It started with coffee. It wasn’t ready. And it wasn’t just coffee, it was three travel packs of coffee for a meeting. 7:15 a.m. pick up time. “Do you have your invoice?”
“No, I never received one, but I’ll pay for it now. I have my tax-exempt form.”
“Well, we don’t have your order. We could have it ready in fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“Sure, I’ll wait.”
Even waiting twenty minutes, I’ll make it by 8:00.
I didn’t, but I got there with three travel packs of coffee. The rest of the day unfolded as one of those Mondays.
The icing on my slice of cake with un-brewed coffee was finding a surprise gift from a friend waiting at my seat. A great tote bag stuffed with mini-notebooks, a cheerful pencil pouch, and fun pencils reminded me to regret nothing, even if it means being late.
There was a hole in the boxspring under my twin-sized mattress.
A king-sized bed sat across from mine, resting against the wall. When will this house be finished so I can have my own room? No privacy whatsoever. My younger sisters shared the larger bed. I was lucky to have my own, the perks of being a first-born.
I picked at the hole a little every night. I don’t know why. If Mom were to see it, I’d probably get in trouble. She wouldn’t know because as long as I kept my bed made, changing my sheets every Saturday morning, she’d never see it. No one but me knew it was there. A little private secret kept to myself.
Eventually, the hole became large enough, but not too large, for me to drop small things into it. But could I take them out? I’d have to place them carefully. Deciding not try my jewelry, I chose something useless. A pencil.
I left a pencil near my bed one night to test out the treasure chest of sorts. This is nothing like the movies. Why can’t I have a normal house with my own room and a loose floorboard where I can hide things? (I watched too many movies, read too many books.). Lights out, I waited until I knew the other two were asleep. They conked out right away. Sleep has always eluded me.
I pat around for the pencil. Finding the hole, I slip it in, holding it between my thumb and forefinger. I tap it up and down. Move it side to side.
Flip.
I lost my grip.
Gasp!
It’s just a pencil. I’m relieved it wasn’t my good pen. How do I take it out though? Feeling for the hole, which was smaller than my hand, I popped in my forefinger. Even though the middle finger is longer, I may be able to grip it somehow. Sure enough, it dropped straight down to the boxspring lining. Dragging it toward the side rail, I carefully pulled it up and my thumb soon entered the rescue mission. Grasping the pencil, I pulled it straight out. A buzz-less game of Operation–I was good at that game.
Success!
I hid a pencil for a few minutes, until I almost panicked about losing it. You don’t even like pencils!
My mind got busy dreaming up what I’d hide there: my favorite Teen Beat posters, so my sisters wouldn’t claim them and put them up on their side of the room. Piles of 80s style folded notes (is there even a name for those? Umm, yeah, folded notes, IYKYK). Neon colored jelly bracelets I hated sharing. The possibilities were endless…
Yeah, until there’s too much in there that you can’t take any of it out. Then the liner starts sagging and tears, dumping everything under the bed. That’s the first place they look for stuff.
Eventually, the hole grew enough form me to slip in various items without much effort.
And then there was my black spiral. It lived under piles of other school spirals and books and gossip-less folded notes, Seventeen and YM magazines, graded papers. I hid it well. That’s where my secrets lived. In that spiral, I wrote thoughts I dared not to share.
I tried those little diaries with locks and tiny keys that always got lost only to find out you can poke anything into the dumb little lock to open it. And there was a teensy amount of space for each day. Even my boring life needed more than five little lines. Those teen crushes were real, more than five lines real.
After some writing, I placed my spiral near the top of my stack. At night, I’d maneuver the relocation. Lights out. Wait. Slumber in the king sized bed. I rolled up my spiral into a tube and slipped it in.
Gasp!
It slipped in, but how do I take it back out? Surely, it’s flattened back out.
It’s okay. I took out the pencil, I can take this out too. In went my hand. Managing to roll it up, I pulled it out.
Success!
I tried it a few more times and left it there. To keep it safe, it wouldn’t have companions. Grinning to myself and knowing my thoughts were safe, I closed my eyes and sleep found me.
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”
Barbara Kingsolver
I (still) don’t have a door to close. I now have a spare room to call my own. My craft room. My “writing” room. Except I’m still perched at the end of the table in the kitchen. My writing cabinet holds the essentials: a caddy full of my favorite writing sticks, my current notebook, a planner, some books on creativity, cookbooks, mixology books, wine, and wine glasses.
I haven’t figured out what I want to say. Yet. I’m opening myself up to whatever story wants to be told as long as I’m brave enough to tell it. Julia Cameron says I need ask for guidance, and I do, but I must be blind to it. I’m a looks-too-hard type of person, making things harder than they need to be. I also like simplicity, so maybe it’s too simple because I thrive on complexity.
However, isn’t simple…complex? I think there’s a depth there few people are able to extract from effectively, a shallow looking pool that somehow becomes an abyss. With no one looking over my shoulder, I let whatever wants to be said, be said. Some days it’s in the saying where the figuring out happens.
Despite some changes to routines, I signed up for year four of this writing challenge. My only expectation is to show up every day. My morning pages have faltered from daily to weekends, but this will bump me back in the right direction. With spring teasing us, I’ve been sitting in the backyard under the twinkle lights, taking my pen and notebook with me, a sweater for the chill that unexpectedly curls itself around my shoulder. Half finished books on writing are opening up again. My mind is opening up again.
I’m also looking at other routines that have seemed to have slipped away. I re-assess. Are these things I need to continue doing? It’s okay to let some go and replace them with something new. Do they need replacing? I’m working on decluttering my space, but I also think decluttering my mind and responsibilities opens me up to welcome whatever comes my way. It’s acceptable to leave space wide open for a while. Why the rush to re-clutter?
This fourth year of slicing, I’ll focus on figuring out what to say. I’ll close the door behind me and enter the backyard in the evenings, before days get too hot and mosquitos feast on me. Pup will chew on mulch while sitting at my feet. I’ll start a cozy fire, careful not to accidentally pick up a lizard dwelling in the pile of wood. I’ll open my notebook and start writing whatever needs to be said.
Is they’re ordinary
basic
inexpensive
collectors of
dreams
disappointments
mileage
scribbles
doodles
facts and figures
A crayon mark
or two
Sometimes they’re blank
like a mind can feel
or like a sadness
or a fresh start,
a new beginning
with the possibility of an end
or eternity
Sometimes they're a continuation of ideas
The thing about notebooks
the containers of one's soul,
potential,
possibility,
is people dismiss them as mere notebooks
without appreciating the fact
that anyone who bothers with a blank page
may never be the same
The thing about notebooks
is the infinite variety in which they’re bound,
that people want to read them
the ones that are filled fat with words,
oozing with thought,
seeping with taped in mementos
receipts,
tickets,
love letters
to do lists
notes
a thumbprint
coffee stains
and the magnificence
of what’s contained in the creator’s mind
somehow finds its way
into the world
leaving an indelible mark
on those lucky enough to read them
I took myself on a date today. With ideal places still iffy, I took her to a local coffeehouse. She likes coffee. I invited her to bring her journal and she ordered a raspberry mocha. Indoor seating is closed, but the proprietor offered the patio. We accept, walk around to the back, and find a table. We have the place to ourselves. He delivers the raspberry mocha.
I open up to chapter five of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and peruse the exercises at the end. I pick up my pen and start answering the questions, reminding myself to dig deep and be honest. This is our second round with the book. The twelve weeks we started in October 2019 came and went. We worked on morning pages, three days of writing every morning for twelve weeks. It’s become a good habit. I’m still wondering what three pages means if we start with an 8.5 x 11 journal then switch to an A5. But three pages is three pages, sometimes more, sometimes less, but every morning. Mostly. And ideally before we pop into social media, work, email, busy-ness, but that’s tricky with work. Weekends and breaks are best, but we’ve stayed the course.
Besides the morning pages, Cameron also makes us go on an artist’s walk. Once a week, but more is okay. No one else is allowed. No spouse. No kids. No pets. Reeses hates it when we leave without him. No music filled earbuds. Those walks have become our lifeline. We have to listen. Pay close attention to our surroundings. Our inner voices.
The reason for this intervention is to unblock Creativity. I have great ideas. She’s not so good at following through. No time. Self-doubt. Stuck. Getting too old. Needing to tend to the kids first. Working on alone time with the hubster. Alone time with each kiddo. Family time. Cooking. De-cluttering. Work. Self-soothing with too much social media. Lots of self-sabotage.
We’ve made lists of possible dates: museums, an empty church, hiking, a relaxing bath, perusing bookstores, a massage, star gazing, tickets to a musical, day trips, lunch at a new to us restaurant, an art class, hand lettering, hanging out at a library. Artist’s dates are the hardest to schedule. Once a week. Every week. We’re working on that. We need variety, but we’ll take what we can get. It’s usually a walk, hike, short drive, a visit to a coffeehouse, or massage. Our last pre-pandemic artist’s date, just when we were making progress on this new routine, was to the Lone Star ‘Zine Fest.
Today we went to a new coffeehouse that opened about a week before the pandemic shutdowns began. I’m glad they’re still around. Artists’s date for the week is done. I’m glad we spent time together. We need it.
Nerds Beget Nerds 