No Small Happy Life

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Heloise Jones

“It’s not calculated at all. It never has been. One of the things I had to learn as a writer
was to trust the act of writing.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

Movies_Life_of_Pi_Boat_Clouds_Reflection_67582_detail_thumb

I’m grappling with the shape of my life. It’s no ordinary discontent. No gasp of desperation. I live a life enriched by friendships, continual learning and wonder and mystery. I’m fortunate. Grateful for each day, even when it stinks. Even when things get scary uncomfortable. I appreciate the value and satisfaction in an ordinary life as highlighted in the NYTimes The Small, Happy Life. I read about the obituary of a woman who’ll be ‘known and remembered for her pound cakes and peanut butter fudge,’ thought it a mighty fine legacy to be remembered for something you created that gave others pleasure. And yet, I hold something hot in my hands I must give away to a large, very large, circle. Something more than settling into the novelist I am. Something big.

I’ve been here before. As a 39 year-old student at a large respected university with a mere twenty-year history of women students, I learned the word patriarchy, had my eyes opened to the million ways it plays in the world. With a long ago history of abuse by a significant other, I recognized myself in the milieu. I became an activist for women’s issues. Set my sights, forged ahead with steady intent to secure a Women’s Center on campus by the time I graduated two years later. I ignored every warning it was an impossible dream. Believed every minute I would succeed. On the eve of my graduation, the Provost told me the prime space he allocated for the Center was a result of his meeting with me. Oh, it was all of us, I told him. I wouldn’t own even the acknowledgement of my part in the creation of my vision. I stepped back into the shadows. But here I am, again with no calm space inside me. Me and my toolbox crossing a crazy wide ocean of intention, far from discernible solid ground. Each day seeming to progress how E.L. Doctorow and I write novels, “…like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Two weeks ago I got sick. Bumped from the dogged plan I wasn’t happy in, decided to regroup. Listening to webcasts of accomplished lives by business coaches this past week I’ve felt my stuckness shake loose bit by bit. Then a friend in New Zealand gave a shout-out. You need help, he said. We spent three hours on Skype. Oh gosh, yes, some of it personal. Relationships are that way. The upshot is for the first time since my decision to step out, I feel jazzed, in motion. Feel I’m not alone. I sense a confluence of letting go yeah-but stories and the implicit messages from those living and dead that I’m too much, too loud, too weird. The Women’s Center they said was impossible was a thousand steps, unknown territory, a learning curve. It was focus and persistence and knowing it wasn’t about me. It was One Big Vision. Like now. I can trust the act of doing like I trust the act of writing. Isn’t that how anything’s done?

”In my dream, the angel shrugged & said, if we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination & then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.”
~ Brian Andreas

Another zen journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: I still get those ‘too much’ messages on occasion, and I don’t care.
A favorite: My mother-in-law’s pound cake.

Photo from the film Life of Pi

Step Out of the Plan

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Heloise Jones

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
~ John Lennon

Last week was difficult. I got a cold. Small potatoes, but it’s been five years since a cold rendered my brain incapable of complex math or conceptual thinking. All interruptions to work either allergies or my own doings – surgeries, travel, procrastination, distractions. And last week only one mantra drove me forward: I have a plan, no time to waste. I was preoccupied with my learning curve in work, the necessary but not.fun.for.me stuff I wanted complete. Sick, I turned into a baby of pouts and darns. By the time I went to bed Saturday night I’d completely pummeled myself for NOT DONEs, totally convinced I was a failure.

Upstairs in bed, my husband Art still downstairs watching TV, I pulled out a pad, jotted a list of clear action steps. I numbered priorities without thinking. At workshops, the word dream spontaneously replaced the shorthand ID. Notes on the dream spontaneously sprung from the line. Some of the items big, really Big (who do I think I am!). As I continued the list, I felt my chest constrict when I wrote ID again. I crossed it out, wrote Dream. Air rushed through me as if a pillow just lifted from my face.

When I coach writers I emphasize getting out of their own way. I tell them it’s necessary to step out of the plan, start without intention or expectation for judgement to subside, for their voice to emerge. That writing is, as poet Laura Hope-Gill says, “like swimming in a rough sea, inviting us to move with the story’s inherent and natural rhythm.” That writing in our own voice is as necessary as honing our craft. And I know the same applies to living an authentic life, fully experiencing the moments in each day. I rarely forget this when I sit down to write, or listen for my next blog. But I didn’t remember when I got sick. Not even after receiving answers to questions and assurance all’s well, no matter my angst.

On my first drive out after feeling yukky, I halted a smidge over the line at a stop sign, a clear Oops. The young woman in the other car with the right-of-way laid on her horn. I understood. But she didn’t move. After long moments us looking at each other, I waved her on. As she passed, she gave me the finger. Something I didn’t understand. I admit I don’t get how casually and often young women seem to do that. Admit I tussled inside not to think about it. Not to go in a number of directions in judgement. That it still nagged when I entered the familiar near-empty market.

  At checkout I chose a line with a young gal I didn’t know for how she leaned against her register, a broad easy smile on her face. When I said I’d bag my own groceries, her young companion stepped aside. “She’s got it,” he said. “She’s in control.” There is no control, I quipped. The checker looked at me a few moments, “I always wanted someone who’s lived longer than me to tell me more about life. What they’ve learned.” As I bagged I told her to plan, but know that the magic lies between the control, and there’s really no control. As I left I leaned in, told her to go for the magic. At home I realized her gift of respect and appreciation balanced my encounter at the stop sign. It wasn’t until two days later as I stood by the water at sunrise, heard a small voice say “oh, baby girl. looky there,” did I see the gift I gave myself at the market. The reminder I’d stepped out of the plan when I got sick, no control. Time to get out of my own way, open to magic. Reminder angels, don’t you think?

Another journey in mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life.

A secret: It’s surprising how often getting out of one’s way shows up in conversations I have. I see possibilities zip across minds on the faces.
A favorite: Wandering through a natural foods market.

Space, Time, Marriage – A Writer’s Life

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Heloise Jones

“Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time
to breath, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely…”
~ Terry Tempest Williams

ll-ori-and-orion-nebula

Yesterday was the new moon and my 29th wedding anniversary.

Time’s been simmering in the back of my mind. Another play in a familiar game with the Universe. The rules: I hold requisite trust and patience, open to a question I didn’t know I had, pay attention for both question and answer. My reward, the fun and surprise of synchronicity, discovery in chance meetings, written passages, or a TV show. This round’s probably sparked by a mash-up of a recent heavily weighted birthday with new goals that’ll earn me a Wonder Woman suit when achieved. Or. . .perhaps by my thirst for space.

For seventeen years my husband Art and I lived apart. He in big cities for jobs during the week, me in smaller arts oriented enclaves where he joined me on weekends. At first he called 6:30am every day. Then, not. In solitude I learned my rhythms, my preferences, my vast imagination. Enjoyed autonomy in decisions on top of my duties of household finances and maintenance. I worked outside home, worked at home, never felt lonely or bored. After I wrote my first novel, I created a writer’s life. It took seven months to clear my commitments to others. To carry uninterrupted the worlds of my imagination as I fixed food, washed clothes, took walks, did errands, wrote. As I wandered, gazed out windows, listened when stuck. Seven weeks into my new writer’s life a car struck Art as he walked on a sidewalk. Care-taking, advocacy, dealing with insurance companies, lawyers, doctors swallowed me. When he recovered, I traveled, eventually stepped toward what I’d resisted. I left friends and community, relinquished my solitude, moved in full-time with my husband. Soon after, his job ended, throwing us 24/7 together for months on end.

Psychic space to write, viscerally tangible as boulders to me, turned into fluttering birds impossible to catch. I floundered. On my yearly sojourn to Santa Fe, NM, I met Amando Adrian-Lopez, an artist I related to for his work seemingly born of dreams and stories – fantastical mixed media sculptures of angels, allegorical spirits and vignettes, paintings of women with flowers, birds, and spirits clearly inspired by his Mexican Indian heritage. He told me about the novel he’s writing and illustrating. We talked a long time about the process of creating such work. How he needs solitude. How the space he inhabits while alone, the psychic space, allows him to see the visions, hear the voices of the materials he works with. How he’s conflicted because he wants his relationship and it’s so hard to be with his work and give to his mate at the same time. It could’ve been me speaking, especially when he said, “If I’m working, someone walks through the room, says nothing, I still feel him. It interrupts.”

I beat myself up for not finding new ways to my work. I thought about JK Rowling in a tiny apartment with a baby, writing on bar napkins. It didn’t matter I later learned the napkin legend wasn’t true. Because the fact she didn’t clean house, “lived in squalor” (her words) as she wrote was evidence I wasn’t good enough, couldn’t sacrifice enough, was flawed for feeling clutter and crumbs an invasion when my insides scream for quiet space time. Then I learned Dylan Thomas, Roald Dahl, Michael Pollan, Virginia Wolf, George Barnard Shaw all had writing sheds. Samuel Clemens and Neil Gaiman built writing gazebos. Maya Angelou retreated to a favorite hotel room. JK, with her many rooms in mansions, finished Harry’s last book in a hotel suite. And best, a writer friend spends one day and one night a week in a studio apartment without her husband. It’s not just me.

Sometimes a journey leads back to what you know. Two weeks ago Art started a new job. His hours are long for now. I live with those twins Space and Time, again. And it’s still true Art’s added to my life, I’ve added to his, and my best writing occurs, as Henry Miller says, “in the quiet, silent moments.” Open space.

What happens in open space for you?

Another journey in mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life.

A secret: I always wanted a best friend across the street. Now I want that friend to be a generous good writer.
A favorite: Lift off in a helicopter.

Photo: LL Ori and Orion Nebula (Quelle: Nasa / ESA / Hubble Hertage Team)

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When Losing a Home’s Like Losing a Lover

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Heloise Jones

“Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same.
Lean down your ear upon the earth and listen.”
~ Thomas Wolfe

Wisteria – Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC

lilac Biltmore

Are they opening, or closing?

My breath caught at the first glimpse of the Appalachians rolling below me. So beautiful. I forgot how pictures don’t do justice. I landed tucked away for a few days in a quiet Asheville neighborhood. My view trees, a tiny bit of sky. I felt grateful it’s still early for the full bush of leaves. I immediately scanned the small woods for flaming azaleas. The next day on a drive to Grove Park Inn Lost to Omni (how some of us think it), I scanned the roadside where I knew wild, thick, brilliant flames of forsythia show. Another day I expected azaleas in full bloom at Biltmore Estate. Tall walls of pink laurel blossoms on the drive to the mansion. But I’m late for the forsythia. Thick green foliage stand instead. The azaleas and laurels bloomed early. Brown nubs of spent flowers all that remain.

I had breakfast at a place I regularly frequented when I lived here. Simple meals of fresh ingredients well prepared. Fine local art on the walls, good music. Quiet, intimate with 30 seats and a short bar for diners. It sold after I moved so I don’t know the owner or staff anymore. Most strange, though, I saw Me of a few years ago in a fellow diner. A woman known by name, her special requests, her stories. Her familiarity clear by the way she praised the food, the place, her tone like an insider. I observed from the outside in, felt like a visitor for the first time in the three years since I left.

Perhaps that sparked my notice how the air feels abuzz with a difference that doesn’t invoke in me the wonder of discovery or thrill of new experience. How hearing seven new hotels approved for city center didn’t stir an outrage of ownership for my old town. I have the comforts of familiarity – knowing to check weather reports every morning, knowing the back roads, best meals, fav galleries. Share the camaraderie of longtime friends through the known and evolution of the known. But this difference feels like a love and I have changed in different ways. Like a lover lost who’s still my good friend. The comfort of not being a visitor gone.

A literary agent once asked after reading my novel if I was naturalist. Such a strong sense of the place, he said. I didn’t tell him as I told you here I don’t hike or get in the dirt. I said I observe. His remark sent me searching the book for descriptive passages, worrying I had too many, might bore my readers. I found words, random sentences, a couple short paragraphs focused on nature, all key to context and character. Writing this, I remember what Natalie Goldberg calls painting a place we can’t see into a work. If she’s painting a house and the Mississippi River is a mile behind her, she must somehow capture that river in her painting of the house. Same as I do when I write. Capture the fullness of a place without all the words. It’s what we do when we go home. Capture the fullness without all the markers, flowers, and time.

Thomas Wolfe wrote we can never go home again, meaning all things change. But I believe we can. That a place can continue to inform who we are in the world, and our relationship with it remains despite the changes. Santa Fe, NM after twenty years and Big Island, Hawaii after ten years are like that for me. I feel local when there. People treat me as local. I’m feeling my way through this sense of losing my home in Asheville, and I don’t know what to think of it. These mountains are in my blood. I’m right where I need to be, feeling good here today. Guess I’ll do what Thomas Wolfe suggests, lean down and listen. Perhaps that’s all any of us can do when the ground shifts. Have you noticed how once it starts, it ripples out?

Another journey in mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life.

A secret: I never thought the Blue Ridge Parkway drive special after the leaves filled in. We’d go to Town Mountain Rd. above the city, view the valley and ridges from there.

A favorite: Rising vapor trails of fireflies across a yard or field.

Love, a Writing Exercise

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Some days your novels will be narrowed down to grocery lists
 and the screenplay burbling inside will pinch into a note
 you leave the kids to walk the dog or change their sheets. 
There are so many blank pages you could fill, poems you jot
 on the margins of your day, what you tell yourself you’ll transpose
 later, after dinner’s on the table, after the phone stops ringing,
 after you get more gas in the car. It’s alright. Maybe, now, your prose 
is meeting some other page, absent of a pen or the room to use it in. 
What will be written here is more than words will ever do. 
This vast and vibrant book that’s always writing you.
~ Maya Rachel Stein (what will be written there)

Writing Exercise: Each day for one week, fall in love at least three times.
Write in detail about each.

Tulipbones.1

I’m in love with Tulip Bones

I finally sent the last of the file boxes stacked in corners to the storage unit. Important papers like income tax documents and years of spiral notebooks in which I wrote the stuff of my craft. I kept aside one heavily tabbed and labeled book of un-transcribed scenes to peruse later, tore out beginnings of poems, notes, and writing exercises. A page caught me, would not be filed. At the top in my handwriting, “We can fall in love with a star or species of wildflower, or a human being who is different from ourselves, or music.” Yes, I thought, but fall in love, three times a day?

I don’t know why I couldn’t let it go because surely this is something you feel through, not think through. In love is not an act of will, but a recognition, tap on the heart, an awareness that burrows in, says ‘hold me.’ Something deep in the cells for more than the moment. The very instant it becomes a part of oneself in love viscerally remembered. I glanced at that sheet of paper for two days before I found a hint to the question I couldn’t articulate. Buried in a beautiful short film about art-journals with artist and sage Paulus Berensohn. “Art is being present to something. Love is to pay attention.”

Tulip bones grabbed me on a day I was too blue to do more than notice the flowers’ delicate dance, how the petals looked as if they spoke sign language, their colors of age richer, more peaceful. Rereading a favorite book these past weeks, I noticed the storytelling as the kind you’d hear around a campfire, or at a table one afternoon over coffee or tea or beer. The form unconventional in novels, and masterfully done. This morning when I stepped out I noted the sultry air. Was surprised by the wind blowing eight blocks away at the bay. Wind that rendered birds stationary flapping aloft, where herons spread legs to stand rooted in water whipped sideways. Where everything color clings to is swept aside, nothing left but the pure pale yellow of the sun’s robes on the sky. My own body was pushed so photos blurred.

Back home, such a short distance, I looked up to pink clouds on a field of the sweetest baby blue. I understood, felt it. To pay attention is indeed Love. The kind in love follows. Indeed writing me. Have you felt it?

What is the whole of our existence but the sound of an appalling love! ~ Louise Erdrich
(from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse)

H.Ringling.Feb2015

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Another small journey Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life.

A secret: Walking slowly is hard for me.
A favorite: The sound of palm trees in the wind like mountain streams or ocean surf.

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