Correlation is not causation

In the mailbox: Two long, white envelopes addressed to me in my own handwriting.

Inside the envelopes: Replies from two prestigious literary journals, saying "thanks-but-no-thanks" on my recent contest entries.

In my heart: Mild disappointment.

Back in the house: Oven roasted potatoes cooking for dinner.

Also in the oven: A strange orange glow flaring up from the bottom heating element, one that doesn't stop when I close the door and shut off the oven.

On the phone: The 911 operator telling me to get everyone out of the house and wait outside.

In my head: Everyone? I'm the only one here.
And then: The cats!

In their carriers and out into the driveway: The cats. (along with my purse and laptop bag)

Out of the garage: My car.
Into the car: The cats and bags.

In through the front door: The policeman and a plain-clothes fireman.

In the basement: The breaker box. Power to the range cut. (In my head: Wish I'd thought of that.)

Out of the mouths of professionals: Can't use oven. Bad element. Easy to replace: snap out and in.

Back into the garage and then into the house: Me, the cats (plus purse and laptop).

Still sitting on the kitchen island: The rejection letters.

Note to Universe: I wasn't that upset about the letters. I didn't really need such an adrenaline-pumping reminder about perspective. But there it was. So now I file the letters, keep writing, and figure out what to eat tomorrow without a working oven.

I have a writing deadline coming up, which means I don't really have time right now to replace the heating element. But then, I don't have much time to cook either. So that works out.

A Springtime Blessing*

haystack rock, cannon beach, oregon (march 2010)

May you be rooted like rock
That reaches down beneath the constant tide
And pushes tall into the air.
May you shimmer like sun-skimmed sand
Along white, white waves.
May a line of footprints lead you
To adventure and home and back again.
May your perspective be one of compassion and beauty.
May you ruffle your wings in the water
And flutter them dry on the breeze,
Plump with the knowledge that you are as permanent
And as temporary
As this land.

(*originally posted, without audio, on 2 april 2010)

Writing Prompts: My love-hate relationship

"I don't give prompts. The world is your prompt!"

So said the writer leading my workshop.

And I thought, "Yes, yes! Real writers don't need to be told what to write. I am an artiste! The world is my prompt!"

And then I realized that I've routinely found myself wondering what to write about, worrying that I'm not a real writer after all. Phooey.

Whatever shall I do if the world is not enough?

** ** **

I have a friend who loves prompts. For months she kept nudging me toward them, gently but firmly, trying to convince me that a good prompt is better than the whole wide world, because a good prompt gives you a focus and a way in.

** ** **

You know what I hate? The blank page. The blank, ever-so-white, mocking-me-with-its-clean-emptiness, no-words page.

When I was a teenager I wrote a poem called "A Bright White Room is Hell." I didn't intend it as a metaphor for the blank page, but I think I'd like to intend that now.

But give me a page with my own messy thoughts and I can breathe a little more easily. I have something to hang on to, something to swing around my head. Most days, words -- any words -- are better than a blank page.

** ** **

That same teacher who insisted that the world is our prompt conceded and gave us just one little bit of direction. She told us we could choose a color and write about whatever came to mind when we thought of that color.

I chose brown.

This is not what I wrote, but this is what I wrote about: how on the first day of first grade, the tip of my big, fat Crayola snapped off and left with me a pointless tree stump of a crayon. The teacher was a nice lady, but she wouldn't give me a new one. I cried during the whole walk home with my mother, who later recorded this event in the spiral-bound notebook she kept as a journal when my brother and I were little. Years later, that teacher, still a youngish woman, died of cancer. I began to think (while writing about "brown") how little things and big things can go wrong unexpectedly, and how there's not always a do-over or replacement waiting in the wings, even if your teacher is kind, even if God is loving.

All of that from brown. Brown was my way in.

** ** **

So here's the thing. The world is enough. But the world is overwhelming. And sometimes we're tired. Sometimes our creative mojonators slow down and we need help to crank things back up. I think of prompts this way: I know how to cook without a recipe. But sometimes I run out of ideas or get bored, and then I like to read cookbooks and websites for yummy ideas which I can follow verbatim or tweak to my liking.

There is no shame in wanting, needing, using creative prompts. I still resist them, but that's because I'm stubborn and silly. Even so, I am now a prompt convert. I believe in them. If nothing else, they can get us unstuck, get us writing, get some messy words on that blank page so we can swing them around later. If nothing else, prompts can be practice. And when I say practice, I mean as a musician practices scales and as a Buddhist practices meditation.

** ** **

Some days the world is enough. Other days, I need a little help finding the right piece of the world to write about.

I've discovered that I like a certain kind of prompt. I like ones that are open-ended enough to let me jump from the color brown to first grade to death (so to speak). I don't love the ones that are overly prescriptive and tell me to write a sci-fi story about toasters that come to life (for example). That's a bit too much of a way in, and I don't really want to go there anyway.

So I've created a batch of writing prompts that I'd actually want to do, and packaged them up for you, in case you'd like to do them too.

The next session of Alchemy Daily starts May 1. You'll get 30 days of writing prompts, inspiration, and magic delivered to your email inbox for just $35. It'll be fun.  And no toasters, I promise. (Unless that's your thing, and then you can write about them.)

Next session: May 1-30, 2011

The hands of spring

an excerpt from
Spring is like a perhaps hand
by e.e. cummings

III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

(keep reading)

The Textures of a Self

(pants & skirt from Texture Clothing; Just Be True tee from Jen Lee; necklaces from Kelly Barton Art and Liz Lamoreux; flowers from supermarket.)

~~Scroll down for a 20% discount code from Texture for The Word Cellar readers.~~

Five years ago, nothing fit me.

My day job had me jamming my staunchly square peg into a rigidly round hole every weekday and crying about it every weeknight. My marriage was going through some serious growing pains and was becoming itchy and uncomfortable. I was almost completely disconnected from my creative self, which left me feeling twitchy and restless. Even religious beliefs that I'd held for half my life started to prickle and sting.

And then there were my clothes. It's not that they were too small or too big, but most of them just didn't fit who I was and who I was unconsciously trying to become.

Eventually I quit my job and stopped having nightly anxiety attacks. My husband and I "did the work," as the saying goes, and grew closer together instead of apart. I started writing again and playing with paint for the first time in my life, reconnecting to and rediscovering my creative self, which went a long way in helping me to breathe easier. I reluctantly let go of ways of understanding the universe that no longer made sense to me, and the universe, in turn, opened up with love.

And then you know what happened? My clothes really didn't fit.

For most of my life I've struggled to make what I look like on the outside match who I am on the inside. Part of the problem has been an overabundance of potential personalities. In high school I secretly longed to be a goth chick, but band geek was more my style. In college I wore plenty of 1990s-requisite flannel and jeans, and that worked fine for a time. But I'd never found a style that felt true to me.

Two and a half years ago I went to Squam Art Workshops for the first time. And I discovered something priceless. I discovered that I could wear a dress over jeans! And put my hair up in pigtails! And wear more than one necklace at the same time! I know this sounds obvious and simple and silly, but it was a REVELATION to me. Here were all of these amazing and artsy women rockin' their funky-quirky looks. Even better, they could tell me where I could find these cool threads online. (I wrote a little about that experience here and mentioned it again here.) All those women in dresses and "piggies" and necklaces (oh my!) were like signposts to me, pointing the way to my own authentic style.

So for the past two and a half years I've been rebuilding my wardrobe. One of my latest acquisitions is also one of my favorites. Have you heard of Texture Clothing? Sweet goodness, I can't stop wearing their pants and skirts.

My pal Liz had been raving about their comfy skirts for months. (That's actually the name of the skirt: the Comfy Skirt. And it lives up to it. Truth in advertising, baby.) When Liz and I went to Seattle's Urban Craft Uprising last December, I walked away from the Texture booth with two Comfy Skirts (one in "berry stain" and another in "robin" blue), plus a pair of Posh Pants in "indigo."

And do you know what I do with them? Sometimes I wear a skirt over a pair of those gloriously wide-legged pants! Again, it's a revelation.

Look, I know that true beauty is on the inside. And I'm not being sarcastic here. I do know that. But as an artistically-inclined person, I care about aesthetics. And as a woman with curves, I care about comfort. (And as a short-torsoed woman with curves, I care about pants that fit my waist but don't give me the much hated droopy-butt or saggy-crotch syndrome.)

Finding clothes that make me more comfortable in my own skin and align my "look" with my internal self has been one of the best gifts of my ongoing artistic revolution/revelation.

Fashion Arts Goddess Teresa Remple owns Texture, which is nestled in Bellingham, Washington. But lucky for me and for all of you who don't live there, she has a website where you can stock up on everyting Posh and Comfy.

And even luckier for you, Teresa is offering The Word Cellar readers 20% off anything in the Texture shop until May 6. Just use the code word20 when you check-out. (whee!)

(There are also dresses, scarves, and tee-shirts. Oh, and handwarmers, which I've just ordered in indigo/wedgewood....plus maybe another skirt and pair of pants because I really am wearing them every day of the week.)

The pants are as versatile as the website claims they are. I wear mine around the house, on dinner dates with my husband, around town, to do yoga in my living room, and even to client meetings in the city. They dress up and down beautifully (with or without an overlaying skirt). The Texture fabric is yummy-soft, earth-friendly (hemp, organic cotton, and lycra), and holds up great even with obsessive wearing. These pants and skirts cost more than I'd been used to paying for bottoms, but they are worth every penny. Texture has convinced me that paying a bit more for quality and style is the way to go. (And with the sweet 20% off coupon, they're a good deal.)

No piece of clothing will ever define me from the outside in, but it's really nice to feel defined from the inside out and have that image carry all the way down to the hems of my skirts and the cuffs of my pants.