Planning Perfect Days

I've got some time away from work and normally I'd take off for the airport and fly away to someplace strange and wonderful, perhaps explore a new place or visit friends who live far away. But these days of Corona have me being careful, and hesitant to fly. We hear that flying is safe, but there's something about being packed like sardines in a slender metal tube at 30,000 feet that gives me pause. Especially since so many of our fellow citizens feel like the whole thing is a hoax. If everyone were being especially careful I might feel differently, but it is what it is. 

Rather than fritter my days away, I've been thinking about what I might like to do if I were to have free time at home. See friends, read that stack of books, do projects around the house, write and engage other creative projects, day trips to places I'd like to visit. 

Mind you, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a perfect day. I am happy with near perfect, or with simply wondrous moments. So that's where I'm directing my energy. Yesterday I planned an afternoon with an old friend I haven't seen for a year. She has a magical back yard with a pool, hot tub, and a shady deck. She also lives near the ocean, so when I left her place I spent a few hours walking on the Ocean Grove-Asbury Park boardwalks and some time on a bench watching the ocean and sky. It was a beautiful day, so clear and cool. I took off as the sun was setting and swung around to the Bradley Beach bridge, overlooking the marina and a big sky full of changing color. That sky companioned me the whole way home. It was nearly a conversation, certainly a marvel. I thought to myself how we plant seeds for perfect days and are surprised by the beauty we're given.

Today I had lunch with a friend and spent the rest of the day writing. Tomorrow I'll have dinner with another friend in her enchanted garden. Monday I'll drive into the city and picnic with my son. I've got a couple of days in between with nothing on the calendar, because sometimes a nearly perfect day is simply spacious and unplanned.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice dedicated to discovery. 

Co-Working Grace

I'm so glad I checked my email just now and discovered a co-working session in progress. I've been on the TCW platform, writing and responding to the creative efforts of others. And I popped back to something else because I did three hours of deep work and was ready to lighten things up a bit. The work I'm doing over there is excavation. I'm moving a lot of earth. I'd really like to balance it with some lighter writing. Deep work becomes heavy to carry without some lightness to balance it.

So I'm happy to have an excuse, or an opportunity, to come over here and lighten the load without having to figure out when I am going to do that on an otherwise full day. I've got a couple of weeks away from work so my days, these days, are all about writing. With some socially-distanced, outdoor adventures with friends thrown in for fun.

My library includes a book called The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci. The title and cover drew me from across the room in a small, used book store one day many years ago. Now that I'm immersed in creativity and craft, the book comes to mind. I'll see if I can excavate it from my shelves and piles and bins of books. Might be fun to take a walk through his process.

There are things about DaVinci that remind me of myself - endless curiosity, working in many areas, learning and discovery as a life path, creative mess. Sometimes I imagine myself in a large, cavernous space in a stone castle with views of a wide, open landscape uncluttered by human development. All the things I'm interested in and working on are out and open in the space around me. 

My tiny apartment does feel a little like that sometimes. When I look around and see papers and canvasses and sculpture and collage all over the place. Scraps of paper on the walls of my work spaces. Art wherever I can find a place to set it down or hang it up. Books. Ask me and I'll tell you my interior design style is creative mess. 

I think someone once called it eclectic.    

Photo: Mine, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My daughter, an artist, in her studio.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice dedicated to discovery.

I Should Be Doing Laundry

But, instead, I am doing anything but.

It sits in the basket in my hallway. Sheets. Towels. Dishtowels. I'm in trouble if I procrastinate until bedtime. All my sheets are in there.

When I traded my expensive apartment for my tiny, inexpensive apartment five years ago, one thing I gave up was a washer and dryer. I'm not sure that I would make that choice again. But I wanted to reduce my living expenses so I could write more and have money to travel and have less financial stress, so there it is. 

The thing is, there's no travel these days and there's a pandemic going on with contagion swirling around all over the place. I'm rethinking my priorities. Going to the laundromat feels a little more risky than it did when we took these kinds of things for granted. 

There's a lot we've taken for granted that we're rethinking these days. 

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice dedicaated to discovery. 

Before It Drives Me Crazy

I may be losing it. 

Checked my calendar today to make sure I didn't have something on there I'd forgotten and I noticed a mysterious notation. Three letters, presumably initials for something, in parentheses, in the upper right hand corner of eight squares in my calendar. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday for the next two weeks, and Monday and Wednesday the following. It's written in orange Flair marker.

I have no idea what this is.

I played around with possibilities, but I think I need to do some kind of forensic remembering exercise, like I've seen on Criminal Minds. Close my eyes and put myself in a meditative state to try to quiet myself and remember the day and time and frame of mind when I wrote this in my calendar. Ask myself questions to jog my memory and help me to access this one.

A friend laughed and said that she hopes I figure it out before it drives me crazy. 

Allostatic overload is real. I credit this to too much in my head and an inability to figure out how to take care of myself during these times. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I've seen lots of people I know who are having recall issues. 

It simply reminds me that I need to renew my efforts around nutrition, movement, hydration, meditation, and sleep. This stuff is not rocket science. But it's so much easier to overwork to get things done and avoid the headaches of not getting everything done than it is to set boundaries that might annoy people. I've got enough stress right now without the added stress of annoyed people in my sphere. I suppose it's about what kind of stress is the least difficult for a person. 

An image comes to mind, Dr. Strange manipulating time energy. It took him awhile to figure out how to do that well in his changed reality. But he did. Figure it out. 

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice dedicated to discovery 

Surfacing

I know. I know. I disappeared on you. But I did not disappear. I simply have gone underground and will come up someplace else. Here's what I've done

I signed up for The Creative's Workshop, offered by Seth Godin and Akimbo. I really like his work. Last year I signed up to do The Podcasting Fellowship and I became overwhelmed by the tech and disappeared. I crashed and burned. It's not like me to just stop and disappear. Or maybe it is. I don't know. That's a hard thing to think about related to oneself. So I may think about it or I may let it lie and if it comes up again, I'll deal with it. Or I won't. We have choices about that kind of stuff and need to balance our inner growth with our peace of mind. Intense times of inner growth are challenging.

And that's where I am right now. In an intense time of inner growth. Of expansion. Of showing up every day and working on my craft and of giving and getting feedback. It's amazing. 

I've fallen into some creative work that's been lying fallow somewhere in my psyche. I'm not talking about it in the outside world yet because it it alchemizing. But I'm doing it and that's the exciting thing. I'm excited, and I haven't been excited for a long time, except for that time a few weeks ago that I took off for the beach. Or saw my mom for the first time since the Corona lockdown. Or saw my son. Or my friend Sarah. Or had the first Zoom Happy Hours with my kids and with the women I went to high school with as girls.

But I haven't been excited about my creative work since the days before we realized we'd need to cancel the concert on March 20. If we'd scheduled it a week or two earlier we could have had it. I started this blog series to get excited about my creative work again and it has felt instead like, well I don't know what, but it hasn't felt good. Or I haven't felt good about what I have been putting out. I did feel good about showing up, until the hurricane hit and broke my streak. But now I'm showing up every day for my craft and I am writing beautiful work that I am happy with and that people are asking to be notified about so they can read it. That feels like a gift.

I am not sure I will continue the 40 days of this writing practice. I will probably pop over when I have energy and something to say. But, also, I do not want to dilute my process. I've fallen off the face of the earth and am discovering the underside, and everything is fluid.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.  

The Thing Is

On the road again and typing one-fingered on my phone. The new format promised an improved experience, especially for mobile users, and I must (grudgingly) admit it is better. Still, I’ll appreciate the return to my laptop tomorrow when I’m home. 

It’s not often that I apply the word “curmudgeon” to myself, but here I am. It’s the second time I’m using it in about a week. About myself. 

The thing is - I find tech challenging. The more I learn, the more I discover how much I don’t know.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.

Balancing the Scales

I woke up this morning to a friend's FB post around impermanence. Her entire website has been lost. It just disappeared. She misses her daughter. They live on different continents during Corona time. It feels strangely resonant with yesterday's writing, and even last year's writing when I was ghosted by Google. 

Erasure. Separation. Isolation. All of it takes us back to grief. When grief is up, it will not let us go.  

A good friend and I have been trying to get together safely the last month. We began this endeavor when it looked like things with the virus were easing. Our plan - to meet at a place between where we both live and to have a long and leisurely lunch outside on the deck of a restaurant that overlooks the Susquehanna River. We've been meeting there for years and have never had a problem. We usually eat outside there anyway, just because it is beautiful. This, actually, might even feel somewhat normal.

Except for the storms. Every date we've set has been beset with storms. Like this morning. I received a text from her at 7:32 today -

It's raining here, can we check in before driving? The weather may not be conducive to sitting outside during lunch -

I replied -

Sure.

And sent a screen shot of the weather with a comment.

Yeesh. The weather. Woke up to thunder here.

At about 9:15 another message -

I'm thinking it's a wash today. Can you chat, just to have a little time?

That's the loss, isn't it? The time. The presence. The chance to let down and talk. And a glimpse of normalcy. We haven't seen each other since this all began, and I think it might have been longer even than that. I think this issue with blocks to meeting may have been going on for quite awhile, or in the fall we may have been able to meet one time after a previous long stint of scheduling blocks and snow events. 

The previous long stretch of time with blocks to meeting did not bother me so much. Back then, it never occurred to me that there might be a day when meeting might be impossible or improbable. Seeing a friend is something I've always taken for granted.

And even though I am moving down the spiral exploring grief this morning, my surface response to these things is not to worry about it. To set another date and to do something surprising with this unexpected time that has opened up. 

There's a balance that's important to find these days. It's a new balance. A re-calibration. A reset. We are learning to walk on new and shifting ground.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery. 

Grief, Denial, and the Time Spiral

Why does it feel like it's been 500 years since I last opened this page to write? Or since I last opened the book I'm reading? Or since I last made a meal or a cup of tea? Spoken with someone on the phone?

It's that strange perception of time in the time of Corona. Corona time.

I've noted in my journal, almost daily, these odd perceptions as they've come up. I've also noted what has been most sustaining for me. Copious cups of tea and occasional human contact. 

I notice the rhythm of my moods. Today it took about seven hours for me to feel good after waking. Or even to feel fully awake. I am stunned that I was able to get so much work done in spite of it. From where does the will or energy come?

Honestly, I am doing pretty well, all things considered. I continue to have meaningful work and an income. Health insurance. A home. My health is good. And, yet, there's this strange feeling that my health and well being are not exactly in sync these days. I am probably not alone in this. This is another strange element of Corona perception that I'm noticing in my own experience and with what others have been sharing.

Two years ago my summer blogging project was themed around self love, and I find myself craving that orientation right about now. How do we keep that in front of ourselves, when so much seems to be collapsing around us? I think part of the answer is to remember that it's during times of stress and collapse that it's crucial to be gentle with ourselves, to care for ourselves, to ease back on the expectations we have for ourselves.  

There's a tendency to self-coach around how well we're doing. I have mixed feelings about it. How do we do this in life-giving ways, and not fall into shaming ourselves or piling on layers of guilt when we're not able to live well? And how are we defining "well" these days as it relates to our efforts? 

I'm thinking back to the time a few months ago when people were realizing that the Class of 2020 would not be able to do the usual milestones that have characterized senior year for the last few decades. When some people expressed their grief and disappointment, others compared their experience to the young people who went to war in WWI and II in an effort to shame and shut this conversation down. That was not helpful.

I've heard similar dynamics in more recent conversations when people express their grief and disappointment around how life is different now than it has been. It is. And it's hard and sometimes painful, often challenging. It's disappointing and difficult. 

Denying the reality does not heal the hurt or calm the fear or inspire a different attitude.

But what do we do after we express the effects of the new reality and notice our experience without judgment?

I think the impulse is to jump over the grief and to leap headlong into discovering what comes next. Or creating what comes next. That may work for some, for awhile. But I suspect, knowing grief as I do, that this will simply compound the challenges and lead to more suffering and paralysis. Grief must have its day, and grief knows what it needs in order for our lives to transform and for the next unfolding to begin. Our job is to listen, without judgement, and to allow what is needed. New beginnings spring from what is ending. 

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.  

New Book Smell

I started a new book this morning and I'm not really sure what to do with it. Of course, I'm only 21 pages in, so we'll see as I keep reading. But the sensation is like being pulled into a hole, deeper and deeper, by inches, down into the darkness, with each page I turn. I look up and I can still see blue sky and sunshine, but it keeps getting father and farther away.

It's surprising because it looks like such a light, happy read.  

Other people's writing can take us deep into our own stories. And sometimes we don't realize we're caught until we notice that the slight discomfort we've been feeling comes from the hook that is inextricably stuck in the tender and delicate skin of our bellies after we've swallowed the proverbial hook, line, and sinker.

Do we digest what we've taken in to ourselves? Or regurgitate?

I could no more stop reading than I could burn a book. That's really the whole point of the hook in our fishing metaphor, isn't it? It's right stuck. And if it's one of those treble hooks, well...

This story has a barb and it's just beginning the mighty battle to keep this fish on the line. But is it the story that is the angler in this metaphor, or is it the reader who will do battle to stay engaged and reel in the prize?

I'll discover more as I move into the deeper waters.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.

Uncertainty Is the Water Flowing in Our Rivers

I fell out of the daily writing practice last week with hurricane-related tech and power difficulties, picked back up on Friday, my 13th of 40 days of writing, and then somehow slid under the time radar over the weekend and woke up Monday morning not having written at all. I've noticed a shifting perception of time during the pandemic. Sometimes I have to remind myself of things that had once been part of my rhythm and flow.

I set an alarm this afternoon to write at 4 p.m. and I missed it, set an alarm for a few other things today and missed them too. I'm starting to wonder if I have some kind of gremlin around here. 

Shifting time perception and mythological creatures are a formula for something interesting and creative. Right?

It's at this point that I feel like giving up. The writing practice, that is. I tell myself I've blown it, unearthed my rough edges, revealed my own lack of perfection. Am I hunting something truthful with this practice, or is it some kind of illusion about myself that I seek?

I'm starting to think that life is not nearly as interesting as it was five months ago. I'm starting to think that I need to do something to shake things up. I remember that, for the most part, I am home with my own thoughts all day. I start to reach for some kind of on-line program to expand myself a little bit. I've got plenty of those in the hopper and nothing feels like it's worth doing.

Could this all be a pandemic slump knocking around my inner landscape? Has the ground of my being caved in and left hollow impressions for me to fall into? And what kind of handholds are there to grab hold of as I climb out?

Why can't I just say, "Hey! I've begged for time like this for years! Where's that list of projects I've always wanted to have time for? Let's do it!"     

It's the allostatic load. I first read about this at the end of April. It's the damage to our bodies when we're constantly exposed to stress. To tell the truth, I've lived with a lot of stress for a long time, but nothing like the stress of the pandemic, added to the stress of the current political climate and social unrest, the stress of the damaged economy, the stress of isolation, the stress of lack of touch, the work stress that has come with all of this. I know I'm not the only one with this - we've all got it, to some extent, and that adds even more to the load for all of us. 

Normalcy lets us know that we're okay. This sustained lack of normalcy, or the new normal, has us wondering if we're ever going to be okay again or if there's going to be something else that is going to collapse around us, adding to the already eroding landscape of our lives. 

There's nothing wrong with me. Or you. Or us. Uncertainty is the water flowing in our rivers right now and what we want is just a little bit of predictability.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.

Surprise. Surprise.

I've been away from things for a few days.

Having met and moved through the hurricane while at the shore, and having moved through power and internet outages for several days, I've returned home and decided it's time to pick up the daily writing practice again. Normally when I write, I come to the screen fresh and allow whatever emerges to flow onto the page, so to speak. I'd planned, loosely, to write about returning to an interrupted practice and the feelings that sometimes come up when one is not able to meet a commitment due to circumstances beyond one's control. However, I was met with yet another surprise this week. 

Popping on to Blogger and hitting "New Post" at the top of my welcome page, I was met with a screen I did not recognize and a notice that Blogger had decided to improve our interface experience. Now, I don't know about you, but I rarely find these improved experiences to be an improvement. It usually means that you have to learn something new and that you have to spend time poking around, discovering where the things that were once familiar are now found. I have to laugh to myself as I think about the book on archaeology that I'm reading and the descriptions of the slow, close work to unearth ancient artifacts, and how like that this is. 

We do have the choice to return to the other interface, which they're calling "the legacy interface," but it is not clear how to do it or where the button is. It's also available only until September first, so I decided just to jump right in and comforted myself with the reminder that I'll have to switch to it anyway. That's not very like me where tech is concerned. 

Thoughts? Well, I'm discovering that I may somehow have become a curmudgeon. I don't like it. For a few reasons, the first being that it's different, and the second being, that it's different. The most annoying thing about the new interface is the font I normally use, Trebuchet, has changed. It's still listed in the options but it certainly is not the Trebuchet I've come to know and to love. Nope. I don't like it one little bit. (That, by the way, is something a curmudgeon might be known to say.) So, time to find a new font. 

There's no point wasting energy by being annoyed.

I've just done that but I'm not sure I'll like it until I preview the text. But I won't preview as much as I once did because now when you do that, it takes a very long time while it's being "prepared" (another new feature) and the last time I did it the page froze. The page has been freezing a lot, to tell the truth. There must be some bugs they're working out with the new format. 

I've decided this week is the week that has been sent to test my patience. I've been told that I am chill and laid back. I've not really seen myself that way for the last few decades, even though I believe it is my true nature to be that way. It seems I am returning to my true nature. And life is sending me many lessons to show me that it's true. That's another blog post for another day. Maybe.

For now, let's just say that it is really hard to find your flow when the page keeps freezing and interrupting your thoughts. I'm trying to remember to be like the river and to keep flowing around the boulders.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery. 

Softly, At First

I've arrived at the shore just in time to meet a hurricane. 

At least, I think it might be a hurricance. Isaias can't seem to make up his mind what he wants to be, but I'll be happy if he simply roars a bit on his way up the coast and heads out of town quickly. Topical storm? Tropical depression? Works fine for me. From what I hear, he'll arrive 3ish, in the middle of the night, and then will be on his way late in the afternoon. Sun is forecast for 7 p.m. tomorrow. I might even see the moon rise.

You wouldn't know that a big storm is coming through in a few hours. People are riding their bikes up and down the main road here on LBI and there are even a few runners out. Lots of cars, and people are still checking in to the small hotel where I am staying. One couple decided to leave early. They were due to check out in the morning and decided the wiser course would be to drive this evening after dinner. The thought of losing the money for a night's lodging makes me cringe. But, I can't say that I blame them. I probably would have stayed a little later, though. Maybe walked on the beach in the evening or had a late dinner. Who wants to leave the beach, even with a storm coming?

For my part, I arrived at 2 and had what felt like a full day. I did not get out to the beach until about 3:30, but I still managed to get sun-kissed in some places, sunburned in others. I need to remember that the sun goes right through the shirt I wore today. 

A wonderful breeze blows this evening, and the temperature has dropped about twenty degrees. I sit outside and listen to the surf. I'd like to write something profound, but I give myself credit for writing at all. I feel like goofing off, but a daily writing practice is just that, even if it's only five words. I've done that before. Last summer I did it a lot, published one good sentence, especially all those days that I had to use my phone. Lots of power outages last year. Storms.

Now that it's dark, I can't see the angry-looking clouds roll in. Insects sing and waves crash on the shoreline and it could be any other night at the beach. 

But I won't leave the windows to my room open to hear the surf tonight and in the morning I'll wake to, what?  I didn't finish the sentence because someone is setting off fireworks and I'm enjoying their colors. I search for my ending and flail about while other things beckon. Aren't I here to write? Why, yes. I am. Sometimes writing is simply sitting still and listening for what wants to be expressed, and it does not necessarily come when I sit in front of my laptop ready for the words to come.

The words may not be coming, but the rain is. Softly, at first.    

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.

When There's No Time To Write

A bowl of figs sits on the table next to me. A cooler, teabags, a bit of mess. My suitcase is packed with too many clothes, but I like choices. Too many books, again, the choices. Pens, new Flair markers, Epsom salts and lavender essential oil. It's amazing how much I've packed for three days.

In the morning I'll load up the car and take off. Take my time on a slow drive toward the ocean. Eighteen hours from now I'll feel sand between my toes and chill, salty water pooling around my ankles. 

But for now, I look out my kitchen windows and see pink ribbons of cloud streak blue skies as the sun sets. The moon will rise shortly, not quite full. She'll be full tomorrow, seconds before noon. I hope to see her rise just after sunset. 

I just noticed that while writing, I forgot that there was no time to write today.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.

Wonder in the Night Sky

Following an unfortunate food choice last night, I found myself up every few hours. At 4:17 a.m. I came into the kitchen for a drink of water and was stunned by the light in the sky. I remembered that Venus is rising as the Morning Star these days and is pretty close to the Earth in her orbit. My goodness, was she stunning. 

The only fun thing about waking up unexpectedly in the wee hours is the night sky. Stars we don't normally see have come out, and sometimes we can catch the waning crescent moon rising in the East. That usually happens sometime after 3 a.m. during that part of the lunar cycle. Once, when I was away in the mountains of Virginia, I was up and saw a perigee moon, a rising waning crescent, huge and glorious in the sky. I felt like I had seen one of the ancient mysteries. 

There's something about the planetary bodies, luminaries, and fixed stars in the night sky that calls up wonder. A few years ago, while in the desert in California, I saw the Milky Way for the first time. I'd seen it in photographs, and that was magnificent, but there is nothing like witnessing it with one's own eyes. The next morning I watched the sun rise over the Anza-Borrego Badlands and Salton Sea. A few years before, I sat on the same boulder and watched the full moon rise there as the sun was setting in the west over the mountains and then the next morning watched the sun rise there while watching the moon set over the mountains. 

On my first trip to Santa Fe, I watched shooting stars and noticed for the first time that stars actually twinkle. That's how you can tell the difference between a star and a planet - stars twinkle, planets don't. Once, when Jupiter was very close to the Earth, I saw some of the moons. They were tiny points of light. And I saw shooting stars again in western Massachusetts and was stunned because I thought I had to be out west to see a sky so filled with stars. Here, near Philadelphia where I live, we don't see many stars, and we were not able to see Neowise, at least I did not see the comet. I did see Halle-Bopp every night for months in 1997 in my suburban subdivision in Delaware. 

I'm thinking about the night sky, I suppose, because of last night's wonder, but also because I'll be down the shore on Monday when the moon is full. It looks like I may meet a hurricane there as well because the forecast is suddenly for storms when it had been clear. I'd been looking forward to watching moonrise over the Atlantic. 

Not sure what to expect. That, too, is part of the wonder.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.