pen & paper :: a little about susan

a glimpse into Susan's workshop at the Fall 2010 Be Present Retreat

Today, my friend Jennifer Horsman is sharing a bit about how Susan Wooldridge inspires her. Susan is teaching at Pen & Paper with Kelly and me next month, and I thought you might want to know just a bit more about her. There are a few spots left and we hope you will join us!

Jennifer writes:

I first met Susan Wooldridge at a Be Present Retreat in Lake Bay, Washington in the fall of 2010 where she was a mentor. Her books Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words and Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing Your Creative Process had become favorites of mine; both copies highlighted, underlined, dog-eared and often reread. Susan was alive on the page, fully engaged in the world around her through each of her senses. 

Poemcrazy changed the way I thought about words. Words suddenly moved beyond their dictionary definitions and embodied their lyrical form. Words evoked emotion, memory and timespace. Words became playful and acrobatic. I began to see with fresh eyes and because of this I also began to write more.

To my delight I found that Susan in person was every bit as vivid and enticing as she had appeared on the page. Her excitement for poetry was palpable and infectious. Susan was generous with her time and convinced each of us, regardless of writing experience, of our ability to create poetry. She built an atmosphere filled with warmth, humor, encouragement and acceptance. Each exercise expanded our ideas about poetry and what we were capable of creating. We left the retreat with work we felt proud of and a desire to keep writing.

Susan is an alchemist. She is able to elicit unique magic in every student she encounters. She will return to Lake Bay at the Pen & Paper Retreat in March. I will be there and I'd really love to share this extraordinary experience with you as well. If any part of your heart leaps to recognition at the sound of the word writer you won't want to miss it!

"Poems arrive. They hide in feelings and images, in weeds and delivery vans, daring us to notice and give them form with our words. They take us to an invisible world where light and dark, inside and outside meet." 

- Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (from Poemcrazy)

*****

Susan's Pen & Paper workshop description:

In a safe, free setting, we will gather and surround ourselves with words that will be gateways to deeper knowing about who we are, where we come from and where we're going.  

In this workshop, we will forage in a field of words, cast nets and gather what we need to joyfully and safely express the depths of our hearts, souls, spirits. Sleepy orange trust, clock's breath, preach nibbles have all emerged from playful "wordpools" like the ones we'll create together. We will tinker!

We will also create small worlds of gatherings in boxes that reflect our connection to the natural world (as well as to the sparkly world of litter) and write odes to our gatherings and odes to our shadows (and odes to our shadow gatherings). From this we will spinoff and spinoff and spinoff!

Find out more about the Pen & Paper Retreat.

*****

Jennifer Horsman lives along the California coast with her husband and greyhound in a small cottage filled with books, records and loose leaf tea.

She can be found at www.lovelyandimperfect.squarespace.com

brain lint :: journaling

The first sentence of this page of my journal says, "this is the page where i am going to just dump the stuff that i don't need to hold onto like worry and not enoughness and how the **** will i get it all done..." Since writing those words, I have turned to this page and filled it with uncensored fears when I get distracted while working.

The idea to do this came to me while I was working in my red Smash journal that houses ideas for my ecourses and other online projects I am working on. While putting these ideas to the page, I can find myself pulled by the "what ifs" and the "shoulds" and how the list goes on. On this day, I was writing down ideas for a possible ecourse connected to the project Jen Lee is producing that will be out later this spring (will share more about this project soon! we are having so much fun putting the finishing touches together before it all goes to print), and I had a flurry of a brainstorm that got me very excited. But then I got stuck as some gremlins came up. So I flipped through the journal to another section to give myself a break from thinking about this idea and came to this page that said, "Brain Lint." 

Yes.

Because this is exactly what the not enoughness is sometimes: lint that is just taking up space where something else could reside.

I love how my Smash journals often provide just the prompt I need when I am working. They really seem like magic sometimes. (Not kidding.) You can read the other posts in this journaling series inspired by my excitement over my first Smash book here.

An Invitation

Reserve a few pages in your journal for some uncensored brain lint. Let it be a safe space for you to let that not enoughness or the fears or the worry land so you can lean into the real work.

And consider joining us over in the Notes for the Journey Flickr group where we are sharing pages from our journals and where we are journaling. Also, if you are on Instagram, a group of us are using the hashtag #journeynotes when we share our journals. Oh and if you use an app like Instagram, you can easily use the blur feature to blur out your personal journaling but still share your photo. 

a ruffle or three

sporting my PDX beanies newsgirl hat on today's little adventure + lunch + writing at a cafe with jon

A few weeks ago, I mentioned posting some outfit posts every now and then. And I have really wanted to share them with you because it simply is fun to share the things I love with my girlfriends. But I have to admit to feeling a bit, well, blah about the photos I have tried to take so far. In the middle of my day, there really isn't time to pack Ellie up in the car to take a cute photo against the best background ever (even though oh my goodness I really love Elsie's tips about taking cute outfit photos). And I am just beginning to use my new tripod and remote (and by just beginning I mean I have put them in the car a few times but haven't used them yet). So the best way for me to get an outfit photo right now is to use the mirror...in the hallway...the hallway with the oatmeal colored walls and beige carpet. Sigh. 

But I am going to do it anyway...

...because I am just in love with this simple "dress" I found at the Gap outlet this weekend. And by dress I mean "nightgown" kind of thing as it is "Gap Body," but the ruffles...oh the ruffles! They just make me so happy. It is a denim blue color and I have paired it with my Sarah Clemens wide ruffle bloomers, a simple lace tank from Target, and a wrap top by Comfy (no link) but it is very similar to my favorite wrap from Wildewear on Etsy. Today's necklaces are a long locket from my shop and a handpainted necklace by Mindy Lacefield from her shop Tim's Sally. The whole outfit is a bit like wearing pajamas I suppose, but the ruffles make me smile and I am in this place where feeling happy in my clothes is most important right now. It is really part of my self-care.

(Speaking of my shop, I am taking a break for a week to continue to rest and spend time with my family as Jon has some time off this week. I plan to reopen on the 27th.)

I really do hope to take some fun outfit photos out in the world when I go on some self-portrait adventures when my schedule for such things falls on the same day it isn't raining. But until then, thank you for indulging me as I just wanted to share this today.

here

this week, i have been leaning into rest. i have been reading (just for fun) and working in bed while she naps and even napping once or twice. jon and i went on an impromptu valentine's day date (the babysitter had come over so i could work, but instead jon picked me up and we had an early dinner...it felt like breaking the rules in the best of ways). i have been trying to get to bed earlier. and i've been trying to observe myself with a more compassionate focus.

i am noticing that life feels softer when i rest more. i feel softer. i am more likely to move through my day with kindness and love (toward myself, toward others). it seems so obvious but it simply is hard for me to remember some days (and weeks it seems). 

tonight, i am thinking about how the remembering feels like a dance of getting to know myself again and again. and i choose to see this as a beautiful gift i give myself. because there will be days full of overwhelm and misunderstandings and forgotten deadlines and unexpected bumps in the road. but i will keep reaching for compassion, and i will try to remember that rest is so often the answer.

the poem that is pasted into my journal in the photo above is "love after love" by derek walcott. it is about remembering yourself. i keep it in constant rotation over here. i invite you to add it to your self-care toolbox. you can read all of this poem over here.

hearts

I was wishing that you could come over for tea this afternoon, so I recorded this video about the hearts hanging in our living room because I just wanted to tell you the story. You really should settle in with some tea though as I ramble for about 14 minutes...

A few links for you after you watch the video:

1. my (ever-growing) heart pinboard on Pinterest 
2. the "paint chip" heart banner that originally inspired me
3. Dottie Angel's heart banner post/tutorial
4. a link to my old first video post that was a tutorial about how to make a garland with felt circles (i use the same techniques to sew the hearts and other banners i make...my hair is shorter and oh my goodness i have a lot of energy in this video, so if you watch it, i hope it makes you giggle)

Blessings to you and yours on this day,

Liz

we went on a lunch date

a day in the life (wednesday)

On Wednesday, I played along with Ali and her "day in the life" prompt. 

I decided to make it a day where I would use my (very much underutilized) 50mm macro lens all day long. My 17-70mm is my everyday lens, but it is seeing its last days (it is somehow chipped inside the lens, which I seem to only notice when I use video, but then Millie knocked my camera on the floor a few weeks ago and the lens now won't "close" all the way). I know I will replace it when I can since I love it so much but...I have this gorgeous 50mm lens and for some reason I have been telling myself that I don't know how to use it because I had trouble taking macro photos with it when I first bought it. And I am not one who likes learning curves when I am just trying to capture this everyday, which is how I usually use my camera.

But I honestly haven't used it since Viv has been teaching me one new thing about my camera each time I see her, so it was about time I tried it again. (I talked more about this in my interview over at 52 Photos Project...see the first question...)

And after I took this photo of me and Ellie just holding the camera with my arm extended, I fell in love with this 50mm lens for real this time.

Because we were both still under the weather Wednesday (and I still am...let this weekend please be about rest), I just tried to capture the nuances of our day together. I kind of love how it was just a quiet day...

By spending the day with this lens, I learned that it isn't hard to use at all. The one piece I was missing when i tried to take macro photos when I first bought this lens was that I could tell my camera where to focus. This simple piece was why I was so frustrated with the lens at first and why I haven't used it. (Wow. Isn't it amazing how we get in our own way so simply sometimes?) 

I am so so happy to have it in my bag of tricks now and will be using it as my daily lens for a while I think...

Also, I plan to use Ali's "day in the life" template to put these photos (and a few others) on one page to insert into Project Life. So thankful for the videos and other info Ali has on her blog so I can really learn how this weekend...

Here's to moments of ease and rest for you (for me) this weekend...

Blessings,

Liz

PS Those delightful hearts are available as a free download at my post over at Roots of She this week.

today

today was full of a lot of things. ellie's first high fever. me still feeling very under the weather with this chest cold. ellie crying just because when she would usually be laughing or trying to run even faster down the hall. lots of disney junior and apple juice and bowls of peas. answering emails here and there. lots more cuddling than usual. me trying to choose kindness but failing. me wearing the same clothes as yesterday that i also wore to bed...oh wait...maybe i changed into different yoga pants but this shirt has all kinds of living on it...and you know i am sick when i am wearing one of jon's sweatshirts over my whole ensemble. a friend calling to say, "it is probably just a cold" and talking me down from my fear of "but what if it sets off the heart arrhythmia and i can't go to the picu with her because i have a cold?" listening to an awesome interview with meryl streep while working during her nap. watching this paul simon on sesame street video on repeat because every time it ended ellie would make the sign for "more" which usually means more cheese or more juice but today meant more paul (i adore her). talking on skype with my mom, and ellie instigating peek-a-boo with her (the first time ellie has really interacted in such a clear way while we are on skype...it was awesome). reading alexander and the terrible horrible no good very bad day to ellie because well, parts of yesterday and today have felt a bit like that and after she rubbed hand sanitizer into her eyes not long after falling/tripping a few times because she keeps trying to run even though she doesn't feel well...well... i thought we both needed to hear those words and she sat listening to the entire story.

and in the middle of all of it, when her fever broke, she insisted on going outside (which means she brought her boots to me and then stood at the sliding glass door pointing to the outside saying her version of "now") and so out we went for a bit. the sky was blue and the weather was warm and there were so many birds chattering and eating and milie ran and ran in the yard and ellie ran with her for a bit and i found myself suddenly face to face with the cherry tree stretching toward spring.

how about that? even while overwhelm swirls and worry tries to pitch a tent at the edge of things and my body insists on rest and i sometimes forget to choose love and the to do list is still just as long, spring is still on her way.

how are things in your corner of the world? what are you noticing today?