We've had but a smattering of days whose temperature have exceeded 0 degrees, and with windchill (or "windshield," as I used to say when I was a little girl), we've spent the majority of our winter in double digit negatives. The banks of snow lining my driveway are nearly as tall I am, and I no sooner shovel for hours than we get another dump of snow. My morning commute is the most beautiful part of my day. It looks like a silk screen print from the 80s, all perfectly smooth lines, blue hills, and mauve sky. Over bodies of water, the air is bluer and denser, frozen clouds over the stillest air. When the sun appears in pink and purple ribbons, a feeling of bliss washes over me. I turn off the radio so that my senses focus completely on this still silent secret landscape. It does feel like a secret. Drive too fast or bind your thoughts elsewhere, and you might miss it. *This landscape has me hypnotized. I was recently wondering if I was spending too much time alone, isolated. I doubted that notion because I've been peaceful and happy, emotions not associated with isolation. I realize that how I've been living could be better described as monastic. I find more and more of thoughts wound up in some sort of worship. I worship the moon poking through bare branches on starlit nights when it's just my dog and me out on the streets. I worship the words in the books I read, the emotion from the poets I obey, and the lyrics in the songs I love. When I was writing my desires for 2014, I came up with a word that I wanted to define my daily walk. The word is Generosity. When I started this blog, the word was Journey. I haven't changed that theme; I'm just adding to it. Several years ago, I was writing in another blog about a dark night that I got through by running (literally) until I nearly collapsed. At the time it was therapy for me to get out that negative energy and to feel my body alive and well. My friend told me that it sounded more like punishment. I have days when I wish I could still run like that. My body felt lighter than air, and I loved it. My heart and head, however, were drowning, dead weight in the water. Sometimes I think about my friend's words: punishment. I don't think the running itself was punishment, but I can think of a million other ways I punished myself to get to that point. Mostly I didn't allow myself a moment of peace when I was alone. Perhaps that is why I ran so hard when I was alone. When you're running, you're in a pretty positive state of being, pushing yourself, adrenaline racing through your veins. And it feels good to see the miles disappear behind you. The last few years, I've gotten in touch with gratitude. It has literally made time slow down for me. How? I am making a habit of writing down little moments, like walking the moonlit snowy silent sparkly nights, and so I'm actually living the same beautiful moment three times. First time when it's occurring, second time when I write about it, and third time when I read it later and remember it as if I were there again. Time doesn't fly by because my moments are characterized by peaks and valleys in a marvelous terrain. But I want to take gratitude a step further into Generosity. I've been pretty good at punishing myself over the years with harsh words of self-reproach rooted in anxiety and fear. On the other hand, I've been pretty good to others. I've decided to extend that generosity to myself. One of the ways I'm doing so is by tuning out distractions and the static of pointless chatter, and focusing on one thing at a a time. For example, when the sun bursts over the horizon, I turn off the radio to give it my full attention. Soon, good thoughts take hold of my mind, usually in the form of hope or excitement about my life. I think of all the good things I want from life. And I want a lot. I am both greedy and grateful when it comes to life. The biggest thing I want from life is to feel good about myself, because when I do, my curiosity about the world outside of my own mind (which at times can become its own cruel prison) is boundless; that's when I feel the lust for life that gets me out, sucking the juice clean from the sugar cane. To feel good about myself I have to be kind to myself and nurture myself. To be kind, I have shout down those voices that try to pipe up and talk me down when I face a challenge or look at myself in the mirror. Making time for solitude helps me build my strength not only to shout down the bad voices, but to find a new voice that lifts me up and represents my true desires, my true heart. This is how my isolation is actually more monastic than it is agoraphobic. I make moments for reverence throughout the day. Being generous with myself means giving myself the things that make me happy. It doesn't mean indulgence. It means telling myself that I am worth good things and then taking the time to do them. Number one, I want to be healthy physically. In the past, I approached this bequest as some sort of sentence or punishment, with emphasis on what I couldn't have. I'm trying something new. I'm giving myself exercise as a gift to myself, knowing how much it elevates my mood. I don't make myself exercise after work every day; I get to exercise after work every day. I am approaching food the same way. I get to prepare myself food that will be good for my body. When I prepare it, I get to be creative. Exercising has become much more enjoyable now that I've quit the gym. Instead, I bought a few low cost pieces of equipment, and I exercise in my home gym. There's no big secret to this success. I turn on Netflix, and I get to watch whatever I want. A movie, a TV show, a documentary, a cooking show, a fashion show, a TED talk. I can watch something mindless or mindful--it's all what I crave, and I listen to my cravings. Preparing food has become a lot more fun now because I think about it in terms of nutrition and the good it does me, and how great it will taste, and I approach it as creative experimentation. I pour a glass of wine, put on a CD or album or Pandora, and I start slicing and dicing. My favorite thing is sauteing the chopped vegetables in infused olive oil and making sauces and marinades. When I sit down to a beautifully balanced plate, I feel as if I have spent valuable time on myself. Later, when I'm tired with a full belly, my dog starts pacing and nosing me for a walk, even though it's about negative 13 degrees outside. I don't want to walk. I want to cozy up with my jammies and furry slippers and a book or a movie, but he'll not take no for an answer. So I bundle up, and off we go. The second I hit the sidewalk, I feel like I'm transported to a world that is only mine because no one else is out on the streets. I see the stars, smell the air, and try to focus on good thoughts. Sometimes the latter one is a challenge, because I have a tendency to dwell on things that are bothering me instead of trying to figure out how to overcome them. But there are ways I'm not being generous with myself, and by being honest about it, I might start to change that behavior. I'm doing great at my job, my health, and taking care of my home, my pets, and spending time with my partner. But I'm not sure I'm being generous when it comes to feeding my dreams and desires. I did write two books, but I haven't worked on my play. Lately I'm grappling with the voices that tell me that I've run out of words, ideas, and interesting characters, and that the show will not go well. This is a crippling voice that threatens to crush my balance. Good writers write every day. I write almost everyday, but it's not always my play. I said I would have this thing written by winter's end, and winter is about halfway over, and I've not really written much, and that causes me anxiety and fear. A generous person would give herself the time to work on it so that she doesn't feel anxious. A generous person would say, "You can do this. You've done it before." But this time the voices of doubt are more persistent, and I need to find out why. It could be that I let too much doubt and fear creep in the past few years of being criticized. Or, it could be that I don't want to do this anymore. And if I don't, then why not? Is it the doubt and fear driving me, or have I truly gone the distance on this road? I think I owe it to myself to find out. The only way to find out is to give it one more try. There are other things on my wish list for 2014. I wanted to fully understand my camera's capabilities and to improve my photography, and I wanted to get better at guitar. But I think for now, I should focus on the writing. I have a commitment, and I might as well stay true to it. Once I complete it, I can do the other things. Perhaps this is why I'm trying so hard to capture the beauty of winter. I want to make it last so that I feel like I still have time to write. Winter is for writing. I've still got some winter left. And I've still got some words left. I will be generous with words. Generous with words. And their meaning. I'm going to focus on the generosity of the meaning of the play. For the first time in my life, I will be writing from a place of happiness instead of despair or desperation. This is why I feel so out of sorts. But I said months ago that I would fully explore happiness, just as I did with sadness. This play will be about the generosity of the spirit of love. With other plays that I've written, it seems as if I'd been teleported to them nearly the second the pen touched the paper. The words just flowed out, as I knew the terrain so well. This play is different. This play takes place on a strange continent clear across the world. I won't get there immediately. I will have to write and write and write. Like in my former marathon-running days, the words will become like miles, disappearing behind me, and I will run and long hard before I see the horizon. The terrain will be completely unfamiliar to me, and my job will be to write about the landscape, the weather, and the people who inhabit it. This play might be the most arduous journey I ever take. Funny how "arduous" sounds like "adore" and "amorous" combined, especially when I'm writing about how difficult it is to write about love.
Here's one from Bob Welch of pre-Nicks and Buckingham Fleetwood Mac days.
