Here

manzanita, oregon (february 2011)

friendship. writing. connection. good.

Obsessions & Preoccupations

seattle street, december 2010 (diana f+, fuji pro 400x rxp-120 film)

The color blue. Hot tea. The ocean. Film photography. Soup. Spirituality. Fluffy white, heavy-blue-bottomed clouds. Water. Gradations of grey. Traveling. Sushi. Meaning-making. The Pacific Northwest. Lyric essays. Tsunamis. Twinkle lights. Pottery. Cottages. Daffodils. The naming of things. The United Kingdom. Finding my home. The feel of soft fabric scrunched between fingers. Shadows and light.  

(this post inspired by Cynthia from Catching Days)

Be Yourself. Write. It's Okay. Really.

fancy buskers, fremont market, seattle, december 2010 (diana f+, fuji pro 400x rxp-120 film

I don't know what to write.

I don't know how to write.

I'm afraid to write.

Who am I to write?

These are things I hear again and again from my coaching clients and other creative souls who want to write. These are the very same things I've said in the past, or may be saying on any given day.

I used to think that writers write without angst, worry, confusion, or struggle. I used to think that all writers were brimming over with stories and ideas and perfect phrases just waiting to dance across the page--and that they were like this all the time. I used to think that having a lot of writing experience meant you'd never feel insecure or lost.

Now I write a lot. I consider myself a writer, not just as a descriptor of what I do, but as an essential element of who I am. And still, I don't always know what to write. More often than I'd like to admit, I don't know how to write the story that's asking to be told. I'm still afraid, lost, and insecure sometimes.

But I think I've finally wrangled a hold on this one: Who am I to write? 

I'm me. I want to tell stories. I want to string together words in a way that creates beauty and makes people catch their breath. So the question is no longer: Who am I to write? I want to write, so I do.

I push aside the fear and worry and insecurity. Or I talk to my writer friends about it, and they talk me down from the ceiling (when I'm buzzing around like a nervous, jittery hummingbird) or pull me up from under the covers (when I'm hiding out and glancing around furtively).

This is what I know: If you want to figure out what to write, please start writing. If you want to be a better writer, start writing. If you want to feel less afraid, write. If you want to write, write.

If you're naturally angst-filled (like me), you may as well be angsty about writing. The alternative is to be angsty about not writing, and that's much worse. On the plus side, actually writing brings me moments of joy and wonder, which are my guiding principles in life. So: score!

And if you can, if helps to surround yourself with friends who understand the peaks and valleys of the creative life. Then you can take turns talking each other down from ceilings and out from underneath the covers.

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If you're looking for some inspiration, writing tips & techniques, and community, I invite you to join me for one (or more) of the Alchemy writing courses. Alchemy Daily (30 days of writing prompts, inspiration, and magic) starts on February 21. Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing, a six-week online course for creative souls, starts April 4. More info & registration are over here.

I also have a free series about writing called In The Word Cellar. Check it out in the righthand sidebar or over here.

An Everyday Love

her & him

"Some people write love songs about what happens in the beginning of a relationship. We've sort of moved on to what happens during the bulk of that relationship — the work, the investment, the commitment, you know? And some of it doesn't really sound all that sexy." — Karen Bergquist of Over the Rhine (NPR interview)

He gets up too late to iron his work shirt, and your alarm wasn't set for another three hours. But you drag yourself out of bed — bleary-eyed and on the sleepy edge of bitter — to iron it for him, because he's already stressed out enough and you want him to have a good day.

She hangs her bra, her pajamas, her tank tops on the doorknobs. You hate clothes on doorknobs; they get in the way, and as a child were taught it was bad luck, a superstition you don't exactly believe but can't quite shake. Still, you pretend you don't mind.

He doesn't always bother to shave before he picks you up at the airport, his three- or four- or six-day fast-growing stubble closing in on a full scratchy beard, while you prefer a smooth, clean-shaven cheek. But he never complains about how much you travel and he always picks you up.

She forgets a lot of details. You hate to answer questions and you hate to repeat yourself. But she remembers to call every day when she travels, sometimes twice.

He went to Bath & Body Works at the store near his job just to get you two of your favorite lavender candles because you were sad when the store near your house sold out of them for good.

Every year for your birthday, she makes your favorite cake (and frosting) from scratch, the one that involves a dozen steps and requires odd ingredients like marshmallows and Coca Cola.

He makes you laugh in the middle of crying, in the middle of a fight, in the middle of the boring everyday — just like he did when you first met him in the hallway behind the cafeteria. Just like he did when you first knew you loved him.

She still laughs at your jokes, the old ones, the new ones, the corny ones — just like she did the first time you met her in that high school hallway, waiting for lunch. Just like she did when you first knew you loved her.

Post-conference bloat

Sunday morning breakfast

I've been thinking about gout.

My big toe has been hurting in the mornings. I wake up, notice the faint, dull ache, and think of my brother, who had gout last year after a weekend bender of food & drink debauchery with friends.

I silently catalog the contents of my meals between last Wednesday and  Sunday: bread pudding with caramel sauce, potato chowder, seafood chowder, Caesar salad, eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce, red wine, sushi, a sake-limoncello martini, bread pudding (yes, again), chicken Chesapeake (chicken stuffed with crab - if you can believe it), fresh croissants with jam and the sweetest, creamiest butter you ever did taste, pasta, coffee with cream, buffalo chicken pizza.

I could tell you the technical reasons that rich food and alcohol cause gout, something about a buildup of uric acid that often collects in the big toe, but I'd rather think of my mildly achy toe as a sending up a little flare, a message that I should eat some lettuce, drink more water, and maybe go for a brisk walk (which I would do, if my toe didn't hurt, and if the temperature wasn't wallowing in the  single or negative digits outside).

I also think of asparagus, a known gout culprit, which doesn't seem fair, seeing as how it's a vegetable and all, but it makes a kind of strange sense since we're talking about uric acid here, and asparagus is supposed to make your pee smell funny, though it's never done that to mine. My brother blamed his gout on asparagus, and I'm thinking of doing the same. I did eat a fat bunch of it last Tuesday. But we both know it was most likely the wine or bread puddings or the chowders.

I consumed all of this yumminess last week in Washington, DC, where I attended AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. AWP, of course, is about writers and writing, not about food and eating. But hotels and restaurants are conducive to goutly behavior. And I'm still too full of ideas and names of lit journals and panel sessions to write about anything but the food and drink.

I'm home now. There is no bread pudding here, though there are several unopened bottles of wine. I ate a pear tonight, taken from one of the hotel buffets, and called it good.

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That last line feels like it's almost trying to reach toward larger significance, doesn't it? A good essay examines the particular and connects it to the universal. But this is not a good essay. This is just a blog post about how I ate too much rich food and then worried about getting gout, and then realized I was just getting fatter, not goutier. Sometimes, a bowl of bread pudding is just a bowl of bread pudding, man.