there are things i want you to remember {3}

you are (dancing) on your path.

three things

a gathering of sacred things

feeling moved to write in lists...

1) i had such fun talking to jamie as a guest for the Creative Living with Jamie podcast. serious fun. i hope you will hop over to her site to listen to our talk about creative dreams, listening to yourself, and the importance of action. and then explore other podcasts and good things on jamie's site. that girl gets it. yes yes yes. and i am so glad we finally got to connect voice to voice after years of knowing each other in blog world.

2) elliebeana and i are still singing "beauty in the world" several times a day. my girl loves this song. i sang it to her while she was in the hospital and i think wanting to giggle and dance to it was part of the reason she came off the ventilator so early.

3) people are reading Inner Excavation. and telling me about it. and posting a review on amazon. oh. my. goodness. it is a kind of crazy goodness to get emails from people who have visited my blog because they are reading the book. my book. wow. the first batch of books for people who ordered the book from me went out yesterday. the rest should go out later this week/first thing next week (there was some confusion with my publisher but that is all straightened out now). and, you can still order the book from me and receive the free postcard package of additional images from five of the contributors (i am sending these free postcards with orders through the end of the month or until i run out). 

thank you. for ordering the book. for reading it. for telling me your thoughts about it. 

i am so blessed.

there are things i want you to remember {2}

your heart is open and brave and holds all that you need. (know this truth.)

::home::

 

ellie plays at home. yes. home. 

due to ellie jane's amazing superpower of healing, we have been home for 24 hours.

just like that.

(we expected to be at the hospital for at least a week.) 

thank you for surrounding us with light, love, support, notes, and prayers. we are so very grateful. this experience has me believing that love always wins, no matter what happens. yes. yes. yes.

let the healing continue...

we breathe in, we breathe out (what is real)

our friend jules holds ellie's hand, holds us . october 9, 2010

with each breath, ellie is one step further on the healing path.

she breathes on her own.

she looks into our eyes.

she tells us her story.

and i stand beside her, catching it, holding the space, breathing in and out.

and as her heart heals, mine continues to somehow hold together with masking tape and purple thread pulled tight and dabs of glue and sticks from curly willows woven through here and there and the whispered prayers and blessings from so many lights in this world.

(thank you)

yes.

this is what is real.

::yes::

lately, i have been asked variations of one specific question: is there anything i can do? 

i have to admit that i am so grateful when someone does ask this because often it means they are putting their own thoughts/need to share a story/need to tell me advice to the side and trying to understand what i need, what we need. and when i hear that question, sometimes the answer simply comes right out of me. and this can mean that the answer is too quick and not quite what the other person wanted to hear. other times i am not honest and just say, "oh we're/i'm okay." 

after spending time at the reveal retreat with some beautiful, amazing, strong, brave women and encouraging them to hold the space for one another, for themselves, to ask for what they need, to own the truth that lives inside them, i am pushing myself to show up here and ask you, whomever might be reading this, for what i need.

our daughter ellie jane turned four months old yesterday, and this friday morning, october 8, she will be having open-heart surgery. 

yes.

this is why so many people have been asking if there is anything we need.

this is why my heart feels like it might break right in two at any moment, and i keep visualizing all the energy and wisdom and knowledge of the women who came before me somehow constantly stitching it together so that i don't simply combust from the fear and can instead be completely present for whatever ellie jane needs.

this is why i am so grateful for the gift that was...that is...eleven amazing women showing up to share in community and truth and love and giving themselves permission to share pieces of who they are and where they stand on their journeys. because, truly, where else would a mama who is me be with her baby girl when we stand facing the scariest, most important day of our lives, than surrounded by eleven other women who have given themselves the gift of revealing the beauty amidst all of the "stuff" that brought them to this moment?

yes. 

i am simply taken out at the knees by the truth that is the gifts given to one in the midst of the fear and the desperate hope. to be honest, it almost pisses me off because it just never stops...the beauty standing shoulder to shoulder with the shit. how the beauty and the joy and the hope and the truth shift it all. 

however, i do not always remember this. nope. i do not always see that beauty. sometimes i am so far under the fear that i am hoping i have the snorkel + mask from our old house on oak road in my pocket so i can somehow breathe as i try to remember which way takes me to the surface.

and so today, i will answer your question, your beautiful question of "is there anything i can do?" 

yes, you can do something for me...for us.

you can spend a moment or two thinking about a loved one in your life, someone you want to spend some time with, someone maybe you need to see or talk to. consider asking that loved one to join you in doing something you love. perhaps you will meet a friend for a date or take your son to the park or ask you mother to join you for an afternoon of paints and collage papers or take your daughter and her best friend to the ocean or sit curled up with your cat and have a poetry reading for two or invite your husband on a photography adventure or count the squirrels with your dog or call someone whose voice you need to hear. 

do this.

then, spend some time thinking about the love that filled the space between you as you connected with one another. maybe this love was apparent, maybe you have to really spend some time being open to finding it in the tiniest sliver of a moment.

you will find the love.

then, maybe you could take a second or two to gather up some of this love and send it ellie's way this friday morning and in the days that follow.

because here is the truth (my truth): i want to one day be able to do these things that you will do. i want to be able to do these things with her...i want her to dip her toes into the ocean and giggle as the sand rushes between her toes. i want to read to her every single mary oliver poem i can find. i want to teach her tree pose and how to braid her hair. i want to hold her hand in mine while her daddy holds her other hand as we walk off a plane in paris. i want to hear her first word and her 100,000th. i want to walk with her through an indiana cornfield. i want to tell her everything i know so her path is always filled with soft light if she chooses to seek it. i want to hear her laugh at yet another of her daddy's silly jokes. i want to sing to her until she joins in. i want to watch her stand tall rooted in her own truth on her path even though her back will often be toward me as she finds her way.

yes.

and i know that it is the brave choice to answer, "yes, there is something you can do." i know it is the brave choice to say, "you can be a light on my path so i don't get lost in the darkness. if you really want to help, you can sit inside the love in your world and then, for just a moment or two, shine just a bit of your light this way."

each day this week and the next and the one after that, i am going to push myself to make the brave choice. 

yes.

(thank you)

there are things i want you to remember {1}

Rituals & The Writing Process (a guest post from Jenna McGuiggan)

photo by Jenna

My dear friend Jenna is hosting an online writing course this fall called Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing. I am honored to be one of the guests joining her in The Word Cellar for this course, and I will be sharing a bit about how we can use the senses as a writing tool to help make our writing richer and full of texture. 

And here is the part where I tell you a secret: I am also taking the course because I want to feel like a student again and find myself knee-deep in the world of words with others who want to be knee deep beside me. I look forward to pushing myself to continue to enrich the way I put the stories whispering within me onto the page. 

Because I really hope you will think about joining Jenna and me and the other fantastic guests and the participants who have I already signed up, I invited Jenna to share a bit about the course and some of her writing tips:

 *****

Jenna says: One of my readers asked me for advice on how to navigate the transition from the world of writing to the world off the page. 

The Word Cellar reader asked:

“Once you let the writing take over and you're flowing, how do you know when to stop or rather how do you separate that life you are creating on paper from the life you are creating around you? I find it hard to write for a few hours and emerge from that space with the ability to stay connected with the people, places and things around me. The feeling scares me and as a result I haven't written much in the last few months. I just start to feel like I'm going crazy and I don't want to.”

What an intriguing and powerful question.

I tend to have the opposite problem: The people, places, and things around me often pull me out of my writing. I'm too easily distracted away from the page. That said, I do experience times when the writing draws me in and I'm immersed in the story.

These moments of flow feel magical to me, but I understand how an intense writing experience could be disorienting and even frightening as you come out of that focused state.

I've developed a technique that I use when I need to quiet my mind and work through distractions. It's a little ritual, really. I make sure I have something to drink next to me (usually water, tea, or coffee) so I don't have an excuse to get up for a beverage. I light my favorite candle (Lavender Leaves by Henri Bendel) and commit to writing for an hour. I even make the commitment out loud to myself: "I will write for an hour while this candle burns." Sometimes I set a gentle-sounding alarm (on my cell phone) as a way to keep myself from checking the time obsessively during that hour.

This simple ritual helps me to enter into my writing. Sometimes I struggle for most of that hour, wrestling with words and trying to stay focused. But I don't let myself check Facebook or email or go do the laundry. I keep writing. Sometimes I find the flow before the hour ends, and sometimes I don't. Either way, I've put in an hour of writing, and that feels good. When the hour ends, I can choose whether to keep going or to rest and then do another round.

I wonder if you could create a ritual or technique to help you transition out of an intense writing experience. Maybe you could light a candle when you start writing, and perhaps set a timer to go off ten or fifteen minutes before the time you need to stop writing and re-enter the world around you. By giving yourself that cushion of time, you allow yourself to recalibrate and refocus. During those minutes, you could do some yoga poses or stretches, listen to some favorite music, do a little dance around the room -- something to ground you in the physical "now" away from the page. After this little interlude, you could blow out the candle to symbolize the transition to whatever you need to do next, knowing that the candle and the story are available to you when you can return to them.

This is just one suggestion. Everyone has a different writing process. I'd love to hear other ideas and techniques in the comments. How do you stay focused on your writing? How do you leave the story-world for the physical world around you? Please share.

*****

I invite you to join me this October in The Word Cellar for more discussions like this. I've created an online writing course for creative souls who are interested in learning more about writing. Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing is a doorway into a magical world in which practical tips and craft lessons ignite your inspiration and help you bloom as a writer. I'll share some of my most effective tips and techniques for turning everyday words into beautiful pieces of writing. There will be craft lessons, writing exercises, and invitations to inspiration. We'll also have a private online community where we can share our work and share the experience of living the writing life. Will you join us?

Note: Today, September 30, is the last day to take part in Jenna's generous Alchemy sale. She is offering the price at a discounted rate, so if you want to sign up, consider doing so today.

(This post originally appeared here as part of In The Word Cellar, a writing column that runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month.)