Jessica
- Recognize that you have a problem.
- The problem is that you always say yes.
- You say yes to the new responsibilities that you don’t really want.
- You say yes to duties that you don’t trust others to do well.
- You say yes because they flatter you by asking.
- (You say yes because you’re afraid that they may never ask you again.)
- Learn that yes feels like the easier word to say.
- Envision the word yes as it sounds, like a subtle snake winding around your throat.
- Choose to say no instead.
- Start with the first phoneme. Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Vibrate your vocal cords.
- Continue with the next phoneme. Feel your mouth form a circle. Drop your tongue. Push air through the hole.
- Imagine the air traveling across the room, hitting a target far away from you.
- Once you know how to say no, say it often. Say it like a two-year old.
- Say it answer to questions that are not “yes” or “no” questions.
- Realize that no is powerful, no is protective.
- No is the word that prevents you from sleepless nights. No is the word that prevents you from working late, bringing work home, and talking about work over dinner.
- No does not mean that you are any less valued, any less responsible.
- No means that you take care of yourself.
- Saying no is whispering the password to your captors, securing your release.
- No is your freedom.
November 10, 2010
How to Say No
August 31, 2010
Here. We. Go.
I feel like I have a bit of catching up to do, in this space. My work responsibilities have increased, as the enormous machine of the college cranks up for another school year. So, I’ve been a little absent here. I’ve been blogging in my head, and thinking about creative projects, but I haven’t been recording all of this here.
First, the pictures. They have nothing to do with the subject of this post, other than they were part of a creative project from last weekend. I tried desperately to put together a photo essay for Longshot magazine’s 24 hour submission cycle. But I couldn’t get it done in time. My idea was “The Return of Real Food”. In Minneapolis, we’re embracing community gardening with a new fervor, so I took some pictures at my local community garden. And then I couldn’t get them in on time. Oh, well.
Second, the interview. I’m several days late, but darn it I tweeted about it. (My twitter is always more timely than this blog.) John Hayes, who runs Robert Frost’s Banjo, is hosting a new writer’s interview series on Thursdays. His wife, Eberle, was the first interview subject and I was the second. You can also see samples of Eberle’s writing here and my writing here, at his Writer’s Talk blog. Keep watching his blog for new writers each week, including my husband on September 16.
Third, my nefarious plans. Well, they’re not really all that nefarious. Or fully formed plans yet. As I mention in my interview, I have been considering self-publishing for quite some time. I’ve been dancing around it and I think I might actually do it. I’ve been spending a little time researching, chatting online with folks, and thinking and I may just go for it. The nice thing is that the cost is very minimal, even if I want to purchase my own ISBN, which I do. I have a manuscript that I really believe in, although I need to spend some time refining and editing, as well as hashing out a marketing plan. As I’ve been doing on Twitter and in email conversations, I’d like to ask you readers out there for advice:
- If you have self-published, what was the process like?
- What printer/POD publisher did you use?
- How did you market your work?
- What would you change about the experience?
- Did you set up a website for the book or use your own current blog/website?
Any feedback that you can give me, either here in the comments or via email at fox dot jessica at gmail com, is truly appreciated.
So, that’s what’s going on in my world. I still have a ton of August Poetry Postcards to catch up on, as well as two New Student Orientations to run this week. Oh, and school starts the following week. W00t! You can’t say my life is boring. That’s for sure.
August 24, 2010
Living in Water
Have you read David Foster Wallace’s posthumous book This is Water yet? If you haven’t, you should.
The book is beautiful and simple, and not really a book at all. The text is from the only commencement speech that Foster Wallace ever delivered, at Kenyon College in 2005. However, the book designers spaced the text out as if it were a long poem. Each page only contains, at most, 4 sentences surrounded by white space. The effect is startling, because it both speeds up your reading experience and slows it down.
His book is framed by a koan, that I’ll quote here:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning boys. How’s the water?”
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them goes, “What the hell is water?”
The message of the book is simple. We all live daily with the choice of how we react to the minutiae of our lives, of how we live in our own water. We can get frustrated with the little annoyances and live most of our time in a state of subsumed rage. On the other hand, we could choose to see things from another’s perspective (rather than the egocentric “default” perspective) and try to be compassionate with each other. We could try to notice the water and rise above it for awhile.
In writing this, I realize that it is not at all simple. Perhaps it’s deceptively simple.
Today, I had my first taste of what my job will be like once school starts. I had one of those days where I had back-to-back meetings. I had to prep for those meetings in between, to make sure that I was ready to help the students or talk somewhat intelligently with my colleagues. I responded to over 100 emails. I answered phone messages. I scanned spreadsheets, stuffed envelopes, and on and on. It was a regular day.
Throughout my day, in the little snippets of time I had in between meetings and tasks, I wondered how I could make attitude choices on days like these. I certainly was functioning on my default setting, rather than slowing down and taking the time to be a good listener. I think that being an artist or a writer should help you to be more sensitive and aware, since writing and art making requires a certain amount of awareness and sensitivity. Instead, I feel like I shut down this part of me while I work, just to make it through the day. I realize, of course, that this is every day and I should strive for more than making it through.
I’d like to ask you, those of you out there who are artists and have day jobs. Do you bring awareness and compassion into your work day? Are you successful? Do you shut off and protect that part of yourself, so that you can save it for when you need to do your art?
August 17, 2010
Rituals
As a break from my work and a treat to myself, I spent 30 minutes today doing something that I’ve done almost every August since I was 12.
I grabbed a pile of three-ring binders, a dozen sets of tab dividers and prepared myself for the school year. I made a list of all the academic committees and year-long groups that I serve on, compiled their various meeting dates, and began making labels. I carefully printed meeting dates on the white perforated strips and slid them into their correct, jellybean colored tab. I used a label-maker to permanently adhere the committee name to the proper binder. Then, I rearranged my work bookshelves, so that I could line them up together, weekly committees on the left, monthly committees on the right and ad-hoc work groups in the middle.
There is something that feels so correct, so soothing about organizing my binders in late summer. Some people associate August with swimming parties and state fairs, but I always think of starting my binders for the year. It’s such a contrast to the rest of my August.
At the beginning of the school year, I feel like I could this year, finally, stay organized. I can maintain my beautifully labeled binders, sliding the agendas and supporting documents into the correct section after each meeting. In reality, I know that by November, my desk will be a jumble of papers needing to be organized and post-it notes reminding me to Do Important Things. By February, I may have time to retreat to my email folders and reprint all of the now-discarded meeting materials, just so they can be filed in their binders. By May, I’ll have to write reports on the committees I chair or support, and I’ll flip through my binders and handwritten notes to jog my memory.
This is the rhythm of my year. I truly dread August because I spend so much time rushing and preparing for the school year to open. I count enrollment, frantically schedule rooms for meetings, try to imagine the special events for the following nine months. I never plan enough, because I always run out of meeting rooms around November and forget to advertise events in January. Each year, I think I’ll be able to plan well enough and I always end up feeling behind.
I just have to remind myself that summer will end, school will start (whether I’m ready or not), and I’ll be able to breathe around mid-September.
Three weeks to go.
May 15, 2010
On Showing Up
Lately, I’ve been worried about creative practice. Specifically, I’ve been worried about my lack of a creative practice. For the first few months of the year, I was rocking through my creative work. I was writing prolifically (for me) and doing some painting/collaging on the side, just to keep myself fresh. I was feeling good. Then, in the last month or so, my work life has taken a much more dominant position in my daily activities. I haven’t had as much time or energy to write or create. In fact, I’ve been moping around and not having fun, either in my writing or at work.
I’ve been a creative person long enough to know that this is how it works. If you look through my journals and blogs over the course of my 16 years of being a writer, there is a trajectory. There are up-times, when I write and love it, and there are down-times, when I feel I may never write or create again. Not only is it a creative roller coaster, it’s an emotional roller coaster, because I tie my emotions to my creative output.
I understand that there is another way. Yesterday, my good friend Kate sent me a link to Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk from February 2009, which I’ve embedded below.
Go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait.
In this talk, Gilbert discussed the source of creative inspiration and locates that source outside of the human creator. She absolves creative people from the sole responsibility for creation. There must be something else, something elusive and intangible, which drives the work. The creative person’s only responsibility is to show up. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn’t.
This lecture is a revelation to me. I spend so much of my time mourning for or reveling in my creative work that I often forget to just show up. I stress, I fume, I make vows to do things differently. But I am not present in my work. I find this happens most often, for me, in times of extreme stress. The more agitated I get by an external pressure, the less present I become. I escape, through reading or watching television, or finishing tasks. But I don’t show up, remain present for the work, and then leave.
My goal, for the next week, is to just show up. Carve out a little time for my creative work and show up there. I’ll put in the time and then leave. If the daemon/genius/muse shows up, I’ll say hi and thank you. If she doesn’t, at least I will know that I tried my best with the time that I had.
May 2, 2010
The Pushmi-Pullyu
Remember the animal in Dr. Doolittle that had two heads and each time it tried to walk, it couldn’t quite decide which direction to go? That’s been me for the past few weeks, which is why I’ve been hibernating.
It seems like every time I make strides in my creative work, my work-work (the one that pays the bills) pulls me in the opposite direction. For the majority of April, I have been tugged firmly into my work world and I haven’t been very good at coping. Instead of completing NaPoWriMo, like a good poet, I have been working and watching television and feeling (more than a little) sorry for myself. I think I’ve finally recovered, but it’s been a rough month.
By tomorrow, I will know whether or not my work situation will resolve itself or absorb my entire summer with super-fun work obsession. My gut is telling me that it’s the latter. Knowing that this is coming, I’ve decided to take a few proactive steps. So, tomorrow, I will post some creative goals for myself, after ignoring this task for two weeks. My hope is that I will be so diligently pursuing my creative goals that the work stuff will take a back seat in my brain.
While I don’t know all of my creative goal details, I know that I will be working on the first prompt from Big Tent Poetry and participating in Jeannine’s free journaling e-course. That should keep my brain busy enough, right?
March 4, 2010
Work. Work. Work. Fun!
While my husband and I are well-matched in many areas, we are temperamentally like night and day. I am noticing this especially today, since we both don’t have to go to work until mid-morning. He woke up half an hour before me, as he does every day. Then, he immediately showered and put on his work clothes. I took a long bath, then spent as much of my morning as possible in my pajamas. If I could live in my bathrobe, I would, while my husband would prefer to wear a button down shirt on most occasions.
As I was whining about having to dress for work (as I am wont to do), my husband admonished me. “That’s why I get up and put my work clothes on immediately. That way, I spend my morning either working or working.” He meant “prepping for class” as the first working and “writing” as the second working. To him, they are both work. Truly, that’s what I admire about him. He is driven in ways that I am not. He can work from morning until night without break, while I feel like I need breaks. I need, more than anything, fun.
Currently, my work and school schedules require that I spend most weekends working and attending school or finishing homework on the off weekends. When I get to a weekend that is relatively unencumbered, I start itching for fun. I wish that I didn’t. I wish that I could be more even-keeled, that I could be content with doing some errands, relaxing a bit, and then going back to work on Monday. Alas, no. It’s Thursday morning and I am damn near humming with anxiety, trying to determine how much fun I can cram between Friday evening and Sunday evening.
The funny thing is that I have fun planned for the weekend. On Saturday, we have a Minnesota Rollergirls bout and tentative plans to see Alice in Wonderland in the morning. On Sunday, we have writer’s group in the afternoon and a tentative Oscar party with fancy snacks during the evening. That should be enough fun for one weekend. Not for me. I want fun on Friday night, although I don’t know what that fun could be, and I want to have it now.
I don’t know how I’ll make it through the rest of my week. I have my home to-do list and my work to-do list to propel me through the next few days. However, I may just need to start instigating my fun earlier. If I can figure out what kind of fun I want today.
January 15, 2010
What Type of Artist Am I?
There’s something that has always been a struggle for me – reconciling the kind of artist I want to be with the kind of artist I am.
In my dream-life, I am the type of artist that can launch an independent career. Not a career that’s beholden to the publishing industry or the cycle of acceptance and rejection, but the type of career where I create my own opportunities for publishing. In my dream-life, I can manage creating, promoting, publishing, and selling my work in some form or another.
In reality, I struggle to make a regular space for my creative life. I squeeze creative activities into the smallest crevices. If I had to answer to customers and marketing plans and all the other myriad tasks that come with being a successful creative entrepreneur, I would implode. I work very hard in my day job and work very little in my creative job. In reality, my creative life is a release for me, a way that I can express myself and lower stress. I often wonder if I turned my creative life into a career and pursued it with the kind of zeal necessary to be successful, if it would still fill that relaxing space for me.
I’m lucky in that I love my day job and my career. I am happy and fulfilled through my work in higher education. I don’t want an artistic career that supplants my education career. In my optimistic-winter-break-brain, I want an artistic career in addition to my education career.
Honestly, that’s part of the reason that I chose “resources” as my word of the year. I want to see if there is space in my life for regular creative practice. I want to create a “clock-in-clock-0ut” mentality for my artistic work. Then, I can build on that regular practice and find the next step.
As I begin this tracking practice, I can see that it’s difficult to add this time to my life. It’s difficult because I have grown different habits over the past months, patterns of behavior that I find comforting. But I also see a tiny sliver of the possibility that I could add more. It’s this little slice of optimism that makes me pause. There’s part of me that wants to try for a larger creative life and then another part of me that wants to be satisfied with what I already have.
Tonight, I just want to mark that I am waffling between these extremes (again). I’m chaffing at adding more to my creative life, just as I begin the process of regulating my practice. I can’t (and won’t) make any decisions that will commit me to more work than I can handle. I’ll just note my optimism and ambition and bottle it for later.
November 29, 2009
The Space for Daily Ritual
Earlier this week, my mother and I went to the local Aveda salon for spa treatments. My mother got a massage while I got a facial. This is something that we often do together on vacations, and certainly something that I only do with my mom. I look forward to this part of our time together most of all.
At the beginning of my facial, the technician started the facial by ringing a singing bowl. When I first heard its clear tone, I cringed and thought to myself: Ugh, really? How cheesy! But as she dragged the tone out, I felt myself relax more deeply and I wondered why I had that intensely negative reaction. What was it about the ritualistic moment that triggered my cynicism?As the technician poked and prodded at my face, I thought about the moments I’ve allowed ritual into my life. Lately, the space for ritual has been less prominent than I would like.
Once upon a time, I had more room in my life for ritual. I had little mini-altars throughout our apartment, where I would light candles and sit. Or at least, I would light the candles every so often and admire them as I passed by. Until my knee injury in July, I made time (almost) every morning for exercise, a practice which helped me to clear my head for the day. I also had the semblance of a writing practice, an act which helped me remain in touch with my internal rhythms.
I feel like I once had more time for quiet reflection, which I think is now taken up by school work, day-job work, and if I’m totally honest with myself, too much television and “entertainment”. This has left me with a feeling of constant and unrelenting busy-ness, which hasn’t been healthy for me. There haven’t been many moments recently where I’ve felt truly relaxed. The things I turn to for relaxation (hi Glee and FlashForward) have only exacerbated my tension.
Now that I’m on the homestretch for this trimester’s work, I’m looking for ways to let ritual back into my life. I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.
I think part of it, for me, will revolve around reorganizing my home space. I have a lot of clutter in our home, but I haven’t created those small sacred spaces that I used to have in my personal space. If I’m being honest, that to me feels a bit like window dressing, more of a decorating project than a way to allow ritual back in. The other part, the harder part, will be for me to consider the ways I use my time. Even if I can’t exercise, how can I give myself time in the morning for quiet and composing myself for the day ahead? Since my last paper will be finished this week (hopefully), how can I use that time for writing and not wallowing in media?
I think it may be time for me to plunge back into morning pages, a technique I’ve used on and off throughout my creative writing life. At least until I can recover a bit of the balance that I’ve lost these last few months. Perhaps by the time winter trimester starts, I will have developed enough positive habits to propel me and sustain me healthily through the next class.
November 9, 2009
Reframing My Week
This week, I will breathe before doing.
This week, I will focus on all that I have, rather than all that I do not have.
I will notice all the time that is left, not all the time I have lost.
This week, I will relax into my work, instead of bracing against it.
This week, I will take time to care for myself.
This week, I will assume abundance.
I will take joy in the work that I do and remind myself of the ways it fills me.
This week, I will ask for help when I need it.
I will remember that it is more than just work and studying, it is the work and the studies I have chosen.
This week it will change, because I am changed.
