everything feeds process

Goodbye cheap tomatoes.
Goodbye waking up after the sun rises.
Goodbye taking walks in the dusk at eight p.m.
Goodbye not feeling tired.
Goodbye sunburned noses.
Goodbye sweating in the shade.
Goodbye vacations…and vacations…and vacations.
Goodbye grilling on the  rooftop.
Goodbye seemingly endless free time and energy.
Goodbye flip flops.
Goodbye tank tops.
Goodbye leaving the house without a hoodie (or heavier coat).
Goodbye watermelon.
Goodbye corn.
Goodbye spending more time outside than in.
Goodbye.

Today marks my fifth wedding anniversary with my husband, as well as our thirteenth anniversary overall. If our marriage were a child, he would be going to kindergarten and telling poop jokes. If our entire  relationship were a child, she would be slamming doors, dying her hair blue and rolling her eyes at us. Put another way, Aaron has been my partner for more than a third of my life. I would have it no other way.

I am especially grateful for our anniversary this year, because I know that my husband and I faced extraordinary challenges this year. For approximately eight months of this year, he nursed me through my knee injury and surgery. He took the “sickness” part of “in sickness and health” seriously. The best part is that he did this without complaint and with great patience, kindness, and love.  I am lucky to have his support in my life.

This year, he also pushed the both of us to do more with our writing and art. He formed and maintained a writing group, supported me while I wrote a chapbook manuscript, and encouraged me to do more with my photography and collage art. I am blessed to have a husband who is so talented and who challenges me to nurture my own writing.

The scary (and awesome) part of marriage is that you never know what will happen in your lives. You don’t know if you’re going to make it, as a couple. You can only work and try and hope. I am so grateful that Aaron is willing to work and try and hope with me, after all these years. His effort and his love have never wavered. I love you, Aaron.

I heard a rumor that folks were posting a Simple Things today, in honor of Christina’s birthday. I actually found Christina’s blog through her Simple Things meme, but came to be a regular reader, because I love having a shot of positivity (and beautiful photography) in my Google reader on a regular basis. And like with all good blogs, I ended up discovering other blogs I enjoy, just by reading hers. So, thank you Christina & happy birthday!

And now for my summer edition of my favorite simple things right now:

1. A non-humid day, immediately following a ridiculously humid day.
2. Grilling dinner on our rooftop deck, three times this week (and counting).  There’s also a grilling party at a friend’s house tomorrow. Can I just say that I love grilling food?
3. Waking up with the light.
4. Staying up with the light, later than I normally do.
5. Getting blueberries for my cereal from the farmer’s market rather than the freezer case.
6. Heck, the farmer’s market altogether.
7. Short Fridays.
8. Three vacations in one summer. The next one starts next Thursday, when my dad comes to town.
9. Seeing my husband more often than during the school year.
10. Summer movies in the park. Tonight is The Muppet Movie!

Those are my simple things that are bringing me joy this summer. What are yours?

Vacation can be difficult, in our family. My husband and I are both hard workers, so relaxing doesn’t come naturally to us. We have to work at it, just like we work at everything else. Starting yesterday, Aaron and I have the entire week off together. While we may have to work a few hours here and there, we can spend the rest of the week with each other doing fun things. Like good hard workers, we made a list of all the fun things that we want to do. Visits to wineries and museums! Day trips to the North Shore! Fun!!!

Relaxing into vacation wasn’t something that we had on our to-do lists, but it should have been. Yesterday didn’t turn out exactly as we had hoped. Everything took longer and was more expensive than we had planned. Worst of all, we got a traffic ticket on the way to the museum. (Luckily, the very nice officer noticed that we had a Pikachu toy hanging from our rear view mirror and he said that even though it was illegal, the Pokemon was on him.) We scrapped the museum and felt like vacation was just too hard for people like us.

But then, we shifted. We took a two hour walk through our city, starting at our house and ending up at the Midtown Global Market to watch the last 15 minutes of the Brazil-Chile World Cup game. I ate a heavenly Watermelon Italian ice in a homemade waffle cone. Then, we picked through Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s, a conjoined nerd-heaven of fantasy/sci-fi and mystery/horror books. It was fun, but it still wasn’t vacation yet.

Then, yesterday evening we checked our to-do list and realized that the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board was presenting a free movie at Audubon Park in Northeast Minneapolis. We went early to secure our seats, and realized that no one else arrives two hours early for a free movie in the park.

Yet, by arriving early we laid on our blanket together and watched people play softball. We read at dusk. We were able to see magic hour at the park, when everything turns hazy golden. We turned golden, with the sun on our skin. Together, we relaxed. For the rest of the evening, we shared chocolate and garlic popcorn and watched a fun movie. We were surrounded by strangers who were mostly like us, couples snuggled under blankets, sharing snacks. Thankfully, vacation finally started for us.

To say that I’ve been in a creative slump is an understatement. The truth is that I’ve been unmotivated in my creative work since April. In these few months, everything has zeroed out: poems, photography, collages, even this blog. It’s almost July and I don’t have much creative product from the spring or early summer. I cringe when I write this, because I’ve been training myself to think of my creativity as a process, not a product. (Hence the blog title, after all.) But, if I’m being truly honest with myself, I have totally opted out of my process. I am derailed.

I know how my slump started: a very specific work stressor initiated my decline. When I’m stressed, I run from any creative work. To me, this is counter to everything I know about my creativity. I know that when I’m creating, I am happier and healthier. I know that it’s not about my output, but about my well-being. Yet, whenever I encounter stress, I steep myself in the stressor. I live, breathe, and eat the stress. Then, whenever I have free time, I look for anything that numbs my brain. I turn to television, obsessive reading, and other “relaxation” techniques.

This is (of course) a self-fulfilling cycle for me. The more absorbed I become in my stress, the less I create. The less I create, the less aware I become and my stress level increases. Stress-retreat-stress-retreat. When I’m deep in this cycle, I feel less than myself. I feel like a shell of who I really am. In my creative-brain, I know that I can break this cycle by forcing myself to create. But, in my stress-brain, creating seems like another to-do list item. Wouldn’t it be much more fun to read *another* paperback mystery instead?

Rather than saying that this cycle ends today, because I know it will most likely return, I am saying that I am starting over today. I am choosing to take charge of my creative life again, not because it’s another thing on my to-do list, but because I need regular creative practice in my life.

Yesterday, I realized that I needed a project to jump me out of my creative slump. After all, I work best with projects and deadlines. I thought that one way I could jumpstart my creative practice is by working through a month-long creative intensive that I write myself. The intensive would mainly include creativity exercises in my various mediums, just so that I could get back into the practice of creating. Since I have a vacation that starts on Monday, I am starting this class on Wednesday, July 1.

Once I had this brainstorm, I realized that I already have the theme: mindfulness. I’ve been reading lately about mindfulness, mainly through The Miracle of Mindfulness and Resonant Leadership. Considering my stress cycle, mindfulness and awareness seem like the perfect theme. What better way to stop numbing myself than to focus intently on cultivating my awareness?

My 31-day intensive will focus on the following areas:

• Committing to Mindfulness (Day 1)
• Sight Awareness (Days 2-6)
• Sound Awareness (Days 7-11)
• Scent and Taste Awareness (Days 12-16)
• Body Awareness (Days 17-21)
• Self Awareness (Days 22-26)
• Moving Forward Mindfully (Days 27-31)

(Please note that I am using the words “mindfulness” and “awareness” interchangeably.)

For each day, I am going to post a brief exercise. I may not post every exercise result, but I am committing to trying each exercise.

To be honest, I am panicking now that I am writing this down. I know this is something that I need to do, but I’m so nervous about starting something this ambitious. Therefore, I am giving myself permission to try something new. Whenever I try something new, there is the threat of failure. But there is the possibility of success and the hope of achieving something new. Even if I fail, it’s better than the drifting I’m doing right now.

This morning, I spent a half an hour walking in my neighborhood with my camera.  Here is some of what I noticed:

The veins in this plant & the light in the distance

The vibrant, almost liquid purple of this flower

The words imprinted on this tire & the spokes on the hub cap

The texture of the weathering on this signpost

I have learned that when I have my camera in hand, I notice more details.  It feels like I have an antenna up, tuned to the little things: the cracks in the sidewalk, the color of a neighbor’s flowers, the shape of a particular alleyway.  It is for this reason that if I feel like creating, but don’t have a specific idea in mind, I will grab my camera and walk.  I become mindful and I focus on the specific images in the world.

I feel like I spend a lot of my time desensitizing myself to noticing.  I have time to notice now, because I’ve just started vacation. But during the work week, during my normal life, I rush-rush-rush, without noticing.  I want to become more mindful in my daily life, but I’m not quite sure how. I know that my writing practice and my artistic practice help me to keep my antenna up, so to speak. Yet, I seem to be neglecting that practice lately.

I hope that during this vacation, I can recenter my thinking on mindfulness and cultivate some good habits to carry with me through what looks to be a busy summer. On Tuesday, I hope to pick up The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh at the library on Tuesday, so that I can learn more about intentional mindfulness before I have to plunge back into work. I read a little snippet in a colleague’s office, while waiting for him to arrive to a meeting. This was on my last work day before vacation and I felt almost immediately that I needed to spend time with this book during my time off. I think it will help.

Things I Will Do (And Not Do) on Vacation

1. I will find things to write other than to-do lists and emails.
2. I will rediscover my creative outlets.
3. I will sleep past 6:53 AM on a weekday.
4. I will not think about re-structuring, re-imagining, re-configuring anything that is not a physical object.
5. I will find a way to re-organize my freezer.
6. I will read books as a primary activity, rather than a thing I do while commuting on the bus, taking a bath or trying to fall asleep.
7. I will drink wine on my porch, next to my carrots and radishes, and listen to music without doing anything else.
8. I will exercise in the mornings, not on lunch breaks or before going to bed.
9. I will not check my work emails.
10. I will un-bury my home desk and find a new way to organize my computer and creative tools, perhaps without a desk.
11. I will find yoga poses that don’t stress my knee too much.
12. I will not complain about work.
13. I will change my narrative about work time versus creative time.
14. I will find a new project to write.
15. I will breathe.

Now that I’m on the other side of my Positive Psychology final (woo-hoo!), I can reflect a bit more about my topic. I know that sounds backwards, because reflection should happen during the academic process, but I’m thinking about my topic in a different way now.

For my final, I focused on work engagement. Psychologists began identifying work engagement out of the research on burnout. They wanted to find a positive experience that was the inverse to the negative experience. They determined that engagement is a  positive, work-associated mental state that includes three factors:

• vigor: the energy and mental resilience that one brings to a task
• dedication: one’s alignment with a role, organization, and/or task
• absorption: the focus and concentration that one brings to a task, similar to flow

In my final, I focused on the implications of engagement on the work environment, but I wonder about engagement’s implications for a creative practice.

As I think about it, I’ m curious about the potential for vigor in a creative practice, especially if the artist has demonstrated vigor in other areas of life. As I mentioned, the corollary to engagement is burnout.  When someone has burned out, this person experiences exhaustion (the opposite spectrum to vigor), cynicism (the opposite spectrum to dedication), and becomes less effective at the work.  If a person is engaged in professional work, exhibiting vigor, can this vigor translate to a regular creative practice? Or does this person use up all the vigor on the work and become exhausted in the creative practice? I guess my question is: Does vigor build on itself or do we have a finite amount to use?

Of course, it’s no surprise that I’m asking this right now. I’m at the end of a very hard week, professionally, academically and creatively, and I’m exhausted.  I have exhibited very little vigor in  these main areas of my life. Luckily, I’m starting a full week of vacation (right now, as  a matter of fact), so I have time to replenish my energy. But as I look forward to the last push towards summer, which can be a very difficult time of year at my workplace, I’m hoping to maintain my energy, both professionally and in my creative life.

For those of you out there who work and create, do you find that your energy is “used up” in one sphere, leaving you nothing in the other? Or have you found a way to build your energy in both parts of your life? I’m curious to find if anyone has found the magic bullet for spreading their energy out equitably.

Back when I was in high school, circa the early nineties, I liked to visit the airport just for fun. This was before the days of heightened security, so any person could choose to pass through the metal detectors and hang out. At the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, there were multiple opportunities for food and window shopping, but that wasn’t my main focus. I just liked to watch the people who were there to travel. They didn’t know that I was watching them and I liked peeking into their private lives.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in a few airports. On Thursday, I traveled to Charlotte, NC for a conference, passing through Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) and O’Hare (ORD), before arriving at Charlotte-Douglas (CTL).  I spent about an hour and a half at MSP, another two hours at ORD, and an hour at CTL, waiting for a colleague to arrive.   After yesterday, that seemed like nothing.

Yesterday, my colleague and I arrived at CTL in the late afternoon, about two hours prior to our flight so that we could eat dinner before our flight.  We knew that we had a very tight layover n ORD, so we came prepared.  However, at the ticket counter we discovered that our flight to ORD would be delayed by three hours, due to rain. Our potential connection to MSP from ORD was ruined and all subsequent flights out of ORD were full.  Our choice was to either try to remain on our delayed flight, with the hope that we could fly standby on a full flight to MSP or to take the 10:10 PM flight from CTL to MSP.  We chose the 6 hour wait at CTL.

At first, I was disappointed. I couldn’t fathom how to spend 6 hours at a relatively small airport. I decided to tweet my experience (as a means to keep my sanity and my spirits in check) and buy a couple new books.

So how did we spend six hours? We had a three course meal, at three different restaurants. We ate a “cheese” plate with Laughing Cow cheeses at one store, tacos at a Mexican restaurant, and ridiculously good gelato for dessert. We visited almost every shop on the concourse, from a creepy toy store to the two different cap stores. (We wondered why a small airport needs two separate ball cap stores, as well as two Cinnabons.) We read and walked.

We also people watched and made up stories about the people we saw. We tried to see if we could identify the other Minnesotans from the crowd. We watched the bathroom attendant sing on her break. We watched people run from one side of the concourse to the other, either to catch a connection or to just waste time.

I also took pictures, of all the weird things that you can find in the Charlotte Douglas airport. I snapped pictures of snow globes, gelato and waffle cones, a Captain Morgan statue, a miniature astronaut suit for children, and the white rocking chairs that were available in the main atrium of the airport.

I learned last night that I was lucky to be stranded in Charlotte.  I’m lucky because my colleague is a good traveler, a fellow writer and reader, and a generally even-keeled person.  She was happy to let me snap pictures of everything I saw and she was also happy to read and write for part of our time.  I’m also lucky that I had this time to people watch, take pictures, and generally blow time.

Suffice to say, I had a great time, savoring food, reading a new book, and taking pictures. I was happy to get home, at 1 AM no less, but I think I made the most of a strange, long day.

Living with animals, I have learned a thing or two about habits.

My cat, Said, has a life that is ruled by his habits.  He must wake us up at 4:00 AM, when he knows that he will get fed in two hours.  We kick him out of the bedroom and then he knows that he must howl at the door for a little while longer, just to remind us. Then, when we finally feed him, he must lick the empty bowl throughout the day to suck the little bit of flavor off the edges.  His process begins again at 3:00 PM, when he knows it’s about two hours until dinner time.

Our other cat, Weetzie, knows that when it’s bed time, she gets to lay on my husband’s chest for 15-20 minutes. When he gets ready for bed, she watches him, expectantly. As soon as he lays down, she is right next to him, ready for their nightly ritual.

These are the actions that make up my pets’ lives.  They are small, but they each repeat them every day and night, without fail.

I am trying to mimic their consistency.  During the two months of my Year of Resources, I’ve spent around 30 hours in my creative practice.  Through tracking my time and committing more time to my creative practice, I am finding some positive results. When I participate in regular creative practice, I have more energy for creating, homework and my career.  I dream up new creative projects, because I love the feeling of committing to big ideas.  I feel engaged. On the weeks that I don’t create often enough, I feel cranky and testy. Even then, I know that those tensions can be easily cured by a little creative work.

During one of my fits of creative energy, I decided to buy a slew of Moleskine journals, so that I can experiment with art journaling. As I think I mentioned here before, I bought 4 journals and each journal has its own theme. The first is a black hardcover journal and I use it for general inspiration/journaling/collaging. The second is a cardstock cover journal for cataloging my dreams. The third is a cardstock cover journal for pieces based on found objects. The last is another cardstock cover journal in which I am slowly creating a fairy tale, page by page.

In another fit of manic creative energy, I decided to catalog my process in this journal in a photo-only blog called Poet is a Verb. I’ve been slowly building its posts with each new cover and page. It’s freeing because all I have to do is make the page, take a picture, and list the materials I used in the collage or painting. And then I’m done with it and I can move on to the next blank page.

I think what I like most about using this process is that it helps me to develop my habits. It holds me accountable to creating and it gives me a virtual space to document my practice.  Most of the pages that I’m posting are far from perfect. In fact, they’re messy and they have mistakes. But that’s my creative practice as it stands today. I am committed to it, I work on it, and I document it, mistakes and all.