Open Mic Friday! you talk: a life well lived

Posted on 27 January 2012 by

Happy first Friday of the Dragon Year, good companions, and welcome to the Open Mic!  If you’re new here, on Fridays we get together here for some chat. (Sometimes there’s a guest artist instead.) The topic varies from week to week, but everyone is welcome to participate in the comments.

Earlier this week my friend Apricot shared a beautiful video on her blog; apparently it’s been making its way around the intertubes. It’s a brief, loving tribute by artist/filmmaker Julia Warr to her 95-year-old friend, former ballet dancer Maia Helles.

(By the way, if you want to learn Maia’s isometric exercises, there’s a video of those too.)

The video made me think of a number of powerful exercises that have helped me get perspective on my life by imagining myself at the end of it. In other words, who do I want to be when I’m Maia Helles’s age? What do I want my life to be like? What do I want people to remember me for?

How do you see yourself at 95?

See you in the comments!

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Yesteryear Apothecary (second excerpt)

Posted on 26 January 2012 by

Here’s another excerpt from my series of scent-inspired vignettes, “Yesteryear Apothecary.” To find out more about how I came to write them, read the previous excerpt, RECITAL.

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LOCKER ROOM

Teen Spirit ad

Continue reading →

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Feeling my way through

Posted on 24 January 2012 by

This is the sixth draft of this post. I was having a very uncomfortable feeling and I knew I needed to write about it, but I couldn’t get at the heart of what I wanted to say. I finally realized the problem was that I don’t know what I want to say. But that’s important too. I know this uncomfortable feeling has something to tell me, and I know that eventually it will. I know this because in the past few weeks I have been rereading some of my LiveJournal archives, and in retrospect I can see very clearly that my most important insights are months or years in the making. So I’m not going to try to draw conclusions here; I just want to record this process of feeling and thinking and seeking. Continue reading →

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Open Mic Friday! you talk: how are you?

Posted on 20 January 2012 by

Happy last Friday of the Rabbit Year, esteemed friends, and welcome to the Open Mic! If you’re new here, on Fridays we get together here for some chat. (Sometimes there’s a guest artist instead.) The topic varies from week to week, but everyone is welcome to participate in the comments.

This week, as regular readers know, I’ve been busy packing and preparing for our upcoming move. Actually, in spite of the busyness, I’ve managed to do a lot of visiting (including hanging out with some of you, in person!), but I’m reeling a little from all the running around. Maybe you’ve had a similarly active week. Want to just sit for a little while with some tea (or a whiskey, if you’re so inclined) and catch up?

DIY satsuma candle

DIY satsuma candle I made this week -- click for directions!

In our second week of IWL workshop, over the summer, Jaime opened the meeting with something he called “Highlight, lowlight.” We all went around the table, sharing briefly the highlight of our week and the low point. Of course a busy week is actually a lot to look back on; some of us couldn’t remember what we’d done, so we just mentioned the incidents that came to mind first. And that is perfectly okay.

I’m aware your week might have contained a highlight and/or lowlight that you’re not willing to share with the internets. Just say whatever you like. I’ll be here, with my tea (Tulsi ginger with honey), listening.

 

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Yesteryear Apothecary (first excerpt)

Posted on 19 January 2012 by

Last October I went through an obsessive few weeks of scentophilia. I spent hours perusing the shops of independent artisan perfumiers: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, For Strange Women, Poison Apple Apothecary, Wiggle, Midnight Gypsy, and The Morbid the Merrier. I ordered samples and, to Erik’s chagrin (he doesn’t like fragrance), tested a new one each day. We both thought I was goofing off, wasting days this way, but it turned out I wasn’t. In fact, I was — as I encourage other artists to do, in The Inspired Way – literally following my nose for inspiration.

As a result of my olfactory explorations, I ended up with a new signature scent that I’m ridiculously crazy about (The Golden Bough, from Arabesque Aromas), and — after a couple of weeks of sampling — a creative idea that was so galvanizing it got me out of bed and scribbling as if my life depended on it. That idea became Yesteryear Apothecary, a collection of 12 imaginary fragrances based on childhood memories. Each of the dozen “scents” follows the more-or-less-standard format of the indie perfumiers: title, image, evocative blurb, list of fragrance notes. In my case, the image is an old photo and the blurb a capsule of creative autobiography (names, details have been changed or combined). Enjoy the sample.

RECITAL

Lisa dressed up, 1988

Continue reading →

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Moving: the 180% task

Posted on 18 January 2012 by

We’ve been sending emails and packing things and making plans for our move, which is underway a bit earlier than we originally intended. Although our one-way plane tickets to Toronto are for the last week of April, we’ll be leaving this house in just under a month. So now we are hustling to find homes for our belongings. I think back on all the yard saleing and craft-supplies-stocking I did when we first moved in here, and I don’t regret it. Non, je ne regrette rien… even if it does make my life a little more complicated now. Anyway, moving is trouble no matter how much stuff you have (unless, perhaps, you have nothing). I commented to Erik this morning that even after eliminating so many of the items, there still seems to be so much stuff left: books and clothes to give away, soap dishes, rolls of paper towels, my files, and of course food. He replied, “As we say in software development: when you’re done with the first 90%, then you have to worry about the second 90%.” Yep.  Continue reading →

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On trust, ease, and meeting new people

Posted on 17 January 2012 by

At a party last week I had the good fortune to have several one-on-one conversations with interesting people. We talked about what we wanted, about Erik’s and my upcoming travels, and about our work. We also played several rounds of Telephone Pictionary. We didn’t get home until just before 2, very late for us. Then we went to bed…

I was standing in my room in my parents’ house (also the room in which I was sleeping), but it was daylight. People were running around the hallways and to avoid them I hid in the closet, which was full of clown costumes. I rummaged through the baggy, shabby red ribbon-trimmed overalls and colorful wigs to try to find something to wear. When I came out, there were several attractive, interesting-looking young women standing between the closet and the bed, all different ethnicities, all dressed in vivid outfits.

“So what is it that you do?” they asked me.

“Oh, ummmm…” I didn’t feel any awkwardness, but I had to pause and look at the ceiling. After a long silence I explained, “I’m trying to think of how to frame it, because I recently had a number of conversations that have changed the way I think about my life.”

Before I could come up with a new framing, I woke up. I’m not sure of the significance of those clown costumes, but I do appreciate my remarks to the ladies. Continue reading →

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