Mombie – a bit of everything

L is for Light

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Tonight’s post is less a coherent essay than a series of short thoughts on light.

*****

‘There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’  Leonard Cohen ‘Anthem’

This line knocks me flat every time I read it. You have to have cracks so the light can get in. How incredibly powerful is that? Yes, things might be broken but that is only part of the process, the cracks are how we see the light, the way to see the solution.

If that doesn’t stir you, I don’t know what will.

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Because I like to look at things from all sorts of different angles, thinking of light immediately makes me think of darkness.

In turn, that makes me think of the kids (and adults) I know, who are afraid of the dark.

You know the saying 'It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness'? Do you know what's even better? Lighting four small candles and then making lunch and tea during a 3 day blackout. Girl Guide training for the win!

You know the saying ‘It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness’?
Do you know what’s even better? Lighting four small candles so you can make lunch and tea during a 3 day blackout.
Girl Guide training for the win!

I know there must have been a time when I, too, was afraid of the dark but I don’t remember it. In fact, the only time I remember being freaked out by the dark was in the bed & breakfast after my wedding. I woke up in the middle of the night in a completely dark room, I couldn’t hear The Man and I couldn’t see anything. I knew that I wasn’t home but I couldn’t figure out where I was. The bed that we were on was giant (a California King maybe?) and I must have been near the middle and The Man must have been near the edge because I reached out as far as I could in one direction and all I could feel was mattress, I reached as far as I could in the other and it was the same. It was an overwhelming feeling – in fact, I can conjure it up right now and it was almost 20 years ago! I assume that people who have a fear of the ordinary dark must be much the same way – what the heck is out there and why can’t I see it?
I’m not like that at home though, or in most circumstances. I’m mostly not fazed by the dark. Even when it starts coming earlier and earlier as the fall progresses. I enjoy when the light returns in the evenings – it feels MUCH better to leave TKD in the light than in the dark – but I don’t worry about it much when winter brings more darkness. In fact, I find the light of the lamps in the winter to be very cozy and comforting. It’s kind of a relief for me to have a reason to retreat into my house and sit under the warm light of the lamp and just feel like we are in our fortress without having to consider the world outside.
I think part of it is that the light inside is controlled by me, and the lamp light makes me think of reading – so that’s a definitely benefit. 🙂

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Speaking of lights that are controlled by me:

I also like the light in the oven. I can remember being small and looking into the oven through the window to see what my mother was cooking for supper. And I still like that light now – and looking into the oven when my cookies are baking so I can see how they are doing. There’s a literal warmth that accompanies that light of course, but the light itself feels good to the eyes – like there is something fabulous going on – which there is, of course. 🙂

*****

I used to have an alarm clock light that was supposed to wake me gently by gradually getting light enough for me to wake up. It totally didn’t work for me – instead I would wake up instantly as soon as the light started to come on. It wasn’t gentle, it wasn’t easing into being awake. It was just annoying. The killer is though, I lived with that for ages – and by the way it wasn’t a good enough light for reading at night, so it really didn’t serve me well AT ALL – I’m not sure why I did that, I just have a habit of tolerating little annoyances until they somehow trip into my actual consciousness. Then I usually deal with them swiftly.

*****

The last couple of days are finally starting to feel springish – the sun is warm when it shines through the window in my room.  I’ve been able to do a little bit of yoga in a patch of sunlight each morning. Yoga seems to me to be a celebration of the body and how it can move, and what matches that better than to connect with natural light when I do that? It just makes sense to be able to do my sun salutations while facing the actual sun. And sometimes the sun is pretty damn rare where I live so it adds an extra boost when I can incorporate it into my practice.

*****

We often keep our kids company as they fall asleep. One of us will sit in the hall between their rooms and read or write, listen to music or play a game. When my husband sits there, he often turns off the light in the hall and sits there with the glow from his screen lighting up his face. I really like the way it looks when I come upstairs to find him sitting there, absorbed in what he is reading, his face alight. Even thinking about it makes me grin (he is a VERY handsome man, that one).

*****

What do you think about when you consider the light?

K is for Kind

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One of the biggest challenges I have as a re-story-fier* (life coach, to the uninitiated) is to guide people to be kinder to themselves.

And isn’t that the hardest lesson to learn?

It’s often difficult to be kind to other people – especially when they are getting on our nerves, but it is mind-bendingly difficult to be kind to ourselves. It’s like we’re afraid that if we are gentle with ourselves, we’ll somehow slip off into madness and get totally out of control.

I had the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years. I think I should get another copy.

Isn’t this quote lovely? I had a poster of the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years.
I think I should get another copy.

We aren’t taught how to be kind to ourselves, either. Instead, we get positive reinforcement – in school, at home, in commercials,and in society in general** for being tough on ourselves, for being unforgiving. We are always being told how to be hard on ourselves, and the messages we get mix up discipline (training ourselves to work in effective ways) with punishment (being hard on ourselves for falling short of our plans).

I know I’m hard on myself that way sometimes, wondering if I am just not trying hard enough, wondering what I’ve done wrong, wondering why I just can’t get it together. The good thing is, though, that because I have spent so much time reminding other people to be kind to themselves, I usually catch myself pretty early.

Because I know how hard this is for all of my clients, I have been working hard to make sure that my kids learn to be kind to themselves. It’s tough to be a kid, there’s a lot of pressure to excel at everything and not so much consideration for kids who want to try things just for fun. It would be easy to get caught up in the swirl and let them pile pressure on themselves for not being enough. I try to stay conscious of it, though, and I remind them of times they can make choices to support themselves, I tell them they are enough just as they are, and I try to give them tools to help them see themselves in a softer light.

Are you kind to yourself? How did you pick up kindness habits?

If you aren’t kind to yourself, do you think you could try it out for a while?

 

*I call myself a re-story-fier because I like to help people change the stories that they automatically tell themselves about their experiences, so they can cast themselves in a more positive – KINDER- light.

**Don’t even get me started on the fitness inspiration posters that are supposed to be cheering you on, but seem to be really telling you that anything other than Olympic effort is a waste of time.

H is for Heroines

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damsel

If you are looking for fabulous stories featuring women, this is a great place to start – Jane Yolen’s Not One Damsel In Distress.

As a storyteller, I like to share myths, folktales, family stories and stories that I made up ‘in my own mad head’ (as my friend Darryl once put it). One common theme in my stories, though, is that the women in my stories are their own people. They aren’t just plot devices, they have their own plans, their own motivations and their own ideas.
When I first started in storytelling, I was a little annoyed by how hard it was to find stories with real women in them instead of placeholders whose only purpose was to motivate the hero or give them information for their quest. Even stories of goddesses seemed to be mostly about the gods they were opposing. It was frustrating, to say the least.
Gradually though, as I learned more about how stories worked, I learned how to find the stories of women AND I learned that if you find one version of a tale that doesn’t quite show the story that you want to tell, you can keep looking because there may be other versions of the same one. I am so determined to portray women as heroines – as people who have their own stories- that I never just accept the first version I hear.*
For example, a few years ago, I was the sacrificial lamb for a story slam** and the theme was ‘Skeletons in the Closet.’ I opted to tell the story of Bluebeard since he had literal skeletons in a literal closet. The story bugged me though because there were two female characters in the crucial moment when Bluebeard discovers that his latest wife has disobeyed his orders not to look in the closet and instead of ganging up on him together, one of the women runs upstairs to look out the window and wish for her brothers to arrive to save her and her sister (the hapless wife).
It didn’t ring true for me. I have two sisters. Trust me, if you cross one of us you are bringing the righteous anger of all three of us down on yourself. I had to use the hapless women version for the slam because it was short notice but when I came home, I immediately looked for other versions of the same story. I found one quickly (Count Silvernose) and that’s the one I tell – and most of the time, I preface it with the story of WHY I chose that version.
There are lots of great stories of heroes, the world is full of those, but I am most interested in telling the stories of heroines (and of female villains, too). The stories of goddesses, witches, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and female friends are just as important and often have different ideas and wisdom to share than the ones we are most used to hearing. It’s not that I NEVER tell stories with men in them, I tell those too, especially when I am telling family stories, it’s just that stories of women and their adventures are my specialty.
I think it’s really important for everyone to hear those stories, to be reminded that women and girls are agents in their own lives and that they are forces to be reckoned with in the lives of others. Women aren’t prizes for bravery. We aren’t plot devices. We are people with our own stories.
It does the world good to be reminded of that.

*It’s funny, you know,I just realized where that tendency to search for the women actually originated. I studied gender archaeology in university and I was always annoyed by the fact that women were rarely mentioned in the ‘story’ of human social evolution. Men were always the agents of change while women seemly just carried the babies around. I was having none of it – just from a logical point of view, it doesn’t make sense to waste half a work force based on the fact that for part of their lives they have babies – and I began studying the work of feminist scholars. The women were there all along, of course, and feminist scholars had developed the tools to look for them. My MA thesis ended up being about gendered household space amongst the Thule in Labrador.
**Translation: I was the first teller in a five minute storytelling contest and my role was to warm up the judges by getting them to practice their judging skills on me. My totals didn’t count for the contest.

December Stories: #1 – The Truth

I'm tossing around the idea of writing some flash fiction every day in 
December. Let's see how it goes.

It’s not well known, but it’s absolutely true:

Elves don’t actually like Christmas.

I know they pretend to, and they are grinning idiotically on all the Christmas cards and the like, but that’s mostly artist’s depictions and actors dressed as elves. True elves wouldn’t touch Christmas with a ten foot candy cane if they could help it.

They can’t though. Help it, I mean.

They are under a spell you see. That man that you call Santa Claus? He’s not a jolly old elf like you think. Sure, he seeeems nice, bringing presents to children and all that, and that part of his personality is totally cool, but there’s more to him than that.

He’s an evil wizard and he’s playing the long game.

Sure, it’s been hundreds of years of Saint Nick and Santa and all that, and it’s been him behind it the whole time, and he’s been building this image of himself as benevolent. That’s all part of the big plan.

What’s the big plan, you ask? I’m not sure yet. I am only skirting the edges, gathering the details so far. Investigative journalism is tricky when your subject sees you when you’re sleeping and sees when you’re awake.

I just know that evil is afoot and that foot is clad in a big black boot. That big black boot is prepared to crush us all at some point, I just don’t know when.

I do know, though, that the elves are part of it and I know that because I’ve seen their dazed expressions. I’ve seen the thin golden chains that link them to the tables that they work at. They are drugged on sugar and small sips of whiskey, and they are trapped at those tables while Santa gets most of the credit.

It’s been the same crowd of elves since the beginning, you know. They look young but elves age very very slowly. I’m not sure whether that’s an advantage or a disadvantage in this situation, but I know it’s true.

I’m hoping I can count on you to help me free them when the time comes. When I have the big plan figured out. When the opportunity presents itself.

I hope they aren’t all Stockholm Syndromed at this point and unable to do anything to help themselves. I hope they won’t fight me as I try to free them. I hope I can find a place to hide them where Santa won’t find them.

I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ll let you know when to spring into action. Be ready.

Lessons from NaNoWriMo

I finished National Novel Writing Month again this year but I didn’t achieve my true goal, which was to write 2500 words a day until I finished on the 20th (also to post favourite lines on my blog. That didn’t happen either). I’ve spent a little time trying to figure out why that was.

I was doing well for the first 7 days, I even did more than 2500 some days. I can write really fast when a) the details don’t matter much or b) I know what I’m going to write in advance.

NaNoWriMo is ripe for the first condition. It doesn’t matter w=one bit how good your novel is, you can ramble on, switch character names, have them do improbable things, it completely doesn’t matter. Obviously, it means you will have to do more editing if you ever decide to publish the thing – and I do think that this year’s is possibly publishable- once I do some serious tidying- but in terms of getting the words on the page (or the clay on the table as my friend Tina says), you can’t beat NaNoWriMo for encouraging the gushing of words.

The second condition is the one that confounds me. I write faster when I have an outline but I don’t enjoy outlining alone. I love a good brainstorming session and I love the spark of an idea that prompts me to write* but I go blank when I sit down and plan to outline. It’s silly, since I end up sitting down at some point and planning out the next few scenes anyway. I am working to get around it and researching a few ways to get better at outlining.**

So, I guess that for the first 7 days of NaNoWriMo this year, I had an idea of what sorts of things to write about so I had that going for me. And I put my writing as early in the day as I possibly could. Both of those things contributed to me keeping momentum at first.

However, on that 8th day, I had a ton of things to do and I was having my birthday party. I put the writing aside for that day and swore that it was only going to be that one day.

It wasn’t.

I ended up staying up way too late that night and was wonky the next day because of it and couldn’t bring myself to get to the computer to write. So, I didn’t have the prep work done, and I didn’t know what I was going to write about. ***
And, of course, my momentum was broken at that point.

Once I have a daily habit, even after only 7 days, I get ridiculous when I miss a day, I always want to double up. That turns the practice into a BIG THING and I hate BIG THINGS. So there’s another lesson for me. I have to find a way to be okay with letting go of a missed day without trying to make up for it and I have to learn to recognize when I’ve made a practice into a BIG THING.

My days tumbled into one another after that point, with a variety of family birthdays and social/work obligations distancing me from my writing.

Finally, on the 20th I decided to get back at it and I have had two 10,000 word days since then. The best part about those two days is that they were easy, not at all stressful and I got lots of other things done, too. I managed to get over my own brain and just write up a storm.

This past week, I’ve been writing a lot and I’ve been organizing and doing a lot of thinking. It’s been one of the best weeks of the year. I can learn a lot from that.

So, my lessons?

1) Practice a variety of outlining techniques
2) Learn not to care about the intial rush of words during the rest of the year, editing is my friend.
3) Let a single missed day go, and return on the next without the burden of the missed task.
4) I can write 10,000 words in a single day on a regular basis and I should do that a couple of times a month to give my writing energy a boost.
5) The more I write, the happier I am.
* I should say the spark that gives me something I want to write about. The only thing that prompts me to write is my self-reminding tactics – I forget how much I enjoy writing until I am actually doing it. I hate making decisions in the moment about what to do and I will waffle away my time unless I have decided what to do with it in advance.

**Frankly, I think a lot of it is leftover resentment from how I HAD to make outlines in school. I swear there is nothing less likely to make you want to write than the way they try to teach you in grade school.

***To be fair to myself, and maybe only other writers will get this, but my characters ended up having very different motivations than I realized at first and that threw off my idea of the plot. It took giving up on trying to write a story and just doing a lot of writing of background for me to figure out where I was going next.