Using What I Have

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word.
He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices:
the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.”
~ Federico García Lorca
(poet, playwright, & theatre director executed by Franco).
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I typically scan facebook for the patterns in what’s been up for me. The sum today is I slept many hours last night, starting 8pm on the sofa, moving to bed at 11:30, & with waking only once, rising late @ 7am. After weeks of scant sleep + insomnia the night before from which I rose, pulled out my courage & contacted folks for book reviews, and others with a dissatisfaction. My publisher told me launching a book is a marathon, not a sprint. But the fact is I’m sprinting to catch up from the late start in the process, and the move to Santa Fe, creating a functioning home with box-lined walls, plastic bins at the ready in the garage for re-packaging from the cardboard mousies love. Sprinting to regain a rhythm in my life.

The other day I went to a movie for the first time in a year. As I pulled from my driveway, I saw clear through the picture window of my little home to the light & view out the kitchen window at the back of the house. It rather stunned me. I thought, this is why I’m here. To do my work with a sense of space and expansiveness outside me and inside me. This does not require a sprint.

By my front door is a ceramic vase with two delicate oriental cranes on it. I bought it in Jacksonville. It’s not my style and made no sense to get it then, nor any time I’ve looked at it in the ensuing 4 years. But I was, and still am, completely drawn to it. Then this. . .

For a year before I returned to Santa Fe, I subscribed to New Mexico magazine. I’ve moved magazines before. They’re heavy & never worth the cost. But the little voice said ‘throw this one in the box.’ Sandhill cranes and the caption ‘Flocking to NM’ on the cover. I flipped through it the morning I pulled it from the box. Read ‘Preparing for Liftoff’ + an 8-pg. spread on writers and indy bookstores. This note stuck out: “. . .the National Endowment for the Humanities has ranked New Mexico first in the nation for the number of working writers per captia.” Those unseen guides, talking to me even in Jax.

A family member wrote on fb I should quit sharing my thoughts about the world and focus on selling my book. (I’m really nice in my posts, focusing on love of the planet & humanity, empowerment) Two people responded. One said she vehemently disagrees. ‘Your influence as a writer is far greater than any of us less articulate folks. Please use it as your conscience dictates.’ Another said, ‘Yes!!! Love your voice and the strength that fuels it.”

I’ve always been an artist, creativity at the heart of every job I’ve had. I asked my mother when she was dying what she remembered I loved to do most when I was a kid. ‘Draw,’ she said. ‘From the time you could hold a pencil.’ At eight, I made folders out of 2 sheets of notebook paper, the front sheet folded down. forming a flap. The sides taped or stapled. I colored pictures with themes on the front – holidays, myths, animals. I wrote stories & drew pictures to fit the themes. My first experience of writer’s block was in 3rd grade. I sat at a brown lunch table composing a poem, prompted by one I saw in a school newsletter. I thought a poem something I could do. But young as I was, I questioned myself, never submitted it. The next year I wrote stories for a book I planned, complete with Table of Contents. At 18, tho, I turned in a blank sheet of paper to my college professor every Friday in response to our single assignment for the day, Write. That failure kept me from having the GPA to continue school. Took 5 tries to get my degree and find my worldly heart. Two while in an abusive marriage. Five. Persistence.

For months I’ve come out with aspects of my past that I’d kept to myself because, well, I felt ashamed about some of it. + I didn’t want to be identified with stuff that happened years and decades ago. . .when I was a diff woman. But it’s all part of my history that informs my understanding of human-Being. Not my identity, but parts of me that’s shared with others who are battered, broke, stalked, on food stamps, dismissed, have homes that burn, lost children, husbands run down by cars, businesses lost, little income for months on end. Who’ve lived in places very different than they’ve known. Have been thought weird or different. All part of human-Being that when turned into something besides fear, opens to empathy.

I’ve not shared my book on facebook the past few days. I’ve shared this:

Let’s support writers this week. I’m all about it. Because words have power.
Writers in other countries have been executed for that power.

Nearly 20 yrs. ago I joined a circle of writers to regain a Voice I’d lost. Writing and all things authorly have been my passion since. I’ve known I was a writer thru trauma, move after move, & distractions. I know the power of the written word for my insides and our outsides. I know the ways we get waylaid. It’s why I use my Voice now. We use what we have.

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

What empowers you?
I’ll tell you a secret: Today I say action with heart.

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Face to the World

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees
 for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  . .
~ Mary Oliver (Wild Geese)
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I was at my first writing retreat 14 yrs. ago when I first heard the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. It resonated with me because for yeeears I’d walked on my knees for hundreds of miles thru deserts, repenting. My imagination, always wild and vivid, could not lift me from my knees, could not tell me I was okay as I am, that the mistakes I’d made were simply that, mistakes. Something happened last night, tho. I read this poem and a different line stood out, ran true in my soul.

A line that reads “announcing your place in the family of things.” This was a revelation of monumental proportions for me. I sat for a moment, jaw dropped, realizing I’d finally made that hard journey. Shed an old story and skin.

Today the pre-launch of my book went LIVE. The big work was writing a concise, authentic summary of who I am. Not one about the gal who prefers tea to coffee, walking to running, culture to shopping, sunrises to sunsets, quiet to loud. Not the gal who loves nature in explicable ways, and all things creative. Not the one who thrives on beauty and space. But the gal who has the experience and authority to say listen, I may have something you want, even if you’re not a writer.

Who’s still learning. Who gets things done even if she often flies in on the cusp of deadlines. Who put on make-up for the first time in 20 yrs., pieced together a throw blanket and picture in a rented condo, watched the sun as it shifted, and placed blinding light in her face to create a 2 min. video. After trying for 12 hours, the first time in the midst of packed boxes.

Who, instead of having the sojourn she usually has in Santa Fe each fall, wrote a book and hosted a coach & author in private retreat. The author, feeling whole when she left, finished her memoir. And sent this to her huge list of peeps when it was over:

Heloise Jones helped with some of the editing on my book! She truly knows her stuff. She gets down to it, finds the holes and insights to make your story its best. There were many times in our editing process together in which she picked up on a simple line, stopped me and said, “right there, there is the spine of your story.” Then she would crack it all open and give me ideas to bring it home. She really has genius at insight and is fun to work with.

That blew me away.

And biggest of all in the most personal way, the gal who decided to have the courage and kindness to herself & her husband to move across country to live in her Soul Home, Santa Fe, alone.

I will create and give my best self & offers to the world. I’m the gal who didn’t feel she was okay or enough as she is, and tried so hard for years to earn my breath. But I woke the other day in a house smaller than I’ve lived in for decades, without a dishwasher that I’ll miss, happy for way more than a moment.

I use the words love, magic, and angels a lot for a reason. They sustain me and brought me here.

Thanks for being there. Now, let’s spread the word. Whatta ya say? Give a gift to yourself, or someone you know. It’s about our best creative lives!

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

Tell me. . .what sustains you?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I always wanted to say I love my life. I’m almost there.

That pic above is the view from my kitchen window. West, at sunrise, when Santa Fe colors rise up from the horizon. Can you see the snow-called mountains in the distance?

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Journey of a Million Miles

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Heloise Jones

Yesterday we laid plastic on the dirt floor in the garage of my little home in Santa Fe. Covered it with sheet linoleum & lined the wall with palettes in wait for the movers. The house is a huge step back from what I’ve had the past decades. I refuse to say ‘step down’ when I’m thrilled to have it, but it does feel humbling at times. At other times I think how lucky I am it’s been stripped & painted clean, has wood floors, new tile and sinks, baseboard radiators, a room where I can host writers, a garage, + views of the mountains. And it feels good. A Happy House, as my landlord’s mother used to call it.

A week ago I sat in the sun for 20 min. while the movers loaded the van. I did not plan, strategize, or try to figure a thing out. I didn’t like how they dismantled my very expensive sleep number bed and stuffed it in wardrobes, but it was done. I asked they seal the openings despite their assurance there was no dust in the van.

The day before that I’d had what can only be called a physical breakdown. With packing left to do, I couldn’t get up from the sofa. It was more than fatigue. My body simply couldn’t move. I thought about slaves in the fields, how they must’ve felt this exact way, but they got up, kept moving because their lives depended on it. And I thought about concentration camp inmates. About refugees traveling oceans & long roads across countries. All of them pushing ahead when their bodies say No. I thought of when I rose at 4am, returned home at 11pm while in school so to meet both my scholastic and social activist goals. All of us, lives depending on it. And I couldn’t move. 8pm I recovered, packed ‘til midnight.

We had a last meal in St. Pete at my favorite restaurant (La Vie, Vietnamese fusion.) Thuy, the gorgeous and brilliant owner came by, gave me a hug. “When you come back. . .’ she said. I shook my head No. I’d been a regular at the eatery. One of her first customers when she opened her day spa. She’s opening a third restaurant now. “I wish you were here to still give us love,” she said. I got love back is what I told her. Then I left Florida.

Florida seemed to cling tight as we drove out. We crept in congestion, a 30 min. drive taking 1.25 hr. Then again for miles on a crowded road accommodating a closed highway’s traffic. I thought about a gal’s exclamation how sad I was leaving. ‘Took us 20 yrs. to get here,’ she said, ‘We love it. We’re not leaving.’

All of us have a place (or places) that zing us, whether it’s the road or a spot on the map. I know when it’s time to leave a place because I don’t notice the beauty of it anymore. I felt an energetic pop when we crossed the border line.

Art drove me to Santa Fe. The few times I took the wheel, I didn’t last much more than 2 hrs. I’ve driven coast to coast alone, twice. Driven alone for days across the west and up the coast of California more than once. They were adventures. This wasn’t. This was a run for my life. And I couldn’t have done it alone as I’d planned. Art saved me is the way I see it. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can drive.’

One of the most stunning features of a winter drive across country is the silhouettes of trees. They look like people – tribes, soldiers, women, men, all sorts. With personalities. Their branches thick, thin, twisted, gnarled, stretching, swooping. Sometimes so very graceful, sometimes angular like an abstract modern dancer, sometimes straight & purposeful. Several mornings we headed out in fog. The trees particularly gorgeous shrouded in milky soup, green grass or black fields at their feet. I thought if ever I was a photographer, I’d travel and take pictures of trees in winter. I never got a good picture.

I saw the most supernaturally bright green grass in Mississippi. Field upon field of it. Carpets that sometimes had cows. Fog and gray winter trees making it more starkly vibrant. Mississippi also has lots of big crosses.

Mobile, Alabama felt like a city from a Philip K. Dick novel. Especially in the tunnel that drops steeply down under the very wide Mobile River. Like being inside a giant worm in that tunnel. I’d like to go back.

The stretch Denton to Amarillo, Texas on hwy 287 is 300+ miles of peace. Flat, quiet, achingly beautiful. Small towns that seem to be going to ghost every once in a while. In Childress we stopped at a locally owned quick stop. The kind with paper boats of crusty fried chicken pieces, long fat greasy hotdogs on a stick, and fried Mexican snacks in a glass case. Muddy trucks in the parking lot and women with small kids in tow. The bathroom’s rough, Art said. I’ve been in bad ones, just let there be toilet paper, I thought.

But it was sparkly squeaky clean! So clean that a clean paper towel on the floor looked like a desecration. I grabbed another towel to lift it to the trash can. When I came out Art was contemplating what to get from the case. ‘That was the cleanest bathroom. I really appreciate that,’ I told the man at the counter. He beamed, pointed to a young gal behind him. ‘Thank You!’ she said. ‘I work on that every day.’ So much pride. I told her if we win the lottery, I’m coming back to share it with her. And I meant it. As we drove off, I kept thinking how my best friend in high school lived in Childress the last time I talked to her.

I learned there really was/is a falls on the Wichita River. Was, as in the natural falls washed out in a flood in the 1800s. Is, as in the falls were reconstructed further up the river, abeit with pristine landscaping unlike anything that would’ve been there before. I wanted to see those falls. A weak attempt to recover some adventure. But we drove on after circling the pot-holed road in the park where they are. We’d missed the tiny print on the phone that said we had to walk a mile in, and Santa Fe was one night away.

I’ll leave you with magic. I got an email from a writer I met in Canada last fall. He has lots of personal cache to market his historical novel beyond Cape Cod where he lives. He didn’t ask, but I spent time giving him tips & illuminating his options. I wanted him to succeed. He has a vision and a passion. His email blew me away:

I have been re-working my second novel, another work of historical fiction set on Cape Cod. I have been going back and forth on which point of view of use. . .Then last night I had a dream in which a guy who I have never seen before came up to me and told me, ‘Ask Heloise.’ That was it: just a guy walking up and giving me that advice, but I took it as a nudge to get in touch with you and get your advice on this point of view question!

A guy he didn’t know in his dream sent him to me. This is the work that I love. And someone in dreamtime help spread the message.

And this. . .

Second day of the drive, feeling really blue and wanted something to help me feel better, I immediately pulled up behind this van. I followed that happy face for miles, didn’t pass on purpose. You can’t see it well, but in the window there’s a little plush happy face with a cowboy hat cocked on its ‘head.’ It constantly rocked back & forth. I said Thank You when I finally passed, not feeling blue anymore.

A week ago was a million years of a journey to here. I’m starting a new & different life. My husband will go to NC for work. It’s good, but sad. My book’s out March 14, day before the Ides of March. I made video about it. My first one. I’m told there will be more. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, I’m told. Same with life, isn’t it?

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

Tell me. . .what journeys have you taken lately?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .a million miles may start with the first step, but we never make it alone.

Thanks, Art.

Silent Night & Gifted

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I climbed into bed at eleven, feeling good to snuggle down so early after a week of insomnia. Then I remembered Tuesday morning. Blog.

It’s the day after Christmas. I had the week to myself. My husband Art gifted a flight to Charlotte by a colleague. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I was behind with edits on the book, and feeling frustrated. Feeling like four feather pillows burst, throwing different colored feathers in the air, my task to gather them into like piles. Once he left, I dived into the book, but I had the hardest time following my own wisdom (the wisdom I write about in that exact book) to focus on process, not product. To let it take as long as it takes to do it right. To be present without expectations. And here it is the day after Christmas and I’m still not done. But I have two piles of feathers pretty much sorted. I know when I’m moving and how I’m gonna do it. And I have unexpected, perfect tech help for what I need to do beyond the book. This last was cause for giving myself an attagirl when I figured how to find a permalink so peeps can see my blog images on social media. I added a high five because the link’s in computer code and my brain was firing off of 3 hrs. sleep. Yeeeaaaa Me, I thought.

The week had moments of Hallelujah, too. Said admitting nothing gets me up with a heart bursting from my chest like the Hallelujah Chorus. Which I heard one evening and indeed jumped into the middle of the room, hands held to the sky, body swaying side to side, me singing at the top of my lungs. Noticing how rusty my voice sounds and how alive my heart felt when moments before it was so quiet.

All day Friday I thought about the yummy salmon BLT I recently discovered at a little place down the road. No regrets I found it on the cusp of leaving, only feeling an intent to enjoy it while I can. But I forced myself back to the manuscript and computer. Fighting the pull of the rare non-humid day with temps below 80*, too. I desperately wanted to be outside. I washed sheets and a blanket, hung them on drying racks in the sun, lingered before turning back to work. When they were dry, I buried my nose in the fresh smell on the sheets, which made sitting at the computer even harder. Just get to page 50, I told myself, then go. Which I did, but I was 30 min. past lunch and the cook wasn’t gonna do it. ‘Get a dinner sandwich and a side of bacon,’ the gal said. ‘It’ll be on a bun instead of bread, and it’s only 75c more.’ I had my salmon BLT and she got a $5 tip ’cause she never let me feel ignored, and it was Christmas.

Saturday, Christmas eve, when I picked up our holiday dinner at the natural foods market, I noticed they left out the kale salad. Long after I got home I discovered they left out the dressing, too. I LOVE homemade dressing. But Christmas morning, after a full 5 hrs. sleep (longest sleep in a night all week), a conversation with the most sparkly little boy in the whole world and my son looking the best I’ve seen him in ages. . .I could only thank the Angels for sparing me the carbs.

I had no tree. There were no gifts exchanged at our home. But I felt gifted the entire week.

A gift in the parking lot at Trader Joes. The title track to Leonard Cohen’s last album. This line hitting me to the marrow – ‘You want it darker, we kill the flame.’ I still feel God bumps when I think, no, we hold the flame. I’m not sure what my response entirely means, yet, but sitting in my car, listening to his deep, deep voice singing in that cadence he has, I knew it held some special meaning for me.

And this by my friend Rachel Ballentine in Albuquerque who writes wonderful poetry and colorful observations of the world around her. I love it because it’s brilliant and beautiful, and is a message of hope and appreciation and awareness:
“because of my eye I’ve been scared, so i tried eating my breakfast with my eyes closed, just to experiment. try it. the birds were a lot louder, the thyme in the omelet was tastier, I didn’t like the toast as much when I couldn’t see it, the coffee was tasty, and i ate much much slower. and not as much. I’d better start making art instead of fb and pouting. I mean, what if???? we have so so so much to be grateful for.”

And this, a poem by a poet of great spirit who loves this planet as much as I do. These words exactly what I will tell you are truer than True:

The Magic of the Season

If you are to learn something of this day,
learn about magic:
how it is real,  and the explanation for everything
that matters most.

I’ve seen it,
and felt it,
and lived it in dreams too grand
to live out in a single life.

And I am all the better for it.

You too are like the star whose entire
reason for being is to
point the way
to the human heart.

~ Jamie K. Reaser (from Winter: Reflections by Snowlight)

The photo above is of a star being born somewhere light years away. A baby star, like us.

I love anything that has to do with space-time continuum, have a dream to go into space before I die. I loved the movie Interstellar for everything in it, especially for how it showed simultaneous realities in other dimensions. Because I’ve experienced them, and wondered if they’re real. I don’t wonder anymore. And so, Christmas day there was so much Love in my heart, and I’m still editing the manuscript.

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

Tell me. . .what do you know is truer than true?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .the entire week was like Silent Night, holy.

Dropping the Stop Sign

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Heloise Jones

My best friend neighbor Lindy delivered a green drink to me one morning. See it there,
next to the computer. With matching green straw covered in pink polka dots.
In front of the card with a painting by my fav Abiquiu artist.
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“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”
~ Martha Graham

Sitting here, the fragrance of fresh sage. I often buy a decorative sage bundle, leave it with a friend when I head home. Today I couldn’t resist. The bundle so fresh its scent lingered on my fingers. The top festooned with a small bouquet of lavender sprigs. It’s heart a puff of ‘straw’ flowers in two shades of purple + a small, deep rose colored dried chrysanthemum. At the bottom, tiny leaves of eucalyptus wrapped in the string. I remember when a friend and I went out to acres of sage, and picked our own, and I learned to wrap. There’s a trick to doing it right. So long ago.

It’s been a different sort of first week in Santa Fe than I’ve ever had. I’m in the country, so not out and about much. I left as the breath of hurricane Matthew hit Florida. Arrived to a text from my sister in Houston – my brother & sister-in-law in the direct path, need a place. They’re on the way to your house, she said. But Art hadn’t been notified. I hooked him up, left cleaning instructions for things I knew he’d miss, and wondered at them traveling three hours thru torrential rains. My brother seriously ill. You haven’t left Florida, a friend said. It wasn’t that. I’ve been thru tropical storms, and floods. And our home is small, and my brother. . .well, not a typical leave-taking for me.

36 hrs. later I woke under the weather. The head-body thing where you feel tired and yukky, but you’re not completely down. So friggin’ rare for me, it was hard to accept. But I moved thru fast, with help from my friend who brought me my elixir – ProPak immune & electrolyte builder. Thought myself ready to do Santa Fe.

Of the half dozen studio tours each fall, there are two I never miss – Abiquiu and Dixon. It was past 11am on the last day of tour when I left for Abiquiu an hour away. I was detained another 20 min. when the tire pressure light lit. As I finally sailed without stops, I realized I didn’t really want to visit studios. I’m in the trees where I’m at. I wanted the New Mexico countryside. My fav Chama River valley with golden yellow cottonwoods blazing all across it. The mythical work of one artist only. So, I stopped at the lavender farm, enjoyed lavender infused ceylon tea and chocolate cake with lavender gelato on the little tea house portal. Moved on to the Abiquiu Inn to get cards by a fav artist. They had wonderful strawberry-lemon infused water. I could’ve drunk a gallon. Stopped at Bode’s old time mercantile to see my friend who owns it. Made plans for a day together in November. Moved on to the artist. And the vineyard, just because it’s so beautiful there and I could buy homemade biscochitos, the light melt-in-your-mouth anise laced butter cookies I love. I did it differently, and was back in Santa Fe by 4:45, feeling just right.

I’m working this trip. Have the luxury of a large table in front of a window where I can spread and stack files and pages. One afternoon, the little voice said, take your notebook outside. That thought was so far from my mind, I said aloud, really. But I obeyed, and discovered the huge heavy round table on the portal a fabulous place to work. And tho the pines obstruct the view and the portal shortens the sky, it was perfect.

I have a confession, tho. I’m distracted by no-thought, and seems my intentions are continually sidetracked. My book, most specifically, sidetracked again and again by the development of my new super-duper https dedicated better everything experience website. Something kinda exciting. But choosing a web designer is like choosing a dentist. So much is about feel. And tho I mentioned this angst before, now it’s around the new look. My face to the world changing. It takes such a HUGE amount of energy, I get confused what the right next thing to do is. Worry I won’t finish the book by the deadline. And that’s not okay.

But the Universe sent me a message for this, if I can just figure how it fits in my puzzle.

Part One arrived in an email from my husband, saying how courageous he sees me. He lists why, getting some of my history wrong. But I’m not a detailed reminiscer, and I don’t think it matters. It’s about my courage. That night, Part Two. I read this by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“Fear is boring. . . my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note — only one word, actually — and that word was “STOP!. . .”

If courage is moving forward despite fear, I have it in a ton of ways. Even so, I’ve held fear’s Stop sign up again and again to something bigger than myself. To this that I’m doing now. This Full Circle I wrote about last week. Moving back to my Soul Home. Writing a book that shares what I know with the world. Stepping forward in service lit in spotlights. The stuff I’ve received direct, in my face, messages about over the years and replied ‘No, I’ll stay small.’ I believe this love note from the Universe is about putting that Stop sign down. Now.

I met a fabulous, creative friend for lunch who I haven’t seen in years. The thing I love most about him is how often he says ‘I love my life.’ To say those words has been one of my highest aspirations. After he sped off to the airport, the air and breeze was so luscious, the sky so clear and blue, I felt it, close. I wonder if saying ‘I’m so happy’ counts. ‘Cause I’ve had that thought more than once this week.

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

Tell me. . .how are you doing things differently these days?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I still feel wiggly.

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I’m writing a book for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
Get Past Stuck. Live and Love Your Best Creative Life.