Life Changes

Blog Thursday: Awakening Artistry

September 22, 2011 by admin

In April 2008 I left my corporate job. After years of slaving for “The Man,” as my husband calls it, I had an opportunity to stay home and write. Once gainfully unemployed, I wondered, “What now?” I knew the obvious: write like crazy. But I had no idea what my day or week or life would look like. I had spent more than 30 years in the trenches, giving my employers the best of me. I was giddy with excitement, but also overwhelmed. I needed a plan! I needed a strategy!

Knowing that I was in an important transition, I wanted to take some time to figure out how to structure my new freedom, and I chose a visit to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. There, in the bookstore, I stumbled upon Tama J. Kieves’s book This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love. She poses an interesting question: If you’re this successful doing work you don’t love, what could you do with work you do love?

Tama’s book wasn’t exactly aimed at me — after all, I already knew what I wanted to do. However, with her warm and inviting tone, I felt that I had found a friend on the journey, someone who understood me. Tama was a Harvard-educated lawyer who chucked it all to find her bliss, and did. As I started to carve my own path, it helped to have someone point the way with hands clapping and a voice ringing out that said, “You can do this!”

From Tama, I realized that I didn’t need a plan. I already had one. What I needed, and what she provided, was validation to go for it. And I have, Tama, I have.

On this Blog Thursday, I honor Tama by sharing her blog with you. I love her poetic way of expressing herself and her deep authenticity. Since I’ve written about rest a lot this week, I thought of her — after she left her legal career, she spent a long time resting and unwinding in order to clear her head to find her path. She is a shining example of the power of rest!

If you’re searching for your passion, or, if you’re like me and have found your passion but are at the “What’s next?” stage, check out Tama’s website and/or Facebook page. She offers inexpensive classes, a community forum, and coaching. She also pops up at Kripalu, Omega, and other venues to offer workshops.

Daring to Rest

September 21, 2011 by admin

I’ve written a lot about rest this week. So far, I’ve stuck with my plan to take some rest time in the afternoons. Yesterday I was reminded of kindergarten, with my little red mat, and the milk and cookies that came after quiet time. I never slept — I wasn’t a napper, even then — but I remember fondly curling up on that mat. Maybe it’s why I’ve come to love my yoga mat so much!

There’s a hidden danger in all this resting, however. Dare to rest, and I cannot be responsible for what might happen!

When we find ourselves in a quiet, peaceful space, allowing our minds to unclutter, something happens. We start to notice the thoughts and feelings rattling around inside, and hearing our inner truth. It’s not always pretty, and it can definitely be inconvenient!

Case in point: since we returned from Switzerland, we’re still in a restful mode. We’re working, but we’re unwilling to put pressure on ourselves to achieve. In the quiet of our return, a message has emerged loud and clear. Well, it’s more like a question. “If you like the mountains so much, why do you still live in Houston?”

Indeed. Why are we here?

For years, the answer was easy. I had work and friends. Henry was raising a family, and his parents were here as well. I even used to like the heat! Then his children grew up and left home, and his parents died. While all of this was going on, we were traveling more, and taking trekking poles with us wherever we went. Our travel decisions started to center on where we could hike. We fell in love with two places in particular: the Pacific Northwest and Switzerland.

Still, we didn’t stop to think about living elsewhere until we came home. Henry called me from a bike ride, complaining about the heat and the lack of places to bike in the city. I, meantime, was doing my daily meditations and starting to rest. “Why not move?” the inner voice asked. “Why not live in the environment that you love the best?”

Why not? Because we humans love inertia and habit. Sometimes the prospect of change just looks like too darn much work. Still, there comes a time when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same, and I think we’re just about there.

We are taking the next step by planning a trip to explore an area in Washington State that meets the criteria we have set. I try not to think about the work involved, of selling our house, finding another, and moving all our stuff a few thousand miles. This is the problem with resting. When you start getting ideas, they involve a certain amount of work.

Resting stops our complacency. Resting asks questions. Resting holds a mirror up to us and suggests, gently, that we see things a little differently. It may not cause us to want to relocate, but it may show us something in life that wants to change. Resting reveals who we are under all that busy-ness. There, we may feel emotions we don’t want to feel — but we will also learn the truth of ourselves. We will find our yearnings, our hopes, our dreams. We find surprises. I didn’t know until age 51 that I had a passion, and a certain amount of skill, for gardening. Resting showed me the way and suggested that I give it a go.

Rest if you dare! Take a little time each day, even if it’s five minutes, and let yourself unplug from the world. What does your rest tell you?

9/11: The Day Before

September 11, 2011 by admin

I don’t typically post on Sundays, but I do have a 9/11 story that I want to share.

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Most people don’t talk about the day before 9/11. We all remember where we were when the planes hit the towers, but how many remember what happened the day before?

Salmon Rushdie was scheduled to speak in downtown Houston that night. As a newbie writer, I was giddy with excitement about hearing him. He had recently emerged from exile after living for years in hiding. The fatwa against him for writing The Satanic Verses, allegedly blasphemous to Islam, had been lifted.

All was not well, however. By afternoon protesters had lined the streets around the building, and some had apparently not gotten the memo that the fatwa had been lifted. I heard reports that made me uneasy about going – but I had my ticket, darn it, and I was going!

Along the way that day I made jokes that now, as I reflect back, cause me to cringe. “If I get killed by Muslim extremists tonight I won’t be in to work tomorrow.” “If I get killed by Muslim extremists tonight just know that I died for my art.” I was puffed up with my own cleverness.

To get into the building, I had to walk through the protest line. I kept my head down and shuffled through as best I could, trying not to look at the signs or into the eyes of those who would want someone dead because of something they wrote. I thought we would have to go through metal detectors or some security, but we just walked in. People on my right and left all expressed some anxiety about being there that night.

Rushdie seemed the most relaxed of any of us. With humor and aplomb, he dismissed the protesters as “British Literary Critics” and regaled us with stories of writing. As the evening wore on, in the presence of his courage, I felt my own courage start to soar. If he could stand there and face us under the weight of threats against him, what could I do? The evening passed peacefully, and no one was harmed. When we left, the protesters had gone home, and I walked into the clear night without fear.

The next morning I wrote about the heady feeling of freedom that had stayed with me. I could write! Maybe I would never have Rushdie’s skill or accolades, but I could write my stories. I drove into work as though on a cloud.

An hour later, the planes struck.

I worked on the 36^th floor of a 60+ story building in Houston in the energy industry. When we realized that the planes hitting the Twin Towers was not some horrible accident, we felt like sitting ducks. The Williams Tower is outside of downtown and sits alone among much shorter buildings. We didn’t know the terrorists’ plans. Granted, if they wanted to hit the energy sector they would be more effective by destroying pipelines and structures as opposed to paper pushers, but we were an easy target if they had chosen it.

We went home, like everyone, to watch the horror unfold on television. We would learn about the Pentagon and about United Flight 93. We would feel the grief of the loss of so many fellow Americans, and we would mourn for the families left behind.

Ten years later, we still see the ramifications of that day. Our first responders are sick and dying, and not getting the support they need. Our country has become rabidly anti-Muslim in a level of hysteria last seen directed at Communists (or alleged Communists) by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. We continue to be embroiled in conflicts, one of which was manufactured as our leaders played on the sympathies of distraught Americans.

As I write this, the clock is literally just turning to the early morning of 9/11. I am in a hotel in Zurich, preparing to travel home on a plane. We stop in D.C. on the way, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I trust the Swiss to do their jobs thoroughly. America? I wish I could feel the same way, but we seem to be more concerned with attacking each other than in solving the genuine and severe problems that we face. The terrorists don’t need to attack us; we’re doing a good job of destroying each other.

I still write, and am more and more committed every day. It’s small comfort in the scheme of things, but it’s something. I try to remember not the terror as we watched the first attack on our soil, but Salmon Rushdie’s courage. It is all I can do.

Good Morning, Monday! Greetings from Sils-Maria, Switzerland!

August 29, 2011 by admin

What better way to ponder the upcoming week, and a new month, than to put on hiking shoes and wander the Swiss trails? Here in Sils, a small village west of St. Moritz in the Engadine Valley, I am far from the noise of my hometown, far from politics, far from all that concerns me. Instead, I focus on one footfall at a time, practicing mindfulness in order not to fall off a mountain!

Yesterday we wandered to the Fex Valley, a place we wanted to visit in January but couldn’t because there was too much ice on the trail. We admired wildflowers, clear streams, and mountains covered with emerald green instead of snow. Part of the magic of Switzerland is finding a charming restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and we enjoyed some rosti with tomatoes and cheese for a hearty lunch. Rosti is basically a meal-sized portion of hash browns (only better), and these were done to crispy perfection. Rosti makes for a great hiking meal, and I find myself craving it when we come here.

After lunch we took a spontaneous trip up the side of a mountain so we could see the lake there. The sign suggested it would take two hours, and those signs are normally reliable. This time, though, it was about an hour short. We live, after all, at sea level, and we huffed and puffed our way up, stopping frequently to catch our breath. Once a herd of cows stopped us as they blocked our path, and one curious cow decided it wanted one of my hiking poles. We decided to find another way around them, circling through pasture and back to the path.

We finally made it to our summit, where we saw a glorious view of the valley below, including the opalescent Lake Sils. From a distance we could no longer see the windsurfers out playing on a Sunday afternoon, but the larger view of mountains, glaciers, and meadows was worth the effort. My feet didn’t agree as we finally landed back in Sils at 6:30 p.m. after 2,800 feet up (and back down), but we loved having a story to tell.

While in Sils, I feel myself in transition. Summer continues to rage back home in Houston, with highs reaching 109 degrees, but fall approaches. My novel is back with the editor for one more look before I put it out into the world. I prepare to send her another manuscript. I have begun others, but am not sure which story will call to me next. I am stepping back from some of my normal day-to-day routine to fill the inner well and find the Next Project.

When we are in transition, and our dreams are in process but not yet manifest, taking time to be in silence and stillness can ease the drama of our daily lives, freeing us to create. As we ease into September, A Woman’s Nest will focus on how to do that.

Many people tell me, for example, that they can’t meditate because “I can’t get my mind quiet.” I was thinking of that yesterday as we hiked in the mountains in one of the quietest places on earth. Even here, there is not absolute stillness. A breeze blows through the wildflowers. Water rushes over rocks down the mountainside. Birds call. Cow bells ring. Nature is never completely silent, and seldom will we be, either. But I would like to demystify meditation this month so that we stop worrying about stilling the mind and start accepting a river of peace that flows gently beneath the other noise that exists, allowing that noise to be there without judgment.

Swiss Flowers — Flowers Abound! Here are some to brighten your day.

Another reason to find stillness is that when we start to manifest our dreams, we will bump up against fear, doubt, and frustration. As we keep coming back to center, we can learn to deal with inevitable discouragement. Our Wednesday features will focus on the challenges and opportunities that come as we open ourselves up to deeper self-expression. Our Tuesday reviews will focus on DVDs and books that can inspire us when we need to be lifted up.

Have a great week! Thanks for visiting my blog, and come back tomorrow for the Discovery Tuesday!