Swirly Girl

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.

Trust

[Lone Bird :: Taken January 2008 in Madison, WI]

This is how tired I feel - I am in the mood to write a blog post but so comfortable in this chair, which is downstairs in my living room, that I don't want to get up and go upstairs to unload all of the latest pictures now sitting on my camera.  So on my camera they will stay, and I'll instead start this post with a photo from a trip I took three months ago because I was able to pull it from flickr.  Sometimes taking the path of the least amount of effort is incredibly gratifying, especially when you've been so on the go all week that the instant you sit down after another non-stop day you almost fall asleep sitting up.

Monday morning I flew north to Oakland, and for the next 48 hours Andrea and I whooped it up on the non-stop train of FUN.  Hiking, Nia class, shopping, re-arranging her living room, a photo shoot, lots of giggling, discussing our individual and joint creative ideas and eating a lot of yummy food.  Despite this plethora of fabulousness, it never once felt frantic or frenzied, but very natural, flowing and in the moment. We did not have a single thing planned before I landed so we were able to let the universe take us where it wanted us to go and we happily followed its lead.

Last week I was incredibly fortunate to have scored tickets to the Anne Lamott & Elizabeth Gilbert lecture at UCLA thanks to this lovely little bluebird, and while I could recount a long list of all the reaons it was inspiring, it wasn't until Anne Lamott told us about her tattoo towards the end of the event that I heard the tiny jewel that resonated with me the most.  Lamott explained that her tattoo had these words in the design:

"Trust the captain.  Trust the crew."

Apparently this was a line from The West Wing, which everyone in the audience found quite hysterical because that meant the original context in which it was said was perfectly literal.  This was a great story, but what I really love was the way Lamott turned a line from a TV episode that was about a sunken submarine into a metaphor for a deeper spiritual philosophy.

To be perfectly honest I am still learning how to trust the captain (meaning God).  This is not because I have ever distrusted God, but because creating and nurturing my own relationship with Him is still fairly new territory for me.  My spiritual path has been pretty loosey-goosey for most of my life, and it is only in the past few years that I feel like I have begun to develop a more thoughtful spiritual practice and belief system.  And I struggle with it precisely because of that word - belief system - as in, I must choose what to believe is true, real, right, correct, which implies I know with some level of certainty the facts behind concepts and questions that are, in fact, unknowable.

So when it comes to trusting the captain, this is a practice I am working on and finding great joy in the process, even though it is a journey that has no solidity or certainty in terms of absolute, knowable answers.  But as far as the crew goes, I am not sure how I could feel more rock solid.  I have written extensively on the subject of my creative community and tribe over the past many months, so I'll try not to repeat myself here.  I will simply say that this particular quote by Lamott resonated with me because it felt real to me....even the part about trusting the captain, who I am still getting to know. 

This is the joy of sharing ourselves, of expressing ourselves creatively, of putting our ideas and visions and dreams and thoughts out in the world.  It is in this sharing that our humanity can be celebrated and enjoyed.  Even if we all don't agree on the semantics of various ideas and philosophies, we are at least free to express it and share it, and it is in this expression that we can feel less alone and be grateful that another human being is able to say something we might have been feeling but haven't known how to articulate.

Trust the captain.  Trust the crew.  And share, share, share, share.  We all need one another's wisdom.

The Shifts That Occur

It is after midnight and I have been at my computer since early evening, working on a number of website revisions.  This afternoon I arrived home from a quick getaway to Berkeley for an inspring, soulful and very giggly two days with Andrea, one of my creative superhero soulmates.  When I walked through my front door I was ready to plop on the couch with a stack of DVDs for the night, but after a little while - and a few peanut butter chocolate chip cookies - I felt the urge to get some work done.  Being with an inspiring soul who encourages the best in me gave me a burst of energy in an otherwise tired body, and I am slightly astonished I managed to get so much done this evening.

I have much more to write, but since it is nearing one o'clock in the morning and my first workshop series begins tomorrow afternoon, I believe the wise move for me right now is to crawl into bed.  My suitcase has yet to be unpacked, the photos from my journey still need to be uploaded onto my computer.  As always, there are things to do and tasks to accomplish, but for right now I will head to bed, knowing I will probably not be able to dream any kind of dream that is as magical, uplifting and wonderful as my last two days up north.