There’s a writer named Natalie Goldberg who does marvelous books to help other writers along the road.
One of her most straightforward bits of advice is to write what’s in front of your face.
Here’s a glimpse of what that looked like in my world, today.
Amongst the mountains of frozen dog food to be sorted and stashed, along with about three days worth to be packed for a brief trip to Camp, there were boxes of the stuff that prevents heart worms to wrangle out of an online source, the usual door opening and water bowl filling routine, and, of course, treats, hugs, and brushing. Lots of brushing!
And, there are still dog directions to write for Camp, which I suspect is not quite what Natalie had in mind, but on the list nonetheless.
I’ve done the Don Quixote thing, tilting at windmills with UPS over a package that, shall we say, disappeared somewhere into the big brown kingdom, apparently never to be heard from again.
And was grateful to the folks who shipped it in the first place for shipping another, today. Fingers crossed.
My Muse painting, who appears first, below, and now hangs in our bedroom where she is in charge of dreams, did her job with enthusiasm last night, sending me a dream that involved standing in front of a room full of people I went to high school with (Blessedly NOT naked!) and telling them why I keep showing up here, and at the canvas, doing what I do.
It’s the one of those five people thing we’ve talked about before. (Click here, if you’d like a reminder.)
My alchemical consciousness has been high-fiving me most of the day!
Then there are blessed friends who’ve listened to me think out loud while I sort through .jpg after .jpg of images, all hoping for jobs in the changing landscape which is about to happen around here, on Facebook, and in my pocket where the new business cards from moo.com will live.
Here are a couple of sneak peeks:
There’s crab shell broth warming on the stove.
And paintings-in-progress figuratively leaping up and down, wanting play time, while brushes wait to be washed, eyeing me with one brow raised as I pass by their Mason jars of water.
Perhaps most of all, though, there are the two notes I re-discovered today, scratched in purple ink in my dog-eared copy of Ms. Goldberg’s The True Secret Of Writing.
The first appears on page 106 of the edition I have. It’s beside a list of entry line options provided to get folks from stuck to — you know — writing. My addition to the list:
The first thing I want my grandchild(ren) to know about me is…
You’re welcome to play with it! Grandkids you already know and love. The kind that are on the way, even now. The ones you long for someday. Or the honorary ones in border detention camps or trapped in caves or hungry pretty much anywhere.
And then another one, almost un-noticed, on the very last page of the book, under the note about the author:
Imagine you are seated in the lap of a Fiercely Compassionate Grandmother. Yours, the one you needed, the archetypal one, or even the one you are on the way to being. She asks, “What are you becoming?” and listens with love and attention to your most true answer. Then she whispers, “I will help you.”
I’d love to hear what comes to mind.
The most important thing, though, is that you know!
(To leave a response here, just click on the big picture of what the crab broth became, at the top of this post, then scroll way down, pausing a moment at the blog subscription box if you’d like, until you find the place for comments.)