participate in a 43T Artist's Way Group

I haven’t worked on this goal in a long while, but I’m not putting it aside, because I do enjoy the creative exercises and the ways in which it encourages people to explore their world and to get out and do things!!!

Not too long ago, I was having a brief conversation with a woman at my office who asked me what I did over the weekend. I said I went to the county fair, and she said, “Well, I suppose my daughter would like it, but who has time to go out and do that? We also have to walk around and be outside.”

Needless to say, I never went out of my way to talk to her again. The response got me a little angry. What kind of life must you be leading if you don’t bother to go outside or walk a little to see the sights? But I’m sure the same woman wouldn’t have a problem watching tv, talking on the phone or using the many technological devices she owns to anestheticize herself in her virtual world.

1. Morning Pages: I made a concerted effort. I wrote five out of seven days. The experience was cathartic, esp. when things bothered me; it was good to vent. I also reflected on the image of God that I wanted to believe in, vs. the prepackaged one we’re so often sold.

2. My artist dates were wonderful. I gave myself two. I spent several hours cleaning what was to be the baby room and exchanged some things for new pillows and a cover for the couch and moved things around. Cleansing.

3. I did experience synchronicity this week. A friend called up and asked if I would be open to a job that just became available. He then helped me shape my resume and cover letter. The interview will be Monday. I’m so nervous, b/c the job is far from my areas of expertise or strength. But it’s a big gaping open door.

Tasks:
1. Cooking: made almond jello dessert and baked turkey drumsticks, which were a bit too salty.

2. Gave away stuff to Goodwill and gained floor space.

3. Postcards: Have not done this.

4. Made changes to my home environment (see artist date).

5. Freebies: I practiced using coupons. Enjoyed free frozen yogurt with a friend and had 2-fer-1 Indian food.

6. Crazy idea about what I would like to be doing: writing full-time!

Morning pages: I did most days, except for the weekends again. The three pages don’t seem enough for me, because I keep wanting to write more. But I think writing more would make me less productive in terms of other things I’m working on, so I always make it a point to stop at three.

Artist’s Date: I rearranged furniture and cleaned up the patio, and set up a cold water tank for my surviving goldfish. I also organized my gardening tools and supplies into separate, easy to find bins. This is my favorite place to write, so it’s important that it feels fresh and uncluttered.

Childhood Room: Describing my childhood room reminded me of how much I love having light come through my windows. It was a personal space that I decorated with animal posters from my book orders, with my tiny writing desk, and book shelves. It also reminds me how bare my current room is. It has the basic bedroom furniture, but nothing charming or decorative about it.

Childhood Traits and Accomplishments: I had a tough time describing accomplishments that were not academic. I’m more “well-rounded” (ain’t that the phrase they like to use?) in my adulthood. I didn’t pick up my childhood treat yet. I long for my grandmother’s chicken wings and potatoes dish.

Bad Habits: Not a pretty picture. I used to think it was cool to be late and flaky. It’s not.

Friends: I didn’t call anyone for support, but I also don’t have any friends who insult me, either.

Inner Compasss: I do these activities all the time and think while I’m doing them. Does that count?

People I admire: Haven’t done this yet. Will make it up this week.

Morning pages: I’ve been doing these faithfully, except I didn’t do them this weekend. Sometimes it feels like drivel, but I like the nonjudgmental, cathartic effect of them. It also yielded a new essay idea for me, and it keeps my eyes open during the day for things to write about tomorrow.

Affirmative Reading: I only read these maybe three times this week total. Same with the self-affirmations. I found them soothing when I was reading or writing them, but I just got impatient with the repetition.

Where does your time go? I discovered what I was devoting my time to and what I needed to make a conscious effort to include. I need to find work, and I haven’t been dilligent about that lately, or catching up with emails, and organization.

List of 20 Fun Things: I enjoyed making this list. I also realized how long ago it was since I have done at least half of the things on there. They are great ideas for artist’s dates.

Two favorite things as weekly goals: My goals were to update and clean out my makeup bag and to watch a matinee by myself. I didn’t get to the first, but I enjoyed the matinee. It was my artist’s date.

Artist’s Date I saw a matinee showing of “August Rush.” That movie was incredible and it was about not betraying your gift as an artist. When it comes out, I’m buying this movie. I love going to movies by myself, especially in the afternoons when the theaters are half-empty.

Imaginary Lives Did a little of them all.

Life Pie When I connected the dots, I realized how little joy my life has contained in the past year. I’m just starting to wake up. Thank God for 2008!

Ten Tiny Changes: Most of the list had to do with decluttering the house and car. I like my environment clean. It helps me think, and there’s a lot of housework to do. One also had to do with saving for a new heater. And working on the book dedicated to my son, of course.

What I did was talk and plan about when to get that new heater.

I just seem to be taking myself out on dates and being less dilligent about the other exercises. What can I say, I’m a dating girl! Though of course, later, that may not be the case. It just so happens that I found a lot of creative things to do this week.

My third artist’s date was to set up a five-gallon aquarium tank. I did this without reading any prior information, which actually was a bit of a mistake. My husband has a turtle and feeds it feeder goldfish from time to time. This time, it just so happens that my favorite fish was the last one swimming, so he asked me if I wanted to keep it. I did, and then I bought more fish to keep it company. Now I have an entire set up going, and I can’t stop watching them swim ‘round and ‘round.

I’m baking my first chicken pot pie, or rather, the first pie in my life. I used the Pillsbury pie crusts that I bought from my first artist’s date at the 99-cent store. I cut up two chicken breasts; added mushrooms, peas, a carrot, onions; and then separately a broth, flour, butter and milk mixture.

It was a lot of fun, and I was doing something that I never imagined myself doing. For example, separating the yolk from the white with my hand, like I’d seen it done on tv, and then painting the whites on the pie crusts so that they won’t come out soggy. I’m still waiting for them to bake in the oven. We’ll see how they turn out.

I can tell a horror story about each one of these persons and blame them for how they thwarted me on my journey to becoming an artist, that when I needed the gentle word of encouragement and comfort, instead, I got slashed with the blade of a knife. They all hurt me in their way, but it was also a test. I am supposed to rise above what they told me in their personal opinions. I find that I still put too much stock in people’s opinions, but much less than before. The scales are tipped in that the side that weighs more heavily is the belief in myself, versus other people’s negative comments.

Horror story. I believe I will go with my college best friend, because I don’t think I ever truly let that scar heal. She and I are so alike, and yet, so different. And as the years go by, we become even more different. I used to show her my stories, way before they were ready, way before they were even completed, in their roughest form, and she would slash them to death and then voice her criticisms to me. It was always under the guise of telling me “the truth”, but the ironic thing in this exercise was that it never taught me to become a better writer. It just made me a better critic. I slashed other people’s pieces the way she did mine, but I never became a better writer. Instead, I would inwardly cringe, hide the draft away and never finish it. I didn’t know how to polish and revise my own stuff back then. And it made me more afraid than ever to show my stuff to someone else.

1. My mother. She thinks that writers are a special breed—highly disciplined, extremely well-read, and are someone gifted by God with the talent of writing. She didn’t believe that I fit this profile at all. She also worried that writers made poor livings. With teaching, at least I had security and many days off. I could write on the side.

2. College Best Friend. She said that writing needed something, like exquisite, poetic language and symbolism. She said that personal narratives and memoirs lacked imagination and skill to write. She got impatient with description and details and needed writing to skip right to the chase. It needed to “go somewhere.” In college, she used to chase me around and pick my writing to death. It made me very sensitive about showing my work to people.

3.College Writing Professor. If she thought the writing was bad, she would indicate that with her silence. It would be passed over at the reading table. Also, out of two hundred applicants, she chose twenty to be in her classes and the four that were on the waiting list got to listen in and sit at the fringes of the class. They were not allowed to sit at the table. People never dropped out, so I got to sit on the fringes that whole quarter. I didn’t understand the way things worked then. Instead of being proud that I was one of the few chosen to be on the waitlist, I brooded and hated her the entire quarter, and I was too intimidated to produce anything to show. She made me feel “not good enough” and I let her.

I walked to the 99-cent store in my neighborhood, thus killing two birds with one stone, five dollars in my pocket. With this limited amount of chunk change, I bought a Venus flytrap; a Catholic prayer candle; a Banquet frozen dinner; a package of five Pillsbury frozen pie crusts.

Why these items? Mostly because I’ve never baked a pie or grown a Venus flytrap. I haven’t had a frozen dinner in at least a decade, and Banquet dinners remind me of the times I used to shop with my grandmother and we’d buy these special oddities (to us) to try at home. The Catholic candle represents a sort of meditation to me, an invitation for good vibes, even though I’m not religious.

I definitely think this was an excellent way to spend five dollars. I even have eighty-nine cents left.

Plus, I discovered that on the back of the Banquet box, there is a coupon for one free game of bowling! How’s that for cool!

I’m kick-starting this project today, so if anybody wants to dig in also, feel free! To start, I’m just going to list this week’s activities and include them as a small part of my day.

1. Write three morning pages every day, about half an hour. So far, 3/7 done

2. Go on an artist date. Cameron’s idea sounds fun: spend $5 at the nickel-and-dime store buying cool, silly things. done. This was fun!

3. Time Travel: List three old enemies of your creative self-worth. Be specifice about how they injured your creative self. done

4. Time Travel: Select and write one horror story from your monster hall of fame. done

5. Write a letter to the editor in your defense. Mail it to yourself.

6. Time Travel: List three old champions of your creative self-worth. Be specific.

7. Time Travel: Select and write out one happy piece of encouragement. Write a thank you letter. Mail it to yourself or to long-lost mentor.

8. Imaginary Lives: If you had five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them? The point is to have fun. Select one life and do it this week.

9. Turn a negative blurt into an affirmation.

10. Take your artist for a walk, just the two of you. A brisk twenty minutes can alter your consciousness. done