were already home and in my pajamas. So one bottle of wine, one bottle of sparkling water, one avocado, one tub of salsa, 2 baking potatoes, 2 cartons of Greek yogurt, 2 cartons of blueberries, 1 copy 0f Yoga Journal, 2 tomatoes and 1 jar of mustard later, I got in the the checkout line...and waited. And waited. And waited. Because the cashier, whose name tag told me she was Patricia, was taking her time and looking up a bunch of items and chatting with the customer ahead of me. And I was fuming inside. When it was finally my turn, "Good Times" by Chic started playing on the sound system and Patricia was dancing and punching the keys and bagging my stuff and dancing. And I started remembering the good times that song brought back, and I started dancing in place and Patricia laughed and I laughed and the tight-lipped guy with one item behind me almost, almost smiled. Suddenly it didn't matter that I had a bunch of weird, expensive, unrelated stuff in my cart, that I was going to have a late dinner or that I'd had a day of family problems that were probably ultimately unsolvable by me. Patricia had a long drive ahead of her after she got off work, standing on her feet all day, and yet she was dancing. Could I do otherwise?

Art Everywhere

2009-08-02T18:39:00.006-04:00

I took this photo with my iPhone camera from our third-floor office overlooking rooftops in downtown Charleston, SC. The planes of the buildings are so strong and painterly that they remind me of an Edward Hopper piece. The high clouds in an empty sky add that touch of sadness that draws me to his work so strongly. My photo is just an casual snap -- nothing artistic or accomplished about it -- but it reminded me that art is quietly taking place all around me, not just in spectacular sunsets or dramatic landscapes. It's in the pile of empty terracotta pots in my driveway, the shiny red birdfeeder in the rain, a scrap of cloud reflected in a puddle of rain water. Find some art in your life today that you never noticed before, frame it with your eyes and take a mental snap. An article in the NY Times today lamented the loss of serendipity that's a result of having Google instead of card catalogs, finding music you never heard of by looking through someone's cd collection, renting from Netflix instead of cruising all the aisles in the video store and finding a random movie you never knew existed. The author feels those kind of accidental discoveries are harder to make in a digital age. I don't know if I completely agree, but it made me think about how the computer dulls my visionary capacities by focusing my senses on the world of this screen for so much of much of my working/playing life. So I pledge to look at the world outside more, touch more, wander more, browse more, window shop more, squint into the distance more, pick up more real tangible objects with my hands instead of moving the cursor and mouse around, listen more closely, take more pictures, find more art everywhere.

Empty Nexters

2009-07-30T19:11:00.010-04:00

When this button came in the package with a bracelet I ordered from etsy, it took me a minute to realize it referred to vintage objects. But it also made me think about all the articles being written about postmenopausal zest, sex in retirement homes and the fabulousness of aging divas. Yes, Jessica Lange and Demi Moore are seemingly ageless, but is old really, truly cool in our culture? I'd like to think so since I qualify, even though I don't feel old when I'm in spinning class or hot yoga or teetering around on a pair of 4-inch heels. But I don't think old is cool when I watch Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan being crotchety, hateful and -- old. I don't think old is cool when life becomes more about conserving than creating. I don't think old is cool if it means living in a gated retirement community with people who look just like me. I don't think old is cool when I read about nursing home residents being abused and neglected, because they're not only old but poor--a double mark of shame in our society. I don't want to join a Crone circle or wear a Cougar tshirt or go on an elder cruise, but my friends and I don't have enough role models or reliable road maps for a next act that doesn't look like the one our mothers lived. Maybe the teachers I want just don't exist, and the trails simply haven't been blazed. Maybe someone is waiting for us to do it ourselves.

The Way Back Machine

2009-07-28T21:50:00.003-04:00

My grandparents lived in a tenant house in rural Kentucky on a bare hill that was brutally, baking hot in summer. No A/C of course, maybe a fan (although I don't remember one) and a tiny kitchen that almost shimmered from the heat coming off the cooking stove. Here's my poor mother, suffering through an August due date, several years away from my father (standing next to her) leaving her for another woman. My beloved grandmother is sitting down for a change, but usually she was toiling like a mule -- cooking and serving food to family and hired hands, teaching Sunday School, weeding and watering her huge vegetable garden, wrestling ewes ready to lamb, killing chickens, putting her shoulder to a metaphorical plow every single morning of her life. My dear cousin sitting on my grandmother's lap would eventually die too young from breast cancer that might have been cured if she hadn't ignored it. My grandfather in his hat with his Indian-ancestor cheekbones and aloof surliness. All of us caught by the camera in the blazing afternoon sun standing on an almost-dirt yard in the middle of nowhere. There together for one moment before we moved on to meet our future selves.

Off-Center World

2009-07-26T18:16:00.003-04:00

Why is it so hard to see the world in a different way? I know I'm supposed to look at everyday scenes with fresh eyes, but I constantly catch myself giving my surroundings a blank stare. I take my power walks through beautiful neighborhoods, under greybeard oak trees swagged with Spanish moss, down to the marsh and the Intracoastal Waterway in the distance. I often pass a house where there's a crazy-colored parrot walking and squawking, an old cemetery divided into white and black folks, a shop window full of covetable objects, and still I find myself marching along to the beat of "Beat It" and checking my heart rate instead of my heart's desire. Snapping this photo while crossing the bridge to work gave me an accidental off-center take on a view I "see" twice a day, five days a week. If only I could set my eye's lens to do that at will.

Wishful Thinking

2009-07-25T16:32:00.004-04:00

That my son and grandson had presentee fathers. That so many assholes weren't politicians. That winter would come just long enough for me to wear my boots and sweaters a few times and then beat it back to the North Pole or wherever. That I could remember to do pushups every day. That I had more self-confidence, less self-consciousness. That I could learn to walk in high heels without tripping, skidding and falling off the sides. That I knew more salty and savory people, fewer saccharine sweet ones. That I understood how to use my heart rate monitor. That I would ever in my lifetime achieve and maintain Warrior 3 in yoga -- forget about Crow. That "Africa" by Toto wasn't stuck in my brain right now. That FreshBerry frozen yogurt qualified as my daily serving of fruit. That it were cocktail time right now.

Living in Stupidville

2009-07-21T20:07:00.006-04:00

Can I just say that I'm so ashamed to say that this dope, Jim DeMint, is my Senator? Evidently he is outraged at the thought of government interfering in healthcare. I think we're supposed to trust free-market economics to bring it about. I guess we all know where that got us on Wall Street, but nevertheless, DeMint is vowing that healthcare reform will be Obama's Waterloo. Of course, DeMint and his fellow Senators don't have to worry about healthcare because we fucking pay for them to have great policies. Better policies than any of us will ever have. And please help me understand why the latest hot topic on all the talk shows is whether Obama has a valid birth certificate? Does everyone have just a 6th grade education now? Top the news off tonight with Harvard Professor Henry Gates being arrested on disorderly conduct because he loudly objected to being accused of breaking into his own home AFTER showing two valid forms of i.d. with his photo on them that proved it was his house. Do you see a common thread in all these stories?

Night Thoughts

2009-07-17T19:34:00.004-04:00

I'm a Dusk person, not a Dawn person. I'm Saturday Night Live versus CBS Sunday Morning. I hate the Damocles sword of an alarm clock hanging over my consciousness when I go to bed. I find it hard to make it to early morning meetings. I almost have to sleep in my workout clothes in order to get to an a.m. spinning class. I try to eat breakfast every day, but I don't really love solid food before my soul has had time to resettle in my body after wandering all night God knows where. But when the day begins to wind down, I wake up. I look forward to leaving my shoes at the door, taking a shower, putting on PJs and sauteing onions in olive oil when I come home from work. If I go out, the conviviality of Happy Hour makes me feel like I'm living in Hemingway's Paris. I love the evening news, technicolor sunsets in winter, dinner parties, gentle shadows that soothe the tired earth, reading until 2am, thunderstorms that wake me up in the dark and night-owl guardian angels who watch over me when I finally turn out the lights.

My Old Kentucky Home

2009-07-11T18:06:00.012-04:00

When I was wandering around my hometown on a recent visit, I chanced upon folk artist Marvin Finn's crazy, colorful chicken sculptures in the waterfront park. They remind me so vividly of my long-dead grandmother and her ongoing battle with her hens. She had a cantankerous relationship with them, because they were usually ornery and unmanageable and hid their eggs in the highest bales of hay stored in the barn. My grandmother was a devout and gentle Methodist, but she waged a lifelong war for her flock's eggs and souls, all the while reproaching them for being a stubborn bunch of heathens and hussies. I hated reaching under an old biddy for an egg and getting pecked on the arms and hands, but even more I dreaded watching my grandmother chop off their heads for Sunday dinner. I still find it difficult to eat chicken without remembering the real blood and guts involved in getting it to the table. But these cheery sculptures also brought back the memories of fragile chicks keeping warm in a box by the kitchen stove, of the comforting cluck and shuffle of the hens as they went about their daily business, and of the ordinary beauty of their color and shapes. Returning "home" is always a similar mixture of warring elements for me--the blood and guts of the painful episodes in my life that took place there mixed in with the beauty of the landscape and the memories of people I once loved. I've finally given up trying to reconcile those two feuding family ties that bind. Like the chicken and the egg, the sweetness and the sadness are all part of the same dish.

Things to do on Frida's Birthday

2009-07-06T00:01:00.005-04:00

1. Wear my earrings with Frida Kahlo's eyes on them.

2. Feel beautiful.

3. Write 300 words on any topic whether I feel like it or not.

4. Listen to Latin music on Pandora.com.

5. Say "gracias" all day long.

6. Be brave about the things on my Secret Fears List.

7. Give the world a wink.

Word Drought

2009-07-02T19:38:00.004-04:00

A long weekend at my family reunion in Kentucky left me at a loss for words. The video word wall in my hotel was tantalizing -- letters falling like rain, but my well was dry. I'm still trying to refill my creative reservoir, wondering if I'll ever be able to put into words the craziness my family stirs up in me. Or if I even should. My usual reaction is to talk my dramas into the ground, beat the meaning out of them, analyze them so thoroughly that I could create a spreadsheet on every aspect of the experience. But I wonder if there are times when you just have to be speechless in order to hear your deepest feelings.

MInd Trips

2009-06-26T12:12:00.006-04:00

Where would you go on this magical old bike? I'd visit a couple of places in the past:

- The bench under the magnolia tree in full bloom on the American University campus where I fell in love with my history professor. I could have done without the 7 years of angst, drama and drivel that followed, but I'll never forget that silent lightning strike of two people colliding in space and time and having their molecules rearranged.

- I'd go to the beach with my kids and watch my young son come up the beach dragging an enormous dead sea turtle he'd found behind him with a rope. Because he was so purely happy and later that became a rarity for him and our relationship, I'd love to go back to that moment and appreciate it more.

- I'd follow the Pacific Coast Highway toward Mendocino again, the great ocean swelling and heaving and changing colors on one side of the road, the swell and curve of the tawny California hills on the other, a surge of Vivaldi leading me on, uniting sea and land, heaven and earth.

Aging Boomer Smiles Bravely

2009-06-19T19:11:00.003-04:00

Whenever I read about "aging boomers" lately, the subtext is "old person who is using up all our resources and should be abandoned on an ice floe." Suddenly my age is anathema. I am a drag on progress, a parasite on society. Forget that I'm still working fulltime, taking spinning classes, using a computer, iPhone and Nintendo DS (okay, that one is stupid), trying to do my bit to fight global warming and mountain top removal and never holding up the security line at airports trying to figure out what's legal to take in my carryon. I even have a Power Monkey! No, evidently that's not enough to justify my continued existence ("What, you're STILL alive?!). Evidently, I also need to admit that the '60s were stupid, that I was a compulsive shopper, that I was too ambitious and feministy for my own good and that I'm sucking the lifeblood of future generations by having a longer life expectancy. Was I so dismissive of The Greatest Generation, the one that came before mine? If so, it's probably payback to be the enemy now. Karma sucks, and I can hear my mother laughing about it. No longer hip, only waiting for that inevitable hip replacement that will take up a valuable hospital bed that could be put to better use by a 35-year-old. All I can say to young writers who are blaming boomers for the current economy is this is what 65 looks like, and good luck when you get there because someone younger than you will inevitably be bitching about how your generation fucked up the world. I just wish I could be around to enjoy it. Maybe if I eat more yogurt and do more pushups...

People Who Say Yes

2009-06-18T18:15:00.001-04:00

I should be used to Mean Girls by now after 15 years of publishing a magazine for women. I've had my fair share of nasty letters from women who think I deserve a comeuppance. Letters accusing me of being an elitist (hey, I want to respond, my toilet was outdoors the first 12 years of my life!), a man hater (yikes, my list of lovers says I have the opposite problem--I might be a slut!), a fake feminist (is there a secret handshake and password?), a plastic surgery pusher (I'd probably do it too if I weren't so afraid of pain and anesthesia), an abortion loving liberal (yep, I'm pro choice forever). At first, I used to cry whenever I got a critical letter. Then I got mad. Now I try to shake it off and not give my energy away to strangers. But every letter like that makes me realize how judgmental I've been at times of women I don't even know, and how that shames and teaches me. But it also makes me realize how much time all of us spend getting angry about the wrong things. I want to save my anger for men who beat up women, for rapists who walk free, for girls who aren't allowed to go to school. And I want to celebrate people who are creating something, making art out of their lives, throwing a party for no reason other than being alive. I want to be one of those people, but I have a long way to go.

Celestial Tomato

2009-06-16T18:35:00.003-04:00

On the way to my car this morning, I picked one of my new homegrown tomatoes and put it on the seat next to me. When I got to work, I decided to let it ripen a bit more on the dashboard, but when I locked the car I noticed the sky was reflected in the car window and the tomato seemed to be floating in midair. Of course I think this tomato is a miracle, lacking only the face of Jesus or the Virgin of Guadalupe to warrant crowds of worshippers, but beyond that, it reminded me yet again to look for beauty everywhere. Today, my dental hygienist asked me if I was going to be doing anything fun this summer, and I almost said "not really," but caught myself in mid-naysay and answered, "Every day is fun." We both laughed at the novelty of that thought. Not that I remember to live by that often enough, but I'm going to try to look for more celestial tomatoes every day.

What Allures Me Now

2009-06-11T21:14:00.005-04:00

* The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys. The Thames has frozen 40 times in recorded history, and Humphreys has written 40 tiny stories based on events that happened each time the river iced over. It's poetic history.

* This pin from Lochers.com is so cheeky and deceptive. It looks like something a proud mommy would wear...until you lean in a bit closer.

* The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I gulped it down in one furious read. If you belong to a bookclub, it would be a great choice.

* Spinning. I tried it a few months ago and hated it. Tried it again this week and suddenly got interested. Didn't fall in love with it, but all of a sudden I loved that my body could do it and that I'm soaking wet and psyched when it's over. We'll see if I can keep it up. And going to a class first thing in the morning means exercise is OVER for the day. Hallelujah.

* This ring from Bjorg jewelry. They say they'll have a U.S. online site soon. I'll be there!

30% Chance of Tears

2009-06-08T20:27:00.010-04:00

The last few weeks, we've had the same predictable daily forecast: scattered storms, clouds, some sun, and a 30% chance of some sort of weather event -- rain, water spouts, tornadoes, hurricanes, plagues of toads. Situation unstable. My own moods have vacillated between blue sky optimism, looming thunderheads, oppressive gray pessimism, barometric shifts and sudden showers. Yesterday, I felt a storm building all day and finally put on my sunglasses and raced out of my house for a power walk. I cried the whole way, hoping people I passed would think it was just sweat was running down my face. Knowing I had a therapy session scheduled the next day seeded the rain clouds, and I wanted to get the crying out of the way ahead of time. If I have a cleaning lady coming to my house, I spend the night before picking up and putting away, and if I'm going to see the shrink, I start stuffing things in a mental closet and tidying up any loose emotions that might be showing. So why do I go to someone for help and then pretend everything is fine? It's like calling 911 and then locking the doors so the firemen can't get in. Always being "fine" is part of my problem. Especially now, when I'm questioning the point of my job, worrying about growing older and becoming invisible, trying to let go of what I no longer need, wondering if I can create a new life and what that would look like. I wish I had an Emotional Doppler Radar app on my iPhone to warn me of rough weather ahead and a guru to help me ride out the storms that are bound to lie ahead in this part of my life. Or at least hold the umbrella and pass the Kleenex.

Bittersweet

2009-06-06T21:11:00.002-04:00

I'm finding that writing my "autobiography" in 2400 words is more difficult than I imagined. Not only in trying to compress a life into such a short form, but also in trying to describe my life in a new language, new vocabulary. I think everyone gets used to certain stories they construct in their minds about how they grew up, stories they tell themselves or people they meet. It's not necessarily an untrue version, but it does tend to become ossified over time or fall into certain cliches or set pieces. Maybe the story is "My happy childhood" or maybe it's "My tragic childhood" -- wherever it falls on the spectrum of experience, we tend to assign everyone roles that over time become mythologized in our minds. Deconstructing that story in order to see your life with fresh eyes is like teaching yourself to write with your left hand if you're righthanded. For instance, I'm resisting writing about my relationship with my mother, which was complicated and unresolved on my part when she died. I tried writing it straight on, but it sounded like something out of a therapy session. I had to sneak up on it through little flash memories from the past, like the walks she took us on in the fall on the dusty back roads of our town, where we collected dried flowers and plants to put in the house. Especially branches of bittersweet berries bursting out of their shells--a happy uncomplicated memory. My mom reverting to the country girl she'd been. My mom who loved nature. My mom who knew the names of so many plants. Not the mother who found it so difficult to show affection. Not the mother abandoned and empty after my father left. Not the sadness I didn't know was coming. Bittersweet.

Starting Out

2009-06-02T20:49:00.005-04:00

I'm giving myself homework assignments for the summer, because evidently I need artificial deadlines in order to accomplish ANYTHING. So today was the first day of very own version of Summer School. I planned for it in the same way I used to prepare for the first day of school. Remember buying new supplies, getting your outfit ready the night before, waking up early full of anticipation? I can't say I had the same level of excitement this time, but I've been doing a lot of reading and unlearning in advance of my self-imposed start date of June 1. My goal is to approach writing with a "beginner mind" for a change, with enthusiasm instead of dread or fear of failure. I write for a living every day and it's fun, creative writing, but it's my job. So I wanted to try something different, a project just for me and one that has a beginning and end date. Coming home every night and writing could be a drag after a full day of doing the same thing, but I'm trying to think of homework that resembles play more than work. (I'll probably post some of the assignments I give myself on my other blog--Creative First Aid--from time to time, so feel free to audit the class!) Today, I started a 2400-word autobiography, but I'm not proceeding in any kind of chronological fashion. So far, so fun. I just hope I don't get sent to detention or flunk out. I want to write my way toward that gate in the distance, the one that's the color of a David Hockney pool, the color of imagination, the color of Wallace Steven's blue guitar.

Emptiness

2009-05-26T21:04:00.003-04:00

Sometimes when I write an entry in this blog or the publisher's note in the magazine I started, I feel like I've lost my voice. That I'm just an empty chair at the dinner table of life. In this blog, I often adjust my voice for the readers I want, and I unconsciously strive for niceness or spirituality or thoughtfulness, when really I am just fucking confused or pissed off or randomly human. But I am constantly visiting sites that have a "nice blog" icon, and there is so much adorableness and cuteness and wonderful parenting in the blogs I read that I wonder where the messy, smelly humans live. In the magazine, I also tailor what I say--snipping off an angry opinion (God forbid I should come across as bitter or aggressive) or sewing up an editorial into a nice, neat conclusion. We all crave tidy Oprah closures, but how many of us can say month after month, "This I Know" for sure? To tell you the Truth, my life has not been tidy or neatly stitched. It's a patchwork of regrettable relatives, death marches, bad decisions, loose ends, shouting matches, psycho lovers, lost chances and lasting regrets--as well as bone-shattering beauty, hopeless love, yearning for the impossible and some amazing improbable luck. I can dress up my past as yaya sisterhood, sounthern eccentricity summed up in some cute after-dinner stories (yes, my aunt kidnapped my mother and kept a gun on top of the refrigerator in case the sheriff called), but really it is also badly dressed, redneck, real-life Walmart sadness. All of which is to ask--am I the only one who has a blog life and a real life?

Inspiration for the Bored

2009-05-22T20:28:00.007-04:00

My inspiration board is a bit tired right now. I know I need to pull everything off and start fresh, but I resist packing away my old friends there. That might be a project for this 3-day weekend, but in the meantime, here's what's juicing me up off the board:

* The Interrobang. I just learned that my favorite punctuation mark--?!--has a name. Thanks, O Magazine.

* Power walking the park and stopping to smell the last of the gardenias and bury my face in a magnolia the size of a dinner plate.

* Spending $10 on 5 peonies at Whole Foods because they only come once a year.

* A stack of books to keep me company in my insomnia: A Reliable Wife; The Little Stranger; The Forgotten Garden ; At the Breakers; The Help. Insomnia Books can't be too demanding, but they have to be absorbing so that I don't start to worry about bills, work or why I can't sleep. Having a few to fall back on is like having money in the bank, casseroles in the freezer, extra batteries and Beanie Weenies in a hurricane.

* Shrimp marinated in the fridge for an hour in 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon chipotle powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, sauteed and tucked in a tortilla. Topped with salsa and guacamole.

* Bottomless Mimosas at brunch downtown.

* The Savages arriving in a red Netflix envelope.

* Making my own mailing envelopes out of magazine pages this weekend.

Wabi Sabi, Sort Of

2009-05-19T20:35:00.006-04:00

I don't know if I understand the concept of Wabi Sabi, but I do love the the beauty in impermanence, the moment just before things fall apart. Because you are teetering on the edge of fullness and emptiness, ripeness and rotting. I love old buildings that have great bones but show an edge of decay, unfinished hems on a satin skirt, Lauren Hutton's wrinkles and cutting-edge cheekbones, Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #3 with its longing and long descent into sadness. I've stopped cutting the roses in my yard (I have a regular redneck yard, not a garden) because I'm trying to stop intervening in their natural cycle. It's hard--I always want to short-circuit it, cut the buds before they bloom and force them to maturity in my bedroom. I've always tried to do the same thing with relationships. Instead of letting them grow at their own pace, I force them into ripeness before their time. Why didn't I ever learn to take them into my bedroom when the time was right?

Cloud-Cuckoo-Land

2009-05-16T20:43:00.006-04:00

Today as I crossed the bridge to go to the Farmer's Market, a flotilla of white clouds like an armada of tall ships in the sky kept me company. When the clouds pile up like that, I feel like the earth is a very tiny gondola just waiting to cast off into dreamtime. I think we could be free to go sightseeing in the universe if we only let go of the guide lines that hold us to our schedules and very important duties, titles, jobs. I would love to go sailing into the land of N.C. Wyeth and Wind in the Willows and A Child's Garden of Verses. To travel back in time to my imaginary friends and storybook lands where the usual laws of nature don't apply. It's still there somewhere behind those clouds...I can almost see it, almost reach it, almost let go of my driver's license, dry cleaning tickets, grocery list, property tax, shoes to be repaired, library books to be returned, dentist appointments, jury duty--almost. I'm just happy to know it's there even if I can't gain admittance as easily as I used to.

Wishful Thinking

2009-05-13T21:09:00.004-04:00

Living in Hawaii for a month. I'm not greedy.

Driving the Pacific Coast Hwy, Destination Mendocino.

True Love, or some Lady Chatterley sex.

Everything on my Barnes & Noble Wish List.

A clawfoot tub in a bathroom that's bigger than my current breadbox.

Guilt-free homemade cherry pie with Breyer"s Vanilla on top.

Versailles, in autumn, in the rain.

Run a mile without stopping. And enjoy it.

A safe suntan.

Ask Not?

2009-05-11T20:13:00.003-04:00

I don't know what this directive on the theater marquee across the street from my office refers to, but it made me start doodling mentally and filling in the blanks.

ASK NOT:

* for more than you need.

* for something that rightfully belongs to someone else.

* for extra dessert because you'll hate yourself for it in the morning.

* for advice unless you're going to take it.

* for an Incomplete unless you have mono or swine flu because you'll hate yourself for it next semester.

* for something or someone bad for you unless you're willing to take the consequences.

* for an easy life because you'll be a fragile hothouse flower instead of a hardy perennial.

* for just one more procedure because you'll end up looking like Joan Rivers. Even Demi Moore might end up looking like Joan Rivers.

* for closure because doors don't always get shut as we move from one room of our life to another.

On the Verge

2009-05-09T21:13:00.002-04:00

Everything in my amateurish little garden patch is budding or blooming or getting ready to break through the earth, climb, entwine or simply rise. I love that moment of possibility before the southern sun sucks the energy out of every living thing, before it's a fight to keep the juices flowing. Right now, the sun is gilding the edges of the garden instead of giving my plants the third degree. The morning glory seeds have sent up actual shoots, the rose bush keeps putting out and we have lift-off on the tomato plants, Houston. I feel like I'm on the verge of a new season as well, but I know that I often manage to stunt my own growth by not giving my ideas time to germinate or by not watering and feeding them enough. I grew up in a family of farmers, and I know it takes constant attention and hard work to make things grow. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to tend my garden, to get up early and write, to set aside time simply to mull. My morning glories and tomatoes need sturdy fences and cages to support them as they start to blossom, and my writing needs a daily structure and discipline in order to bloom. Send some good vibes to all of us in this little garden of earthly delights.

6 (Un)important Things That Make Me Happy

2009-05-05T22:41:00.003-04:00

Tina Tarnoff of Thought Patterns (love her papercuts!) tagged me, and I feel like one of the popular girls at school...even though I'm still not completely sure what being tagged means in blogworld. But the task is to make a list (one of my favorite forms of writing) of 6 (un)important things I love:

1. when dogs smile because I wonder what they're thinking ("...can't wait to roll in that dead bird I found behind the house. I'll pretend to be asleep in the sun til she turns her back and then I'll make a dash for it before she catches me.")

2. online coupons from Barnes & Noble...so many more during this recession!

3. Turning the sprinkler on my plants and watching the birds that come to take a shower and dart in and out of the spray.

4. a plethora of pillows on my bed

5. the perfect shape and subtle scent of Crabtree & Evelyn avocado soap-- I stockpile it in case they discontinue it.

6. getting home just before a thunderstorm breaks and feeling safe and snug in the midst of the sturm und drang.

Turning Over the Controls

2009-05-04T20:37:00.004-04:00

I told a friend this weekend that when I go to New York my inner GPS stops working. I'm like one of those sad bees whose radar malfunctions for some mysterious reason and they can't find their way back to the hive. In New York, I can read a map repeatedly before I go out the door, but I still can't make sense of a city that is actually laid out in such a rational way. I buzz in aimless circles and constantly have to readjust my sense of direction. Did I turn left or right? Am I going north or south? Is that the same corner I passed 15 minutes ago? Where the hell is my hotel? My life is like that right now...I just can't find way my way home. Home being my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my sense of Nikki-ness. For weeks now, I've been flogging myself, looking for my next big idea, my next project, my next passion. Looking for me. Tonight I started to wonder, though, if it might not be better to accept that my GPS is broken for now, that I don't have a destination and that my definition of home might be changing. And just explore the world with no purpose in mind and let the ideas and projects come to me if it's meant to be. To be a passenger for awhile instead of the pilot.

Polaroid Love

2009-04-30T22:48:00.005-04:00

I took this Polaroid one spring or fall--I can't even remember now. What I do remember: that there was a bird singing in the branches right before I took the photo; that I was drinking a Bloody Mary with friends at a restaurant that serves the best French fries in town; that I didn't know then that my friend would marry a wonderful someone sitting at that table with us and move to England; that life would fling us out in so many different directions; that we would grow older; that we would never be together again in quite that way. When I look at this photo on my mood board, I can feel the crunch of celery, taste the horseradish, the late afternoon sunlight, the love. Snap, snap, snap...put it in the album of ordinary moments that make up a life.

Slow Food

2009-04-25T17:55:00.004-04:00

When I was a child growing up in Kentucky, I ate tomatoes almost straight from the vine, and "love apples" are still my favorite fruit/vegetable. My grandparents had a wooden cistern top where they put all the tomatoes they picked to ripen. They were every permutation of pink, red and yellow, and the sweet citrusy taste of their sunlit flesh was summer incarnate to me. We ate them with every meal, and even now scrambled eggs seem naked without a tomato slice. This year I'm growing my own with great trepidation, because I kill everything I plant except bamboo trees. I ordered a Tomato Success Kit which comes with everything but the plants, followed all the instructions and have been tiptoeing around them as they shoot up like the plant in the Little Shop of Horrors. It was all so Whole Foodishly perfect looking. But today I tackled the double-decker cages, put them together backwards, cursed, took them apart, put them back together wrong again, got out the wine, read the directions, counted the parts, tried again. No luck. Finally I found some red and yellow plastic ties mean to bundle computer cables together, jammed the cages into the planters, bootstrapped them with the ties and poured a big glass of wine to celebrate even though they are decidedly cobbled together. They look like hillbilly tomatoes growing in my front yard--all I need is a refrigerator on my front porch to complete the picture--but I like to think I'm returning to my roots in more ways than one.

Soul Protection Program

2009-04-21T20:00:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I wish I had a safe place to stash my soul when I leave for work. Because in this economy, it's tough out there for a soul. How do I keep myself from becoming calloused or hopeless when people I work with are laid off and left hanging out to dry? What happens when my creativity gets a dry mouth and a bad case of the Dreads in the middle of a project? And how do I plunge wholeheartedly into a brainstorming session when I feel brain dead from so much uncertainty and flux? I want my soul to survive hard times without going into hiding or disguising its true voice, but it's an everyday struggle and I'm constantly questioning my decisions and choices. And sometimes, the only answer I come up with is "ice-cream".

Dream Screen

2009-04-18T09:45:00.003-04:00

I have friends who take classes to learn how analyze their dreams, but I have no interest in listening to others' dreams or telling my own. I usually remember only scraps of a dream anyway, enough to make me feel like I'd been out all night doing something vaguely disreputable. Granted, I do have the occasional pleasant dream in which I have sex with a stranger, and it's good. Or I run into someone dead who I loved deeply, and that's good, too. And a couple of times, I've even written a short story/film with a real plot in my dream (I swear!) that makes me laugh when I wake up. But mostly my brain during sleep is like a toddler coming home from school and babbling on and on and on, getting facts and names and events all mixed up and making stuff up as it goes along until none of it makes the least bit of sense. And when that's not happening, my dreamtime is spent running from tsunami, falling off the same damn bridge I always fall off, being late for exams I finished decades ago, breaking up with a man I haven't seen since 1985, walking around naked in public and being hopelessly lost in my creepy old elementary school basement, which still makes walk-on appearances in my sleep despite having been torn down ages ago. After one of those nights, I wake up wondering why sleep can't just be a nice white sheet of unknowing instead of the equivalent of going on a bender in the alien-filled Star Wars Cantina. Sometimes I have to wake up and give my soul time to find its way back to my body after all that nocturnal tomfoolery, and then of course, it wants me to get a pen and paper and write down its exploits. Which might read something like, "A dog was trying to talk to me and then Professor Murphy said lets get married after we find the baby I left in the attic and we crawled up there on a conveyor belt but there was an airplane and Professor Murphy made me get on it and then it was a bus but no one would let me sit down and then we back down the conveyor belt and the dog was sad...." Maybe my shrink can spin some gold out of that straw, but I just hope I can keep a straight face when I read it out loud.

Opening, Not Falling Apart

2009-04-13T18:34:00.004-04:00

I'm a worrier. I see the sky falling instead of realizing it's just a storm moving through. Too often I assume a mental fetal position instead of rising up into Warrior One. I sometimes gnaw on my fingers until they bleed--21st century workplace stigmata brought on by fear of being dispensable. But today I had breakfast with some out-of-town friends who not only gave me a jolt of their creative electricity but also passed on some of the best advice I've heard in a long time: "Things are not falling apart--they're opening up for you. Just don't get freaked out by the cracking sound." I felt that inner click you get when things/ideas/whispers fall into place in your mind. Click, click, click--like moving the tiles around on one of those old-school games I used to give my kids to play with. That satisfying physical click when all the signs align properly and you recognize the path, don't know where it's going, but know there are other people traveling with you.

Secrets

2009-04-10T19:43:00.006-04:00

* Traveling unravels me. I never get any better at it. I hate being a nomad and living out of a suitcase, and it irritates me to be so boring. I have to go to Burning Man just to beat the banal out of my personality.

* I know I'm lucky to have a job even though we've all had to take paycuts, but I can't help missing cashmere.

* I know pay cuts are necessary, but I get tired of being stoic about it. Sometimes I want to be a bitch about it instead.

* George Clooney leaves me cold. I'm kind of embarrassed by that.

* I thought the Sex and the City movie was stunningly boring. All those years of angst and soul searching and the best answer they could come up with was "happy ever after"?

* I'm sick of the Obamas' dog. They should name it Anticlimax.

* I'm worried I'll never have another idea as good as the magazine I started and sold.

* I'm always drawn to a Mickey Rourke, never a Mister Nice.

* Sometimes when I'm in therapy I think about what each minute is costing me.

* I hate hearing other people's dreams and yet deep down I always think mine are oh so interesting.

* I've noticed that I've started leaving the periods off the end of sentences when I send emails. I think it's because I feel so exhausted by technology and work lately. It's my digital version of saying "whatever."

* Postmenopausal zest is a huge scam. All the women I know who are over 50 are exhausted...but no one wants to admit it. Because we're supposed to be perky until we die.

* Sometimes I cry in yoga. Sometimes it's because I think I won't get out of the class alive. Warrior One busts my ass every time no matter how many times I've done it.

* I love the Real Housewives of NY, CA and Atlanta, and I don't care what that says about me. However, I may have reached my threshold with NJ.

Be Surprised

2009-04-08T22:19:00.004-04:00

What's around the bend? I always think I know what to expect, and yet I hear so many stories of how lives can change utterly and irrevocably without warning. The lottery ticket that pays off, the lump that isn't malignant, the friend who turns into the love of your life. I forget that life is still magical no matter how mundane I try to make it. By underestimating it, by taking it for granted, by turning down the volume, by going through the motions, by being too grownup to play with it, by being all New Yorky about it, by not learning how to swim in it, by not answering the phone when it calls. No more screening.

Double Happiness

2009-04-04T17:07:00.004-04:00

The azalea bush I thought was dying not only survived the winter but bloomed exuberantly this week. The Lady Banksia rose bush not finally started to climb the gate and--surprise--the blossoms turned out to be as white as a wedding bouquet. I walked twice as long as I intended and ate half of what I could have. My money went farther at the grocery and Siggi's Icelandic yogurt is back in stock at Whole Foods. I just noticed I have an extra box of Virgin of Guadalupe matches and two of her candles. I earned double AMEX points on my Barnes & Noble purchase and I bought two heirloom tomato plants today. It's a Double Happiness Day...but every day would probably qualify if I paid more attention. Here's wishing you have one, too.

What's Holding You Back?

2009-03-28T09:45:00.005-04:00

I started writing Morning Pages this week after a long absence, because as an editor, my first instinct is to edit myself as I write instead of letting the ideas flow unchecked and unjudged. I don't use a journal for Morning Pages, only legal pads, because I don't want it to seem formal or finished. It's my version of homework. Someday I'll go back and circle any sentences or phrases that I might use in essays, but for now it's just three pages of freeflow thoughts/gibberish/worries/fears every morning. Eventually, a nugget of important information sometimes emerges. What rose to the surface today is that my life feels painfully fenced in. By my job, which used to be a passion and has now evolved into a boring marriage between parties who have nothing in common. By my writing, which has become a chore because I feel as if I should be trying to writing a book and maybe--gasp!--I don't really want to. Or at least not the kind of book other people want me to write. By the predictability of my days. Not that I want a tornado to touch down in my yard in order to shake up my life, but I would like to stir up a creative tornado to blow down the fears and laziness that keep me immobilized. I'm going to try and hang some lights on that fence to remind me that I'm lucky I recognize I need to change, lucky I didn't become so accustomed to this comfortable little cage of home/work/tv/bed that I failed to see it could become a prison. But when I try and think of ways to stage a break-out, I know it will take more than having an artist date, starting a hobby or thinking happy thoughts. I need to rediscover the single-minded fire and ambition I used to have. I've never been the kind of rebel who dances on tabletops or rides a motorcycle across Australia, but I've always had an outlaw outlook that now seems to be behind bars. Have you ever found yourself in this state, and if so, what got you over the wall?

Get Fired Up!

2009-03-23T20:14:00.006-04:00

When I go to work in the morning, I'm loaded up like a pack mule. I don't want to haul my sizable ass and three bags full of books, products to photograph, laptop, glass (not plastic) microwavable lunch bowls, workout clothes, makeup (if there's an event), 3 Moleskine notebooks (personal, planner and professional), stainless steel water bottle (or plastic if I'm lazy) and maybe my big heavy hardcover idea book (if I'm feeling creative) up four flights of stairs. So I take the elevator up, stairs down. But tonight I thought I would surely ignite from work-related stress, so when I saw this sign, I thought, "Stairs? What about the window? What if my head catches on fire from angry spontaneous subcutaneous combustion? What would happen if I just walked out and started driving west?" I love to play with that idea, imagine the road unwinding behind me, but pretty soon I realize my ATM will only get me about 600 miles and then I would end up in Kentucky where I started out. We're all over a barrel if we work for someone else or we're not living off the grid raising our own vegetables and getting our power from solar panels. Everyone I know is facing wage cuts, furloughs, hiring freezes, but what can we do about it? Where are we going to go? Most people will end up working like indentured servants instead of resigning. Instead, we'll just become resigned to a fear-based life of deadening jobs that provide health insurance. We are going to be too scared to take risks, too scared we'll lose our houses, too scared of our own shadows to see a silver lining. Let's make a pact--no matter how scared we get, let's remember what it feels like to be free spirits. We'll need our wings again some day.

Pot of Gold

2009-03-22T08:35:00.005-04:00

This was the view from my hotel room one afternoon during my visit to Boston, but my iPhone camera couldn't quite capture the golden outline around each branch of the trees. It reminded me of an illuminated manuscript, a visual epiphany. One of the workshops I attended at the Nieman narrative journalism conference was about finding the extraordinary in ordinary moments--this brief transformation of a mundane view from a sterile hotel room reminded me that I need to open my eyes instead of sleepwalking through so much of the day. The whole weekend was a jolt of much-needed inspiration because lately all I seem to do is worry about the stock market and my coworkers and bills I need to pay and should I have applied for a government job decades ago as my mother urged instead of pursuing my grasshopper dreams of being a writer.

Feed Me

2009-03-16T20:59:00.010-04:00

I just spent a weekend cruising design blogs and staggered off to bed on Sunday night satiated with Cute, Adorable and Fabulous. Is this what my life has come to, I wondered, as I fell asleep with visions of dreamy paint colors, amazing headboards and stenciled wallpaper swirling through my brain? I used to get in dramatic arguments with lovers outside Irish bars that involved smashing Irish Coffee cups and then falling into each other's arms under noirish street lights. I stayed up late talking about T.S. Eliot and masturbation. I have been known to jump in fountains! But now I can be found lurking around sites that feature other people's tragically hip lofts in Brooklyn and stuffed objects and artwork that feature hybrid creatures that are a cross between humans and bunnies. Yes, I would love for my house to be a work of art like the one created by Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell and her lover Duncan Grant, but I also want it to be organic, an outgrowth of my own personality, not something I have to study or emulate or copy from tearsheets. My iconic house memory is of my grandmother's house in rural Kentucky. It was filled with inherited objects--silver, quilts sewed by long-dead aunts, furniture that had the patina of decades of use by ordinary families. It never changed over the years except for occasionally repainting or cleaning the wallpaper. It was timeless, solid, lovely, simple and hopelessly old-fashioned. Several generations had passed through it, sat in the chairs, leaned their elbows on the enameled kitchen table. Their spirits lingered. I want to live in that kind of house, not an Ikea idea or an easy-to-assemble resemblance. After my weekend of design dessert, I want a timeless, solid, lovely, simple and hopelessly old-fashioned supper of a life.

This is Enough.

2009-03-11T19:03:00.007-04:00

Late afternoon. Shadow play. Cracked sidewalks. The world in repose.

The planet on pause. Put down your newspaper. Turn off the news, the latest murder, the airplane crash, the embezzler in his penthouse, the missing wife, the catastrophic oil spill, the aging playboy in his pajamas, the news anchors who will never be as broke as you, the predators and preyed upon, the storm chasers, the maniac with the assault weapon, the celebrity addicts, the blood in the streets, the Dow financial thermometer. Step outside and see what the weather is right this minute. Taste the air the way dogs do. Lace up your shoes. Put one foot in front of the other. Love your little world. It's all you can do right now. It's enough right now.

Bondage

2009-03-08T19:56:00.005-04:00

A friend told me this weekend that her new mantra is, "Everything is great!". I'm trying to adopt that because it's so much better than, "What the hell happened to my 401(K)?!". People gravitate to the former and flee the latter. If only CNN would figure that out. But this weekend I have to confess to a meltdown in a parking lot. Before I left home to meet friends at another friend's boutique, I'd made the mistake of looking at the reports on my retirement investments and realized I could end up scrounging for nuts and berries just to survive in my old age. Or maybe my kids could just set me afloat on an ice floe when I became a drag on the blubber supply. Gruesome visions of Suze Orman reproaching me for financial profligacy danced through my head. Because, yes, I have been a grasshopper, and I deserve a disgraceful, penurious old age. As I sat in my car crying, I knew I should repent the dinners eaten out, the trips taken, the stupid shit I bought online. But I'm so tired of feeling guilty for the worldwide financial collapse. So tired of talking heads shaking their heads over Americans being greedy consumers addicted to big screen tvs and fast food. So tired of movie stars wagging their fingers at me about clean coal. So tired of the endless magazine pieces on the virtues of the simple life. I feel like I'm living in a new Puritanical Age which requires me to confess my eBay sins. Yes, I know we're living in The Age of Reduced Circumstances and Limited Expectations...but every now and then, you just need to take a vacation in the Denial Hotel. So I blew my nose, went in the shop and bought a pair of dominatrix-style high heels that made me look tough and brave and wore them to a party that night and didn't repent buying them one little bit.

Savoring Italy

2009-03-07T13:19:00.007-05:00

This photo was taken in a house in Siena, late lazy afternoon. I think I slowed down in some fundamental way in Italy--yes, I was writing furiously every day, drinking in new experiences and landscapes, feeling the usual unsettledness that comes over me when I travel, but I also tasted things deeply, lingered over aromas (the smell of crushed herbs -- chamomile? -- in the lawn will stay with me forever), felt the lens of my eye opening wider. Today I went to a wine tasting at noon--unholy hour for wine--but it was so dramatically different from gulping a glass at a party for the fortitude to face strangers or mindlessly pouring a glass when I get home from work. Because we were sipping, I could take time to smell the ocean in the white wine from Italy, feel the sun and wind and earth of Tuscany. As one of the American wines opened up, its aroma shifted from a strong goatish whiff to subtle (sweat on the skin of someone you love) to sublime (an orchard of ripe fruit with drunken wasps reeling about in the summer sun). I'm sure that's not how the winemakers would describe their bottles, but slowing down to savor stirred my sense memories on this ordinary Saturday afternoon and took me to so many places in my past and my dreams.

The Mail I Didn't Receive

2009-03-05T20:29:00.005-05:00

This week my mail was stolen out of my mail box. A sweet little standard box with a red flag on a post outside a white picket fence entangled in a jasmine vine. I've lived in my neighborhood 7 years, and this is the first time I've been vandalized. Worst of all, it was someone who lives nearby, according to the neighbor who saw her. I'm sad and angry all at once. It's hard times out there and people might be verging on desperate, but it breaks my heart and pisses me off that now I have to install the Alcatraz lockdown version of mailboxes. That the Barnes & Noble gift card my daughter sent me was stolen. That this woman might have taken my Social Security check if I'd been an old lady living on a fixed income. But then I started fantasizing about what was stolen. The announcement that I won the MacArthur Genius Award? A letter from an old lover who realized after decades that he could not live without me? An apology from someone who wronged me years ago? A job offer from Tina Brown? The possibilities inherent in what I didn't receive are magical.

Happy Shack

2009-03-01T23:11:00.003-05:00

I spent too much time today trolling zillow.com trying to figure out what my 1,074 square foot house is worth now. Is my 3 bdrm better or worse than my neighbor's 3 bdrm 3 blocks away? Is my lot slightly closer to the ritzy neighborhood I can't claim to be part of or does it lean over into that lower-value neighborhood to the east? Why didn't I add a bathroom when I had the extra money? What the hell happened to my equity? Unfortunately, what zillow can't take into account are the number of porch parties held in this tiny house. The peace that blows through my prayer flags. The rosebush a friend gave me after my mother died and the note I wrote to my mother and planted under its roots. The nights listening to rain on the roof. The first dinner I cooked here for a new lover (okay, it didn't work out, but it was still a landmark). The games of Scrabble and Cranium. Gin and tonic with my best friends on summer Sunday afternoons. Coming home from work and pulling the house around me like a security blanket.

fridaville

I'VE MOVED!

Searchlight

Doing my Homework

Nana Says...

10 Things to Do This Week

Styrofoam Heart

My Word for 2010

Weak or No Signal

Deer in Headlights

Report from the 3rd Eye

Back When I Had Eyebrows and Opportunities

Bridge to the Weekend

Empty Chairs

The Tuesday NIght Club

Anchors Away

Things to do in 2010

Brand-New Vintage

A Sea Change

Holiday Mayhem

When You Wish to be a Star

Which Way?

My Heart Still Looks Like This

Return to Sender

The Farmer's Daughter

Rain, Rain, Come Again

Throw Me a Lifeline

You Are Here

Fridaville Friday Night

Name Calling

Namaste

New Improved Me!

Sunday Solitaire

In the Night Kitchen

Looking UP

Shaking Up My Chrakras

Ebb and Flow

Yoga Weather

Late NIght in Fridaville

Hello, Sunday

Not-so-deep Dark Secrets

A Room to Grow

Resisting the Door Trying to Open

States of Lonesomeness

Kicking 60's Ass

Hello, Sunday

Barefoot Weekends

My Happy Hour

Sweet Thursday

True Believers

My D Cups Runneth Over

How to Turn on the Light

Things I Love

Homesickness

Succulent

Ripeness is All

Bless you, Patricia!

Art Everywhere

Empty Nexters

The Way Back Machine

Off-Center World

Wishful Thinking

Living in Stupidville

Night Thoughts

My Old Kentucky Home

Things to do on Frida's Birthday

Word Drought

MInd Trips

Aging Boomer Smiles Bravely

People Who Say Yes

Celestial Tomato

What Allures Me Now

30% Chance of Tears

Bittersweet

Starting Out

Emptiness

Inspiration for the Bored

Wabi Sabi, Sort Of

Cloud-Cuckoo-Land

Wishful Thinking