ordinary momentum

I was walking my pup through the woods this morning. The sun was rising through the thicket – a breathtaking fiery pumpkin etched with spidery tributaries. I might not have noticed it if I hadn’t looked up and stepped outside my doggie-mama self at that moment.

I was so taken aback that I called out to another pre-dawn zombie walking her pup, “Isn’t it beautiful?” Her head darted to and fro. “What?” she asked. “The sun,” I replied. She shrugged and pressed on, likely focused more on getting her dog to poop so she could head home and deal with raking the garden, doing the laundry, taking the kid to hockey or myriad other tasks bouncing about in front of her eyeballs.

There have been many mornings just like this one when a grocery list would have floated into my brain and obscured my view – lemons, toilet paper, garbage bags, bananas, almond milk. Are we out of peanut butter? I’m already in the store clutching my bananas. I’m one hundred and one steps ahead of that mossy trail. I’ve leaped through time and space to accomplish all my chores and tasks of the day. I don’t see the luminous rising sun and most mornings my mind doesn’t wander beyond my mundane to-do lists. I am embalmed in the ordinary most days. But that’s okay.

It’s inside the ordinary that the extraordinary lives.

We can’t all quit our jobs, stop buying groceries and simply spend our days watching the sun rise. But we can cultivate ordinary momentum in our daily life. How?

Do one, simple thing every day that heads you in the direction of your biggest dream — and do it first.

Doing it first ensures it gets done. Do it first, then do the groceries. Do it daily, then get on with the laundry. Get up earlier if you don’t have time in your life and do it then. Do it no matter what — even if you don’t feel like it or you are out of town. Eventually, you won’t be able to stop. Do it even if you only do it for five minutes.

Something will start to happen. You’ll get stronger, more inspired, more joyful and your days will feel more purposeful. You don’t have to do it perfectly, but doing it means you’ve committed to yourself, your future, and your dreams. You will be on the rise. You will be luminous and you’ll begin to gather ordinary momentum that will slowly, powerfully and irreversible change your direction.

First thing in the morning, the sun knows where it’s headed. Do you?

Dishevelled

The wind whips at the bare branches of the maples in my backyard like an unseen wave rushing over their cold bark – humming and roaring, stirring up crisp leaves, snapping twigs from their holds, reshaping the world. This restless wind swirls through my psyche.

Do things need stirring up?

Is my current existence amidst the baby gates and dog toys becoming routine? Has the furnace fed air inside my home become stale and stifling?

The wind’s howling makes me want to rush about breaking branches, flinging leaves, dishevelling my inner world – shaking up my routine. Maybe I should run naked through the snowy streets like the wind … or maybe I should paint my kitchen, both oddly appealing options.

But now is not the time to be dishevelled. Not now when I’m taking care of a pet, a teenager, a husband and a handful of clients — I need my routines to stay organized and on schedule. I need them, yes, but I also need more than the occasional bubble bath to make me feel like I’m also taking care of myself. I need more than a chick flick on a Friday night to inspire me.

I need my soul to alight like the wind.

I need to push for something that is not an escape, but instead, a discovery. I need to do more than chill out. I need to engage in something deeply, expose myself completely (and not to the neighbours). I need to  be active in creating and imagining worlds beyond this one. I need to not be a bystander. And even if what I do is not noticed by others, I will know that I did something akin to the humming and the roaring of this restless wind.

meandering

I feel I am forever meandering in and out of the folds of my life. I nestle into one fold then can’t seem to rise up and find the grit I need to dive into another. This blanket, this world, this imagined reality is comforting and yet, in a flash, it shows itself to be wafer thin.

I can see through it — beyond my daily bowl of oatmeal, beyond my feeble attempts to train the perfect puppy, beyond my routines of keeping up with dirt and dishes – I see there is a fold untouched.

The spectacular lies just beyond my meanderings. The awe-inspiring lies a fold away.

How do I move into that fold? How do I meander towards something more than just this stalemate? How do I make that move? That move that will relieve the small sense of loss I feel as time slips by and expectations go unmet.

My novel falters in fits and starts — more fits than starts. It lies abandoned a fold away, a distraction, a creative arena I have no energy for right now.

I do love letters and I will love my novel again, but this feeling of meandering is connected to its unfinished-ness and it is hurting me. I’m feeling less, unworthy, failed and sad. I cannot do all that I want to do right now. My new puppy takes up more of my time than he can chew. My documentary project needs the fullness of my imagination. Meandering feels like aimlessness in the midst of accomplishment. It is a sour note in a beautiful song. It is yellow pee in lovely white snow.

I’m not sure I have a point to make — that’s the nature of meandering. It might just be this. If we don’t forgive ourselves, if we don’t allow ourselves to not be spectacular or awe-inspiring, to not be human and mundane, then we end up feeling bad about who we are. I am not all I could be, but I am all I need to be right now.

I am unfolding.

Love Letters

I love letters, I love words, I love sentences and fragments of sentences. For me, writing is a mysterious dance between these fragments and my feelings – each continually tugging at the other for the truth.

Writing can be troubling and tenuous. It slips so easily from my grasp one minute, then wraps around me like a needy lover the next. It is inside me and yet exists beyond me. I try to wade deep into its flow, but often feel I’m only skimming the surface of something I don’t truly understand.

I do love it. That is why I am writing a novel … or was.

Here’s the thing; with a new puppy in my life, a household to maintain, and a documentary film to complete, I decided something had to be put on hold. I had excuses to do with money, time, and change — and so after nine weeks of daily practice this fall, I stopped writing my novel. It’s been six weeks since I stopped.

I cannot get back those six weeks. If I had found the time to write just a single page a day, I would be more than forty pages ahead of where I am right now. But the wonderful thing is — another six weeks lie ahead of me. And another and another.

All great achievements require time. ~ Maya Angelou, American Writer

A novel is a great achievement. If you are working on one, I urge you to let go the excuses around time, life circumstances, money and fear. I urge you to devote yourself wholeheartedly to dancing with words and wading in deep. Love your practice even if it is just a page a day.

To help cultivate a wholehearted novel writing practice, ask yourself these questions.

What’s the point?

Figure out your reasons for wanting to write a novel in the first place. Do they make sense? Do they come from the heart? Do you love letters, words and sentences enough to spend time stringing them together and tearing them apart? Also think about whether or not this is the novel you truly want to be writing. If it’s not, scrap it and start again with one you can love.

How much time is enough?

Go easy on yourself. Stop trying to live up to word counts and page counts dictated by Stephen King or Julia Cameron and just write every day. If it means you only write for five minutes then that’s enough. It’s more than not writing. If you can’t write every day then try to write as often as you can. Make your own rules from a loving place.

What’s my problem?

Dig in and ask yourself what truly lies behind all your excuses. Deal with your fears, your foils, your stumbling blocks. But also look at when you are at your best, when you do well and parlay that knowledge into a best practice for you.

Wholehearted writing is about choosing a direction, taking your time, knowing yourself and, ultimately, loving yourself enough to begin. I will begin again today. Join me and let’s write our novels together — one lovely letter, one lovely page at a time.

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