Write a best selling book

I experience such extreme satisfaction for the word-products I create. Today I did exactly that with this piece of writing:

I stood in my backyard, pulling twig sized branches
from the smallish trees that stood at rapt attention,
waiting to serve me.

Tears filled my eyes as I said, “Plum, dear plum, what
do your branches offer me today?”

Less than a quarter hour before I was plucking wet and
slightly tired and soggy wood from my diminished wood
pile. April in Bakersfield doesn’t sound much like
hearth-fire time, yet today – it was.

I had told My Muse last week, “It is so cold and damp,
I want a fire so badly… but…well…I….”

He wondered aloud why I couldn’t have a fire.

“Well, all my wood is wet.”

“The trick,” he said, “is to leave some wood by your
fireplace so that it doesn’t get wet.”

I glared into my phone, massaging the skin between my
eyes so my frown wouldn’t deepen the lines there.
“I know that, but I didn’t suspect I would want to
have a fire in April.”

Days passed and it was still cold in April and I still
wanted a fire and somewhere between the desire and
the implementation everything clicked into place and
I found myself scavenging for wood. I marched into
my living room and plunked myself down in front
of my fireplace only to discover there was, in fact,
some dry wood available.

It was large dry wood, though. I sighed. “Great. Might
as well not have any wood at all,” my
facial-lines-massaging-self lamented.

I put together what I had and struck a match.

Imagine my delight when it ignited. I had made a fire,
in April, without the perfect equipment. “Hummm,” I
thought, “time to shift my beliefs I suppose.”

I sat right on the floor, watching the flames
lick the roof of the fireplace in great arching
motions as if it was an enormous, charred
chocolate ice cream cone, much like my favorite
fudge brownie flavor from Baskin-Robbins. I reveled
in my success.

And then it started fading. And my quick burst of
stuff from outside had diminished and the wet, soggy
wood had never gotten hot enough.

“Anything will burn if it is hot enough,” I heard my Muse
speak into eternity. Even when he wasn’t nearby he was
pushing my buttons.

I stood up, brushed off my black pants and marched
myself back into my yard. I greeted my trees that needed
pruning and cooed at them as I pulled their dried, shriveling
branches from their core. “You give me so much, you
ask for so little,” I said to them.

I worked intentionally, methodically, quickly.

I rested my hand on the trunk of my little plum. I felt a
twinge of sadness for not paying near enough attention
or gratitude for this perfectly colored tree. “We’ll do this,
we will.” I told her as I turned and marched back
into my house.

The embers were crackling, seeming to celebrate my
return with more fire-making offerings.

Once again I built. “Are you in this for the long haul?” the
fire place asked me.

I nodded. “Then show it,” it dared me.

So I did. I built with everything I had and then some. I
struck a match and sat back, smiling. I watched and smiled.
I grabbed my notebook and wrote. The “too big” wood wasn’t
anymore. The wet wood was no longer wet.

The earlier quick-burst of flames was beautiful to look at
and was even fun for a moment, but it wasn’t a long-haul
fire. It wasn’t there to teach me, over and over, to whisper
to me when I most needed its presence.

It was a flash-in-the-fireplace.

This fire, this second fire, was the life-changing one, the
soul one. The one that I allowed myself to build hot enough
and true enough. The one that said, “Yes, I am building
for the long haul.”

The fire is gone now, except for traces of sound and
the scent still hangs festively in the air. It left
a poem, too:

Sweet sensuousness of the crackling air
Grey essence climbs into my heart
Arching, aching, tendrils twine with my hair
Love offerings given heavenward
Lips humming unspoken melodies spare

The unburnable burns
The not there suddenly is
The too soggy and wet
Now isn’t and it all
It all It all It all It all

Weaves with the saltwater
Traveling from my face
To the Earth
In bewildered gratitude

= =

The sounds of these words nurture me, like the fire did
as it made my heart fill, my lips hum, my ears hear
whispers from deep within me.

Bewildered gratitude from the soles of my feet to the
top of my scalp from my heart and my breath and my
fingertips: it is gratitude of the unknowing, gratitude
for the smokey-grey, not quite being able to see shadows
that come into our lives cloaked in what looks like fear
and often, in the end, is our greatest friend.

My plum tree offered her used-up branches so that
I could have an “a-ha” and pass it along to you.

I am in it for the long haul.

Anything will burn if it is hot enough.

Somewhere between the desire and the
implementation everything clicked into place.

Thank you, plum.

Thank you, Muse.

Thank you, fire.

Thank you, bewilderment.

Thank YOU.

I have gone about my morning going back to my friends Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg and I am reminded – this is some of what I want…people to go back to my words, my writing… which is what happens on a certain scale with the writing work I am doing now.

Natalie and Julia are speaking to me like this today:

Julia says: “Writing is about honesty. It is almost impossible
to be honest and boring at the same time. Being honest
may be many other things – risky, scary, difficult,
frightening, embarrasssing, and hard to do – but it is
not boring. “Am I failing to tell the truth? Is there
something I am not saying, something I am afraid to say?”

“Telling the truth on the page, like telling the truth
in a relaionship, always takes you deeper.”

Natalie says: “As writers we are always seeking support. First we should notice we are already supported in every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when
we need support. There is the sunlight coming through
the window and the silence of the morning. Then turn to
face a friend and feel how good it is when she says,
“I love your work”. Believe her as you believe the floor
will hold you up, the chair will let you sit.”

Mmmm. YES!

I can see people walking around with my well worn book in their hands and maybe, yes… surely… they will pass their copies along… maybe even purchase more.

I am so grateful.

Some creative non-fiction… a sample… of my heart… and the sort of content I want to be in a best selling book…..

I have done some edits to this, which was a draft… but for whatever reason I am compelled to put this here in exactly this version.

I sat on a hillside outside Bakersfield where the peace was so thick it could be sliced and served on a plate and quietly pondered life with my beloved Muse. The night sky, dark with clouds covered my being with a blanket of safety while the coyotes singing in the distance filled my heart with courage.

I can not recollect what started the conversation down this path, but for some reason my biggest life “issue” arose.

Abandonment.

Something was said and I responded and if my recollection is clear at all – and perhaps My Muse will have the other perspective from this story to remind me, but what I recall more than anything was the huge lump that formed in my throat and choked me as I spit out my next words.

“Which must be why I keep recreating it, so I can get really good at experiencing it.”

That sentence could be seen as completely cynical, jaded.

It wasn’t, though.

It was a moment of deep truth telling, of something I hadn’t ever spoken aloud before, a breakthrough asking to be manifested.

My early childhood was spent being convinced I was moments away from being sent to an institution – a place where children who were “different” got sent. After all, people were always advising Mom to send John to one of those places, and he and I were the “little kids” so… it seemed natural that I would go, too. We went everywhere together, why not there as well?

I had the hardest time spending the night at friends’ houses. I frequently would start the sacred little-girl time with a bag packed with my nightgown, toothbrush, tomorrow’s clothes and a lot of bravado and by the middle of the night needed to be where I felt safe, where I knew I would not be left behind. My mother would come collect me.

I remember going to Sunday School one morning, late, and my class being empty. I hid in a corner, petrified and alone, my patent leather shoes mirroring my scared face as I hugged my knees and stared at the ground.

Mr. Keller found me, took my hand, and brought me to the children’s worship in the chapel. I was safe again. I was surrounded by people who cared about me.

My parents never sent me to an institution, though, not until I was eighteen and a freshman at University of the Pacific. One would have thought that by then, my worries of being left alone, abandoned, would have dried up.

They didn’t.

They even grew a little and morphed into different directions, like being unwilling to abandon others or give up relationships or jobs or projects which were not fulfilling or in line with my heart and soul.

The last few years have been good for me in that respect as I have practiced letting go. I have said good-bye to that which doesn’t fit me, restoring my self through aligning with what my heart told me was right and good and pure.

What has thrown me, though, have been those instances of letting go that I would not have chosen, just like as a little girl I would never have chosen to be separated from my parents or family.

I discovered something just now which may help me continue to process through these experiences and perhaps, reach out to you as well. Today I wondered who this writing was for, as it felt very personal and yet the tug to write was outside me as well. I know there is someone specific who is to receive these words.

Here is what I discovered:

People, dear souls, have “left” me – and the reason their absence causes what at first feels like despair and pain is because I have made the choice to care so deeply, so passionately. If there was not that intense partnership and connection, that profound sense of intimacy, the leaving wouldn’t matter so much.

For example, when I left my job as a County Bureaucrat, it barely registered as a loss.

When I said “Goodbye” to a particular house of worship and joined another one instead, there was sadness associated with some of the people there, but the lack of overall intimacy kept the aching at bay.

Listen again to these words:

I write them again for you – profound intimacy, deep sense of partnership and connection.

Once forged, it never leaves. Profound intimacy is pure, it is divine, it makes two individuals or more so much more than separate beings. It is creative, it is evocative, it is a treasure.

That experience of deep connection is as deeply and permanently entrenched in the soul as our DNA is in the cells that make up our physical form.

This profound intimacy is what I created as a child with my brother John. It is what I felt with my friends Mel and Tom when we spent hours and hours and hours drinking coffee and laughing and allowing each other to dream.

I felt it when I was talking to a friend at a Christmas function. She was another mother who had experienced the loss of a baby. Her son had died when he was nine months old. She had recently miscarried a baby who, they found, had the same genetic problem as her earlier son. “I don’t think I can dare to try again she said.” With tears filling my eyes my heart whispered and I spoke aloud, “I don’t think I can dare not to try again.”

I felt it again with Kevan as we created together and shared deeply. I remember when he said, “No, Julie – what you said isn’t bad, it is truthful.” It is something I felt with my friend, Roger – in the safety of darkness when I made a request and he filled that need in me. I feel it onstage, with audiences being the connective force, when I allow myself to experience transcendence with them watching me become art incarnate.

I felt it again, recently, on a hillside outside Bakersfield with the blanket of the night surrounding me and My Muse sitting alongside me, encouraging me to dive deeper even if initially it felt like my insides were going to shatter if I dared to go there.

With this realization comes another reality – that abandonment is something I have created in my mind because all these experiences of profound intimacy never leave, so the people I have partnered with in their creation never leave me, either.

My insides have not and will not be shattered, they are beautifully woven into my being, my form, my body, my presence.

My Muse has been separated from me by geography for almost two weeks now, yet today was one of his biggest accomplishments of musing yet.

My heart says, “Bring on the practice! I want to feel more of this profound intimacy – it is what makes life so good.” It is what makes my life so passionate, so vibrant, so alive, so wondrous.

Yes. A gift.

Thank you.

I have been leading a Writing Workshop for something like three years now, we work in 12 Week Sessions. I decided today I am going to use this session to get my four books which are all done EXCEPT FOR THE FORMATTING all formatted. Three weeks for each book.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…. no, I know I can, I know I can, I know I can….......

and I was awed by what I read.

Reminded me, I need to get off my butt!

Then another friend asked me, out of the blue, “Have you finished your “Confessions” book yet?! Wow.

Ok, feet – one in front of the other – now GO!