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Carter’s hands

I don’t usually post my Blogher Art and Design columns, but this one seemed like a good fit for this space today.

I came upon this quote on Sabrina Ward Harrison’s website today on a quest for details about her True Living Project opening this week in New York. Harrison’s one of those wunderkind artist who discovered early in her twenties that talent is transformed by brutal vulnerability. Her critically acclaimed art journals spill secrets as quickly as paint. Tattered pieces of poetry, paper and ink tell stories of fear and doubt all too familiar to anyone who aims to live an authentic life. By putting her life as a young artists under a microscope, she illuminated the path forward for the rest of us–a path that turns on shedding what’s comfortable in favor of new territory, that place where fear gives way to fascination with what’s possible when we dare to try.

I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a friend about the artist life and about how difficult it can be to entertain creativity when so many other matters clamor for our attention. How can I paint when my house is a wreck? How can I start a new creative venture when I have a future to prepare for? How can I devote the time required to develop new skills when ____________ (insert name of spouse, child or employer) needs me so much? How can I even entertain art as a profession when all the little voices in my head tell me I’m being irresponsible to do so?

Wrestle with (or resist!) these questions long enough and well-formed patterns emerge along with a great divide.

My “real” life vs. Art.
My responsibilities vs. my dreams.
My head vs. my heart.

It’s an artificial divide masquerading as common sense. The kind of common sense that keeps you tame, locked down, a predictable cog in the consumer machine. Work, eat, sleep. Wake up in the morning, do it all over again. This kind of rhythm may keep you and everyone you love happy and comfortable, but comfort doesn’t transform us into fully engaged human beings. That process happens when we take risks.

Risks to love.
Risks to believe.
Risks to create.

Call it self-indulgent. Call it a privilege. Call it insane. I won’t argue. But there’s also something incredibly valuable that happens when we dive into the work of making risk-taking an ongoing approach to life and art. And feel free to define art anyway you wish. When we bring that daring side of our selves to the fore, we not only grow as human beings, we increase the chances of stumbling on something that makes true social change possible.

Benjamin Zander, conductor and recent TED speaker, talks about this kind of process as “getting beyond fuck-it”–that place where you realize it makes no sense to continue to hold back, the place where perfectionism and ego fall away and all we’re left with is pure creative passion. Creative passion that can be utilized to solve problems, deepen empathy, increase understanding and change the world.

This is the kind of human experience our world needs today–and not simply because people engaged in meaningful work are happier and more productive–but because when we engage in our true work, we fulfill our obligations not only to ourselves and our loved ones, but to the planet as well.

What would it take for you to value the unspoken wish to spend your life in a particular way? What would it mean to say out loud the one creative thing you desperately long to do? Who would benefit if you were fully alive, fully engaged in the work that draws you in the most?

I’m thinking about these questions for myself these days. I believe there is a certain kind of hope that becomes possible for our world, each time we have the courage to create exactly what we most need to find.

Need more convincing? Listen to storyteller Isabel Allende weave passion with purpose in this famous TED Talk from 2007 (thanks, A., for this one!)
Worried your ego will get in the way? Let Ariel Gore show you how to soothe the savage beast within.
Not sure of where you come from? Patti Dinghi writes a month’s worth of tribute to the women who’ve gone before and who continue to pave the way with courage and grace.

crossposted on Blogher.com

driving home with my dad at sunset, Card Sound Road

I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true. –Ernest Hemingway.

We are driving home from Florida tomorrow morning, dreading the drive but so glad to have been here. I needed to be with my parents in the place I grew up, and seeing my children with so many people who love them no matter what has been the sweetest blessing of all. I am soul-weary in some ways, refreshed in others–which is bound to happen anytime you make a journey back to the place you once called home.

I hope no matter what your plans are this weekend, that you have a chance to rest. I wrote an essay about my dad that I am particularly proud of today, and I hope you’ll go read it over at Shutter Sisters.

We’ve been in Miami with the kids this week for Spring Break. I grew up here and we haven’t been back as a family for several years. There are so many fantastic things about this city that is still in many ways a huge part of me. Here’s a list of things I love about Miami (and beyond) in no particular order.

1. Pastelitos (Sunset Bakery is the best)
2. Spanglish
3. Books and Books in Coral Gables
4. greeting everyone you meet with a Cuban kiss
5. Walking over Rickenbacker Causeway midday
6. the tomato fields at dusk in Homestead where I grew up
7. sitting in a parked car overlooking the Miami skyline
8. mating season in the Everglades
9. Pollo Tropical, Versailles, cafe con leche from cafeterias
10. Spanish terms of endearment followed by clear instructions–mija, oya me, diga me, etc.
11. Deli Lane brunch
12. bike riding to Matheson Hammock
13. houseplants that grow as big as the side of a house
14. key lime pie (the real stuff is never green, people! Mrs. Smith’s Pies makes a decent grocery store imitation)
15. driving down to the Keys
16. mojitos
17. Scotty’s landing
18. old Cuban couples dancing salsa like it’s Havana in the 50’s
19. being on the water
20. seeing old friends and family who love you madly

Here’s a story I wish I could tell you.

Almost every morning the friend I was telling you about earlier, walks to my house to hang out, do our work together or just share a space while we each do our respective projects. This arrangement delights me, since I get tired of working by myself and now that I have a studio set up in the Tower, it’s much more difficult to move my work around from coffee shop to coffee shop the way I used to do when I felt lonely.

Some days, we walk arm in arm downtown, or if the weather is bad, we drive. After we do our shopping, we go the post office or stop in to visit “our brothers”–two young men from Ethiopia who run the beer and wine store where we buy phone cards to call home to Africa. This is one of my favorite things we do together, because white women rarely darken the door of this store and neither do African women. Our brothers have no idea what to do with us and our excessive cheerfulness. We walk through the door arms extended. One of us will say, “How are you, our brothers!” And the other will add, “Have you missed us?” We laugh and lean over the counter, looking for the best deal to call Africa, and they advise us, trying hard not to be too obvious in their attraction to my friend who is young and beautiful and radiant, like a true African princess.

Over the last year, we have worn down their reserve and now they are so happy to see us, smiling from ear to ear when we walk through the door. They ignore the other customers to help my friend, they tell her about their favorite Ethiopian pop stars, they explain to me which Ethiopian holiday they are celebrating and why. My friend takes her time picking the cards, making it last as long as she can to prolong the fun, and I joke with the other customers, hoping they will not hate us for holding up the line.

One day, I left my friend to talk to our brothers while I returned to our illegally parked car out front. “I’ll be waiting for you outside,” I called, as an older African American man, held the door open for me. “We’ll be right out here!” he echoed, pretending we were a pair. This made me laugh out loud, which made him laugh, too, and we both enjoyed for a second, the notion we were partners-in-crime roaming the streets of Silver Spring.

He went in while I stepped out, and I sat in my car, lost in my own little world. That day, for whatever reason, I was feeling a bit of despair. All the joking with our brothers wasn’t working, though laughing with the man at the door had helped my dark mood brighten a little bit. I don’t remember now what exactly was bothering me, but I think it had to do with certain family dramas and of me playing out my part verbatim as the overbearing oldest sibling in The Darjeeling Limited. All the connectedness I want to feel between myself and the ones I love was in fragments–jagged little pieces of glass that once, in my mind anyway, had formed a perfect whole.

I sat there wallowing in the car, contemplating it all, when the man at the door came out of the store and saw me sitting there, right out front. His face brightened, like we were old friends, and he came around the car to talk. I rolled down my window, not sure if he needed five dollars or maybe a light for a cigarette I didn’t have, but all my biases and prejudices about black men you meet on the street fell away as he leaned over for a real conversation.

“You know, girl, you have a sense of humor, and I’m telling you, that’s going to take you far in this life!” I soaked in the encouragement, even in this humorless moment where I’d mostly been taking myself too seriously.

“Do you think so?” I answered, trying to imagine what it would be like if I could be as playful and comfortable with my dear ones as I was with this dear man who made my day with one little joke.

“I do, I do, and let me tell you why. So many women would hear me jokin’ with ‘em as some kind of threat.” He did his best white woman in the city impression, clutching a mock handbag. “They’d be thinkin’, who is this n—–? Talking to me?” He leaned back now, letting his hands swing into the air like a preacher giving a sermon. “People have lost their minds. We forget we’re part of one family, that we’re all connected.” He put the emphasis on forget and family, driving the point home. “We act like we don’t belong to each other, like we’re not brothers and sisters.”

I think about my friend inside, charming the socks off those Ethiopian boys, our brothers. I think about my own sisters and how much they love me, even when we fight. I think about Vince and all the other people I’ve met on the street who return my humanity to me, by treating me like family, when they have every right to reject me for being part of the rich white American middle class that too often regards privilege as a God-given right.

I reach my hand out the window and he takes it, the way preachers do when they know they’ve gotten to you, when they understand your heart is hurting and you’re ready now to walk the walk.

“You are my brother,” I tell him plainly, a simple fact we both know is true.

He smiles again, this time brimming with delight. “I am your brother.” He shakes his head and laughs. “That’s right! That’s right! I can’t believe you said it.”

“It’s true, right?”

“Nothin’ has ever been more true, girl. You just made my day.”

He turns to cross the busy street, still joyful. “You made mine!” I call after him. And then my friend, who is as close to me as any sister I have ever had, says good-bye to our brothers inside the beer and wine, and we drive away.

A prayer for Jenni Ballantyne, sweet mom, faithful friend and gentle soul, as she continues on her journey from this world to the next.

May you know this Easter morning you are loved, that hope always rises out of darkness.

May you experience a whole world of kindness waiting in this moment and the one right after that.

May the women who meet you in these pages have the courage to ask the question you are asking yourself right now: What would you do if you had one year left to live?

May every need you have and the ones you cannot even speak yet be met–with a kind of wild generosity that takes your breath away.

May you have the time and space and energy to do every single thing you want to do, and may the memories you make with little Jack be vivid and joyful.

May the burdens that worry you the most fall away.

If you would like to help make some of Jen’s most critical dreams come true in these last months of her life, please donate directly to Jenni below or contribute something to the Ebay benefit auction organized by the kind Bella along with the soulful Meg Casey and myself. More details about how to participate in the auction here. I’m convinced one of the sweetest gifts we could give Jenni and her son Jack is the knowledge that Jenni inspired us to live fully, to give generously and to take responsibility for the sisterhood we create here on the web.

Madeleine singing at her school’s talent showcase this evening

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life that you have imagined.”
Henry David Thoreau

I’m suffering from an adrenaline hangover–the excitement of the last few days has totally wiped me out–but I wanted to share this picture and this quote. Madeleine overcame real anxiety and fear this week to perform tonight, and I am so incredibly proud of her. She was poised, determined and amazing–even while feeling nervous and afraid, which is the best definition of courage that I know.

Who was it who said a little child shall lead them? Mad, I’m taking notes.

This is the part of the story where I take this blog completely for myself and stop worrying if anything here applies to you, makes sense, makes you happy or makes you sad. Maybe for some of you, this will be the last entry you ever read. The rest of you–all six! all seven!–will be riveted.

I am crossing over these last few days, and I don’t mean this in regards to anything about this blog. I can feel the pages turning, hand unseen, opening the book to a whole new chapter. Remember in The Pursuit of Happyness where he named the chapters of his life? This is the one for me called “Coming Home.”

When I was in third grade just about Madeleine’s age, every morning as we were getting settled and organized into our desks, our teacher, Miss Mullineaux, read an ongoing story about a missionary child living in some faraway land. I remember being completely intoxicated by the adventure of that–a nine year old girl let lose in places I still couldn’t find on the map–even if the missionary part weighted me down with a sense of cosmic obligation and pressure. My life, from that day forward, has been about reconciling my pull to international adventure with my need to be rooted in enough everyday domestic stability to keep from spinning myself right off the planet.

I remember Dave making it very clear right before we got engaged that while living overseas was certainly an option, he wasn’t that guy who would be moving to Japan anytime soon. It is to Dave’s credit that he understood the value of spelling that out for me. I needed to know what I was getting into and he knew better than I did that it was not a life wandering around refugee camps in sub-sahara Africa. I took the declaration to heart. And just in case I had no idea what I wanted, the Universe gave me one more chance to opt out. I got a phone call asking if I’d have any interest in tutoring a child actor on a movie set in Sri Lanka. I am not making this up. I did my fair share of soul searching and realized the adventure I was longing for was marriage–this marriage. I said no, thank you and when Dave asked me to marry him some months later, I answered, “With all my heart.”

It was the guttiest thing I have ever done, choosing to have a quieter life, and I have often since then questioned my sanity. I have wondered too about the sanity of my dear husband, who willingly chose a woman with no appetite for domestic living, to be the mother of his children, his partner for life. But as my African friends say, going in and out of my house, “Jenny! This man is just like you.” And they are right. Dave can’t resist ribbing with Fatou about her famous plantains, or lamenting with Gety about how hard work is. He has put in enough cooking hours with Moirita to earn him permanent “Tio” status, and Lourdes cannot get it through his head that it really is okay for her to take public transit back home.

I took this influx of immigrants in and out of my life as some kind of fluke, an anomaly of the life I had chosen. It only took me ten years to realize that while I had given up wandering Africa and beyond to have a more “normal” life, that the world had come straight to me. When I say on certain bios that every day people from faraway lands wander in and out of the magic door of my house, offering stories, savory feasts or kind companionship, I am not kidding. This makes for a certain kind of order to my ordinary chaos, a kind of anchor to all the little unavoidable storms of domestic life. I realized only recently that if anyone is experiencing an international life on native soil, it would have to be me.

Then last year, I met a former refugee from sub-Sahara Africa. A certain young woman who had survived the genocide and great misfortune in my country, left her children behind in her own and who despite all this had the patience and life force present to become one of the dearest friends I have ever had. This friendship has been particularly transformative for me, and in the context of this partnership I have made deep excursions into the land of hope, where a kind of joy has become available to me. And a certain kind of freedom where my rational mind gives way to a more expansive way of seeing my circumstances and indeed, the world.

I don’t want to make it sound too cheery, because in exchange for all this magic, I have also inherited moments of terror and real stress, brought to me directly by this country’s policies on immigration, immunity and other matters best left to lawyers and judges. I wonder sometimes how much I can hold, how much responsibility I can take, how much of this is some twisted narcissistic whim to finally be noble in my own eyes. If I think about that too much, I gross out, knowing firsthand that my ego is about the size of Africa, if someone had the means and willpower to actually measure.

I’ve decided that only cure for ego like this is risk. And given my personal ego situation, the bigger the risk the better. And by risk I don’t mean base jumping or taking up heroin, I mean going into that part of your soul where your biggest dreams and also your biggest questions reside. Fear lives there and also tremendous self-doubt. Also, the wonderful saving knowledge that you are tiny and human, a rare thing of beauty on the earth, like the tiniest speck of a planet that Al Gore shows at the end of An Inconvenient Truth. This knowledge, that I am small and ordinary, one girl in the world living just to live, loving just to love, is the kind of information that is ultimately freeing. I can do what I need to do in this moment, legacies be damned.

This weekend a dear friend of mine invited me to go to Africa. The circumstances are convoluted and strange, and I’m not certain if this particular plan will work out or not. But the invitation alone put a hundred dreams in motion. She might as well have dropped a match in a parched forest of possibility. I am on fire.

I don’t know what will happen next, but this morning, sitting across the table from my favorite refugee, lighting candles, pouring over her brilliant, brilliant plans for her country, her children, her continent. I feel incredibly tiny. Incredibly blessed. And ultimately certain, that this is just the beginning.

Jen Lee and the amazing Lucy. Looking at this picture, all I can think of is The Weepies song Somebody Loved

I got in late last night from a whirlwind 24 hour trip to New York City. While I was gone, my dear friend Sandie had an amazing home birth and welcomed baby Jonah into the world. Also, the conflict I spoke about on Love Thursday was completely resolved. Nick said he noticed Madeleine pleading her case to the note-writer, after which they all came home to our house to play as if nothing had happened. To sweeten the deal (or perhaps make amends for a secret offense?) Madeleine served the note-writer some ice cream. Apparently, forgiveness was granted on all sides.

I went to New York to see my dear friend Jen Lee and a long-time blogfriend who I’ve connected with over the phone over the last few months–the wise and regal Phyllis Mathis. I went fully prepared to listen and hang out, not really looking for anything in particular for myself. I knew just being with Jen and Phyllis would be good for my soul, and that felt like more than enough.

What I didn’t expect was to be on a mini-retreat of sorts where I had ample opportunity to reflect on some of my dreams around publishing. Jen, a very talented writer and gentle sage of a friend, told me story after story that helped re-order my perspective, and Phyllis’s immediate and total support of my path deeply reinforced my confidence. To make things even more strange and wonderful, I interrupted one particular conversation to feed my online addiction, only to stumble upon the just right touch of encouragement and wisdom from Karen Miller–the same Karen who in her own magical way helped me say outloud that this year will be the year I take some next steps in this particular arena.

I left New York feeling like nothing is disparate, that the divine mother is holding me in both confidence and care and that all the pieces of my life have a place in a loving, perfect whole. All of this leaves me with the sense that it’s time to talk about certain parts of my life that I’ve left largely silent on this blog. That it might be okay to lay bare a few dreams and certain friendships that have been a source of deep and constant joy.

That’s all. Just wanted you to know.

She’s smiling like that for a reason.

Yesterday we received a handwritten note in the mailbox announcing that a certain someone was declaring himself a friend of Madeleine’s no longer. The reasons were simple, personal and founded in circumstances neither child had control over. Madeleine took the news badly, crying the kind of hot tears made possible only by deep love and sincere hurt.

Dave stopped everything he was doing, scooped Madeleine into his arms and we all sat in the living room together, slightly stunned. This is how you know you have crossed over into the after school special phase of parenting. Normal kid stuff takes on epic proportions. Simple things that you would normally gloss over become the occasion for Life Lessons. We were all equally gripped by the gravity of this third grade situation.

A few minutes later, the sibling of the note writer came over to borrow a video game from Carter since the note writer was too shy (or guilty) to ask himself. All eyes turned to Carter as we collectively waited for his reply. Carter, whose superpower is keeping personal conflicts at bay by being fairly easygoing and sunny, said quietly with conviction, “No” and closed the door politely behind him. Later he reported to Dave that he said “Get lost” but we’re pretty sure this was more the subtext of the sentence instead of the declaration itself.

Now we love all the warring factions deeply–in many ways, the note writer is like a long-lost cousin–and we are totally convinced that this dispute will resolve, as kid conflicts so often do, almost as quickly as it started. Still, for Madeleine to see Carter stand up for her, without discussion, without hesitation? It was as if someone had deposited a thousand dollars in her bank account and then called to tell her Miley Cirus had invited her over for dinner.

I took the kids out for pizza to get them out of the house and to shift the focus away from their shared sadness over the whole thing. We discussed the merits/hazards of writing back and how one could address these things assuming the best about the one you love, but also being honest about your feelings. We didn’t come to any conclusions and God knows what kind of vitriolic responses Madeleine is crafting in her head right now, but finding out that Carter was immediately and totally by her side when she felt hurt was perhaps the greatest discovery of all.

I took a hundred pictures of Carter yesterday–many with his snotty nose and chapped lips in full display. I wanted so badly to capture his earnest concern for Madeleine and how immediately he aligned himself with her sadness. Instead I have a hundred expressions like this–Carter totally unaware of how the tiniest things he does make you feel like everything is going to be okay.

Carter has always been magic like that. Thank God.

I hope you have a lovely, loyal Love Thursday, that you know in some new way that your sorrows matter–especially to the ones you love the most.loans cincinnati general americanloan credit 10 000 no checknew loan 100 hard money yorkincome 100 personal stated loanscredit no with loan 10000 checkstudent 12 k loanequity up loan 125 20 home26 loan services payday 18 advancesloans 1988 chartsloan used car 1995 rate 20

new growth, madeleine aglow, meryl’s shadowkitty, seedpod floating on thin air

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.”
–Anais Nin

Doing a lot of weaving together of dreams and action, this week up in my Tower–piles of papers surrounding my feet. I’m feeling the urgency of staying on task, making certain things happen, learning how to keep deadlines, respect both boundaries and possibilities in one sacred space. This requires a good walk in the morning, a candle lit with ceremony and more than one deep breath–letting all the kindness flow in, letting all the judgment flow out. For years I’ve used anxiety and panic as a motivator, a taskmaster to make sure things get done, but this too with any luck will slip away. How about hope and acceptance instead? Who’s to say that being gentle with myself won’t work just as well?

Today I am doing my best to find out.

I hope your dreams are connecting with action today and that gentleness is following all your effort. We can do it together, each of us in our own space, lighting a candle, letting hope lead the way.