Tag: writing

Be a Campfire, Not a Conflagration

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“Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm” – Rumi

We traveled this weekend to visit a friend in Eastern Washington. On Saturday morning, I crawled out of bed early for my sacred meditation time. After I meditated, I built a fire in the wood stove to take off the chill of the early morning in the woods.

The sequence made me realize the similarities between meditation and fire building.

We accumulate the debris from our lived days – the celebrations, the joys, the annoyances, the worries. It sits like stacked wood until we are ready to coax out the heat and the warmth. Somethings are easier to ignite than others while others need some tending to burn.

It requires a spark to convert it to something other than dead wood that we carry around. The spark can come from something like writing, introspection, or meditation. It can come from people around us or circumstances can set us off. But one way or another something is likely to light us up in good ways or in bad.

Some sort of ventilation is necessary in order for the process to work. We can talk it out, sweat it out, write it out, pray it out, cry it out, or some combo of it all.

Thinking about these parallels as I sat watching the fire in the stove, I found myself mesmerized by the beauty and warmth. But there are few things that scare me as much as when fire escapes its boundaries and roars out of control.

I came home from the weekend with a new motto: Be a campfire, not a conflagration.

Maniacs

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“Faith gives flight to the imagination.” – Lailah Gifty Akita

The other day Cooper (the dog) had a play date with a neighbor’s puppy, Ziggy. Four-year-old Mr D. heard me say to the pups, “What are you two maniacs up to?”

And Mr. D fell in love – with the word “maniac.“

We were at the store a short while later and he yelled from the other end of an aisle, “Mom, call me a maniac!”

And he sometimes greets me, “Hi Mom. You maniac!”

It’s a rule in our house that we don’t call each other names but maniac seems like a term of affection to me. At least, I was saying it affectionately when I used it on the dogs.

So I looked it up in the dictionary and found that the informal definition matched my liking: An obsessive enthusiast (from Oxford Languages).

As I mentioned in My Love Affair with Words post, the word enthusiastic or enthusiast always reminds me of my dad since it comes from the root, en-Theos or “with God.” I’m at my best when I leave my logical nature and go with the flow of God, life, and the Universe.

So, yes, call me a maniac. On fun days, I have a whole houseful of them!

Gratuitous Noise Appreciation

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“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Buddha

The other day I was driving to pick up four-year-old Mr. D from preschool with Cooper the puppy riding shotgun. Coop looked at me and then started making noise like he was a cat spitting up a furball. “Khak, khak,” and then came a terrifying pause after which he let out a huge belch, “Gluuuuuuck” followed by a little cough.

Whew! Of course I told Mr. D about it as soon as he got into the car and he made me imitate the sounds for the next five minutes. It made me laugh and think about Click and Clack, the Magliozzi brothers. Remember their show, Car Talk? And they laughed with such glee as they had people describe what noises their cars were making.

And then writing noises down – isn’t that even more fun?

Like my vacuum who frequently chokes on all the puppy hair and traces of mud. It starts wheezing, “runk, runk, runk” til I clean out the filter.

Or the sound of eight-year-old Miss O practicing her hoverboard. “Wheeeee, ooohh.” Then “Clunk” and “ooof” combined as she stops herself against the wall.

As much as I love (and sometimes am overwhelmed by) the sounds coming from my little family, I usually sit in complete silence after my kids have gone to bed. But the other night, there was a rhythmic, and a little creepy, bomp, bomp bomp coming from the dining room. Upon further investigation, it was a balloon from the day bouncing on an air vent.

Early in the morning when I take the dog for a walk, I’m used to the steady patter of January rain. But the other day, it sounded peculiar. It was a “splonk” and “squitz” so I left my hood off to figure it out. It wasn’t actually raining at the moment, so the noise was the houses, trees, bushes, and wires pooling and then shaking off the recent precipitation in fat bursts.

I immediately start smiling when I hear the epic sound tracks for movies like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Out of Africa. But I love the sound track of my life.

Khak, khak, gluuuuck

Runk, runk, runk

Wheee, ooohh, clunk & ooof

Bomp, bomp, bomp

Splonk, squitz

What does your life sound like these days?

Editing That Six-Word Story

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The other day we were holding a family meeting where eight-year-old Miss O and I where hotly debating the next thing to do and I asked four-year-old Mr. D if he had an opinion.

“No, I’m not a good talker,” he replied.

Whoa, there’s a six-word story!

I’m sure with his very verbal older sister and his mom that is fascinated by words, it feels like he can’t get a word in edgewise. Funny thing is that he is interested in following along. I notice that the more we talk, the more still he gets. And then when we least expect it, he pops off with a perfectly positioned sentence like on January 1st when he said, “I told you last year not to step on lava.”

It feels like helping these young people write and change their stories as they grow is one of my biggest responsibilities and honors. In this case, I’m hoping to convince Mr. D that his six-word story is better said as, “I’m not a good talker…yet.”

And for more about six-word stories, please tune in to my podcast with Dr. Victoria Atkinson. We know and love her as our blogging, writing, and podcasting friend. But in this case, she brings all her experience as a therapist, professor, college dean, and author to bear to teach us how potent these little stories can be.

Search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and Pocket casts. And please subscribe! Or click here for the show notes and link to listen to the podcast on Anchor.

(featured photo is mine. I offer these six words as a caption: Despite our care, another worm died)

My Love Affair With Words

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“Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.” – unknown

The other night I was fixing dinner while my seven-year-old daughter was in the family room working on her very first short story. “Momma, how do you spell persevere?” she asked. As I replied, I took in the really sweet scene and thought to myself “there’s another leaf that’s going to stick on my word associations tree.”

Because that’s how my brain likes to work — by creating associations to words. Like with smells or sights, words themselves conjure memories and the older I get, the more associations I have – or in my mental image, leaves on my word tree.

For example, enthusiasm – from en-Theos or with God – reminds me of my beloved father who was a Presbyterian pastor. There isn’t a word that describes his remarkable energy better and I can’t hear it without thinking of him.

Or plethora which is my best friend’s favorite word. And since we’ve been friends since we were seven-years-old, there are a plethora of memories that come to mind when I hear that word, especially of high school when life was abundant in opportunity, boys, and screw ups to learn from.

Then there’s the phrase “pit stop” that with the hard “t” and “p” sounds reminds me of my sister. She used the phrase in a letter she sent to the whole family when we were in 20’s when she was mad at my brother for not breaking off a relationship with one of her friends properly. In trying to smear him for using others as a “pit stop from himself,” she instead attached that phrase in my mind to my image of her, along with “misdirection” for her ability to distract from the work she needs to do.

Plenitude is a recent favorite that comes in accordance with meditation which almost always leaves me with the reminder that at that moment I have enough.

When I first started going to meditation class ten years ago as I was healing from my divorce, there was a bowl of inspirational words on a table to pick from. I kept getting “transformation” and I was so completely tired of it I just want to scream, “Haven’t I changed enough for a life time? Leave me alone.” And fortunately when I vented that thought, I was usually down on my knees in prayer pose and from there could bend to accept more renewal.

Because renewal has a friendly association for me. That means my cup is being refilled and hopefully my energy too. I’m friends with renewal in a way that I will never be with transformation.

“Calibrating sentences” is one of my recent favorites that comes from playwright and writer, Jack Canfora, on a podcast that he did bout the creative process. Isn’t that a beautiful way to measure the weight and balance the best utterances come with? And given that it comes from such a gifted writer, it gives me hope that if I work at it too, I might be able to calibrate a few great sentences in my lifetime.

Fledgling gained new attachment for me when I had kids. Never before had I been able to appreciate the delicate nature of holding newness in my arms combined with the potent desire to provide a platform strong enough to see them take flight.

Bivouac reminds me of my climbing friend, Phil, who is always joking that it’s French for mistake. It’s not, it means a temporary camp without cover according to Oxford languages, but since Phil bivouacked high on Mt. Everest during the climb when he became the first American to climb the North Side of Everest, it’s a well-earned attachment.

Say the word “authentic” and I think of my meditation teacher and friend, Deirdre. It’s the attribute that makes it so she can somehow manage to lead a yoga class and yell, without missing a beat, “Move on, Motherf*$)#^!” out the door at someone she thinks is casing her car.

The word I associate with me three-year-old son is observer. The other day I turned on some kitchen lights I don’t usually use for a house guest. When my son saw them, he took me by hand to show me where other lights of that same type were in the house. He sees the quarter moon and says, “The moon is missing a piece.” And most recently, in one of his most profound observations, we were watching a storm out the window and he said to his sister, “Sshh, I can’t see.”

There’s “constellation” and it reminds me of my brother and one of his favorite songs by the same name by Jack Johnson and Eddie Vedder. It also is attached because my brother is always seeing the patterns in things.

Love has so many associations that it has become cluttered. But dedication, commitment, intimacy, fun, play, expansiveness, laughter, loyalty, selflessness and desire each conjure a particular person or memory in my life so that all together, they jumble into a delicious mix of how love feels to me.

I can’t hear the word “condensation” without thinking of my very verbal daughter. As a four-year-old, someone was telling her he had water forming on the inside of his camper van on cold nights and she responded, “You mean condensation?”

My love of words has infected me so much that for almost any person in my life, I have a word association for them. It makes me wonder that if, by the time I’m really old, if I’m lucky enough that my body perseveres that long, every time I construct a sentence, there will be a memory and person hanging off of it.

Maybe that will be my tree of life and I’ll be able to enjoy each delightful word with the memory that comes with it.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Talk, Talk, Talk

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“We spend the first year of a child’s life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There’s something wrong here.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

My daughter, Miss O, learned the power of words early on. She started talking at 10 months and it’s been off to the races ever since. Now she’s eight-years-old, and I’ve learned to get worried when she isn’t talking.

One Sunday when it was just the two of us and Miss O was about three-years-old, I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant talking, singing, and narrating. We were sitting and drawing at the dining room table as the last rays of fall afternoon sunshine filtered into the room. I said to Miss O, “Do you think we could just be quiet for 10 minutes?”

Miss O paused for a moment and then said, “Why?”

About a year later, a friend was at our house trying to troubleshoot a problem with his van. Four-year-old Miss O asked him what was happening and he started, “When hot air meets a cold surface and water forms…” She interrupted him and asked, “You mean condensation?”

I confess, I don’t always listen to her every word. But I recently had the honor of editing a podcast that Miss O did with Vicki and me. As I tuned in with ears to make sure the conversation flowed, I was stunned with the perspective of this delightful young person talking with the incredibly interesting and supportive Vicki Atkinson.

Am I biased? No doubt! But most of all what I noticed is that Miss O has learned to use her words well. And she’s found her voice – to express herself, to give voice to her feelings, to convey her delightful enthusiasm, and at the end, to share her delightful glow with everyone around.

Ha – I just realized this post could have been reduced to one sentence. Miss O is on the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast with the always amazing Dr. Vicki Atkinson and me – please listen. Perhaps wordiness runs in the family….

Vulnerability

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“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” – Criss Jami

This post was previously published on 2/2/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other day my friend, Doug called when I was working on a blog post. When I responded to his question to tell him what I was doing, he said, “Oh, that’s awesome. Send me the link to that blog.”

I did and then….<nothing.>

Did he not like my latest post? Did he not like any post? Maybe he didn’t read it? But he asked for it? <Gulp>

Vulnerability is hard.

When I applied to be a writer for the Pointless Overthinking blog (now Wise & Shine), I didn’t tell anyone in my in-person life. I was excited that I might have the opportunity to be a writer for a shared blog but telling someone seemed too scary — I didn’t have the guts to admit it out loud.

Six weeks went by. Because it was well within the window of expected response, I didn’t think about it much one way or the other.

Then from deep inside, my courage to follow-up won over the vulnerability of confessing that it mattered. I sent a follow-up email pointing out how well I can pointlessly overthink. And I got a response within the day.

This internal struggle reminds me how much I’ve learned about vulnerability in recent years, primarily from Dr. Brené Brown’s research. She defines vulnerability as “the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” It is where we go when things matter and yet they are out of our control. Which I believe is the heart of life.

But she has researched extensively the connection between vulnerability and courage.  “In my most recent research on courage and leadership, the ability to embrace vulnerability emerged as the prerequisite for all of the daring leadership behavior.” Or said more succinctly in one of her most oft repeated quotes, “I believe that we have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage.”

Whether it is leadership, creativity or intimacy, we have to risk emotional exposure in order to show up. If something matters, it will hurt if not met with success, acclaim or acceptance. But I’ve learned that showing up always results in SOMETHING that keeps moving me forward on my journey. I’ll never be able to say that I don’t consider what the potential audience might think as I write this – but I get closer to knowing what it is that I think of my effort.

And what about what my friend Doug thinks? Something I read in a book published by blogger, Julia Preston’s “Voices: Who’s In Charge of the Committee In My Head?” about her life and blogging experience gave me insight into the reactions, or lack thereof, of my non-blogging friend.

“One of the most valuable lessons that I ever learned about vulnerability is that the more willing I am to tell the truth about myself to a trusted listener – someone who will not judge me for whatever heinous crime that I believe I may have committed, the more of me there is to love. The more others trust me enough to share from within the depths of their being, the more that I realize that we’re all struggling with the same human foibles.”

Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee In My Head? by Julia Preston

My mountain climbing friend and former IT work colleague, Doug, isn’t a blogger or writing in any format that I know of to share his authentic life. If I took up knitting, I certainly wouldn’t expect any insightful commentary from him on that pursuit. So why do I expect it about writing?

Because to speak to anyone else, writing has to be vulnerable and authentic. Sometimes opening that vein to pour onto the page takes a lot of guts but it’s the only way to reach to others who are willing to walk through vulnerability to get to courage.

I’ve written a related post on the Wise & Shine blog inspired by Miss O’s 3rd grade teacher about the reader’s experience: Writing Windows and Mirrors

(featured photo from Pexels and featured quote from Mitch Teemley: Be Humble. Or Be Humbled )

Community

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“Know all the theories. Master all the techniques. But as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.“- Carl Jung

This was originally published on 4/20/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

This last weekend, I was out listening to live music for the first time in two years and suddenly the people, the place and the context overran me with a sublime feeling of community. I was with my brother and his wife. The lead singer of the blue grass group we were listening to went to high school with my brother so the audience was filled with many of his high school friends and families that I’ve known from 40 years ago.

The place stirred up this feeling of connection because it’s a community center in my neighborhood that holds classes, the farmers market in the summer and my daughter went to pre-school there.

And the context struck me because the last time I was in this performance hall, two years ago before the abrupt pandemic shutdown, it was for a story-telling night for all the kids of my daughter’s preschool and the same twinkle lights were hanging from the ceiling.

As a consultant, I work alone and as a single-parent, I parent alone. Although I see, email and text family and friends all the time, it’s different than being in a room filled with people listening, singing and clapping.

It reminded me of a powerful mediation led by my meditation teacher. We close our eyes and picture an aspen grove. We see the individual trees, the way they stand tall, the singular leaves that blow in the wind. Then as we focus on those trees and start to relate to them, we go underground and see how all the roots are connected. The health of an aspen grove is a web of interdependence because it’s one root system. They, like us, all come from One, and the image of separateness is just an illusion.

And so it was with my moment in the auditorium last weekend. It was if I have been going about spinning the threads of my life and then I received one beautiful moment of perspective that gave me a glimpse of how they all tie together. Which went beautifully with the music. Here’s the thread of a story about a couple spun through one of the band’s hit songs, Be Here Now by True North:

They were on their honeymoon, and the bride said to the groom

I just can’t forget the dream I had last night.

I saw John, Paul, George and Ringo, In the church yard playing bingo on the gravestones

This is how the groom replied:

He said “Be here now

Be with me, look into my eyes, kiss me

Make this a moment we will savor, and will put aside for later

We are young , our lives begun

But it will not last forever, they’ll be days we’re not together

So be here now.”

They’re in their middle years, pretty deep in their careers

And he called her from the plane in Amsterdam

I just heard John, Paul, George and Ringo , from that dusty old single on the muzak

It made me want to hold your hand

He said, “Be here now

Be with me, look into my eyes, kiss me

Though our hearts still feel this hunger, we won’t get any younger

From the start our days were numbered

So be here now.”

It was after visiting hours

And he’d rearranged the flowers

And she hadn’t recognized him in a week

And the nurses heard him sing “Hey you’ve got to hide your love away”

And she opened up her eyes and began to speak

She said “Be here now

Be with me, look into my eyes, kiss me

Every breath becomes a treasure, in my heart we’re young forever

My race is nearly run, I no longer feel the sun

But I can face whatever comes just…

Be here now.”

The word community is defined by Merriam Webster as “a unified body of individuals” – maybe because of living in a particular area, or a common interest, whether it be social, professional or religious. But community brings unity – a sense of togetherness.

As I was sitting in that audience last weekend, I felt the ease of collective energy in a room full of great music. The physical reminder that we are in this experience together and it was a thin place. Thin place as explained by Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal church as those places, moments, people, experiences when you get a sense, “Wait a minute, God just touched me.” Something beyond me just happened to me. Those moments when time is intersected by eternity.

As I got that tell-tale shiver, all I could think was “Be here now.”

I’ve written a related piece on the Wise & Shine blog about how community helps to make our writing findable: Promoting Your Writing With Search

(featured photo from Pexels)

Smells Like Vacation

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“Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don’t expect to see.” – unknown

I love words. Use them all the time. But every once in a while, something happens to remind me that perhaps I’m using too many.

The other day my kids and I were driving an hour to get to the Washington State Fair. It wasn’t a vacation, or bay-cation as Mr. D says, but it was a special day. And my kids are great in the car – they generally get along and are happy to be there.

So, there we were, sunnily driving down the road. Mr. D, who Vicki (from the Victoria Ponders blog and my partner on the HoTM blog and podcast) refers to as a poet, pipes up from the back seat,

“I can smell bay-cation. It smells like orange mixed with rainbow.”

What do your vacations smell like?

If you are going on a road trip or just want some great listening around the house, check out the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast with author and blogger Pete Springer on our latest episode: Episode 36: They Call Me Mom with Pete Springer

Give Me A List

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“To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of things that are happening inside of you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

This post was originally published on 10/26/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

Have you thought about the effectiveness of lists in writing? Take a moment and think of the famous lists that come to mind like My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music or the Ten Commandments from the Bible. Even when we can’t name them all, I bet we can name a few or most.

Lists can help us as writers be concise, ordered and on topic. They also let the reader draw their own inferences. One of my favorite lists is Jack Canfora’s post, Dear Lord, Not Another Post on This Blog about Gratitude and I’m grateful it made me want to continue to write. AP2 polled the readers on the Wise & Shine blog and created 9 Pieces of Indispensable Life Advice From Your Future Self. And Dr. Gerald Stein’s list of How to Become Your Own Best Friend has so many nuggets of wisdom to mine. I can name those lists as impactful off the top of my head plus some items on them because at least I find lists are more memorable.

So, here’s a list I’ve written.

Why I Meditate

I meditate because it is the one thing that has improved the quality of my life the most.
The quality prior to meditation was only manageable if I drank a bottle of wine a day.

Meditation helps me live in my heart, not my head.
Because the voice in my head is an asshole.*
And I was sometimes an asshole when I listened to it.

Meditation has helped me to eat at the table of what IS and stopped begging at the table of what ISN’T.

I meditate to so that at least once I day I’m listening to the right things instead of the wrong things.
Right things include love, empathy, patience, wonder, awe, curiosity, grace, laughter.
Wrong things include judgment, self-flagellation, anxiety, comparison.

Meditation has helped me give up two key stories: that situations are win/lose and that choosiness leads to joy.

Instead I believe in bowing down to openness and creating porous boundaries where I try not to hang out to things as they come and go.

I meditate because it helps me exercise my grace muscle instead of my judgment reflex.

Sitting quietly in meditation has helped me to hear the heartbeat of life and trust in its timing and flow.
I almost always get this wrong and push ahead of the envelope but I’ve learned to respect it, especially in hindsight.

Meditation has helped me find internal quiet and be able to rest there.
When resting in that space, I can more easily find my way to others.

It takes repetition but meditation in five-fifteen minute daily increments has been the most gentle way of changing my life.
The other ways change has come to my life through loss, suffering and chaos have been a lot less fun.

And when I get all of the above wrong, which I do all the time, meditation helps me not judge myself too harshly, breathe and begin again.

How’s that for a list? Do you use lists in your writing? How about meditation?

*I give credit to former newsman Dan Harris, a self-described cynical but committed proponent of meditation and mindfulness for the phrase “the voice in my head is an asshole.” His podcast, Ten Percent Happier has great guests who discuss the science of mindfulness and it also has free, short 8-10 minute guided meditations. And for anyone looking for an app, Healthy Minds has 5-minute meditations. I am not affiliated with either.

** Update on 9/5: Another related post on meditation: Does Loving-Kindness Actually Matter?

Speaking of lists, I’ve compiled a list of favorite writer quotes submitted by bloggers in response to my poll of favorites on the Wise & Shine blog: Your Favorite Writer Quotes

(featured photo from Pexels)