Getting My Steady

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Writing is not life, but I think sometimes it can be a way back to life.
~ Stephen King

desk-jax2
The little bird sign says Believe.

So, what do you do when you feel cramped inside with thoughts of big work in your life. Like downsizing for the fourth time in 5 years for a move across country, and writing a book that the publisher expects in 6 weeks. And you can’t seem to sit still and write…that…book. Chunk away at the mounds of paper choking you down, of course. The ones that feel like they own you, and you don’t want to lug them one more time.

Articles, reference notes, and 3 years of bank statements went out. And the last of my filled stiff-backed spiral notebooks where I wrote all my rough drafts of the scenes in two novels. Wrote poems, starts of stories. Journaled my mind and heart. Took notes at seminars, workshops, and conferences.

I called my husband Art to help rip the metal spirals from my pages. Then, said a prayer for gentle release of all that energy held in my words as I lifted handful after handful into the big, blue recycle bin. The archives from hundreds of hours let go. When it was done, the pages I culled from the lot easily fit in a manila folder.

I say ‘writing’ here, but I bet you see it could be about anything that’s fed and sustained us. How sometimes you have to let something go not because you don’t still love the thing, but because there’s been a shift in your focus. Or a shift in your life. Or maybe it’s just time to see who you are in relation to it today. I know this doesn’t just happen for writers and artists. And the way I’d been feeling all week, it was time to make space. Start anew in getting back to myself.

Labor day seemed to be the turning point. I’d hit the ground running on return from Canada. But that holiday morning, I rose at 7:30. Late. Had a long nap in the afternoon. Went to bed early. With a shut-down brain and both legs bruised (calf in one, knee in the other), I felt no guilt succumbing. Next morning, my husband commented how I’ve gone thru a string of emotional intensity for months. What I noticed was no nightmares for the first time in a week, and my calendar was clean. I announced to my facebook world I was ready to write!

But I didn’t. Jeepers, how many times do we do that, eh? And when someone let me know I spelled a word wrong in an important biz email, which meant I used the wrong word. And I discovered another typo in said email just before she sent another brief missive with more critique. . .well, I sunk low. I appreciated the feedback. But I went to the most irrational, defeatist, dumb place ever: All is Lost.

Two days later, I still wasn’t back on track. My husband woke me way past dawn to ask if I was awake. If I’m sleeping, I’m under the weather, I told him, knowing it true. As the morning progressed, an emotional malaise settled on top of my not-quite-right self. I’ll say here I know how fortunate I am. Can reframe, see both-and in people and the world. Quickly ID blessings and silver linings in dark clouds. And I was stuck.

Part of getting past stuck is acknowledging when things don’t feel good inside. Saying Hello to fear, disappointment, (fill in the blank) when they show up, but I wanted to cry, just for a minute. I wanted to feel like that soft, hazy, fat crescent moon I saw the night before. I wanted what I needed to get out of the funk.

The woman at the haunted B&B on the Bay of Fundy who hears people’s thoughts crossed my mind. I’d asked her what she heard in mine. ‘Love, & a desire for something steady in your life,’ she said.

Saturday was my husband’s birthday. He had a tooth pulled the day before (no dinner out). Felt tired from the whole darned ordeal (keep it simple). So, we went to the Bosnian-Serb bakery & market he discovered and wanted to show me. Bought sardines packed on the Mediterranean, wild blackberry preserves from Croatia, and a huge greasy pocket of chewy bread with a thin filling of feta & spinach. We went to 5 Guys, a place I don’t frequent but he likes, ate a bucket of fresh-cut french fries. Potatoes something he could comfortably eat & one of my guilty pleasures. As we strolled to the art museum, he looked at me and beamed, We’re going places we don’t have to go. It’s been such a long time since that was true for either of us, we both smiled big and stepped a tad lighter. This, I thought, is what I want more of. What I need for steady.

I’m redoing my website. Moving my novel to a single page. ‘Cause tho I’m a novelist and poet at heart, my biggest work as an author and mentor is helping folks live and love their best creative life. It’s who I am. And it needs to be center stage to the world. The image I’m putting on the header is one of my desk in Jacksonville (see it up there?). I think it says Writer Lives Here all over it. I believe this move is part of getting my steady, too.

Because writing answers Yes to my abiding question, and sustains me. I read like a writer and it stimulates me. I’ve studied craft, process, and the industry with passion, and I still never tire of talking with writers about writing. I don’t know why I write essays best on the computer, rather than in notebooks. I know the studies and brain science say pen to paper grows neural pathways, fosters creativity. But the purge of paper sparked the realization I must write fiction, again. Because listening to the story and characters as I write with pen on paper expands my mind and soul. Even in short writes, beginnings that will never see a middle and end. And I miss it. I need it.

I knew that Seer on the Bay of Fundy read a yearning for Home in my mind. I just didn’t realize all of this was part of it. A year ago, I wrote ‘sometimes a journey leads back to what you know.’ And here I am, cycling thru once more. ‘Cause Life doesn’t run on a line. It runs in a spiral.

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recycle

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Another small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Tell me. . .what gives you your Steady in life.
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I say writing, but it’s always been art and creating for me.

I’m writing a book, The Writer’s Block Myth – A Guide to Lasting Creative Freedom.
The creative life for people living in the real world.

Waiting for the Moon

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I’d like to tell you that everything I know about love is in the right hand drawer of that table from India book-ending my living room. . .
I’d like to tell you my heart will outlast every other organ in my body.
~ Maya Stein (from Still and Always)
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Tulips in Snow *

Yesterday evening, so exhausted, I simply wanted to close my computer, lie down. I got up, looked out the window. My only thought, I’m waiting for the moon. It’s been a long day, and I still have much to do. Waiting for the moon seems appropriate.

I’m in a hip season. You know what I mean. The season between the crowds. The one when winter’s not quite over and spring’s not quite here. The time sprinkled with moments feeling good, inviting to the bones like an Indian Summer day, but not necessarily fully defined. A time perhaps where you can tend to things undone without distractions, but you’ve got a hump to get over. In between time. I typically travel in the hip season. Feel sparked with anticipation. And in a weird way, that’s what’s happening now. I’m traveling fast toward the next chapter of my life – work, home, community – and not quite there, yet.

I love solitude, but my life’s felt isolated since moving to Florida 4-1/2 yrs. ago. Being friendly and talkative, I have wonderful encounters with shopkeeps and random strangers. Have a tiny group I gather with for dawn at the bay on occasion. But there’s no one for lunch or afternoon fun. That click bumping acquaintance to friend not happened, organically or otherwise. + my husband and I are so so so different, it’s often difficult despite love and caring. Community’s key for me, so it feels hard. But this week I crossed some energetic line to where I see what’s ahead more than what’s been. Can appreciate how my intuition’s refined. That I learned to share my vulnerabilities, take off my clothes for you. Be grateful the difficulties pushed me to think differently about myself, and my place in the world. Sorta like getting a charge from the Universe. I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt that, but it’s a learning curve for me.

Yesterday I was in the recording studio. My goal, audios of these blogs, and something I wrote to help creatives get past stuck. I’d googled, found page after page of fancy websites of fancy spaces with rates double-triple my budget. I talked to a friend who created her own audios. The time and patience required too counter-productive to my larger goals. Asked another for a referral from her son who studies production. All I need is a room, professional equipment, someone who knows what they’re doing, I said. The next morning, head in my hands (I knew I was supposed to do this) I googled once more. Top of Page One: Rock Garden Recording. Simple website. Rates exactly what I can pay. I looked for reviews. Found a newspaper blurb, “St. Pete’s best kept secret…in business over ten years.” He answered when I called (a rarity, I learned later). Practice, we’ll work thru it, I can help with music, schedule two hours for now, he advised. I felt lucky.

This was one of those things we think will be easy, until we do it. Jeepers, I’ve read on stage in front of hundreds of people, presented to small and large groups. I’m an expert reader of stories to young kids. And it was not easy. Pacing, consistency, breath in the middle of sentences. My voice naturally between hypnotherapist and actor, the right modulation. Not too much or I sound cartoony, too little or I sound flat. Striving for intimacy, on the edge of a conversation tho we know I’m reading. The right inflection for intent. Such as I don’t mean it as a sigh, I mean it’s difficult but good. And no flat fades at the end. The re-records right tone to be woven in. My two hours wiped me out. He says I’m a natural. I have 61 blogs to go. He’s my guy.

Because he‘s my perfect coach. He took care of me with the right kind of head-heart nurturing, and honesty when I said, ‘Hey, I’m older, what does the young dude think.’ Answered he got into it because he couldn’t find someone with their heart in their work when he wanted to record his own music. + (I LOVE this) he volunteers odd jobs, even scrubs toilets, just to sit in, listen as the Florida symphony practices in the best auditoriums. And he’s the guy who records them. He’s like-hearted.

I posted my waiting for the moon on facebook. Someone responded, ‘It’s not like you’re asking for the moon.’ I hadn’t meant it that way. But now, I think perhaps I am. Because I sure fired the rockets. I say, let’s all shoot for the moon. Imagine that.

Have you ever gone for something that felt really big?
Was it a good ride?

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

A secret: I’m big on editing. Expect 4 today.
A favorite: Yellow tulips. Just like the ones in the picture.

Photo: Tamara Linse

How to Tune & Patina

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Heloise Jones

They know when they’re been parked
for the last time, despite the promises of a new
transmission or bumper or fuel pump
The tires somehow know too and slowly
begin to sink into the land
and the land rises to embrace them, and gather
the car back to her
trees and leaves know too, and try to help
they shower the car with branches and fallen leaves
and slowly it becomes their own
becoming much more organic than when it was on the hiway
humans are now shut out of the picture
and the plants and animals
now have the title to the car.
~ Rachel Ballentine (Old Cars)
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cloudy-skies-7 *

I admit I feel chosen by the great blue heron that lights down in front of our sliding glass doors, hunts little fish from the strip pond. That as I watched it sink low into the water the other day, its neck curved, folded down like when it flies so it looked like a strange giant duck floating there… and watched it dip its head, fluff & flutter it’s feathers, take a bird-bath (!) before wading to a small concrete slab where it sat in the sun with it’s wings splayed and bent, tips touching in prayer like some bird buddha…I knew I was.

I even felt my discovery of 5 tiny ducklings swimming fast & furious in a bunch along the seawall. In and out, picking bugs from the bricks above the shells stuck at waters edge. Mama behind them, watching, as a moment I was chosen to witness.

Author Patti Digh in a piece about Prince says he’s like a piano she has that can’t be tuned to a prescribed note, only to itself. Making beautiful music all the same. I believe that’s what’s happening to me. I’m relearning how to tune to myself. That it’s my innate nature reclaiming me like nature reclaims old cars in New Mexico. Rising to entwine and embrace me. Pull me closer so I hear my intuition clearly, follow it. Experience the world in remembered ways. That I’m revealing layers of rust, gorgeous color and texture of myself like what happens to old cars in the desert. Mold impotent on me like it is in dry air. And that like old cars in the desert I’ll one day patina, be seemingly as lovely as old buildings in Italy and Morocco, my own way.

I’ve been talking to writers as research for a book I’m writing that’ll support us moving thru stuck-ness so we can work, live, and create at our best. I say to them, tell me your dreams, the big ones. Often they need encouragement. But when they finally speak, I hear their shoulders drop, their breath exhale. Their voices fill out, grow round. Then they tell me how the pressures of their life push their dreams to the sidelines to wait. Reminds me I’ve put my own dreams aside. Time spent writing stories about characters you can’t see until you read my words. Moving back to Santa Fe where life organically embraces me, and I meet hitchhiking angels all the time. I asked one writer how his frustration felt in his body, and he described hearing a voice between his heart and his collar bone that he ignored for years. And one morning he woke knowing that day he’d ignore it no more. And the yellow brick road appeared to a mentor, community, publication, and a fulltime writer’s life with purpose for greater change in the world. I hear that voice, too. Have ignored it, too.

Patti Smith wrote in her book M Train about meeting one of her heroes, chess great Bobby Fischer. How he was bizarre, paranoid, almost childlike. She concluded that “…without a doubt we sometimes eclipse our own dreams with reality.” It reminded me I eclipse moments of wonder and magic all the time. Like the morning I stepped out my door, looked up to a sky like the painting of clouds by Georgia O’Keeffe. The clouds over my head glowing with lights inside them (not white) in an ethereal moonlit (not blue) sky. How I ignored that dreamscape, jumped in my car for the reality I knew at the bay. Where the wind blew so hard, not a magical cloud remained.

But then, there’s the time a tall, big-framed older man stepped up, parked at the monitor displaying my purchases as I bagged my groceries. The one slap next to the credit card machine. I noted the space behind him, and when ready to pay, said in a nice voice, I’m not done checking out, sir. And he didn’t move. So I moved up, squeezed my elbow to my side, dug in my purse. ‘I’m not looking at what you’re buying,’ he gruffed as I slid my card. It’s not about that, but about space, I said. At which he took a step sideways, turned away. ‘They’re everywhere.’ The checker leaned in to hear him better. He’s talking about me, I told her. A big smile on my face because strange as it seems, he didn’t bother me a bit. Not even when he moved further back, turned and looked straight in my face, said in a not nice voice, ‘Yes, I am. You’re a lot of trouble.’

I tell you the truth. I stood smiling as the checker struggled with the tape machine, as she handed me the receipt. Smiled as I replied to the man with utter sincerity, Why, thank you, I appreciate that. I even stood smiling when it was all done, before going outside, wondering if I was nuts. Hoping *we* were indeed everywhere. A friend later said I put into the world what I wanted back. And that’s not crazy, at all.

Perhaps it’s simply all part of my innate nature saying look here, and here, and here, spend time with Joy. And my thanks and appreciation in the market, so sincere, making no sense, were for a chance to experience joy in a moment that looked rough.

What do you think?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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A secret: The past four years have been really hard. I guess I needed it.
A favorite: Rachel Ballentine’s poetry. I shared a wonderful day with her in NM.

Image: painting by Georgia O’Keeffe

Tell Me About the Sky, What Matters

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“A man told me there was nothing he would rather keep noticing — and he pointed to the spaces between palm fronds, chinks of turquoise and a few clouds. Just now, into this recollection, wanders an egg on a green dish.”
~ Karen Brennan (from Five Stories)
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Bird Island.1 *

I love Facebook. I get so much from it. Good stuff far beyond the constant yammer of politics and war flying every day from the radio. Shores me up, helps me remember the Chesapeake Bay was once dead and now thrives. Exciting stuff like this fabulous archive of 2500 pigments collected in the first decades of this century by billionaire Forbes, sparked by a damaged old-world painting he wanted restored. COLOR gathered from around the world. That came from things like beetles off a certain cactus, resin from mummies, dried urine from cow’s fed only mango leaves. I love that bright red dragon’s blood really exists. Is found in rattan leaves. Medicine to my artist’s soul that elicits yearning for the list of names and origins.

I love that I’ve stayed in the homes of peeps in New Zealand who I first met on fb. That an entire church in far-off Chicago prayed for us when my husband was run down by a car, because a woman saw it in a comment. (I never made a post) Asked if she could add us to their prayer list. I love I connect with those holding opposite political views, or come from diff cultures, meet in the spaces we share as humans – heart, family, fun, pain, desires, passions, works.

From fb I learn about other writers and works, add to my knowledge of craft and industry. I love I have a forum to encourage & promote brilliant artists and writers, too. Can see my encouragement blossom into works in the world. That fb gave me conversations for a book I’m writing to help carry creatives through the snarlies and frustrations of life, navigate through stuckness so we stay on our feet, live, work and create at our highest level.

Conversations personal and heartfelt about the difficulty creating & expressing stories, thoughts, words in a world that doesn’t understand what it means to have that sort of thing inside you. How you’re challenged with why’s and labels. You’re not a writer, you’re…’. How this solitary pursuit can look selfish when other people want/need your time. That you’re not real because you haven’t hit that magic validation button, publication. Even knowing as we do that stories and words nourish the world. That writers are executed in some places for the power they wield.

So, I asked on fb, ‘What would you like to hear me talk about in my blog?’ Two replied (good in a writer’s world with a staggering level of rejection). One, whatever works for me. The other, I like it when you talk about what matters to you. I like it when you describe the colors of the sky, which was perfect.

Because when I first joined fb (after 2 yrs.! prompting by a writing partner) I decided how I’d show up authentically me, intentional. I cared about so much, I chose how I’d stand, not add to the noise. In time, it evolved into a writing practice creating poetic pictures of what I see and feel, saying my Truth the best I can. Editing as I would any poetic stanza. It got down to this:

I care we see our common humanity. The trolls and nasties are out there, and so are beauty and compassion. I love what Doris Lessing says about existence and forgetting. Deep down love it –  ”No one knows what has existed and has vanished beyond recovery, evidence for the number of times Man has understood and has forgotten again that his mind and flesh and life and movements are made of star stuff, sun stuff, planet stuff; …” – because I see life-lines as spirals. We spiral up (or down, whichever ‘toward wisdom’ means to you). Revisit our stuff. Get a chance to see things differently. Do *it* differently. And it spirals out. Each of us a microcosm of culture and humanity.

I care we see ourselves empowered. That we’re inspired to show up, put our drop in the bucket to create a kinder, gentler world for all of us. Like my friend Sweetie Berry says, “….To see small droplets of water <rain> repeatedly fall to make differences in all it touches…no single drop doing the work but incrementally changing the landscape and the garden. Small things matter…” Because I know our drops matter. That it’s the We together that causes incremental change in landscapes, just like the rain.

I care about the realities of the human world. Because I am not neutral. They push me to speak up unequivocally strong sometimes. As with the recent NC bill, because I love my friends. Wept with joy when equal marriage became law of the land. Love is love, the way I see it. And I vehemently oppose everything in that bill, including the silencing of any voice who wishes to protest (yep, you/us, LGBT or not). And the only way I see to fight it is to support the peeps fighting it. Hate and discrimination are myopic, are not hurt by us stepping away.

The over-arching thing I care about is inspiring people to see more than the hard stuff, even when we’re over-run. Pull myself up in the process. Last week I heard a famous comedian on Fresh Air say as a black man he’s hyper-aware the min. he steps out the door that he’s a target of suspicion and possible violence. I heard how desperate refugees pressed against the new thick-thick wall between Turkey and Syria are shot at, forced away, back into devastation, starvation, and horrific violence. Heard, yet again, commentators analyze Donald Trump. And as I drove down the road the next morning, I thought ‘I am so safe and lucky. So many of us here, so safe and lucky.’

And I care, care, care we see our beautiful planet for the gift she is. How she shows us, gives us, COLOR we can hold in our hands. Every medicine for body and soul. That though it’s not May, yet, so I can’t declare Spring here to stay, daffodils & tulips crowd each other in Asheville and points up the east coast. Trees drip with flowers, the streets sport puddles of petals. The squirrels and ducks are making babies. In fact, so incredibly gorgeous, I can see nature simply doesn’t care. She’s sprung. While the snow falls in Colorado.

And finally, for you Mary Anne Radmacher. Last night as I closed the blinds, the moon, not yet full, reflected twice, like twins in my window so brightly I couldn’t shut her out. I left the blinds open. Went outside to gaze up. Feel the breeze. I heard her say it’s okay I only caught a glimpse of the giant hawk flying low with something large in its talons, a murder of crows chasing it. Because it caused me to ask a man if he saw it so close over his head. Learn he lost his vision, is just now seeing again after multiple surgeries. After complete blackness. (imagine!) And that he’s from the Brazilian Amazon, where they live close to nature and animals, so it was natural his son rescued a baby crow on the edge of death, loved it to adulthood. The hawk brought me to a fellow human I would never have spoken to, otherwise.

I have not been down to the bay in days. Have not sat in silence with nature, noticed things like the chinks of turquoise and a few clouds in the spaces between palm fronds. I must do that now.

Tell me. What matters to you?

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

A favorite: Palm trees. Absolutely fascinating when you really see their differences and how they flower.
A secret: I’ve glimpsed the sky through oak and maple leaves. Now looking thru the spaces amongst palms.

8 More. What Being an Author Taught Me About Life

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I am destined to move
at night on the secondary roads
of the American dream.
I took my first off ramp
after years of traveling
under someone else’s direction. . .

Stopping at magical places –
Singing the one Clearest note –

Cracking open an awareness
of things more beautiful
than was once thought possible –
A poetic life.

~ Author Unknown (Goose Creek Road)

Waterfall rainbow *

Blog #52 – One Year anniversary of Getting to Wise. A Writer’s Life. A wonder, as I’d put it off for eight years. Re-designed by professionals, twice, then sitting. Design #3 I launched.

I’m a novelist. I love listening to the story, following the characters. I’m a poet. I love the beats of syllables, commas, and periods. Love the lyrical in language. I’m an editor. I love fitting the pieces together, finding the path to essence and necessity.

And every week for the past year my constant has been to show up here, tell the truth, publish by 10am Tuesday, no matter what. Usually as clueless about what I’ll say as that first morning I sat down to start.

One year. Today I could write about the crossroads I’m at. How I’m visited by an image of a lone person walking across a broad western plain. Not a sad or beaten soul, but one moving steady, with purpose. A person who didn’t choose to buy a horse. And she needs one now. And she knows the kind of horse she needs to get her where she’s headed. An educated decision. Instead, I’m sharing 8 more things being an author underscores for me. The ones that continue to carry me, no matter what.

1) We’re WIP.

Our lives are glorious Works in Progress. Change is the only constant. We grow, evolve, learn, experience. Arrive at the end when we give up, shut down, or die. Like in any book or story.

2) Sometimes we chose an experiment.

My husband’s fond of saying this when I’m angsting. Because, as we know, when the experiment or adventure’s going well, it’s great to be in it. When it’s not, everything feels serious. I can delete bad experiments when I write. In life, the best outcomes for bad ones are learning, growing, changing the story.

3) Take a break, let it rest.

Once an author types <the end> on a WIP, we put it away for a while, hopefully at least three weeks, come back to edit with fresh eyes. The separation creates space inside that allows us to experience the work differently. Same with many things in life, including relationships or jobs.

4) There’ll be good reviews, and bad reviews.

None of them true. They may affect outcomes, but only those we can use to better the story we’re writing of who we are and how we show up matter. The rest are with the audience.

5) You don’t need to be an expert.

We don’t have to know everything, be an expert to know enough, move forward. I read 40 pages about guns and hunting rifles for two short descriptive references in my novel. I’m not an expert on guns, but I know those passages are correct. When I saw the same information recycle in the training materials for online business, found several examples of people successful doing what I wanted to do in a way I aligned with, I wasn’t an expert, but I knew enough to move forward intelligently.

6) Find a way past Stuck.

Amazon has 100 pages of books on writer’s block. I don’t know if this includes the games or journals mentioned in the drop down menu. We look for the way past stuck. It’s no different in life.

7) Pay attention to the Evidence Journal

The journal we’re often blind to. The one that notates our accomplishments. Mirrors our gifts, strengths, weaknesses, hot buttons. Shows us the disconnects between intent and expression, and connection. The one that tells us who’s paying attention, sees us. Shows us who others are. Everything we need to know is in the evidence journal. We just gotta look and listen, see and hear with an open heart and mind. And trust ourselves. That’s the tricky part.

8) Trust permeable boundaries.

Creativity is not about control. We want control of our instruments and tools, but openness to unknown possibilities. To what may show up if we soften our gaze, see more than we’re believe we’re looking for. Hear more than we decided to hear, or think we hear. We step into the realm of allowing ourselves to be surprised, and be led to something new. This Life is our greatest creation. We’re all authors writing stories.

Author (from Merrium-Webster dictionary)
1. one that originates or creates
2. the writer of a literary work (as a book)

What story are you writing? Tell me here, in the comments.

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

A secret: I believe a WIP is the best we can be.
A favorite: Writing this blog.

Photo: free share by Jared Erondu

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