Swirly Girl

To Finish Later

Who You Are

"Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and be that perfectly."  -Zen Proverb

A Little Bit Lost

[One of my favorite paintings by the lovely Mati McDonough]

It is Wednesday as I write this, and I just finished a post about all of my latest computer woes.  While I have a working internet connection, I'm going for it all the way, creating a few more posts to go up while I am on vacation.  When this post appears on my blog, I will most likely be on a bicycle somewhere around Santa Barbara, trying to clear my head before the next big push on my book project.

The last two weeks have been a blur of technical difficulties and a lot of other personal distractions.  I haven't worked intently on my book in many days, and that resentful feeling I get when I can't work in my studio for a long spell is starting to creep into my brain and therefore, my mood.  I have been holding it all together for many days, trying to keep it all in perspective and not lose my patience, but that went flying out the window this morning and I'm just now coming back down to earth.  I can't help but chuckle knowing it is taking a vacation to help me get back to work on my book, as I have a long list of topics I still want to write about and a brand new journal to fill while I'm away.  We don't have anything on our agenda aside from bicycle riding, hiking and visiting friends, so I plan on diving back into my writing during what will be a lot of down time.

I feel like I got fairly way off track a little too easily lately, like I lost my compass and everything on my priority map got turned upside down.  As much as I try to live by the idea that every moment of my life could be fodder for my creative work, this past week I have not felt any significant swells of inspiration as I've tried to decipher data on wireless internet routers and a tangle of ethernet cables.  But my deadlines are the same and the rest of the world is still expecting this book to be delivered by its promised date, so I must simply chalk up these past many days to Dealing With Other Things and direct my next steps back towards my book.  I'll be doing that in the desert, and on the road and by the ocean...not a bad place to be to find your way back home.

It Has All Been Going Pear-Shaped

[One of my newest prints available on Etsy]

I learned this phrase - "It all went pear-shaped" - from a bit on NPR about British expressions.  This one basically means everything went haywire, and I just about fell out of my chair with laughter when a friend of mine from across the pond used it.  I don't know why I find it so hysterical, but I guess in those moments when things are, in fact, going pear-shaped, it is good to find laughter wherever you can.

Let's see...my wireless internet work started going pear-shaped last week but I was still able to access the internet from around the house connecting through an old wireless set up.  Over the weekend that went totally pear-shaped for no apparent reason so there was no internet access to be had anywhere in the house.  During a phone call with Verizon tech support I discovered I could hardwire directly to the main internet cable and, voila! I had internet access...in our laundry room.  This was two days ago.  Guess where I'm still working?  Our laundry room.

Our tech support guy, who set up our entire wireless network, was supposed to show up yesterday to take a look at everything but that, too, went pear shaped when he didn't show up or bother to call.  My husband and I, being the ambitious sorts we are, decided to take matters in our own hands, and we marched into the Apple store, explained our problems, got a new router and came home to plug it all in.  Need I mentioned the variety of fruit whose shape this scenario resembles?

IN BETWEEN ALL THIS, I am having to lug my desktop iMac to the Apple store to try to recover all the data in my address book that disappeared last week, upgrade my operating system and back up every inch of data I have on to two separate hard drives.  For the most part, that has all gone relatively smoothly, although a two-year old version of my address book was all that could be recovered and I'm now having to collect a lot of contact information for the second time this year.

Yadda.  Yadda.  Yadda.

I've basically been swimming in pear soup for a week now and this morning I finally reached a point where I seriously considered the Amish way of life, where computer issues would no longer plague me and I could take out any other frustrations by pounding a hammer as I raise my neighbor's barn.  Just thinking about it right now, as I sit here on a kitchen chair in my 6'x6' laundry room with my husband's laptop literally atop my lap, makes me feel all warm and dreamy inside.

The good news is that a new tech support guy is on his way this afternoon and despite the wildly intermittent internet service I've had, I managed to get the work I needed to get done finished before I leave all this behind tomorrow for a whirlwind tour of southern California.  My husband and I are headed to Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Santa Barbara & Santa Ynez with our bicycles and hiking boots, ready to explore, ride, climb and wander.  We went on a lot of road trips when were first dating, and in the midst of new jobs, too many moves and other life changes, we lost sight of how much we love throwing our bags in the car and hitting the road.

I'm scheduling a few smaller posts to go up while I am away...taking advantage of my laundry room hardwired, internet access while I can.  May the rest of your week be free of all things pear-shaped and instead filled with easy laughter and perfect internet service.

Attention

[Santa Ynez, CA :: Taken last month]

First off, many thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions regarding the sudden disappearance of my address book.  I have an appointment at the Apple Store today, when I will haul in my computer and pray my data can be recovered.  Regardless of what happens with that, I will then have to come home and call our tech guy to try to solve a problem with our Airport unit, another issue that came up this week out of nowhere and isn't going away no matter what I try.  This hasn't been the best week on the technical front, but I am trying to keep it all in perspective.

I have quite a lot of friends that are facing much greater difficulties than I am right now, and I have been feeling a certain heaviness in my heart this week because of this.  The tempting thoughts are, "What can I possibly do to make their pain/struggles/woes go away?"  While this is a normal response to seeing those we love hurting, I am also trying to keep in mind that everyone's journey has its own ups and downs for reasons I can never possibly comprehend.  I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that everything in our life is pre-determined or pre-destined, but I do believe our lives play out a certain story for reasons that are unique to each and every one of us, and this includes those times when we all walk around wondering why it has to feel like such an uphill battle. 

In working through challenges and facing fears we think are impossible for us to conquer, much joy, beauty and strength can be found.  It takes effort and it can be strenuous, but perhaps in wishing my friends' difficulties would up and disappear I risk taking away the very thing that will enable them to grow more magnificently than ever before.  Saying this also feels terribly unfair to people I do not know in faraway lands whose suffering clearly does not have any rhyme, reason or purpose, and this is where the notion of freedom plays a key role.  No matter what we are facing, our ability to deal with them freely gives us the opportunity to create something strong and powerful out of the muck.  More than anything, this is what I wish for when I see my friends hurting.

I know I am on the verge of diving off into a wild array of tangents here, which is perhaps what I need to keep me distracted from the possibility that my entire list of contacts might be gone forever.  This is a problem, but it is hardly the worst problem.  Despite this and a week of spotty internet, I have still managed to have some wonderful breakthroughs with my work, and for that I am feeling very grateful right now.  Grateful for this week, even with the bumps.

Desperate

It is all I can do not to careen into an expletive-laden post here as I am on the verge of a panic attack.  For the second time in just a few months, the entire contents of my address book have completely vanished for no apparent reason.  The last time this happened I was able to recover quite a bit from my backup hard drive, and I backed up this file just last week...but for some reason even my backup is coming up empty.

I have spoken to Apple Tech Support and they have told me there is nothing that can be done to recover these files.  This is my entire database, all friends, all business contacts...everything...gone.

Has anyone run into this problem?  Anyone have any suggestions?

Freaking out over here...

Inventory

Once again, I am shifting gears with my work without having made any plans to do so before now...it is simply happening in its own way and I feel like I'm just along for the ride.  My focus for many weeks has been on creating pages and writing, and seemingly out of nowhere late Monday afternoon, I decided it was time to take a more definitive inventory of everything created so far.  The past two days have been spent scanning and photographing everything, sizing it correctly and printing everything out.  I now have a stack of 118 potential book pages sitting neatly on my desk and I am going to try my best to leave them alone until next week.  I have been buried so deep in this work I think it will be better to step out of the zone for a little while so I can return to everything with fresh eyes.

I have already started a list of other topics I want to cover and stories I want to tell, and even though I do not think I have a great number of pages still to write and create in terms of quantity, I do believe I have much more to write in terms of quality and depth.  The topics currently on my list of things to write about:  Disappointment, Challenges, Loss, Failure.  Yikes...but I have already been able to see from the pages spewing out from my printer that these subjects are in need of some serious attention if this is to be a well-balanced book that isn't afraid to swim in murky waters.  I want this book to be insightful, inspiring and uplifting not just because it floats along that beautiful silver lining that exists in every dark cloud, but because it goes directly to the heart of those dark clouds and turns them inside out.

"Into my heart's night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day."
~Rubaiyat of Rumi

Caution: Work Zone

I have a peculiar fascination with snails, and every morning when I walk out to get our newspapers I am sure to step carefully over the morning's last stragglers making their way to shaded areas before the sun is in full force.  Last week I came across this little guy, who, believe it or not, was difficult to photograph because he wouldn't stay still.  This photo does not give the perspective I was aiming for, but he was only a little over an inch long.  I'm not sure what it is about these creatures, but I have always loved them and my husband always laughs at me when I pick up them up off of sidewalks and put them in a safe area so they won't get stepped on and squashed.  Is it not the craziest coincidence that the Beanie Baby called Swirly was a snail?

I am, as they say, In The Zone, where creating, painting and writing my book are all happening in that magical, flowing space where I feel like the Creative Muses are singing their chorus wildly and passionately, and that energy is being swept directly from their voices, through my hands and onto paper.  I am not always in this zone, and before too long I will have to shift gears entirely in order to scan, photograph and format more than 150 pages by the end of July, so for right now I am splashing about and laughing my head off as I ride these powerful waves to the horizon.  I wake up and can't wait to get into my studio; at the end of each day my first few minutes in the shower are spent peeling paint off of my hands.  In the middle of fixing dinner, I race to find a piece of paper to jot down a thought, a line or an idea and before I walk downstairs to fix my coffee I can't help but look at some of my latest creations to make sure I am still happy with them.

Whatever this magic combination of light, inspiration, passion and circumstance is, I'm going with it...trying to enjoy it rather than analyze it, trying to let it flow through me rather than clinging to it desperately.

Sneak Preview

[Four new prints available at Etsy!]

I am now officially obsessed with my book, jotting down notes wherever I go and contemplating ideas for new pages, images, and writing 24/7.  I was in Boulder over the weekend and it turned out to be a surprisingly productive few days.  Throughout my life I have always managed to get much more done during times when my plate is not just full, but brimming over.  I do not advocate a life of non-stop activity, but during those times when the burners are on full blast, I get a lot more done than when deadlines are far away and goals remain unfocused ideas in my mind.  So the fact that I got quite a lot accomplished during a weekend when I was also visiting family and dear friends isn't really surprising.

I have been feeling torn lately over whether or not I should keep the contents of my book completely underwraps until it is finished, not daring to expose anything until I can yank the purple velvet cover off of it in one full sweep of the arm, creating a grand send-off with doves, glitter and blaring trumpets.  I woke up this morning with a detailed image in my mind of being sprawled out on my studio floor all day, working on book layouts, but after getting our tax forms sent on their merry way, I came home and started working on new prints from my book...without even thinking about it.  It just kind of happened, and I didn't resist.

My book is going to be somewhere between 140 and 160 pages, so these four new prints are a tiny glimpse at what will be inside, but I couldn't wait to start letting at least a little bit of this creative adventure spill out into the world.

Growing

I will apologize up front for the fact that I am going to have to be rather vague on the details of what is transpiring in my world.  Nothing is close to being finalized and  I have learned not to get attached to any particular possibility until there is a certain amount of evidence to show me it will be so.  This isn't about being pessimistic or skeptical, but about taking a deep breath and approaching any new venture one step at a time.

Having put forth this disclaimer, I feel compelled to share a tiny bit of what is going on because it is part of a larger journey - the journey of my book.  I only recently added a page on my website about it and haven't written in great detail about it anywhere else.  Various steps along this path have made it feel more and more real, and when I put that page up on my site it became a wonderful inevitability, as in, I know this will happen.

My book has gone through a variety of permutations over the last, oh, three years.  I would go through spurts of working on it, sometimes asking friends for feedback and even putting together a proposal for a book editor that approached me last year.  When I set out to create the proposal, I took it as an opportunity to get on paper the ideas that had been swirling around in my brain for many, many months.  As hard as this might be to believe, my only goal was to create a proposal I was proud of, and when I dropped it in the mail it was sent without any attachments at all.  I had done what I set out to do, the rest was completely out of my hands and I let it go.

The editor got back in touch with me many weeks later, offering profuse compliments.  She loved the book and was "blown away" by the proposal...but it seems as though books like mine - which was deemed "too personal" (a comment I have heard before about my work) by her editorial staff - had gone down in popularity over the last few years.  For the next year, I am ashamed to admit, my book stalled in a space of indecision over whether or not I should pursue other publishers or self-publish.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Getting a different opinion from everyone I talked to, until a conversation with a woman I admire tremendously who said the magic words:  "I think you should do what will be the most fun for you."

Suddenly, the decision became terribly easy:  do it myself.

Once I made the choice to publish the book on my own - which also means marketing, selling, promoting and everything in between - puzzle pieces snapped into place with resounding clicks and doors started flinging wide open.  But here's the twist:  while the universe is telling me I am on the right track, I am also being encouraged to push farther and think bigger than I had originally imagined.  Not in the sense of going for fame and glory, but in terms of pushing beyond what feels safe, comfortable and familiar.  It is as if God has come right down to my studio and eased into my comfy chair to say, "You may be moving in the right direction, but you need to reach beyond what you believe exists in the realm of possibility....you need to venture out into a territory that might even feel scary."

More than just knowing I made the right choice to self-publish, I am also being given a loud and clear message that the more I trust my work, my gut and my intuition, the more bountiful this journey will be, on every level.  It has become such a powerful momentum that it is becoming part of the book - the story of all this, the story of how the book came to be.  Because I sat still and listened to what my heart had to tell me about making my book real, the story of the book is growing in directions I hadn't anticipated, but now that it is being written that way, I can't imagine it being anything else.

I will share details as soon as I can, but for now I am basking in the joy of letting myself be taken by the current of a dream I've harbored for a looooooooooong time, an experience that isn't so much about conquering tasks as it is about letting go completely and trusting the way will be shown to me as long as I listen to the wise voice inside me.