Write On Wednesday: Who Needs It Most

“There are people out there - unique human beings with uncommon desires - each of whom deserves ten minutes of beautiful music. That’s why we’re musicians. You never know who is listening. It might be someone who really needs the music you play. Maybe the person who needs it most is you.” Robin Meloy Goldsby, Piano Girl

Last night I was in a grumpy mood. I was fed up with bureaucracy and modern day annoyances. I got a nail in my tire and had to buy a new one. I got a notice in the mail about a new fee arbitrarily imposed that I would have to pay.

It was an “I think I’ll move to Australia" kind of day.

Then last night I went to a concert. It was my friend’s high school end-of-the year Pops concert, a night when the choirs appear on stage in matching t-shirts and jeans, when (some incredibly talented) soloists took the mike in the style of The Voice and belted out songs of their own choosing. There was a live band. There were strobe lights. There was purple haze.

And all of a sudden I wasn’t grumpy anymore. Who could be, in the face of so much music  being so thoroughly enjoyed?

Goodness knows, we all need a little bit of beauty in our daily lives. Music is one of the ways I’ve always gotten my daily dose: sitting down at the piano and playing whatever takes my fancy for 10 minutes or 2 hours, depending on what the day will allow. Sometimes it’s the same way with writing. I might be in bad mood, I might think there isn’t an ounce of creativity in my head, I might be as certain sure as anything that I have absolutely nothing to say. 

And then I pick up a pen. 

The words come from somewhere, every single time. Words I need to write, words that need to be said. Sometimes I share them here, sometimes I let them stay buried in the pages of my journal, but I always feel differently when I’m done. 

Perhaps we should think of art as a public service. Even in small doses, it is a powerful thing - to hear beautiful music, read words that resonate in your soul, stare into the depths of a masterful painting. It can turn your day around, perhaps even turn your life around. Art heals by "activating the medicines of creative imagination.” Current studies confirm that "art has the power to evoke strong transformative responses in the observers’ psyche by changing their emotions, attitudes, and behaviors."

The medicines of creative imagination  - we can all use those, probably more than some of the expensive prescription drugs we turn to in times of anxiety and stress. You never know who most needs to hear your music, read your words, or envision your art. It might be your partner, your child, your friend. It might be a total stranger.

It might be you.

Write On Wednesday: Sensing Synchronicity

It’s an age old question: Is life nothing more than a series of random events? Or is there a delicate underlying order that connects us with events, people, and ideas? Are the things we often consider mere coincidence really earmarks of this subterranean framework, pointing us in the direction we need to go?

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that life was a reflection of a deeper order, something he called synchronicity. At one point or another, we’ve all experienced it, and probably more often than we realize. You find yourself thinking about changing careers, and you sit next to someone on an airplane who has done just that and offers you all sorts of advice. You’re feeling badly about an argument with your partner and you open a magazine to an article about ways to repair relationships. You’ve been cooped up in the house with whiny toddlers and are longing for an escape when a friend calls you unexpectedly and offers to babysit so you can go out.

Synchronicity.

I’m most often aware of synchronicity in hindsight, looking back on things that have happened in my life and realizing they were “meant to be.” Back in 1992, finding myself relieved of some family obligations that had been holding me down for years, I had been wishing for more opportunities to work in music. One afternoon I’m preparing to fry chicken in my electric skillet, so I spread some newspaper on the kitchen counter to absorb the spatters (a trick I learned from my grandmother who fried a lot of chicken when I was growing up). The section of the paper I “happened” to open was the classifieds, and my gaze “happened" to land on an ad for a piano accompanist. 

That job changed my life - because of it, I met people who would impact me and my life in more ways that I can count. Literally, nearly everything I do now, every friend I have, even my dogs, have come as a result of that job and those people. 

A lucky coincidence? 

I really don’t think so. 

Since then, I’ve tried to become more aware of those meaningful coincidences in life. They can be easy to miss, even though in retrospect it seems as if they’ve struck you like a thunderbolt. A few years after I started my accompanying job, I was still estranged from my father, still consumed by anger, but beginning to feel the first stirrings toward forgiveness. A chance conversation with a co-worker whose mother had died suddenly was the spark that moved me to contact my father after several years of non-communication.

The principle of synchronicity applies to creative work as well, particularly writing. In her new book (A Writer’s Guide to Persistence) Jordan Rosenfeld writes: “Synchronicity is the way the muse speaks to you - it’s one part your subconscious mind making connections that your conscious mind misses, thus urging you toward opportunities, and another part the language of patterns, the quantum physics of creativity. Synchronicity requires you to be open and present. You must look for it. You must not write things off as accidental."

The ability to take notice of those kinds of synchronous events requires the ability to sense when something is more than just a happenstance occurrence. It requires focus and attention to the details of life, to looking up and around and not just down at the screen in front of you. It requires really listening to the voices of friends and mentors in whose words and advice you may find the inspiration you don’t always even realize you’re seeking. It requires time and patience to take hold in your heart and spirit.

This is difficult for me. I’ve spent my life among practical, logical people, who dwell in the land of making and doing rather than the land of sensing and being. Taking up residence in that sensory realm means I have to separation from my normal world and spend quality time with just myself - and not the me who is busy ticking off her “to-do” list, but the me who writes in her journal, loses herself in a good book, or plays the piano. The me who sits quietly watching the birds at the feeder.  The me who really hears the music playing on the stereo. The me who really hears voices in conversation around me. 

So as spring finally begins to take hold here in Michigan, I find myself pondering ways to do this, to  invigorate my senses and awareness and bring the fruits of that to my writing.  

“We live in a world of beautiful patterns and unexplainable beauty,” Rosenfeld writes.  "Our lives are like novels - we have such a short time to explore, discover, overcome obstacles, fight antagonists, make allies, and transform or discover our stories. What you do in your life can be empty and robotic, or it can be transformative, pushing you to new heights.” 

Jung himself believed that synchronistic events were more likely to occur when a person was in a heightened state of mental and creative awareness. Learning to engage in life on a deeper level, learning to sense the synchronicity that makes itself available to me, is one way to transform experience, to achieve new levels of insight and meaning.

It’s also a way to add depth and direction to writing. I’ve spent the winter floundering with new projects, wondering where to direct my writing energies. Recently I’ve connected with some new readers of Life In General who reinforce comments made by so many of you already -  how the stories I share in the book have helped them feel more understood, less alone in the world, and comforted by our connection through words. Comments like these seem to come at exactly the right moment - when I’m feeling as if I have nothing left to say. Clearly I do have a mandate for my writing, and it fits perfectly with my personality. I am, as an elementary teacher once described me, the “perfect little quiet helper.” When I focus my energy there, that’s where I perform the best.

So here then is my call to the universe: How can my next writing project help others? What can I share about my life or my experience that will create new and valuable connections? May I be open and observant to those synchronistic moments which lead me in the right direction.

Write On Wednesday: Change of Venue

 I am a creature of habit. I count on my morning coffee (in my favorite mug) and my evening glass of wine. I do morning pages in the comfy chair upstairs, and read my book on the sofa in the den. I like a walk before lunch and one after dinner, a hot bath before bed, and a few minutes of quiet time with my book before turning out the light.

I write at my computer, which sits in the center of a large walnut writing table underneath the upstairs corner casement windows in the guest bedroom on the second floor. On nice days, I crank open each window and listen to the finches and cardinals serenade me while I ponder and peck away at the keyboard. I prefer to write in the mornings (after the walk) but sometimes an hour or two between 7 and 9 in the evening works well too.

This week I had some time to myself on Monday, a hour or so in the afternoon between places to be when it wasn’t convenient to go home. Before I left for rehearsal that morning, I packed up my notebook and pen and thought I might spend that time in a coffee shop doing some writing.

Because I had some other errands to do, the most convenient coffee shop was a Starbucks, located in the midst of a small downtown area in a neighboring suburb.

I’ll tell you a secret.  I don’t really like Starbucks - not the taste of the coffee, not the ambience in the stores, and certainly not the prices. 

But I went in, because it was raining and chilly and I needed somewhere to be.

Inside this very dimly lit Starbucks were four comfy leather armchairs nestled in the corner by the window. All occupied of course. Two college students with piles of spiral notebooks and fat soft covered textbooks were sprawled comfortably in two of them, while two young girls sat in the other two, their legs tucked beneath them, busy texting or tweeting on their iPhones and sipping frothy coffee drinks.

There were about a dozen tiny dark tables with hard, short backed chairs clustered around them. Many of these were occupied by people working on laptop computers, most of them wearing headphones attached to their cell phones, listening to music I assume, because they weren’t talking to anyone. 

I ordered tea (because remember I don’t like the coffee) and chose one of the empty tables by the wall, rather than one in the middle of the room. I tried to get comfortable in a chair that reminded me a lot of the chairs we’d been forced to sit in at elementary school. I dunked my teabag a few times into the cup of (scalding!) hot water and stirred four packets of sugar into the tall paper cup.

I opened my notebook and tried to write.

It should have been a perfect writing atmosphere. With the exception of the one middle aged woman sitting across from me with a book, noisily licking her fingers after each bite of a sticky pastry, every other person was completely in their own private zone, plugged in, tuned out of the rest of the room. Even the baristas were quiet. There was background music, but it was subdued and generic. No one new came in, there were no hisses or spurts of foaming espresso makers. 

I’d like to say I felt prolific and creative, that the various people in the coffee shop inspired interesting character sketches. Mostly, I felt self-conscious, pretentious, and even a little silly. 

There is a mystique among writers about writing in coffee shops and cafes. We all think of the romance of Hemingway and his companions on the Left Bank in Paris, scribbling away all day, holding court with tiny cups of espresso in the morning, giving way to goblets of wine in the afternoon. 

Certainly I’m no Hemingway. I’m just a woman who likes putting words on paper, who thinks better when she has a pencil in her hand or her fingers on a keyboard. It was an interesting experiment, changing up my writing venue, tiptoeing for a moment into a different atmosphere. But probably not one I’ll repeat any time soon.

I am definitely still a creature of habit, and it seems I’ll be keeping my writing habits intact for the time being. 

Write On Wednesday: Opening Your Heart

“Too many women, writers and non-writers, are scared to open up on the page, don’t trust their voice, let alone their stories. Too many women know how much writing, whether it be personal expressive writing, writing for publication or for longer projects, helps to connect with their truths but don’t prioritize practice.” Kira Elliot, Leader of Writing to Open Your Heart workshops

An acquaintance recently mentioned that since reading Life In General she’d like to sit down and tell me her own life story. “I want you to know more about me,” she said, “since I feel as if I know so much about you."

I had to laugh as I replied, “Yes, my life is definitely an open book these days!"

It’s true. The pages of Life In General contain eight years of open hearted writing. In each one of those blog posts, I “opened up” on the page - about aging, about mothering, about the empty nest, about caring for elderly parents, about loss and change and hope for the future. Writing those essays the first time taught me the truth of Kira Elliot's statement: Writing helps me connect with my truths. This was reinforced even more strongly when I revisited the essays during the process of compiling my book. I was reminded of how important family and legacy are to me, how reading, writing, and music are the foundations of my creative existence, how necessary it is for me to have quiet and reflective time in each day, how my ordinary rituals and daily routines can be sacred and healing.  

Just as my writing helped me connect with my own truths, I have found it so rewarding to hear the ways my stories have helped others reconnect with their own. I have been privileged to sit in conversation with friends who open their hearts to me with stories about their lives I’d never heard before. I am honored to meet new friends who have read the book and feel comfort from the connection of our shared experiences as we go through life in general together.

I  believe we all have a deep inner need to share stories, to open our hearts to one another. From these shared stories we take comfort, we deepen our sense of compassion, we celebrate our diversity in the midst of our common ground. 

Although I realize not everyone feels called to write, for me writing has been a consistent path straight into the heart of my emotions and experiences. Sharing my discoveries has given me a gift of connections that are comforting, validating, and energizing. 

Perhaps you’re interested in learning more about opening your heart on the page. Kira Elliott is offering a free one hour live video training about creating an open hearted writing practice. And do subscribe to Kira’s wonderful blog, which is filled with open hearted goodness.

Write On Wednesday: Desperate Distractions

I’ll be honest - I nearly cried when I looked out my window this morning.

Snow fell in wet, white sheets, and the sky was gunmetal gray. Skeletal tree branches rattled in the wind, and the chickadees clung desperately to the feeder as it swayed dizzily back and forth.

It wasn’t going to be a good day.

This winter has seemed plagued to me, with illness and unrest, bitter cold and gray skies. I’ve been sick again this week, some odd combination of maladies that appeared out of nowhere.

The winter of my malcontent, I’m calling it. 

So far, 2015, I am not impressed.

I had great plans for the day too - nothing scheduled outside of the house, so I was going to catch up on writing, make headway on publicity for an event involving both my handbell ensemble and the community theater I volunteer with, and maybe even do the taxes (or at least gather the paperwork - yes, I’m one of those tax procrastinators.)

But my energy and ambition fell with a wet thud, just like those snowflakes that were piling up on the porch. 

 Most successful writers will say it’s necessary to put yourself in inspiration’s path: show up at the page every day, don’t wait for inspiration to come find find you. 

One of my favorite writers, Dani Shapiro, whose book Still Writing sits on my desk, talks about the pattern she has for her writing life. “Three pages every day, five days a week,” she maintains. But then she goes on to note that if you “do the math,” this means she could write a novel length manuscript in half a year. 

“I have never written a novel length manuscript in half a year,” she admits. “In fact, two years would be fast for me."

So what happens? As author William Styron put it - “the fleas of life” get in the way. Shapiro agrees. “The dog has a vet appointment; the school play is at noon; it’s flu season, a snow day, who knew there were so many long weekends? The roof springs a leak; the neighbor’s house is under construction; a friend calls in a crisis. Life doesn’t pause to make room for our precious writing time. Life stops for nothing and we make accommodations."

There is an incredible amount of willpower necessary to write, especially when writing isn’t your “bread and butter.” Distractions abound - not only the alluring call of the internet, but homelier distractions as well. Like the bed sheets that should be changed, the towels that needed washing. There is always tea to be made, maybe it would help settle my queasy stomach - or if not that, some toast, dry but still something after all. While the tea brews, perhaps just a few more pages in that new novel I just started. Maybe I’ll finish the chapter before the tea cools, and then go back upstairs to write. By then it’s time to take the dogs outside, which means another pass with the shovel so their short legs don’t become encumbered with icy snowballs.

Ah yes, you know the drill, I can see you nodding your heads guiltily out there. After a while, it all becomes a little desperate, doesn’t it? Sort of like the way we feel when we open the window and see another snowstorm, another gray sky, hear the thunk and scrape of the snow blade as it passes down the street for the 10th time today.

Perseverance. I managed to put myself into the chair, open the page, start to write. Time slips by, you get lost in whatever world you’re creating. For the writer - and I suspect for the musician, the painter, the cook, the seamstress - it’s all part of the same battle. Put yourself where ideas and inspiration will find you. 

And hope it doesn’t get sidetracked by distractions of its own on the way.