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On a New Path

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones
1

“There are elements that determine paths taken,
and we can seldom find them or point to them accurately. . .”
~ Elizabeth Strout (from “My Name is Lucy Barton”)

Last week I saw a short video of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talking about story. Everything he said rang true to me. And what stopped me cold was the reason he said he does what he does.

He tells historical stories. Is now known for what’s called the Burns affect, blending first person narratives into the telling of events. He surmised his ‘why’ for doing these types of stories led back to his mother. He never knew her well. She had cancer his entire life and died when he was eleven. “It might be that what I’m engaged in, in a historical pursuit, is a thin layer thickly disgusted waking of the dead. . .may be very obvious and close to home who I’m really trying to wake up.”

I often say the Universe swoops in with answers to my questions. Delivers messages in articles, quotes, passages in books, and random words. Hearing Ken Burns when I did was no accident.

I’d just gotten a new awareness about how I’d generalized to the world at large a message from my mother. One I received from the time I was very small. The message I’m too much.

The awareness came after a conversation that’d turned strange and difficult. A comment made that immediately felt true & not true at the same time. It took days to sink in that so many variables affect perception – experience, preference, information given, how the brain works, one’s own tics, rules of Truth, interpretations.

What was true – in that moment, and perhaps in many moments, I am ‘too much’ for that person. And her reason why is valid. I have responsibility in this. And for my mother, I was indeed too much. The evidence not only in words, but action. She sent me to my grandmother’s when I was 18 mos. old. It was 190 miles away. She couldn’t handle my newborn sister and me at the same time. Something I learned while sitting at a small table in a Mexican restaurant at Disney’s Epcot with my father. ‘You were gone six weeks,’ he said. ‘I wanted you back. So, I went and got you. You were just a little girl.’ The pattern repeated my entire life growing up.

How it turned wrong is I embraced that message so strongly I made myself smaller, quieter, less Me in response. I carried it like a flag draped around me and saw the whole world repeating it. I forgot I can take responsibility, and the message is as much about the other person as it is about me.

Ken Burns says we tell stories to continue ourselves. I believe that’s true, too. Those of us who are storytellers can see how we include ourselves in what we write. If not directly, our passions and interests.  I write stories about outliers, good people with a longing for Home who are at a crossroads. Stories about loss. And in my novel (‘Flight’), set in 1952 rural Appalachia, I rewrote the story of my mother and me.

A mother receives a prophecy her beloved tiny boy will leave her and the mountains while still young. Believing fate unstoppable as mountain code dictates, she withdraws from her son to steel him for his fate. Eight years later, as the prophecy unfolds, watching and protecting her son from afar is no longer tolerable. She reckons with her choices to get him back, and breaks code in the process to save herself, too.

A year passed before I saw fully what was there. The mother’s choice was a sacrifice. She had a good reason, beyond her perceived control. The longing I felt for my mother burned in the boy. The abandonment in the end was not hers, but his, and neither wanted it. It had to happen. Death was the alternative.

As my mother lay dying, she told my husband how much she loved me. Something I always knew. She also said she never understood me. “From the time she could talk, before I could think of an answer to her first question, she’d ask another,” she said. That revelation rewrote the story of us together, too. And was a comfort for me.

In looking back, I see my path has been one filled with grace. The unfolding of my childhood story at a time I could understand it, the story I was given to write in my novel, and the story I’ve created over and over in life.

Now it’s time to move on, be more than I’ve been. Which also means being less than I’ve been in many ways, too. For one, I can let others get the details of me wrong. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m rewriting my story once more. I chose the stories with love at the center, and still do.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life

Tell me. . .what stories do you choose?

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The Writer’s Block Myth
A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

Posted in family, life, spirit, writers, writing | 1 Reply

Perfect Humans

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Heloise Jones
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Can you see the heart in the weeds?

I call myself a recovering perfectionist. A friend recently said I was no longer recovering, that I’ve made it. All I need is to settle into this new way of being. I like to think that’s so. What I do know, I’ve learned a thing a two about perfectionism.

I got two postcards back-to-back from my grandson in Taiwan that really tweaked this whole issue for me. He usually writes every seven to ten days. But these are dated 5 days apart. No doubt for his excitement with his achievements. The list is stellar. It’s easy to understand his pride.

“The day before yesterday was sports day. It was super fun. I had a running race again; this time I won,” he wrote. “My drawing is in the high school; it was chosen. It’s a drawing of a tree with a swing on it and me standing beside the swing. . . Last Thursday and Friday I had exams. I got 99 for math, I got 96 for common sense, and the whole class only I got 100 for Chinese. I was shoked <sic> and happy. I didn’t know that would happen.”

I’m not sharing here to boast, tho I certainly could. He’s only 7. + this all portends well for his future in a culture that’s competitive, with less higher education slots than number of students. I’m sharing because of what happened inside me when I read his cards. After my WOW.

You see, none of his stardom surprises me. He truly is bright, observant, and curious. Truly considers what he sees, and works to make sense of the world in a way that uses his heart and mind.

I want to cheer him. I want to tell him what a star he is. How proud I am. And I want to give him something more. Something to hold on to, and know about himself when he’s not perfect. Something that will stave off perfectionism. The kind of perfectionism that serves bright, curious, exceptional children, but can choke them, too. Like I saw bloom in my 9-yr-old great-niece recently. A medal winning gymnast, Olympics bound, who wanted to destroy poems she wrote that she found less than perfect.

So, I wrote my best hope back to him:

Dear Chevalier – Yea YOU!

Oh, my goodness. You are certainly showing how smart – talented – and fast you are! Remember when you said you wished you were Flash so you could run fast enough to win the race – and I told you ‘3rd was good, just do your best. You’re as good as Flash.’ Well, now you won. Without being Flash. Just being your best right then. And next time, whether you’re 1st or not, you know you’re a good runner.

And your drawing is on display at the high school! You are a fine artist, and everyone can see! You’ll always be a fine artist. You know that now, right? Even when others don’t see, you’ll draw like artists draw, with what they see in their minds. Yea!! With what you see in your mind. Because you’re an artist.

And oh, my goodness – 96, 99, 100 in school exams. I am not surprised. You know why? Because you are curious, and interested in the world around you, and ask questions, and want to learn. All the smartest people are curious and interested in the world around them. They want to learn, like you. Your daddy is like that, too. :-))

So, now you know these other very important things, too. When you do your best, you may surprise yourself. And there’s always a next time to try.

I included a little yellow pin that says Bee’s Knees.

I don’t know if my letter will make sense to a little boy. But he saves all my cards, and one day may read it again. With my reminder, he may remember the conversation we had when he was here about how artists work. May remember how he felt free and satisfied when he did his own thing. He may even remember I told him he was as good as Flash. What I hope he remembers most, tho, is someone praised him for Who he is, as well as what he did.

Because I understand where he’s at. I was in the exact place when I was 5. My younger sister shared she observed the pressure I was under to perform and deliver, all wrapped in praise and encouragement. And decided she didn’t want that pressure for herself. Her way out was to randomly mark the answers on the aptitude tests when she started school. It didn’t bother her they thought her mentally challenged. I imagine the anger our father expressed in her defense probably made her feel special. She chose her path with no regrets.

It took years for me to break the bonds of perfectionism and reject feelings of not-good-enough. To discern when perfectionism serves, and when it doesn’t. To simply let things ride, and know I’m okay, anyway. To quit earning my breath, and understand in my cells my perfection is in being fully who I am – growing, making mistakes, and learning as humans do. I still have bouts when it snags me. But I know how to find my way out.

He may never respond the way I did. My letter may be imperfect. But it’s a gift I can give him today.
Isn’t he amazing?!

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what snags you up?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I did go ‘huh?’ on that 96 in common sense, wondering what they based it on.

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A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

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A New Story, Part 2

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Heloise Jones
1

“Their language sounded like stars would sound, but also like
chunks of lard, and the wind in the trees, and arrows zinging through the air.
I could make no sense of it.”
~ Nancy Peacock (from “The Life & Times of Persimmon Wilson”)
*

I paused sending this to you twice, because there’s been something on the tip of my thoughts that hadn’t flown in, yet. Writing life in the flow, or not flow, can be that way.

The ‘not flow’ seems to be the story. One I’m changing this minute, because shifting my stories about myself, my relationships, and my life is what’s up. And I’m ready.

The ‘not flow’ is because I didn’t achieve what I wanted these last 10 days. I felt anxious. I was falling behind in important intentions! (sound familiar?) I clearly needed breath to see the truth –  big stuff happened amongst the mundane of taxes and whittling piles of admin to-dos. Gifts I did not expect (!) at all.

An author I’ve worked with before asked me to edit part of a manuscript after another professional editor’s been through it. Every editor has their lens, I told her. But she knows I read between the lines. That I intuitively feel & hear the work as well as think my way thru. She needed my kind of help. Nothing out of the ordinary except for one thing. I lost 5 hrs. of notes when I hit the wrong button to save, and I had to redo it.

In the midst of the reprise, I sunk into the presence immersion in process requires. Gave up the story of what that day would be. After I sent the files, I considered what happened, realized long written reports aren’t the way my best work gets done, no matter what others do. Reports leave too much out of what I offer. And drain me. I want to give my best. That slap on the side of an exhausted head gave me   confidence. Decidedly a step forward, and a new story. Mercury retrograde at it’s best.

The other biggie was my sister and 9-yr-old great-niece Finley visiting for a day. They were in Albuquerque for a regional gymnastics meet. Fin is a champion slated for the Olympics. My sister is a mother to her. This was no ordinary visit. I wrote (here) how my sister and I have history, distance, oodles of difference between us. And tho we talk on occasion, I’ve only briefly seen her once since 1993. I knew where I’d take them because my sister shared what Finley liked. And I was excited.

The morning they were due, I glanced at the rain stick in the corner of my office. Immediately I knew I’d give it to Finley. It was a gift from a shopkeeper in the then minute town of Bisbee, AZ. I was driving across country with my son. His girlfriend was in eastern AZ. The short version is our next stop was a hospital in Houston where I’d just learned my mother lay. He wanted time with his girlfriend. The nurses said my mother was strong. I went to Bisbee for the day.

What a magical day. Gifts at every stop. Expensive precious gemstones placed in the cracks between my fingers. Music in doorways. And the rainstick handed me when I mentioned my mother after a long conversation with the gal in the shop. My son and I drove out the next day. We were 3 hrs. from my mother when she died. I never saw her.

I presented the rain stick to Finley at the door. This is special, I said. Holds the energy of your great-grandma. It felt so fitting, like continuing my family line. + Finley’s the light of my sister’s heart. And my sister was the light of my mother’s heart. I guess I held it these 23 yrs. just for her. She loves it.

From the minute we stepped out, Finley showed who she is. She leaned in when I told her how to walk in the desert. Step where there’s no vegetation, don’t crush the plants. Flowers and plants we don’t see can sprout with the slightest rain.

She’s smitten with Indian pottery, sought it out. Without hesitation, declared the pottery room at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture her fav. I offered her the first pot I bought in NM. A smoke-fired porcelain beauty of a vessel. A sculptured turtle atop the lid. We discussed how it laid in the ashes. Discerned by the smoke the lid was not on at the time. Only after this did she decide she’d take it.

I realized how much Finley reminds me of myself after they left. Her curiosity, interest in the way the world works, her affinity for pottery. The way she ‘knows’ what she likes despite anyone else. Things she showed again and again during the day.

I asked her if she ever thought about falling straight on her face as she learned the gymnastic flips & moves. She looked me straight in the eyes, said, Doesn’t everything important and hard to do have a little danger and risk? My God, I thought. She’s nine. That desire to do her best no matter the cost, her acceptance of costs, also remind me of myself.

The big gift Finley gave me was a chance to share my wonder and fascination with the world. To express my excitement and appreciations. To share the things I’ve gathered over the years that give me pleasure, and see her pleasure in them, too. Her unself-conscious expressions of love for my sister touched me.  I use the word Love, a lot.


They left nearly 3 hrs. later than intended. Gave up dinner & watching the sunset high on Sandia mountain. Gave up the last meet-up with colleagues. Stayed because my sister had one of the best days ever. I know because I heard her say those exact words to her son. Heart-full is what I say.

Sidebar. . .my sister and I didn’t talk family, politics, or the past. It was easy. I asked only one question. I have a memory: me as a young child sitting midway down the steep stairs in my grandparents’ house. The house is quiet, dark. There’s a big window at the foot of the stairs. The bright light blazes at the window, but I see nothing beyond. Does she remember anything like that? I learned her memories are much more joyful. And that’s a story I can hold just fine.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what surprises have you found in your stories lately?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .my sparkly grandson’s like Finley. Gives me the same freedom.

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A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom
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Posted in family, life, spirit, strong offers, Uncategorized, writers, writing | 1 Reply

Surprises in the Details

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Heloise Jones
1

I’m in a spin, and it strikes me there’s some magic in the disorder I feel. That perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems. That I’ve gotten caught up in unmet expectations, my daily to-do’s and intentions that don’t get addressed, and the oh-no’s that come with that. And this morning, realizing I’ll be recreating 4 hrs. of work I lost late last night, work due an editing client I’m getting paid for, and the redo will put me behind on other things, it dawned on me what this spin is about. Being present! Letting go of my stories, including what’s next. Including what’s down the road, even steps away. And my real work is what’s the next right thing in front of me. Trust the process. Shock. duh

I write about this in my book – trust the process, observe with awareness, let go of expectations. I know the present is all there is. That life is both/and, good/bad. I’m an empath. I’m present in experience. Don’t put a camera lens between me and an encounter (animal, bird, sky, person, whatever). I know to listen, that my superpower lies in hearing between the lines. And dang. Caught.

Looking at how I got this, kinda mind boggling how extraordinary the ordinary when we’re present.

On the morning Mercury turned retrograde on a full moon, the string on the blinds covering the huge picture window in my living room snapped. My shelter from the world sagged open on one side. The hot sun streamed in, instantly toasted the room and everything in it. The landlady took the blinds for restringing. But we couldn’t get them to snap off, so she unscrewed the brackets. Left me with nothing to hang a sheet or blanket on. And told me it’d be a week or two because she’s having a medical procedure, is unavailable. I offered to pick them up when ready, but she didn’t respond.

It’s a really big window. My soul depends on the sky I see thru it. It’s a challenge I could spend time on to meet everything I think matters to me. But I didn’t. I taped ugly black plastic yard bags to the window in my beautiful room. Anyone who knows me knows this is not my style. But, they were what I had on hand, offer privacy, block the hot sun, leave me the sky. And I can manage them with tape. Only a week, maybe two, I thought as I gazed across the street at the neighbors. ugh.

But the next day, pulling into the driveway, I noticed they don’t look as bad from the outside as they do inside. The reflection on the glass softens them. My spirits lifted. Not as bad as I thought. It’s not forever. Another layer I didn’t know I held let go.

Friday my sister arrives with her 9-yr. old granddaughter I’ve never met. Here’s the thing. We’re extremely different – politics, language, worldview, lifestyle. We have history. I’ve only seen her once since 1993, when our father died. It was a short visit in a lobby at the Houston airport, on a short-but-long layover I had. I remember her toes most from that visit (another story). We do talk on occasion, tho. And I held space for her grief the morning her best friend of a husband died. We chatted up plans for her visit Friday, too.

But it feels like a time warp, this visit of hers. Like I’ve jumped to a loop on Life’s spiral that’s been spinning upward without me. I don’t know her. And it’s only one day. I’ll simply be present with open heart and mind. What we can do with everyone we meet. And yet, it’s not random. Not her. Not this visit.

Last week someone I haven’t talked to in 30 yrs. called, too. Our leaving was complicated, and hurtful. I lost one of my longtime best friends, her then husband, in the event. Our conversation was a wonderful catch-up filled with remembrances of how much we liked each other. She’s coming to visit, too. Boom. Two at once. I’m paying attention.

What I know, it’s time to allow myself to be bigger. And tho every thing that’s happened to me makes me who I am – every single thing I didn’t want to share, every relationship I let go, every gift given and received – each moment holds a choice. Like ugly black plastic bags to solve the problem for now or darn, I don’t have blinds or a pretty room. Where do I put my energy and how do I value my time. Like darn, I lost because I didn’t get done what I planned, or yea, own the moment because this here in front of me is what’s up and it moves me forward. Or like what details do I pay attention to.

The jumble in the picture above is a section of the dining room table that’s my desk. My past and relationships are in those items. The monkey on the tape dispenser, an Easter gift from my husband. The slab I use as a trivet, from a stop in some obscure rock shop in the desert on some road trip I once made. The little shells, found on a morning my sparkly grandson slept in the spare bedroom of our rented condo in Florida. I love their delicate and seemingly indestructible perfection. The Disney mug, from another time when he was with us. Drinking my morning tea from a “cup of magic’ vs. my current fav beautiful handmade mug what I need some days. The tiny fuzzy bear, from my son’s house after he left for China ten years ago. I don’t know it’s history, but it reminds me of his tender heart, and sometimes breaks my heart. The angel with the book, a gift I gave his first wife long before I wrote a word as a writer. She was a voracious reader. She left the angel when she took off, and when I found it, I realized it’s really mine. The flag with the bird, sent me by someone in my writing community I left in Asheville when I moved to Florida. I never saw her again, because she died.

I love the bird and its message ‘Believe.’ That bird reminds me who I am. Like the bamboo watercolor paint brush from Taiwan in the pen holder. And the purple glittered star with a furry feather collar on a glitter pen that wobbles, catches the gaze often. And what you can’t see, a painted ceramic dish that reminds me of my mother-in-law. Who she was, home & person. She and I were so different from one another, and we loved one another bigtime. Sometimes I think part of her love was that I fascinated her. Inexplicable to her. I know my love for her is inexplicable, and it runs deep.

Every one of these things on my desk hold could hold pain. And in this moment, I realize I subconsciously made choices, that the pain was the part of the stories I’d let go. That I’d embrace the true good heart of each relationship with others and to myself. I could’ve chose differently. And Yes, these things wouldn’t be on my desk if I had. But the point is I got ‘it’ without thinking. And these things and what they represent support me. And I can make conscious choices the same way. That’s the spiral I’m on now.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what parts of your stories do you hold on to?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .the challenges are still there for me, even knowing I got the message.

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A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom.
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Show Up. Say Yes

Posted on March 31, 2017 by Heloise Jones
3

“80% of life is showing up”
~ Woody Allen

Woody Allen is famous for that quote. It was 1977, a dual interview with Marshall Brickman, the co-author of the oscar-winning screenplay Annie Hall. It’d morphed to 80% of ‘success’ is showing up when it came on my radar. The legend that he was talking about luck.

In a 1989 interview, Woody Allen reflected on it:

“I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up.
People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie,
they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it
were 80 percent of the way to having something happen.”

I admit I’m a purpose & wonder driven person. It carries me when it’s hard doing things that don’t make sense in the web of my known world. Or I have things to accomplish I don’t want to do. This doesn’t mean I need a reason for everything. It means I know what expands my Universe, gives me the Yes I need to move forward.

See for yourself what I mean. Take 30 seconds (really, that’s it!). You don’t need to go anywhere. Put on music, or turn the phone off. Just get present for 30 short seconds, and close your eyes if it feels easier.

  • Think of something you agreed to do that you didn’t want to do. A definite No if you felt you had a choice.

Where do you feel it inside your body?
How does it feel?
What about in your mind? What emotions come up?

  • Now, do the same thing with something you felt a Yes to.

How does that feel inside your body?
Where do you feel it?
What does your mind do with a Yes? What emotions are there?

  • Write down what you felt. Interesting, eh?

I write about doing what answers Yes in The Writer’s Block Myth because Yes expands everything about you. Your insides. Your experience. Your creativity. And No contracts.

In life, we constantly dancie with creativity, no matter what we’re doing. Expand the dance floor, and expand our definition of what creative means. Do what answers Yes.

The tulips in the picture above never opened like I wanted them to. But they’ve shown up perky and bright yellow every minute for a week. Haven’t faded or wilted. A vibrant reminder for so many things, including letting go of expectations. Another thing I write about,  because it’s a biggie.

Show up to your writing, your art, your work, your life. Find the thing you respond to, that carries you thru the hard times. The thing that answers Yes when you’re in doubt. For me, it’s purpose & wonder. What is it for you?

And if you’re interested in the progression of the quote, here’s a great site, The Quote Investigator. I have it bookmarked for others.

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