Draft draft draft draft

I suppose that title could refer to the wind you can feel moving through this space. It is almost empty, but still there is that feeling, like you've walked into what might be a scary movie. Somewhere, someone (or something) is hiding.

I guess that something is me.

Really it refers to the fact that when I go to my dashboard I see a line down the middle of the screen: draft draft draft draft. I have been thinking a lot about writing, I have even been doing some of it, but somehow the publish button stays unpushed, just unrealized potential at the bottom of the page. I've realized a lot of it is fear. I am terrified of writing. I was about to stop myself and say, "No wait - I'm terrified of people reading what I write and hating me (or worse, not loving me)," but that's not true. I am a little bit terrified of that, but I think I am just as much afraid of writing and hating myself.

I read. A lot. I am not afraid of reading. I think I'm an amazing reader. I see nuances and imagine settings  and feel characters and laugh at all the right spots (and some I'm probably not supposed to). I appreciate and recognize great writing. And it paralyzes me. Because it makes me want to do that, too. It makes me want to find just the right words and capture feelings and truths and tell stories that take you up and down and around and around. But what if (and this will happen, undoubtedly) what I write isn't as good? What if it's just terrible? Somehow my body must be convinced that if this happens I might die. That's the only thing I can think of. That is the only good excuse for not doing what I know in the depth of my being (note: find a better line than depth of my being, ugh) is something I need to be doing to survive. The world doesn't make sense until I write it down.

I'm taking a course on writing for a living. In the first class we talked about that - the idea that one writes because (and I almost quote) something something spider weaving web of words from the soul something something. Which is a perfectly good reason to write, but not really to write for a living. So now I'm trying to find that spot, where I can write for me, for my soul and so on, but also write stuff that people want to read. And that people want to pay me for.

I suppose it's also partly a war that's happening within me between earnestness and snark. I like funny, snarky writing. I really do. I also find myself in that age of aquarius place where I just want the world to be full of love. But I still want to be funny. And it's kind of hard to be funny without being mean. (Thing I just googled: how to be funny without being mean. Judd Apatow comes to mind.)

And now I have written all this and am feeling slightly anxious about putting it into the world because it is just a bunch of ideas and I feel like it should be a perfected essay in order to go out and be read, and if I try to wait for that right now it's just going to stay a draft and so I'm just going to push publish.


Most of this is inspired by reading I've been doing lately. Other blogs. Especially ones where people are dealing with desire and doubt. Like Christina Kelly's. That name feels so good to read again; those Sassy ladies felt like... what and who I wanted to be. 

Dreams by Mary Oliver

DREAMS

by Mary Oliver

All night

the dark buds of dreams

open

richly.

In the center

of every petal

is a letter,

and you imagine

if you could only remember

and string them all together

they would spell the answer.

It is a long night,

and not an easy one—

you have so many branches,

and there are diversions—

birds that come and go,

the black fox that lies down

to sleep beneath you,

the moon staring

with her bone-white eye.

Finally you have spent

all the energy you can

and you drag from the ground

the muddy skirt of your roots

and leap awake

with two or three syllables

like water in your mouth

and a sense

of loss—a memory

not yet of a word,

certainly not yet the answer—

only how it feels

when deep in the tree

all the locks click open,

and the fire surges through the wood,

and the blossoms blossom.

but vs. and

This is going to be a hippie post.

I was walking down the street just now, thinking about how I'd like to win a billion dollars (or something in that vicinity). I was thinking about the fact that if I did win this large sum of money, I'd like to have someone to help me figure out how to manage it ethically, meaning help as many people as possible, and in a way that felt meaningful and important to me. I started explaining it in an imaginary conversation, saying, 'So I want to have a comfortable life, and have things I enjoy, and make sure that my wealth grows and my family is taken care of and my life feels good, but I also want to-.' And I stopped. I was going to continue with, 'help as many people with my money as I can, and make sure that the world is benefiting from my riches.' I stopped because I suddenly recognized that that word - but - meant that something in me saw those two ideas as opposed, and how likely was it to believe that I could do both things if I also thought that they worked against one another. And I realized that a very easy transition, replacing the word 'but' with the word 'and' meant that I could (subconsciously) accept that the two ideas could work together. This seems to me like it will help everything to flow a little easier.

So: I want to have a good life, enriched by wealth and access to material goods and experiences I might not otherwise afford, and I want to contribute to the betterment of the world by sharing that wealth and using it in ways that fulfill my own vision of wonderful.

Now I'm really noticing my internal monologue (or dialogue) and where there are conflicts between things I want. Example: I want a career I enjoy and I want time to write creatively. Further: I want a career that supports me well financially and I want to write. I want to enjoy Toronto and I want to maintain strong connections with the people I love around the country (/world). I want to feel healthy and I want to eat things that I enjoy. Before this afternoon I likely would have used the word 'but' where you see all of those pretty slanted ands (so open and nice, and). No longer.

Resolutions

Instead of New Year's resolutions, Sally and I spent the solstice making lists of things we were releasing and things we were inviting into our lives. Top of my list for things I'm inviting into my life: a focus on creative projects, and sharing them with other people. Because as much as I write, and make, and experiment, it's usually just for me. I know that that can have its place, but where I'm stuck is putting those things out into the world, and out in the world is where I think they should be.

Then I came across literary resolutions, and decided to make one of those, a fair bit after the fact. I posted mine in this week's edition of bookishness, but here it is again:

I resolve to write something that's not an email every day (and read some classic literature). This is today.

Nomi Chi

I am still totally obsessed with Nomi Chi's tattoos. (That she makes, not has.) I think you can see why. Sigh.

Yum y Yummier

Please please please, if you are in Toronto, go to Agave y Aguacade.

It's in Kensington, and it's hidden away in a little nook of Latin American food stands (as I said to everyone I told in real life, "You know the place with the churros? Way in the back behind there."). I am rarely willing to pay for Mexican food, because it is usually oh so disappointing, but this: there are no words. Okay, there are a few words:

Fresh.
Insanely fresh.
Delicious.
Oh my god delicious.  

R and I took our lunch (the Tostada Verde and the Tostada Tinga, about $7 each, along with drinks from across the street) to the tables out back. It was so so so so so so so delicious. And so (wait for it) fresh.

When Agave y Aguacade opened it was staffed by just one person, Chef Francisco Alejandri (he has a blog. It has recipes. They are surely wonderful.). Early reports focused on (guess) the freshness and deliciousness of the food, along with the waaaaaaaait that came with (or rather, before) it. When we went there was a second person working alongside the chef, but we were still standing around for 15 minutes or so before our food was ready. Just to say, plan ahead, and know that there may be a wait (though it's actually fascinating and fun watching them prepare everything with so much care and precision). Know also that the food is totally worth it.

Very pinteresting

As I am an early adopter (or at least like to think of myself as one, ahem no smartphone yet what?), I had to take Ms. Spankie up on her offer of an invitation to join Pinterest. What is Pinterest, you ask? I HAVE NO IDEA. BUT IT'S NEW AND PRETTY.

From what I gather, you "pin" things you come across on the internet (pictures only? Not entirely sure...) onto "boards" that you categorize. Here is mine. So far I have pinned one thing.

If anyone's interested in trying it, I have five invitations. Yes!

I will always and forever be 15 inside

Grounding my anxiety by cleaning the apartment while listening to Hole's Live Through This and drinking red wine. Except for the fact that I didn't get drunk for the first time until I was 17 (xawesomex), I could be 15. Although 15 year old me would probably be throwing things around, rather than picking them up.

Radical Self Love

 photo by flickr user Scoobymoo

Of late, I'm obsessed with loving myself. I've felt slightly disappointed by circumstances lately, by the fact that living life is sometimes challenging, and I get stressed out, and feel down sometimes, and I would much rather be feeling good and excited and happy. I find myself wondering how to feel good despite the challenges, because I know that changing my circumstances is not the great cure-all it sometimes seems it should be. I (me, moi - not my job, not my apartment, not my blind date, not my novel-in-progress) am in charge of how I feel. I hate coming across all new-agey (even though I am, at least a little bit), but that seems to be the truth of it. And if I don't feel good then... well, then I just need to start feeling good (and doing whatever it takes to make that happen).

I've made an internal, as yet unwritten list of ways to do that, and at the top of it: fall in love with myself.

I remember reading something written (or said) by Iyanla Vanzant about falling in love with herself. I felt: intrigued, envious, inspired. I realized, yes, I like myself a lot. I sometimes love myself. But I'm not in love with myself. And that's not okay with me.

So -  how does one go about falling in love with oneself? I'm still not entirely sure, but even just by being aware that that is my ultimate intention, I've noticed changes. I realized that at heart I actually do love myself - I think I'm fun, and interesting, and pretty, and smart. I like hanging out with myself. I guess I'm kind of dating myself.

I think it was thinking about dating, relationships, etc, that prompted this recent impulse. I've been single for a long time, and pretty fine with that. I've always said and believed that I would much rather be single than in a relationship with someone who isn't a wonderfully, delightfully, astoundingly great match for me. Lately, though, I've been hoping for that wonderfully, delightfully, astoundingly great match to show up. I'm still hoping for it, but at the same time I realized that I don't want to spend my time longing and yearning. I'd rather spend my time recognizing my awesomeness, developing it, and knowing that no matter what happens I'll be more than okay. (I'll be awesome.) Only then will I actually be in a position to be really great in a relationship.

So. Yeah. Falling in love with myself. I've been keeping an eye out for ways to hasten the process, and today, thanks to a meandering blog path started by a suggestion from my sister (my lovely sister), I came across Gala Darling. I'm kind of in love with her. She loves sequins, which aren't really in keeping with this whole minimalist vibe I've got going on, but I am so so glad that there are people out there who love them and wear then and celebrate them. I suppose I can wear metaphorical sequins, if nothing else. Anyways, along with sequins, Gala loves herself. She practices (and preaches) radical self love, which is exactly what it sounds like. Here are 100 ways she thinks we can start doing the same, and an email from one of her readers that touches on the whole relationship/self-love thing.

Throughout the process of thinking about this, and writing about it, I keep coming back to something I know I must have said as a snarky tweenager, "Oh. My. God. She is so in love with herself." It depresses me to think that when I said this, I said it with poison in my voice. With judgment. It feels weird to say, aloud (or in print): I want to be in love with myself. I worry about being judged, about people thinking I'm vain, or selfish, about people thinking that I should focus my love on others (believe me, I want to love all the rest of you/them/us, too). I guess part of this process is letting go of that fear. About finding a place where I am so self-assured, so certain that I will love myself, and take care of myself, and do what I know is best for me no matter what other people think or say (or what I worry they're thinking or saying).

Because I'm the one who has to (gets to!) live with myself and my decisions for the rest of my life. And maybe longer.

Whee.

Really.

Tanita Tikaram

I so love this.