Getting it up

Posted on January 26, 2012 | 24 Comments

The thing about creativity is that unless you make a living practicing your art, it’s easy to deprioritize it. (Note: WordPress is saying deprioritize isn’t a word, but I’m sticking to it because WordPress also says that WordPress isn’t a word.)

On the to-do list you might not even have had time to write today, “make something awesome” would likely fall somewhere near the bottom, after “drop off the kids-prescription-dry cleaning-car,” “write the report,” “attend the meeting,” “reassure the boss,” “pick up the the kids-prescription-dry cleaning-car,” “do the laundry” “pay the bills,” “cook, clean, cry, collapse.”

It’s a perfectly understandable, soul-killing decision to NOT make something awesome. But as day after day passes in this frenzied “I have no time for creative badassery” mode, the muscle that creates your art – your wicked imagination – atrophies. It gets harder and harder to get it up.

So to speak.

I don’t want that to happen to you (or me), so I made a list of five ways to sneak back up on our creative natures. These ideas are small, but powerful… like Altoids.

  1. Unplug.
    Even if only for a few minutes each day, unplug your phone, your computer, your TV, your radio, and every device you have that starts with a lower case “i.” Immerse yourself in your physical surroundings. If at all possible, get dirty.
    *
  2. Take a picture.
    I seriously think cameras are magical in their ability to change our perspectives. Don’t believe me? Look at Marcie Scudder’s rainy day, Jen Erbe’s birches, jb’s kitchen table, my picture of stillness…
    *

    And – bonus! – the “make something awesome” goal is built right into this one!
    *
  3. Do something out of character.
    Wear a kilt or a tutu (or, for me, something purple). Publicly display your affection, throw yourself a surprise party, tell someone in no uncertain terms that what they do makes your knees weak, your head spin, your throat dry… and even with all that, you hope they never, ever stop.
    *
  4. Play.
    Alone or with your lover, your crush, your best friend, your kid, your parents, a perfect (or not-so-perfect) stranger. Do something, anything. Just. For. Fun.
    *
  5. Fuck should.
    For a day, an afternoon, an amazing hour of precious freedom, don’t do anything just because you should.

It may be that the awesome thing you make… is you.

xo

→ 24 Comments

Posted in j's lists, writing, writers, and stuff we like

Tagged , , , , , , ,

What we mean when we talk about art

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 45 Comments

For a long time, I considered fiction my art. My essays, articles, interviews, book reviews and blog posts were something else. Writing, but not art.

Then I read a post by Tara Mohr. It was a great post that, unfortunately, I can’t find now, but it talked about how she left the corporate world to pursue “her art,” and it was clear that she was talking about everything she does now, all the writing, speaking and teaching women to play big and believe in themselves.

I remember being struck by the phrase. Tara’s book is called 10 Rules for Brilliant Women and while I think any book that attempts to teach women how to own (and wield) their brilliance is important and worthy… is it art?

Not long after reading Tara’s piece, I read this from Stephen Elliott in the Daily Rumpus. “We were talking yesterday about how there are artists in every medium,” he said. “You can be an artist and a cook, an artist and a small business owner.” He mused that the definition may lie in what you’re trying to do and why, whether you’re out for a paycheck or genuinely trying to create something good, something meaningful.

And then I read this from Seth Godin:

Art is a uniquely human endeavor, and act of genius. Art is what we do when we do something for the first time, do it uniquely, and do it to touch someone else. The generosity is built into the act. Painting might be art, pottery might be art, customer service might be art–but none of them are art if all you’re doing is commerce, or phoning it in, or following a manual or a map.

Art is where we expose ourselves, because in addition to being human, we really have no choice but to accept failure. And it’s failure (or the potential for failure) that creates art. When we talk about emulating the bodhisattva, we accept the risk that maybe we won’t touch anyone, won’t shed any light, won’t make a difference.

The only way to do art, real art, is to embrace that risk. To do less is to hide.

That is beautiful and rings true to me. In her most recent column, Sugar at the Rumpus said, “I’ve written [the Dear Sugar column] as a body of work in a way more akin to a novel or memoir than a years-long Q & A. There’s a beginning, middle and end.” I agree completely , and there is no doubt in my mind that what Sugar has created is art.

As my notion of what constitutes art changes and expands, I find myself contemplating other questions. Is everyone who blogs “a writer,” everyone who paints “an artist,” everyone who takes pictures “a photographer”? Do the titles mean anything objective? Should they?

I’m drawn to the idea of art being about more than the finished product. I like definitions that include intent and meaning. Is my reluctance to call everyone who writes poetry “a poet” reflexive, or do we owe it to the poets who have studied and read and honed their craft not to place just anyone in their ranks?

What do you think? What constitutes art to you?

~~~~~

Some odds and ends…

First of all, I can’t thank you enough for your support and comments and enthusiasm over the launch of A Human Thing. If I’d scripted the day myself, I would not have written it as wonderful as you all made it. My gratitude knows no bounds.

If you haven’t actually watched the video I made, I hope you will. I’m proud of it, and it was, like everything on the new site, a collaboration. Lots of talent and love went into its making.

Finally, my review of Deborah Jiang Stein’s new memoir, Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus, is up at Used Furniture Review. Go see!

xo

→ 45 Comments

Posted in on my mind..., writing, writers, and stuff we like

Tagged , , , , , ,

Blast off!

Posted on January 16, 2012 | 9 Comments

Heart art by the ginormously talented Pam Carlson

It’s Launch Day! Come play with me at the new site,  A Human Thing! I’ll be back here with a Zebra Sounds post on Thursday, and then every Thursday from here on out.

I’ll post at A Human Thing on Mondays. (Hint: If you subscribe to both blogs, you don’t have to remember my schedule. And I’ll love you forever. And an angel will get its wings.)

xo

→ 9 Comments

Posted in j's lovely things, on my mind...

Tagged , , ,

Looking back on a year of fearless love

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 37 Comments

In January last year, because I needed to believe in the power we all have to touch and lift and heal each other, I declared 2011 my year of loving fearlessly. In July, half way through my love project, I made a list of things I’d learned so far. Now, sitting here on the other end of my big, crazy, year-long experiment, I’m daunted by the thought of trying to summarize it for you. How can I possibly tell you all I’ve learned, how I’ve changed? How can I do it justice?

I don’t want to write a list.

I know, right? Me, the queen of lists, the one who believes there is something inherently worthy in a life enumerated. But I don’t want to make the love project neat for you. It wasn’t neat. It was wild and amazing. It was surprising and scary and everything I never imagined. It was exhausting and energizing. I want to sit with it, assemble it artfully like a collage, or soulfully like a prayer. I want to get up and run with it, fling myself into the new year with 2011 trailing behind me, still attached, like some gigantic, magnificent, weather-worn kite.

I don’t want to make a list.

I want to tell you about how my conversations went in 2011, how, online and off, they had an unsettling tendency to veer off course, turning, in an instant, intimate. Disarmingly honest. I want to tell you how those conversations undid me, how I tried to be cool like this is how my life always is, while inside I panicked because I didn’t know how to be that vulnerable, how to let someone else be that vulnerable with me.

I want to tell you about one conversation in particular, because it isn’t a list, and it isn’t daunting. It’s small and thorny and beautiful, and maybe it’s what the whole year was really about.

I was talking to a new friend, someone I met in 2011, a woman I very much admire. She’s smart, accomplished, hugely capable and yet not quite trusting of her own considerable abilities. We were talking about the impetus to create, where it comes from,what it’s fueled by – restlessness, curiosity, a desire to communicate, to connect.

Passion came up, of course, and then love, and before long we were talking about relationships and marriage – at first philosophically, but eventually we wandered into our own stories. We had both recently emerged from the most difficult times of our marriages, the kind of difficult times that lots of marriages don’t survive.

Because we hadn’t known each other long, we skirted up against the specifics without laying them out, both of us feeling the kinship, the common ground of our emotions, trusting that there was something valuable in our sharing. We talked about fear and guilt and faith, mistakes big enough to alter the landscape, the scary disorientation of standing in a familiar relationship and recognizing nothing.

When I think of our conversation now, I realize we were talking about love, ungainly and raw, stripped of its poetry and romance; this was real love in real life, where it doesn’t always fit nicely in a tweet or on a t-shirt or in a blog post. And it was while I was in that conversation, that amazing conversation in which the newness of our friendship made us leave the details on the curb so that we could venture unencumbered into the twisty terrain of our hearts, that I realized how alike we were… how alike we all are. It’s only the details that are different, the specific life circumstances. Underneath them is the joy, the sorrow, the grief, the longing. Looking there, beneath the surface of things, we recognize each other instantly, our shared humanity, our wounded, hopeful hearts.

In 2011, I was startled by that truth again and again, stunned by how similar we are, across genders, age groups, geographies, backgrounds. We all struggle to navigate the tricky waters of family, the changing roles of parents and children, the inevitable failings of our lovers and friends. We think of ourselves as autonomous but we aren’t really; we touch (and crash into) each other all the time, our kindness and our cruelty ripple across humanity in ways we can’t possibly know.

Last year, I tried hard to be fearless in love, and it changed me. I’m not the same person I was when I started the love project. Near the end of 2011, someone asked me if I thought I would be sad to see it end and I told her, “I think maybe I’m just getting started.”

My answer surprised me. It was a revelation. An uncharted step north.

The new site launches January 16th.

→ 37 Comments

Posted in j's love project, love

Tagged , , , , ,

In 2012…

Posted on January 2, 2012 | 42 Comments

I wish for us all to find our footing… not so we can stand, but so we can dance.

I wish for less struggle, less worry, less fear, less apology… to be replaced by straight-from-the-heart, flowing-through-our-veins, proud in-our-skins badassery.

I wish for clarity, wisdom, REM sleep and sweet, sweet dreams.

I wish for moments of sheer, unmitigated, irrational joy. Every day.

I wish for more days that look like this…

I wish for a billion northbound steps.

I wish you luck and grace and beauty, peace and music, poetry and passion… a kiss that makes you forget your name.

I wish for breathing room and fresh starts and acts of astounding creativity and courage…

What are you wishing for in 2012?

→ 42 Comments

Posted in j's lists

Tagged , , , , ,

It’s not a year-end list

Posted on December 26, 2011 | 47 Comments

We’re officially in the homestretch of 2011. I’m feeling breathless and badass and awed and a little bit mushy about the year that has passed, and while I could easily write you a year-end list of what I loved or hated or scratched my head over (the republican debates, for example), I won’t. I know how most of you feel about year-end lists. They rank right up there with new years resolutions and karaoke polka.

So instead, in this, my last ZS post of the year, I’m sharing some cool, fun, sexy, liberating, soul-filling ways to spend the last week of your year…

~~~~~~~~

I love this post from Alexandra Franzen, and her idea to do away with new year’s resolutions in favor of new year’s rituals. I will definitely be inventing some new j-rituals.

On a related note, a few days ago, I was having one of those days that makes you question… well, everything, and not in a good way. In an act of desperate kickass self-reclamation, I sat down and for five minutes I listed all the stuff I could think of that I’ve accomplished this year – from the very intimate to the big and lofty. Without even straining, I listed 38 accomplishments, and 18 of them were things I’ve never done before. By the end I was feeling downright superhero-y. Try it. And try Alexandra’s suggestions. And make up some wild self-affirming rituals of your own. It’s healthier and way more fun than resolutions. I promise.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are far worse (and few better) things you could do with the last week of 2011, than spend it honoring the fact that life is short, throwing a rave inside your head, interviewing yourself or remembering why you are not old.

~~~~~~~~~~

In a recent post, Chris Guillebeau wrote this: Set aside time to “make stuff.” Honestly, I like the whole post, but that line, all by itself, is golden. Chris was talking about products for his business – new books, new projects, new launches – but I think that line is about how to live your life. I believe creativity is itself an act of faith, and one of the best things you can do for your soul is indulge your creative instincts, whatever they are. Paint, take pictures, write stories, sculpt, make music, make meals, make love.

~~~~~~~~~

And speaking of making stuff, I’ve spent the last week making Christmas gifts. It was nerve-wracking and fraught, what with the hard Christmas morning due date and all, but it was also exhilarating and the most fun I’ve ever had giving gifts on Christmas. To get it all done, I took over the dining room (which rarely gets used for dining), and I wished the entire time that I had a better room for making stuff.

So I’m going to convert the dining room. I can’t do it all in the last week of 2011, but I’m planning for it. Here’s my inspiration. What crazy, inadvisable, inspired bit of magic might you create (or plan to create) in the last week of 2011?

~~~~~~~~~~

And here (as promised) are pictures of the gifts I made.

Tile coasters for my mom and one of my oldest friends.

Leather wrist bands for The Boy

Etched and painted glasses for Chad

An “industrial record cabinet” for Dillon

~~~~~~~~~~

And finally, as 2011 comes to an end, I want to say how very grateful I am for all of you – your comments, your support, your cards, letters, emails, enthusiasm. Truly, I love you guys. I hope you know how much.

The new site will launch January 16th, and I’ll see you back here before then. Have a fantastic new year, everyone, and let’s rock the hell out of 2012!

xo

→ 47 Comments

Posted in j's lists

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Three things (or 13, depending on how you count)

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 23 Comments

First of all, I want to thank you all for your response to my birthday post. I’d been so focused on writing something worthy of Alenka myself that I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted all of you to write her letters too. That is until you said you would, one after another, and gratitude swept through me like a crazy, big heart-swelling-tear-bearing tsunami.

It was my only wish and, thanks to you, it was, without doubt, my best birthday ever. I love you guys!

~~~~~~~~~~

Second, I’ve decided to make Christmas gifts for my family this year. I’ve picked four DIY projects that involve all manner of crafty shenanigans (and mysterious supplies that I’ve had to Google because the instructions assume a level of competency I utterly lack).

I have a week till Christmas, and two weeks till January and the launch of the new love project site, complete with a welcome video that Dillon is helping me put together (so, you know it’ll be good; he’s a professional). Given the time crunch and my fragile hold on sanity, I’m going to forgo the Thursday posts for the rest of December. Then in January, I’ll announce the new post schedule and probably show you pictures of my superhero-y craft adventures, and all will be right in ZS land!

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~~~~~~~~

Third…

For the past three years, every December, I make a list of what I believe. There is something very grounding for me in standing at the end of a year, having learned whatever I learned, thinking through exactly what it is I believe in.

Here’s my list, standing near the end of 2011…

  1. We are all connected. We hold each others’ hearts in our hands. Love should be our default position.
  2. We are also all capable of magic. It is important to perform some every day.
  3. Action is king. Dreaming and thinking and analyzing are good – even necessary to a point – but your life (your title, your heart, your surroundings, your point of view) changes only when you take a step. And then another. And then another.
  4. And while we’re on the subject, I know sometimes baby steps are all we can manage, and that’s okay. But every now and then, you need to trust your heart, even when you’re unsure and that scared little voice in your head says don’t move… Move. In fact, take a deep breath, cut that little voice off mid-objection, and just fucking leap.
  5. And speaking of that negative, fearful, mean little voice in your head, it belongs to a crazy person. Don’t listen to it.
  6. The quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horrible and crappy. (Stolen unapologetically from Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo founder.)
  7. Creativity itself is an act of faith.
  8. Balance is overrated. If your goal is to be a force in the world, to live a life of service and meaning and big, fearless love, there will be flight, but there will also be some flailing, some falling, some unbelievably stressful crunch times. There will be imbalance. It’s okay. It just means you’re alive.
  9. There is power in letting go; it allows for evolution.
  10. People are surprising. It’s best to learn to love surprises.

Your turn. What do you believe?

→ 23 Comments

Posted in love, on my mind...

Tagged , , , , ,

The world needs more love (letters)

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 38 Comments

Remember how I said December was weird for me because I do this life analysis thing? I evaluate the year that has passed and begin planning the one to come, and the process is inherently angsty, full of conflicting emotions like pride, disappointment, gratitude, fear, optimism, regret.

Well, December is weird for another reason too.

This time of year, it’s hard not to be painfully aware of my financial situation, which isn’t great. Normally the reality of my (lack of) income manifests itself in workable ways – staying in instead of going out, going longer between haircuts, watching for sales. But in December, of course, I want to give more. I want to donate to worthy causes; find the perfect gifts for people I love; buy fresh, organic, locally grown, earth-animal-friendly everything; save every struggling indie bookstore and artist with my purchases.

All of that requires money I don’t have.

Enter Hannah Brencher’s 12 Days of Love Letter Writing. Hannah’s chosen 12 people who need some extra love and encouragement this holiday season, and she’s coordinating letter-writing campaigns for each of them. She asked if I would write a letter for one of her 12, blog about it, and invite others to write letters too. I fell instantly in love with the idea of all of us filling someone’s mailbox with love.

Without hesitation, I said yes, and Hannah sent me the story of Alenka, who, last year, was diagnosed with cancer. After five intense months of chemo, her cancer went into remission, only to come back three months later. Her doctors have said they’ve done what they can. Her daughter’s letter to Hannah, said this:

She’s in a very dark place sometimes… hopeful that something can be done and willing to fight, but also scared that time with her loved ones is coming to an end.” 

When I read that, I felt panicky. I didn’t know what I could offer. I thought maybe it had been a mistake for me to say yes so quickly. Every night I tried to write her but was too daunted. Every day I thought about her. Every day I thought of writing back to Hannah and telling her the truth: I had nothing valuable to give to Alenka.

It was as I sat down finally to write that email – that terrible confession of inadequacy – that I realized I have exactly what I need. I have a heart that breaks for Alenka and her family, a heart that won’t let them go, a heart that wants desperately to connect to her, to give her what I can. All I can.

I have love and hope and paper and a pen.

The letter I wrote to Alenka took me two days to finish. I dug deep and wrote from my most naked, least polished place about love and surrender and presence and family. I told her she wasn’t alone, no matter how lonely and scared she undoubtedly felt. I told her the one thing that was absolutely clear to me is that she is loved, and those three words felt like the most powerful thing I could say to her. To anyone.

I’m sending my hand-written 2-page letter to Hannah today, on my birthday, and I have a request. I want you to write a letter of love and encouragement to Alenka too. It would mean a lot to me, and even more to her, and all for the price of a postage stamp. That’s amazing when you think about it.

Send your letter within a week of today to:

More Love Letters
Alenka’s bundle
PO Box 2061,
North Haven, CT 06473

“The only true gift is a portion of yourself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks, you guys. (For everything.)

xo

→ 38 Comments

Posted in j's love project, love

Tagged , , , ,

I was here

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 47 Comments

I don’t want a life without regret.

There. I said it. I know there will be push back. I know it’s a popular phrase, “no regrets.” It’s a brand and a bumper sticker, in addition to being a big, badass thing people aspire to. I’ve heard people say, “I have no regrets,” and I wonder about them. I wonder how that’s possible.

What does it even mean to live a life without regrets? And why would anyone want to?

I’ve written on this topic before, clumsily, hitting all around what I’ve wanted to say, attempting to make a case for regret, just as I’ve made a case for the value of a broken heart. I’ve never quite found the words. But last week I watched Kathryn Schulz’s TED talk on regret and she said this…

Here’s the thing. If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly; it reminds us that we know we can do better.

I’ll go one step further. Regret often reminds us of the risks we were willing to take – however ill-advised, however misguided. There is magic in that, in daring to be wrong, in caring about someone or something enough to be hurt, enough to be stupid. There is beauty in our awkward, floundering progress to become the people we aspire to be, our best selves.

But beauty (especially the imperfect, searching kind) and regret aren’t mutually exclusive.

If somehow you’ve managed to live a life where you never hurt someone you loved, where your own stupidity never caused damage or loss, then you’re lucky and amazing, but I have to wonder what kind of life have you lived, how engaged in the human process have you been?

I have regrets, little ones, and the big, ugly, gut-wrenching kind that I’m not brave enough to blog about; the kind that result from the actions I took, and the kind that are all about what I didn’t do, what I didn’t say, the moments of opportunity I let get by me.

My regrets don’t remind me that I’m imperfect; I’m painfully aware of that already. They remind me to pay attention. They’re like “I was here” signs painted indelibly in places I shouldn’t have been, places where I got hurt or hurt someone else, places that fucked me up but also taught me truths about myself and the world that I might not have learned any other way.

I don’t have, and don’t aspire to have, a life without regret. What I aspire to is a life so full of passion, creativity and daring that failures are as inevitable as successes, and a life so full of love for what I do and for the people who do it with me that I can’t help but feel the pain – and yes, sometimes the regret – of things going wrong.

Okay, your turn. Tell me about a life without regret. :)

→ 47 Comments

Posted in j'epiphanies, love

Tagged , , ,

You can almost unwrap this one

Posted on December 8, 2011 | 19 Comments

So, as you know, I’m building a new website for the love project. In my head, it’s gorgeous and inviting and provocative, one part sanctuary, one part celebration, one part “vibrant, proudly imperfect site of fierce inclusivity.”

I wrote that in my notes. I’ve written a lot of notes because, as it turns out, learning self-hosted WordPress and site design principles,  FTP, HTML and CSS, social network and mail service interfaces, and all the other critical site-building things I didn’t know I didn’t know, is only about half of the work I’ve had to do. The other half has been about getting clear with myself what my purpose is (and isn’t) and what exactly I mean when I talk about fearless love.

Here’s a picture I took of my desk this morning when I sat down to write this post. I thought of taking the picture because in the midst of all those papers, off to the side, was my green Love Project notebook (which you can just see) and on top of that, my camera… two things I’ve been carrying around religiously for a year.

I’m really excited and nervous about the new site. I feel as if I’m wrapping the biggest present I can give, and I’m hoping you’ll love it. But it’s not exactly like that. I think the new site will be OUR site. So much of what I have in store is collaborative and experimental and holy-shit-I’ve-never-done-anything-like-this- before. I’m hoping we’ll build something amazing and unique… and fearless. Together.

I have faith in us.

~~~~~~~~~~

And, I have stuff to share with you!

First, Hannah Brencher is a beautiful, stunning force to be reckoned with. Fortunately, she’s all about love and building a better world, so “reckoning” with her is really enjoyable. A week and a half ago, she rocked my bloggy world with this. “Lady Gaga, she was born this way. Me? I was born for this.”

About a month ago, she asked me to participate in her December letter-writing project. It’s called The 12 Days of Love Letter Writing. If, in this month of crazy go-go-go activity, you’d like to pause, breathe, connect meaningfully with someone who needs your support, this is your project.

We’re on Day 4 of 12 right now. You can join in any time. Read the stories of the recipients each day on Hannah’s blog, write what you are moved to write in support of them. On December 15th, I’ll share the letter I’m writing now to one of Hannah’s 12 beautiful recipients. I’ve been working on it for two days; it’s one of the hardest letters I’ve ever written. Yesterday I cried. I’m so grateful to Hannah for asking me to do this.

~~~~~

On a lighter note, I had so much fun being interviewed by David Cohen, host of the Blog Talk Radio show, “Be A Beacon.” We talked for half an hour about writing, success, art and – of course – love.

My best friend, jb, and I have a tiny blog called A Month Of Sundays, where each week we exchange snapshots of our lives. I’m sharing it here because I absolutely loved her last entry. You will too. Go see.

I went for a walk and took pictures for you. They’re posted here.

~~~~~

I have nothing to do with these incredible pictures, but I LOVE them.

xo

→ 19 Comments

Posted in love, on my mind...

Tagged , , , , , , ,