One of the exercises in the first week of The Artist’s Way is to consider other life paths. If you could, just for fun, imagine five other lives you’d like to lead, what would they be?
Since I’m doing this with a group of friends, I wanted to know what everyone else would pick. I learned about them through their answers. These imaginary lives say a lot about our inner worlds, our joys, our hopes and dreams. I liked the exercise so much, and what I learned about each person, I asked another group of friends the question as well. One joked, “Is this the new Myers Briggs?”
The lives I initially blurted onto the page were novelist, photographer, philosopher, psychology researcher, and literature professor.
After I saw others’ lists, which included lives like seamstress, horse trainer, mechanic, campground owner, and musician, I realized how mind-based my list is – other than photography, there’s nothing material or interactive with the outside world. I stared into space as I considered this, my eyes resting on my garden. When I realized what I was looking at, I thought, duh. Horticulturist. I scratched out philosopher and replaced it. Then I thought of several Instagram accounts I delight in that involve arranging flowers in various ways (art, color, fashion, photography). One of my favorite books is The Language of Flowers. I scratched out psychology researcher and replaced it with flower arranger.
My revised list became novelist, photographer, horticulturist, flower arranger, and literature professor. That feels better.
As Julia Cameron reminds us in The Artist’s Way, the point of these lives is to have fun — potentially more fun than you’re having in the life you’re living now. Then came a part I wasn’t expecting: to pick one and do it for a week. This doesn’t mean change careers. It means that if I think being a photographer would be fun, then go take some photos. If I think being a novelist would be fun, then play with fiction. If I think flower arranging would be fun, then go to a florist, pick out some flowers, and arrange them. The point is to do the thing you think would be fun about that life. Do it now, from wherever you are, with whatever expertise you do or do not have.
For two days in a row, I’ve gotten up at 4:45am to write three pages before heading over to the pool for my 5:30am lane assignment. When my alarm went off this morning, I was not happy about it. I regretted my life choices. I regretted committing to going through The Artist’s Way with friends, I regretted running on an injured foot to the point that now I can’t run at all, I regretted signing up for a 5:30am swim lane.
Once I was out of bed, and my teeth were brushed, and the cats were fed, I sat with my notebook and pen at the kitchen table. The fixture above the table cast a small field of warm light; otherwise I was surrounded by darkness. My pen moved across the page, probably saying something like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this, what was I thinking.” I don’t remember what I wrote. The point of the three Artist’s Way morning pages is to let stuff flow out of my brain and onto the page to clear things out. Maybe something fresh will enter into the space. Maybe not.
I felt better after writing. I didn’t regret things quite so much. Once I was in the pool, I loved my life choices. I’ve started going to the aquatic center closer to our house, the less fancy one than where our daughter swims, and I love everything about our little community pool. The floors in the locker room feel like they’re heated, though I can’t imagine they are; I think there’s just a radiator cleverly placed in the narrow area where we change so that the heat from it makes the floor warm. The pool itself isn’t a cold shock to jump into because it’s more of a recreation pool for community laps and swim lessons rather than a competition pool. And probably my favorite of all, lane signups are on a large pad of paper, actual paper, with someone behind the desk assigning lanes. They even use white-out when someone cancels. I didn’t know white-out even existed anymore. The whole process is very human compared to picking slots online, which is convenient and wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But I like saying hi in the morning, and the woman behind the desk saying hi to me, telling me which lane I’m in and who I’m sharing with, and asking me if I want to go ahead and sign up for next week, the new schedule just came out and it’s an empty slate.
The 5:30 swim lane appointment makes me do my two highest priority things before I do anything else. Yesterday was my first day doing it, and the whole rest of my day, I felt accomplished. Anything else I did on top of my 30 minutes of writing and my swim were bonus. The change in routine mixes up my whole morning, which opens me to mixing up my whole day. I’m even considering leaving the house today to work. This is not something I usually do! I also haven’t done it yet, so we’ll see if it actually happens.
That being said, the 5:30 lane appointments also prohibit me from doing other things before work that I like to do. They don’t really allow for a leisurely morning. For my other two slots this week, I’ll go at 11:30 am. I’m eager to see how busy the pool is at that time, and how it affects my work to take a break midday. It always seems to be beneficial when I take a break to run midday. My mind gets a refresh, and I often work things out when I give my body a jostle during the day. Maybe the same thing will happen with swimming.
My Saturday started hectic, which I didn’t love. This is a big weekend in town between the Virginia Tech spring football game and the high school prom, and I wanted to get to the grocery store early before it was mobbed. I shopped before I’d even had breakfast or coffee, and by the time I made it to Panera at 8am to get an asiago bagel for our daughter and a cinnamon raisin to go with my mascarpone cheese, they were already out of all of their bagels but oats and asiago. At least I was able to get one for our daughter for prom morning.
When I got home, I arranged the flowers I’d gotten her, unloaded groceries, sat for a few minutes to read, and then was off to the pool to swim laps. I think I injured my foot on my gardening vacation. I then ran on it for a week, and then probably walked 20 miles in NYC last weekend, and now my foot is rebelling and will barely let me walk. This is a problem for me. I get cranky when I can’t exercise, mainly because I like to eat. And I swear, the older I get, the less I can eat without outgrowing my clothes. I exercise so I can eat. When I can’t exercise, I can’t eat what I want. This makes me unhappy.
I considered swimming, but the aquatic center where our daughter swims is in the next town over and is an annoying ordeal to arrange a time to swim, reserve a lane, drive over and back, blah blah blah. It is A Thing. She asked why I don’t just go to the one here in town, and honestly, it had never occurred to me to look into it. I reserved a lane easily over the phone (the other pool is always full), and when I arrived, it was all chill and easy and perfect. And, it’s only 5 minutes away. When I walked out onto the pool deck, I was transported back ten years, to one of our daughter’s first experiences with organized swimming, which had taken place at that pool. I swam my laps blissfully, and after I got out, I bought a ten-day pass and reserved lanes four days next week.
After swimming, I was kind of pooped. I haven’t swum laps in a while. Back at home, I lay down on the couch with The Artist’s Way and started reading. Some friends and I are going through the book together starting next week. Two things the author recommends that I’m eager to do are morning pages — 3 pages of longhand brain drain every morning, just to get stuff out of our heads — and artist dates with ourselves. I’m pretty excited to get started. I got all my chores done today so that I’ll have Sunday all to myself to get ready for the first week’s practices.
As I lay on the couch reading, my eyes kept trying to flutter shut. It didn’t help that my glance repeatedly wandered to our cat, curled up in my writing chair. Finally, I followed her lead. I put the book down, curled up on the couch, and let myself fall asleep.
Our daughter’s junior prom is this weekend. She’s got her shoes and her jewelry, her photo plans, her date, her hangout plans, her dinner plans. As for her dress…
We returned from New York after midnight Sunday night, and I took Monday off of work to do catchup stuff at home, like buy groceries, mow the lawn, and hem our daughter’s prom dress. She had the day off of school, so after I’d gotten all my chores done and had a cup of afternoon coffee, she put on her heels, put on her dress, and stood on a chair so I could pin the hem at the right length for her heel height. I lugged my sewing machine out, spent half an hour digging through my sewing box to find a bobbin to wind with the right color thread, and tried to remember how to sew.
Twelve years ago, when our daughter was five years old, and so was her pink stuffed bunny, I had a different kind of repair to do. The tip of Bun Bun’s ear had disintegrated from constant loving. She’d already lost her bathrobe and was down to one slipper, and now the tip of her ear had a hole in it from five years of our daughter stroking it with her fingertip while she sucked her thumb.
Bun Bun’s injury made our daughter very sad. I remember we had a doctor kit with a little stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, and our daughter did pre-op on Bun Bun while I prepped the needle and thread for surgery. She listened to Bun Bun’s heart, she put the blood pressure cuff around Bun Bun’s ears to measure… I don’t know what.
I remember being very nervous about repairing Bun Bun’s ear. This was our daughter’s most precious friend. We all loved Bun Bun. She was the best. It was a lot of pressure.
I felt similarly about hemming our daughter’s prom dress. Prom is a big deal. Prom dresses are a big deal. She assured me nobody would be looking at the hem of her dress half an inch from the floor, and not to worry about even stitches or how neat it looked.
Still, I wanted to do a good job.
I measured three times, had her try it on again before I made the final cuts and seams, then pressed the thrice-measured hem in place and stitched it up.
The dress is ready now, and she’s happy with how it turned out. Bun Bun approves as well.
We had a big birthday over the past weekend — my husband’s 50th — and I surprised him with a trip to New York to hear some jazz. We live in a small town. At home, our weekend evening entertainment consists mainly of going out to eat. When our kids were younger, and dining out alone together happened once or twice a year, those dinners were a major occasion. They were special and rare. Now that the kids have their own lives, my husband and I find ourselves at restaurants thinking, welp, here we are again.
So last weekend we went on a trip where our evening entertainment wasn’t to sit at a table and eat. Instead, we had music: two jazz clubs and Hadestown on Broadway. On my husband’s birthday, we had 10:30pm tickets to see Ezra Collective play at Blue Note in Greenwich Village. Since the show started later than our usual bedtime, we grabbed pizza at Song E Nepule in the West Village, then coffee and cheesecake at the bar of a packed restaurant further up the street before heading over to Blue Note to get in line for a good seat. It was a chilly night and we watched the Village pulse as people spilled out of restaurants and bars and queued outside of comedy clubs. We were pretty close to the front of our own line, and when the doors opened at 10pm, we selected seats not right up next to the stage, but about 15 feet away. We were packed shoulder to shoulder at the little two-top tables pushed together to make as efficient a use of space as possible.
The show itself was possibly the most joyful musical experience I’ve ever had. Because the club is small (200 seats), and we were so close to the musicians, it was intimate. We were all part of an experience together, rather than just watching someone perform on a stage. Because we were so close to the musicians, I could watch them interact with each other, watch how in sync they were, how despite making music through five separate bodies and five separate instruments, through the music, they were one body. They communicated without words, just eyes and music and giant smiles. And that’s what filled me up the most: how much fun they were having. It was obvious they loved what they were doing, they were completely present in that room with each other and with us, making music was playful and fun and a delightful surprise each time one of their bandmates soloed, and their joy was infectious. They’d watch each other and feel each other’s vibe and burst into happy open-mouthed smiles. I listened to an interview recently with the actor who plays Roy Kent on Ted Lasso, and he talked about sport. He said “I think sport is there so men can say I love you without saying I love you.” As I watched Ezra Collective make music together, I thought, they are saying I love you without saying I love you.
Saturday night, we went to a different kind of jazz club. Where Blue Note was bumping, and everyone on their feet at the end, and the music high energy and loud the night we went, and the club is at street level and has windows and tables and seats 200, the place we went Saturday night, Smalls, is a tiny basement jazz club with seating capacity for 74. We had tickets for a 7:30 set with the Jean-Michel Pilc trio, with Jean-Michel on piano, Ari Hoenig on drums, and François Moutin on the upright bass. We stood outside an unobtrusive, beat up door with a beat up sax above it and a tiny awning that said “smalls” as we waited to go in, and when the door did open, we walked down a set of stairs into a small room with maybe 6 rows of 10 metal folding chairs. We sat close to the piano, ordered martinis before the set, and listened to the hum of everyone talking. The drummer was there tuning his kit when we sat down around 7, and the bassist and pianist showed up about 5-10 minutes before the set began. At 7:30, Pilc was smiling at what I assume was one of his friends in the corner, put his finger to his lips and quietly said “Sh, sh, sh,” and the room went silent.
I don’t know how to describe the experience. I can’t describe the experience. Every person in the room was riveted to the music, which felt like it was being birthed in that space, in that moment, and as witnesses to it, we as the audience were part of its making. The only sounds besides the music were the quiet shaking of a cocktail shaker under the bar or the spritz of the bartender opening a beer. We were rapt. For an hour I was transported, I don’t know where and I don’t really care. All I know is I was moved to tears and I don’t know what they did to make that happen. I definitely felt awe that night.
On Sunday, our flight was at 9pm and we had to check out of our hotel by 11:30am, and I knew we’d be fried and tired of walking after three days in Manhattan, so I got us matinee tickets to see Hadestown, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and of Hades and Persephone, at the Walter Kerr theater. Our son had gone to NYC with some friends over his spring break, and they went to see Hadestown, and he loved it and said it was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen, and he wished he could see it again. So on Easter Sunday, after happening on Radio City Music Hall, and Rockefeller Center, and throngs of people in Easter hats outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and a walk through Central Park among the flowering trees and tulips and daffodils and horse-drawn carriages, and after sitting in Times Square and eating hot dogs and falafel, we made our way over to the theater and saw Hadestown, where a trombonist and other musicians were on stage with the actors, and where we got vocals and a story in addition to the music, and where we got to sit in a really cool theater, and where I cried at the end because I didn’t know it would end that way.
In addition to all the music, we also experienced about a million other things, as seems to happen on a visit to New York City. You can’t walk a block without seeing something iconic. We stayed near Washington Square in Greenwich Village, which meant we got to walk through the park every time we went anywhere, and experience its vibrance day and night.
Washington Square HotelWashington SquareCharles Dickens’ deskCeilings in NY public libraryInside NY public libraryNew York public libraryGrand Central and Chrysler buildingSt. Patrick’s CathedralCentral ParkCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterCentral Park on EasterSt. Patrick’s Cathedral on Easter
After I wrote the other day about trying to cram in exercise, reading, and three different types of writing each morning (journaling, deliberate practice, and blogging), I started turning something that’s supposed to be fun into a Big Deal. My mornings started to feel like the stress of packing a house into boxes to move: what to pack together, how many boxes do I need, omg I have so much shit, where do I begin.
I hate moving. I hate packing boxes.
During my workout this morning, as I watched the clock and calculated how much time I would have for all the various things I wanted to do before logging into work, The calculations stressed me out. After my workout, I was tempted to skip my meditation to gain back some time, which I am tempted to do every morning. I didn’t skip it, though, and after I sat down and closed my eyes, I was able to clear my brain in a way I’m not normally able to do. I think I was able to today because I needed a break from my thoughts, and it was such a relief to just say, you know what? I’m not going to think about anything right now.
A feeling-thought popped into that open space, and that feeling-thought was this: do what you want with your hobby time. It’s your free time, use it to feel good, quit stressing yourself out.
This shouldn’t be epiphanal. But as I sat, I realized that my mornings had become work before my actual workday even began. What I really want to do this morning is read a chapter in The Right to Write, and then write whatever I want.
So that’s what I did. And what do you know, the chapter I read addressed exactly what I was feeling. I mean, sort of. The chapter was actually about not needing to be in the mood to write, that if you want to write and you just start writing, you’ll likely get in the mood, which is usually true for me.
What struck me in the chapter is that once you make a Big Deal out of something, it makes it harder to do that thing. In this case, when I was making a Big Deal out of writing, it became a stressor instead of a joy. I don’t need to make a Big Deal out of writing (or photography, or whatever my hobby of the day is). I just need to write, whatever I want. It’s much more soul-feeding that way.
Butterfly Mind 