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Fat Friday

There are seven of them.  Extra, soft and pillowy pounds put on in a frantic grasping.  Sweets and vinegary salts stuffed anxiously into a mouth of hungry searching.  Quiet nibbles and deep sighing as milks wash melting over the caps of my teeth.

I relent.

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LISTS

Write a list of…

1. things you want to do when you grow up

2. books you want to write

3. everything you truly believe in

4. your favourite smells and tastes

5. faces you wish you could paint

6. important things you are avoiding telling someone

7. letters you want to write and the people you want to write them to

8. anything that you have ever done that has made you feel incredibly warm and good inside

9. anything you have ever done that has made you feel incredibly empty and hell inside

10. lists you will never write

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Lists make me do stuff like laugh, cry and accomplish things. Sometimes they even hurt in my gut and heart.

Pick one of those up there and do it tonight, or whenever the hell you want.

Happy New Year!

In the spirit of  not doing I am hereby sanctioning the undoing of the following things this holiday season…

Disclaimer: with the understanding that this list is entirely flexible and, as such, I may decide to do, redo or double undo anything the hell I want on it.

I give anyone reading this permission to act in accordance with this List of Undos if so moved, and to anyone further moved to draft their very own List of Undos I graciously offer explicit and enthusiastic permission to do so. However, if that puts pressure or stress upon you in any way please do not feel obliged. Feel free NOT to do it.

Let the asskicking commence!

Holiday Undo List

1. I shall not fret about getting the perfect gift for anyone.

2. I shall not overbook myself to the point of a meltdown.

3. I shall not allow the insane button to be pushed by others and lose my cool, thus defeating the very purpose of the hollyday.

4. I shall not eat myself into an altered state of purgatory a la late Dom DeLuise because, even though it may make others feel safe and comfortable, it just makes me feel sick.

5. I shall not have an agenda of any real kind.

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How will I accomplish this?  Ah yes, do not underestimate the number of quivers in my bow-case.  I have a plan, and this plan is…

A list of alternatives to the aforementioned points of undoing above, also known as….

The Instead List!

Instead I will…

1. Give the gift of my company, love, homemade sunshine (smiles and chuckles) and baked goods in a pretty wrapping!

2. Be where I want to be, when I want to be.

3. Go to the exquisite haven in my head, created especially for occasions that provoke undesirable behaviours in others, and/or go for a little walk if need be, all the while remembering: it’s not me, it’s them OR it’s me NOT them.

4. Eat with intention. Be clear. Then eat.

5. The only agenda is to enjoy without harming myself or anyone else.  Loving. Being. Loving being. No schedule. Just being love. Mantra, repeat.

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What are the things you are most looking forward to this holiday season ?

What are the things you are most dreading this holiday season?

If you aren’t dreading or looking forward to anything, what’s up?

Lemme know, I’m curious.

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

If you’re anything like me during a normal humbuzzing week, you might feel like your brain has been violently wrenched from within its cozy cavernous cranial housing and strapped into Tony Kanaan’s  No. 11 team car for a record-breaking 226,775 mph spin around the Indy track.

Thoughts are incredibly complex.

They are fickle, fleeting, finite, frivolous, and can be – frankly – fucked up…

Is it weird that I don’t really think that’s an odd thing to ponder?  Maybe to you. But, I’m no stooge. I know a little bit about what the mind can do when it’s under pressure, whether it is low-fi or hi-fi pressure.

So, the point here is that even during the best of times when life is relatively even keel and things are just a-rolling along,  our heads are crammed with stuff.  Throw Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and Las Posadas in there and it all gets to be….

TOO MUCH!

And if you are also trying to process life, and its attendant unexpected surprises and detours, while dealing with any of the following:

-Highly Sensitive Person (that person being You)

- anxiety

-depression

- loss or death of loved one

- birth

- financial excreta ie. broke as shit

-  a trip to the f***ing grocery store on a Saturday afternoon or – Krishna forbid! – holiday shopping in mall mayhem!

- multitudinous sources of stress that have everything or nothing to do with the above

It’s all ->  ->  -> TOO F***ING MUCH!

Okay, so here’s the thing.  I discovered something amazing while I was steadily making my ascent up the craggy cliffs of Bananaville these last couple of weeks.

It isn’t new.  In fact, it is ancient.  And it starts with this:

Slow down

And then it goes like this:

Do less

That’s it.

All of that stuff that you are telling yourself you have to do.

You don’t.

All of those holiday get-togethers and greeting cards and blog posts and play dates and – whoa! – everything else you’re telling yourself…

Can wait.  Can disappear.

Guess what I did?  I committed to doing Reverb 10 earlier this month, and then I decided, after just two prompts, to drop it. Not because I’m an underachiever, or lazy, or uncommitted or undisciplined but, in fact, because I am the very opposite.

I was trying to do too much.

So, I really really really started listening, tuned in to my body, got some quietness working in me and levelled with myself.

I asked:

What do I need right now?

And I swiftly replied,

Less.

Then I contemplated what doing less looks like for me.

A complete halt to a book project, the blog, extracurricular fretting about the coming holiday, and some old fashioned crying action.

Paying keen attention to what is immediately important.

Is it the end of the world if I don’t run around like a jackass trying to be and do everything right now?

No.

Who makes the rules?

You do.

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Rundown:

When everything is just TOO  F***ING MUCH!

Slow down

Breathe. Do the opposite of busying yourself into a stupor. Cancel the party. Don’t go to 3 shindigs in one day. Don’t send a Happy Unholiday card to your great great Uncle Fred in Tristan de Cunha.  Don’t plan to repaint the bathroom, write 15 blog posts, host guests in town for the weekend, and start a new fitness regime in the same week, or month, or year.  Say no to someone, even if that someone is you, when they are pushing you to do, do, do. Let some things go. Drop them. Bless and release.

Doing less

Think of the infinite to-do list as your infinite undo list.

Invite some space into your life, your head, your heart, and get cozy.

Hug yourself.

Enjoy.

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If you dig this shtick I recommend visiting as regularly as possible, or  subscribe to the blog up top where it says FRESH OUT THE OVEN.  I also  hang on Twitter occasionally {@vuelacara}, though because I am a Highly Sensitive Person sometimes I have to retreat for many days before re-emerging from beneath the soft light of a reading lamp and the warmth of a fuzzy blanket.

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

This is the reason I said Yes.  So that I would be forced into that uncomfortable zone where I must make time for me to do something I want to do.

Alas, the prompt for December 2nd:

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

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Dear Leo,

One could argue, as one does, that everything I (they) do, in some direct or indirect way, contributes to my writing. All of the minutiae and cotidian shufflings, and all of the contemplative inner churning, the psychological distention, the joyful ranting, insane laughter, quiet weeping, blind clutching, fierce loving and late nights reading and typety-typing;  doubting and desiring, and especially the listening.  All of it.

However – there it is – an elimination, or even a reduction, of the number of times I type ‘Please advise if anyone attending has a nut allergy, as our breakfast muffins are not made in a nut-free facility’ would be nice. And, since I am pressed for time to present a really firm case for every little thing I do is magic for my writing, I’ll just say this:

In the time it takes me to contemplate what I could eliminate from my life in order to better contribute to writing, I have just created something else that qualifies for the list of things I could eliminate.

But then again, didn’t that just contribute to this post?

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I must do what I must do

~ Devo

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

One word for 2010 you ask?  Just one?  Well, all right.

Turbulent.

A flaming spasm of brainstorms in an espresso cup shaded by a giant sun enshrouded

warm embraces drowned in skies’ weeping wounds

Weather patterns blown up and down one side of me

Hearts lay strewn under muddy footprints

I lay aghast

Rising to be pummeled by sparks of joy

Laughing at me, my reflection accelerates

I braced myself

But there was no stopping the dips and twists, the infinite winding

Sick with heaven’s fever I smiled

And let the river sweep me away to another hopeful sunrise

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Turbulent

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

WHO: Those who dare to dream, passionate and fiery people with ideas, talents and a multitude of kickass offerings; people who are internet minted; are just beginning to see their innate potential and/or have always known it, are beginning to trust it, and are moving toward it.  You, like me, may feel the weight of being mired in the muddy ditch spanning the divide between two points: staying still and moving forward.

WHAT: Well-intentioned and sexy advice dicings of  hotpreneurs addressed to those dreamers with passion who don’t (as yet) have a solid action plan for making It happen.

WHERE: Internets

WHEN: Here and Now

HOW: 6 ways to Sunday

WHY: Because we can

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This is the article that spurred this post on http://bit.ly/9XLOo8

Please, go read it.  It’s got some excellent points and insight, no question.  I am in complete agreement with the main point, which is:

Passion is not enough.

The basis for the article is, in short, all about how impractical it is to dream big without a strategy in place to set the dreams ablaze in reality.  Made jello? Didn’t put it in the fridge?  All you got is flavoured water, cheers.

I get it.

A scant roadmap of advice,  entitled THE RADICAL PRACTICAL FOR DREAMERS, rounds off the article.  Here, us dreamers, are advised to exercise linguistic reframing in the form of buzzwordian courtship dancing (since it’s likely our brains are numbed from excessive impractical dreaming), get a coach, do the homework on BIG success figures in business,  do a worst case scenario check, and consult an advisory board.

Again, I totally agree, understand, and digest that the power of language and its use has a massive influence on everything from how you wake up in the morning to how you will eventually succeed (or fail) in a particular venture. Whether that venture is making chicken noodle soup, doing laundry, working from home and coordinating a ride to a child’s upcoming birthday party (are you starting to see where I’m going with this whole thing?) or whether it is attending an infrared yoga class at your uber chic former movie set designer girlfriend’s newly converted garage cum sauna after a Skype session with Johnny Rinpoche, your personal spiritual advisor – a steal at $489 for a 45 minute session, audio file of session included with bonus prayer beads.

It makes sense – absolutely! – to study those people that have walked the talk of their dreams and passions, done the planning, and now have their own people picking the fruit off the money trees for them.

It makes sense to imagine the worst case scenario – though for many people what they’re currently living may hold a comparable candle to that bleak picture – and to pragmatically, systematically plan for it just in case.

And, yes, it makes sense to elect trusted folk to be your advisory board. Mentors, friends, people in the know.  It also makes complete sense to get sales and marketing training.

But, please.

Please.

Get a coach?

Get a coach? Shit, I already said that. Sorry, sitting here in stunned disbelief still.

BREAKING NEWS FOR HOTPRENEURS

Passionate people with dreams and no plan, or only a whisper of a plan, are not simply made up of your target demographic.  Passionate dreamers who are kicking ass every day, in their own way, carving out a path steady as she goes, one foot in front of the other…Are m e.   And m e does not have the means to hire a coach.  And m e knows a lot of people, just like m e, who can barely afford to make ends meet.  People who are practical, pragmatic, systematic, talented, fiery as hell, ass kickers with formidable ideas who, for a variety of reasons, are facing barriers that do not allow for the luxury of a coach.  People who have to look within themselves every moment of every day for clarity, inspiration, unconditional love, and – HAIL! – possibility and dreams just to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  These people may have dependents, they may have disabilities, they may have lost everything in a fire or witnessed the murder of a family member.

Please, don’t disrespect my form of birthing my own success.  Don’t give me sexy advice on how to get real with myself about my dreams, and don’t shit on the only thing that – some days – gives me a reason to keep writing, asking the hard questions, pushing myself and putting myself out there:

D R E A M S

And if you aren’t willing to give up some free coaching, don’t tell me to get a coach.

A lot of us may seem like impractical dreamers. But in reality, some of us are the miracle workers of the every day that make your work possible. And, some of us are doing everything we can, really everything, to touch our dreams.

Behind the scenes.

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Elana Baxter is a single mother and sole supporter of herself and a beautiful 6 year old.  She is not only a mother, but a musician, writer,  staunch supporter and resident snuggler.  When she is not busting her ass at a day job, she is cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, coordinating play dates and securing childcare with a very limited network of trusted individuals.  She enjoys writing, running, kickboxing,  Shiva Nata, reading like Porky Pig eating a corn cob, and dreaming limitlessly.  She believes in love and body motion.  She is doing everything within her power to make her dreams come true, including reading a book on grammar and punctuation.

Nota bene: She really wanted to say f u c k a lot during this article.  But she refrained.

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

(I)Interviewer

(-!-) Me

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(I) What do you fall in love with?

(-!-) Well, great you should ask this, I just fell in love with the time signature and song structure of this song called Shaking Hand. It’s by this totally awesome band called Women. They’re from Calgary which is like, 3 hours south of where I grew up.  Anyway, this band are a crazy combo of Beach Boysie, early Pink Floyd – Piper at the Gates of Dawn/ Saucerful – indie stuff with really beautiful guitar lines, echoey vocals and syncopated rhythms.  I’m stoked they’re so good, and from bison country.  Check them out…

Um, oh yeah, I also just found this phrase which totally blows me away…It’s this:  this most intimate secret gesture.  I read it in a book by Herbert Fingarette, this philosopher I studied in university…He writes about addiction – specifically alcoholism – and self-deception.  Self-deception as in, the way we lie to ourselves at levels of unconscious awareness.  And for all of you smart asses, yes it is possible to lie to yourself consciously….[self deception] is something that fascinates me. Yeah, I got an A+ in that class and my prof was incredible.  Considering my less than impressive grade point average, that A+ was a major high point.  So yeah, I fall in love all the time. With so many things!

(I) Cool, that band sounds neat…The Herbert guy sounds heavy.  I’ll totally check those out. Thanks.  Okay, next question…You seem like a really passionate person, where do you channel all of that energy?

(-!-) Good one!  You know, sometimes I’m all over the place like Zsa Zsa Gabor in the eighties…Cameos on Fantasy Island and the Love Boat. I really try to listen to what I need in the moment.  Sometimes what I need is to channel my passion into writing, something I’ve started to do a lot more of these days, and other times it’s singing and writing music.  I’m a little sad that I haven’t been able to put a lot of my time and energy into that lately cuz I’ve got some incredible things going on musically, but y’know, I look forward to those moments where I can give myself fully to music.  Passion is an exploding taco. It’s like, there’s lettuce and ground beef flying everywhere, salsa is dripping all over the goddamn place and the corners of your mouth have sour cream smeared all over hell’s half acre.  If you have lots of napkins, it’s great!  Then you have somewhere to clean up.  But, if you have only one napkin it’s kinda messy.  That was a metaphor.

Most of my time is spent in an effort to satisfy a variety of passions:  my family – lots of love and time – the rest of the time I am giving to writing, music, connecting with people and making my dreams come true little by little.  Oh yeah, and housework.  A whole lot of housework.

(I) Hey, I think we’ve run out of time already, wow.  Listen, can we continue this another time?  I’ll call your people and set something up?

(-!-) Are you kidding?  Of course, I love talking to you.  Thanks so much for your time.  It’s great to hang and chat about stuff.  Hey, please call okay?

(I) Oh for sure, and I’ll bring Tim Tams and lattes next time. Do you like Tim Tams?

(-!-) I loooove Tim Tams!  Yes sir.  All right dude you’re on.

Instead of beginning this post in critical apology for not having been around for  awhile, I am choosing to focus on something way more important to me.

Perception.

Story

The last few months have been pervaded by an undercurrent of financial woe.  It’s the old cut-and-paste scenario.  Living cheque to cheque, counting change, planning groceries right down to the nickel.  That sort of thing.  But something else has happened during this time.

I started writing, and getting paid for it.

Opportunity has come around and poked its head inside my virtual doorway.

Point

It is Friday, and  I have ten dollars.  Normally, I would be feeling somewhat depressed that I am facing a weekend with only ten dollars in my pocket – with payday still a week away.  No credit card.  No overdraft. No savings to dip into (save the advice, that’s another post entirely).  Just two five-dollar bills.

But, here’s the thing.

I am grateful.

I have food in the fridge.  I have a bus pass (yes, I am a frequent rider of the proletariat chariot).  My rent and bills are paid, and I am writing a series of articles that I will soon be paid for.  I have a day job. I have a home.  I know where my next meal is coming from.   I have love in my heart, and in my life.  And I have the courage to write about something a lot of people would be embarassed about.  Money issues.

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A few months ago, I started this blog as a gift to myself.  The gift was motivated by this intention and purpose:

I have so much to give and share.  I love to write and express myself.  I want to be who I am.  This is permission – an active choice, given by me to myself, to be and do as I am, without the prerequisites I often impose on myself…I must lose X pounds, I must not age, I must be kind always, I must browbeat myself into a lunatic frenzy etcetera.  This is the beginning.

This blog was the best gift I could have given myself and, since its inception, I have met some incredibly good human beings and rediscovered my passion and enthusiasm for writing.  In the process, I was fortunate enough to have been introduced to someone who really liked my stuff, and now they are a mentor and employer.

I said Yes to me and a deep inner yearning (I hate that word, but it’s the right word) to set myself free.

And I said No to a lot of other stuff.

Shortlist:

1) No! to the inner critic/fishwife

2) No ! to the infinite amounts of blogger info telling me what to do, and how to do it

3) No ! to the frequent temptation to just delete this blog when I thought it wasn’t meeting certain expectations

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I am not even remotely famous.

I haven’t been discovered.

I’m not launching a product, or scrambling to lunch with the cool cats on the Internets.

I’m a woman that looked inside, saw something I needed to pay attention to, and did so.  And that feels gigantic.

If there isn’t something you’re paying attention to, or if you’ve been neglecting your  inner loveliness…Say yes to something your soul has been craving.

Doors will fly open, and having two five-dollar bills will, somehow, feel just fine.

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Nota Bene: I recently subscribed to a wonderful blog – Confident Writing – which posed this question as a topic of reflection for a group writing project:

What has blogging given you the confidence to write or create and then *share*… that you wouldn’t otherwise have done?

This post is my response.  I encourage you to check out Confident Writing, and take part in the group writing project.  it’s a wonderful place for anyone who uses the written word as a vehicle of expression.

Thanks Joanna.

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.

I did not look up,  as I usually do, to survey the field of eyes around me.

I did not want to inhabit anyone else’s moment.  Or <thinks> I just did not want to be seen.

I simply stood lankily, a drape of muscle and flesh, the screaming yellow metal my anchor.

I thought:

I want to go home

Where your poetry cannot shoot spitballs at the face of my heartfelt prose, and the cachet of confidence clutched in hand unfastens – spills everywhere! – to reveal itself as it really is: The arrogance of achievement.

Home.

Where I edit nothing.  And I alter my walk for no one.

Home inside me.

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The web of life inside and outside of each of ourselves dipping, twisting, dancing, buckling us down to our knees ?

You

Draw the map and paint yourself the ” You are here “.

Make it beautiful with colour and feeling.

Do not hide.

Cry out !

Be still.

Love circles around people.

If accused of thinking too much

p   a   u   s   e

then, go back to thinking

LAUGH   so hard

Gaze warmly

Nourish your heart

You don’t have to accept someone else’s truth as your own

ever

Even if you agree with it in some way.

Silence works a lot of the time.

And make some art.  Your way.

Sing and make mistakes, at the same time if you like.

Be fruity if it suits you and say ‘so what?’ once in awhile.

This was fun.

Last night was spent talking to my son about the virtues of telling the truth ie  not taking Josh’s Starbursts when he isn’t looking just because you want more, and choosing to be good because it feels good not simply because you want TV privileges reinstated.

Last night was spent in a concentrated effort not to take every dish I own and throw it in the garbage.  No dishes, no standing at the sink doing them. No dishes, no bowling ball of obligation in stomach.  No dishes, no clutter, no cyclical mounting of mundane tasks to rob me of precious time and energy that could be better used toward figuring out how the hell I’m going to survive the next year of my life without having a nervous breakdown.

Dishes.

~~~~~~

Bedtime.

This is where the window of opportunity opens.  This particular window was going to open into my own bed, where I planned to collapse in exhaustion once reading time – a time I love – ended.

But no, the gods conspired and I spent some time trying to convince my 6 year old son to sleep in his own bed after he awoke to go pee and couldn’t go back to his own bed.

Unsuccessful.

The evening then turned into a why-the-fuck-cannot-I-not-have-my-own-bed-to-myself-for-the-love-of-all-things-good-and-holy for a very brief moment, until I realized this was not helpful.  I lie.  This was not a realization. I knew all along it was pointless to put myself through the asking of Why?.  I just happened to catch myself in it, right before it got rolling, and I cut it short.  Dagger to throat.

And I slept.

How’m'Igunnas

The last 15 years of my life have been lousy with these.

How’m'Igunna figure out how to make a good living without whoring myself out to the man for the rest of my life?

How’m'Igunna teach my son to be a good person without projecting all of my neurotic anxiety and residual childhood trauma onto him?

How’m'Igunna be a better writer/musician/creator/producer when I am barely managing to be a better mother/person/daughter/sister/employee/runner?

How’m'Igunna start living the life I want to live, stop eating sweets and drinking too much coffee and worrying about what other people think huh?

The good news

I have a better idea how I’m gonna now.  It’s not The Idea.  It’s not a one idea fixes all because the very idea that there is an idea that fixes all is a dumb as a bowl of hair idea. My idea, it’s just a better idea.    And I’m on my way.

My way.

And today, after I called my mom and dad to apologize for being grumpy on the phone last night, when my mom told me that my cousin had been killed crossing the street last Friday and that his mother was going through the worst kind of grief a mother could ever go through – I cried.

And when my mom told me that she didn’t want to tell me about it when it happened because she didn’t want me to be sad, to worry, to be further burdened – I cried.

I pictured my cousin crossing the street on his way to a family barbeque with friends.  I pictured his mother clutching his photograph and wishing every single moment of him – his smell, his laugh, his gestures and even his meanness – back into her life.  I pictured his wife and three children relearning how to live without their husband and father.

Dishes and bedtime and all the how’m'Igunnas shrunk into tiny dancing creatures.  Harmless. Manageable. Even appreciated.

Death reminds me

Everything big is small.

Everything small is big.

Death, be kind to my cousin’s family.

And thank you for lunch.

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this post is dedicated to the memory of my cousin Adrian ~ en paz eterna

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Fade to black

I invite you  to consider this space as you would a cherished friend’s sprawling deck overlooking the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon. Enjoy a cocktail, but please know this: kind words enhance while negatives detract.  Keep it nice. Keep it clean.

Or just keep it.