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“Living the life of your dreams is a lot like sailing.

You pick your destination, hoist up your sail, make minor adjustments while the journey is underway, and let the wind do all the hard work.

In other words, imagine the end result, do what little you can, make minor adjustments while the journey is underway, and let me blow your mind.

Of course, there are also a few “don’ts.” Like don’t think that just because there’s magic in life you won’t have to hoist up your sails, or that doing so will instantly deliver you to your destination. Don’t assume that just because there isn’t wind one day it’s a “sign” that something is wrong, or that you won’t have it tomorrow. And, perhaps most importantly, don’t forget to pack your Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, and cupcakes.”  -TUT A Note from the Universe

I have encountered recommendations for the art of visualization in so many arenas lately from emails from Oprah to Notes from the Universe and Daily Catalyst quotes.  I am a woman on a mission, a mission to transform, to create, to become what I want to be.  The act of visualizing success, of picturing every nuance of life as a successful writer, began when I created this blog.  I set up my writing space and made the commitment to write for 15 minutes at the end of each day.  It is an easier commitment to keep that sticking to a diet, or getting in a good cardio workout each day.  I wonder why that is?  Beginning at about the age of 5, I imagined myself a writer.  It has just taken me a long time to sit down and get to work.

The one idea that makes sense to me, it to treat myself as kindly as I treat the children I teach.  Teaching a developmentally appropriate curriculum, taking into consideration the needs of the child, their developmental readiness and their natural curiosity, is natural to me.  If I treat myself the same way, understanding my need to develop naturally as a writer, to learn and to grow with nurturing and practice, I can have the patience I need to emerge from my learning state into a place where writing becomes my career.

I have moved forward from the days of putting everyone else’s needs before my own, from care giving to taking care of myself and from having no time left at the end of the day to sit for a moment and reflect to creating the time I need to fulfill my dream and my passion.  That alone is a success, but I can picture more.  I can picture writing published, books with my name as the author and the fulfillment I will have when I realized that hard work and determination can pay off.

disparate |ˈdispərit; diˈsparit|

adjective

essentially different in kind; not allowing comparison : they inhabit disparate worlds of thought.

• containing elements very different from one another : a culturally disparate country.

connection |kəˈnek sh ən| ( Brit. also connexion)

noun

1 a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else

I have begun noticing how characters connect, how things in this life connect, how in fact, we are all connected in some small way.  You know that theory of six degrees of separation, the one that supposes that we are all connected to each other, by at the most, six degrees?  We can choose to believe that we are all connected or that we are all disconnected. I choose to believe the former.  There have been too many instances of serendipity in my life lately, messages in the form of positive email reminders that the universe is basically there to support us if we let it.  We often wonder why things happen the way that they do, not always for our ease or comfort, but perhaps for the better in the long run, perhaps there is guidance, or intervention or some bigger plan that we are only able to become aware of as we travel down our path.

My greatest joy is connecting.  Connecting to family, friends, my students, their parents, and my community.  Through these connections I have had some amazing experiences, the latest being my introduction and immersion into the art world, which has in turn, inspired my writing.  Today was a visit to the LA Family Housing family shelter for the monthly tile painting class taught and chaperoned by my friend Karen and facilitated by her husband Barry.  I planned fun activities for the children of the participants and was assisted by my adoptive moms Helen and Libby while my husband Gary engaged the block builders and took photos of their creations.  We talked with the children, read stories, played with blocks, made sticker pictures and guided coloring, but the most important part was the talking, the connecting.  Looking into the eyes of a child who might not have many opportunities to have one-to-one contact with a grown up who is there simply to listen without judgment and without expectation.  An adult who can chuckle at the cuteness of a 3-year-old building with blocks, or admire the scribbling a child imagines to be a picture and takes pleasure in serving juice, pretzels and bananas, because we really connect through our senses, through our smiles and with the realization that we all really have more to share and more in common than our differences.

“Waiting is not a passive activity.”

~ Lynn Scheurell

Everyone possesses fear, whether it is the fear of a person, a situation or of possible scenarios.  Fear is a basic human emotion steaming back to our early human survival skills when the fears were all real and survival was dependent on how we handled our encounter with fear.  Now the fears are more abstract, but just as real. There is no animal chasing us and we don’t depend on our ancestors’ hunting and gathering skills for survival either, but modern fears, especially in this economic climate, exist in a very real form for many of us.

My fears stem back to my childhood, growing up with my sister, being raised by our mother, a single parent in the days when this was neither common nor popular.  It started when we walked to school hearing the warnings of our mother playing in our head, “Don’t talk to strangers” when I felt so relieved just to make it the two blocks to school safely, not encountering any of the dreaded strangers on my way.  The underlying fear of not having “enough” permeated my childhood.  Clothes were most often hand-me-downs from friends of the family, lessons in the arts were for other children in my class and cultural trips to museums were rare.  The treasured musical theater matinees were the escape we longed for, and the recorded soundtrack albums worn from the multitude of listening, evoking the memories of the actors on the stage at the theater in the round performances we saw at a local theater.

As I grew up, the fears became more typical, hoping for healthy babies, the ability to care for them, provide for them and do a good job raising successful children.  These fears were the kind that inspired hard work and diligent research in order to become a good parent and it became a full-time job to raise children and maintain the house in addition to the other full-time job, the one that paid the bills.  Then came the fears of reclaiming the self I had shut up for so long and the question of who I would become once my job of raising children was completed (for the time being).  The question loomed in the dark corners, punctuated by little annoyances; who was I, and was our relationship still there under the surface of years of distraction?

Today the fears are more terrifying and we don’t know where this road will take us.  The anonymous frustration of being caught in the complications of a society dependent for years on credit formulas and loans requiring a specialist’s degree for understanding.  A simple phone call for an explanation or question is fed to automated menus and contact with a real person is rare.  The trained phone staff read from scripts and is not entrusted with actual information or knowledge but instead, trained to divert calls from the few who know.  The secret knowledge and the solutions are hidden away in the offices of the people who rest on the security of their position of the knowledge and for those of us stranded here, the uncertain future remains our fear.

Visit a Dictionary

After browsing through the dictionary, I settled on the word “poetic” and meaning number 3:  suitable as a subject for poetry.  Today was a hard day, waking to the preparation for the unveiling ceremony of my mother’s marker.  Everything was essentially done; the marker in place, the twenty-five programs for the service I wrote neatly in a box by the door along with a bag of Pebbles from Jerusalem to leave as evidence of our visit to the graveside.  Flowers were purchased and we all loaded in the car to drive to the cemetery.  The day was thankfully not yet warm and the freeway was, for once, fast and easy.  The chairs were there along with yarmulkes.  We placed the flowers in water at both of my parent’s markers and chatted with close friends and family as they arrived.  The soft, comfortable settling in of familiar conversations with people I have known my entire life was a precursor to the ceremony consisting of poems well-loved and prayers said many times before.  We all took turns reading bits a pieces in order to avoid the inevitable stream of tears, or at least to ward it off for as long as possible.  Poetic.

The day was one that inspired poetry.

The truth is

you can’t go back

to the times when

we all shared the same city

and could drop in at a

moment’s notice.

Some have scattered

to other locals,

some have departed

to other dimensions,

and for those of us

who remain,

we miss the connection,

the hugs

and warm embraces of

those who know us

best.

The short reunions for

sad occasions

punctuate the empty

parenthesis dropped in

our life stories.

Poetic:  suitable as a subject for poetry.  The definition defines and describes the people waiting in the corners of my life.

In a turbulent household filled with people and animals, it is sometimes hard to find the eye of the storm, the quiet in the madness but fortunately I have been able to create a space with beloved artifacts and most importantly the writing desk, which belonged to my mother.  I am intrigued by the drawers (11!) and the cubbies (4) and the objects within the drawers all ready for use and organized in a way that makes sense to me:  lots of paper clips, sticky note pads, desk and writing utensils.  The desk blotter is old and worn, but I’ll keep it anyways, for luck and for the feeling it gives me of having done this for a long time.  Writing.

The corner is comfortable and the view is lovely with all the comforts I need:  a desk lamp, a radio, a tray to set down my glass of water or tea, in anticipation of winter and colder times.  The phone is handy, as are the files allowing business can be taken care of; bills organized and unwanted items safely shredded.  My needed reference books are standing at attention on the credenza across from the desk: the writing books, creative inspiration from those who know better and others just because I like them near. This is my sacred space, my escape, my muse of sorts or a least a home for me, within my home, a home for my thoughts, my hopes, my insights and my observations.

Today I was looking for the perfect picture to put on the first page of the unveiling program I am creating for my mother’s unveiling this Sunday.  It is her birthday today, and is a day charged with emotion and tender feelings that emerge from their hiding place slightly beneath the service.  I sat on the floor in her now deserted living room on the other side of our family room and opened the doors to cupboards that house the memories.  More than twenty photo albums lined up, dated and labeled.  They are doors to the past and their somewhat faded pictures jolt memories bubbling up from deep places.  The photographs are frozen moments, happy smiles, laughing at unknown jokes, glamorous figures holding burning cigarettes, frolicking children with secret stories and the cherished pets, long gone.

Where was my mother?  In 1929, a little baby with a sister seven years older, a mother who was unpredictable and a father who traveled on trains selling women’s blouses.  Who was my mother?  A young woman in saddle shoes, knee socks and shorts pretending to play a guitar newly married in her new New York apartment.  What was my mother?  A young teacher with a picture of her Room 14 graduating class in the pages of her photo album mixed among her family photos:  she cared that much.  When was my mother?  The happiest in her first real home on Ethel Avenue, decorated to her pleasure complete with a swimming pool, weekend barbecue parties, family holiday dinners and a sweet smelling orange tree outside her office window.  Why was my mother?  A curious woman, engaging others in conversation about books and politics, places she longed to see and some she had seen her whole life.  How was my mother?  A grandmother partial to lovely, signed, illustrated children’s books, tea parties, special day trips and newspaper clippings sent with the recipients name written on them, “For Amy.”

I found the picture of her with my oldest daughter on the day she moved away up north.  My oldest in her college tee-shirt, my mother a good five inches shorter with a sad smile and the sleepy look of an early morning.  My mother also took pictures of my daughter’s car, crammed with everything she owned, filling all of the places that we would no longer fill, and the last picture of her driving off, with the scared happiness of a life beginning.

My mother was good at observation, introspection and analysis.  She could see inside where no one else was allowed to visit and she could share so much of herself that I have still kept some of her, safely tucked away inside of me.  Happy Birthday Mom.

Re-arrange

Today’s card, re-arrange, is about rearranging sequences in a story, or rearranging the story, starting, for example, at the end of the story instead of the beginning, but I am considering the rearrangement of my life, since I am not currently in the middle of a story or a novel.  When you begin your adult life, you plan out a sort of sequence of events; getting a job, getting married, having children, and for the most part, in my life, things have progressed this way.  But what happens when the raising of the children is complete?  They say we are left with an “empty nest,” but I prefer to think we are give a chance to jump off the diving board into a pool of opportunities.  Rearranging life goals in mid-life is an opportunity to rediscover the self, to take chances and risk the unknown.  After years of playing it safe, of constant devotion to others, it is time to look inward, to ask questions, to look ahead.

It isn’t hard for me to think a conflict; it is just hard for me to choose only one conflict to write about, though one pops into my head on a daily basis.  It is the conflict stemming from the advances in the technology I am definitely a fan of as is obvious from my love affair with my MacBook, my iPhone and my GPS.  I often wonder where would I be without them as is exemplified by times like yesterday when, while riding as a passenger, I was using my iPhone to text my daughters and my email to communicate with various school officials while assisting a friend in the complicated process of obtaining an intradistrict permit.  I checked the traffic, went to Google Maps to get directions and used Google to look up information.  I was so smooth, so productive!  I said to my driving friend, “Imagine how much time would have been wasted if we had to wait until we got home to take care of all this?”

On the other hand, I think that my daughters’ hands are now permanently in the shape of their iPhone, curved and gripping.  It would break her heart to put the phone in her purse since they like to leave it on vibrate and if out of sight, they might miss one of the text messages, which come in droves, the animated clicking as she answers taps out a rhythm that is one could almost tap your foot too.  Of course the “apps.” provide endless entertainment ranging from the social aspects of the Facebook application to the many games with cute names like “Sally’s Spa” or “Sneezies.”  I long for the days of conversation and singing to music together in the car.  I selfishly want to be the only one to talk to my daughter when we have the rare opportunity to ride together in the car, but I get the evil eye or heavy sign when asking who she is “talking” to.  Ah the simple day of the past…

I find myself gravitating to iPhone applications as I wait for an opening in the texting frenzy, and end up downloading “nice” apps. Like “LiveHappy”, or “Gratitude” which allow me to receive positive messages and complete activities that will increase my happiness.  I was sitting in the movies watching my daughters frantically racing to satisfy virtual clients in their “spa” and I got a little curious.  I downloaded the application and tried it out while I was waiting for an appointment and I did really well!  I moved the clients to the facialist, the hairdresser and the sauna and when they mechanically walked to the counter to pay, I had made more money than the required amount.  The client left smiling and satisfied and I advanced to the “expert” level.  It felt nice to provide a service and make people happy.

Technology has a place in my hand too, I suppose.

Dear Self:

I read a quote today that really hit the nail on the head:

“Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.”

If I try to find myself, where should I look?  At home? In my classroom? In the eyes of my students, colleagues, friends and family? Wherever I look I will see what is there but I won’t see me because I am not solely comprised of those things.  I may be a combination of those things, or contain certain elements found there, but I am not defined by those specifics.

I am more excited about creating myself.  Who do I want to be?  What do I want to be known for?  I am a writer, a teacher, a wife, a mother, a sister and a cousin.  I am a want- to-be gardener, a sun lover, and a beachcomber.  I seek knowledge and expanded learning opportunities in art, in writing, in reading and in craft making.  I am creating myself built on the base of who I was born to be and the ingredients given to me for 53 years stirred with desire, curiosity and hope.

I read an article in the Topanga Messenger about a man named Michael O’Rourke.  He was having a Tea at his Institute of Courage on Sunday, August 9th at 4:00.  The event was free, but reservations were required.  His topic:

High Tea, Scones and Recessionomics 101

Who was this man?  What is the Institute of Courage?  I had no idea, but I can’t help wanting to learn about everything to do with economics and reinventing myself to create a better life, a simpler life.  So I asked my friends if they would want to go, but no one was interested in attending.  I called to find out a little information and left my name on a voice mail.  If I heard back, I would go, and if I didn’t hear back then I would have lost nothing.  Around 3:00 on Saturday, I heard back and got the parking information, so, Sunday I drove to Topanga and went to the Institute of Courage; a beautiful building, a five-star building with a beautiful buffet of scones, tea and all the fixings.  The hostess turned out to be my daughters’ former dance teacher and the coincidences didn’t stop there.  There were many Topanga people I knew, including parents from school and other community members.  It was a friendly, welcoming atmosphere and the scones were to die for!  When Michael started talking, I realized why my attendance was meant to be.  He talked to my situation and was so motivational-encouraging us to think outside the box, try something we haven’t done before.  His advice to:

Drive away from fear.

Have self-discipline

Structure your life-downsize for now.  “It’s not forever.”

He encouraged us to grow from the bottom (economically speaking) up, be thankful and realize we are blessed, stand up and be accounted for, and care about your neighbor and community.

What timely advice!  I am interested in knowing this self-made man who has had his share of downs, but has turned it into an “up.”  I am encouraged to develop my creative, artistic self and at the same time, to develop my intellectual self.  The bottom really can be the beginning of a new life.