xoxo

Adena

I’m sitting here with crisp winter sun slanting over my fingers on the keyboard. My mouth tastes like Earl Grey and my mind is pleasantly hazy. I won’t know until tomorrow if the song is really done or not. In fact I might not know until I’ve played it at a show or two, or until I send it in an email to my musical cohorts. I may not know it until my roommate makes a full on parody of it. It could be years till it’s properly recorded. It could never be released to the world at large. But really, for now, I think it’s pretty much done.

Which means it’s time to buy a new notebook. I get mine from QFC. I make sure it’s unlined and cheap. Because I let myself use the whole dang thing on one song.

I got the idea in part from Twyla Tharp in her book, The Creative Habit. It may actually be the first chapter where she describes getting herself a box at the beginning of each new project. It’s nothing fancy, as I recall, just some plastic storage container. Into the box goes everything that inspires her new endeavor, the magazine clippings, the scraps of fabric from the costume samples, the brochure from the museum exhibit that she attends while researching rites of passage. All these things go in the one place.

In song, my container is a notebook, an actual honest to God paper and spiral binding affair. I love a notebook for writing because it collects little lyric scraps that often get thrown out for awhile and then reintegrated later on. If I only worked digitally (scrap that, when I only work digitally), I erase things that don’t make sense in the moment and those bits are then lost. Forever. This should be okay as there’s a lot of overflow. But it’s not okay. And I’ve a pet theory on it.

Our creations often know who they are before we do.  Still, in the process of emerging distinctly, they can go through funny phases, kind of like teenagers. They’ll try things on to see if they fit. Some things won’t and some things will and there’s no predicting which is which. When we collect everything in one place, it’s easier to both stay open (there’s room for all) and to stay focused (everything’s in one place). 

Containers are also inherently affirming. Eventually, the choices we’ve made in our work feel inevitable. Containers provide a record of our process, they provide tangible evidence that we have indeed labored to arrive, that we haven’t been idly twiddling our life away. And a new, empty container also affirms that we will create again, when we feel ourselves lost in that directionless place between the end and the beginning.

Your turn:

• How do you contain your projects?
• How does this support you?
• Does it welcome different forms of inspiration?
• Does it document your work at different stages?
• Is it easy?

When I was 18, I noticed that each Tuesday I’d become impatient, itchy. By night, I’d be struck by the urge to go out and dance, but there were never parties. There was an open mike at the Garden Village Café, right across the street from where I’d spent all day studying. From 7:30-10 a string of guitarists would strum open chords, change keys with capos, and rhyme their every sentiment for a sedate, cigarette-smoking audience. It frustrated me more than I can justify, and more importantly, it wasn’t good for dancing. I couldn’t go to the bars or the clubs. I thought once I was old enough to legally drink my issues with Tuesday would be resolved.

Then I turned 21. I didn’t go out drinking the official night of my birthday (although I did manage the night before, that counts, right?). Afterwards, I kept on not frequenting bars. My friendship style didn’t help—essentially I had one friend and she was the intellectual type. We shared a lot—we spent time living out of our cars, and we talked endlessly about saving the world, what was wrong with humanity, and our art concepts. This did nothing for my ability to hold liquor.

Problem-solver that I am, I tried to tackle this challenge head on. I remember I went to a bar downtown, Sans Souci, (considered by those who know better than I to be a dive) for their open mike night. Low and behold, the same string of guitarists would strum open chords, change keys with capos, and rhyme their every sentiment for a considerably less sedate audience. Afterward, a radio blared. I discovered:

• It’s not flattering to be hit on in incomplete sentences. Particularly if the person drizzles your face with spit in the process.
• After one third of a beer, I am dizzy and can’t drive home. Also, I don’t like beer. Or rum. Or whiskey. Or even absinthe. (After admitting the absinthe thing I am fiercely assuring myself yes, you are still an artist).
• When I dance, I don’t necessarily want to spend half the time backing away from someone else’s enthusiastic gyrations.
• There are a finite number of top 40 songs that I can relate to.
• I don’t like watching other people drink.
• I don’t like watching other people have more fun than me.

So it is official: I am destined to remain a sullen nerd. And I have to find another way to deal with Tuesdays.

But what’s the problem, anyway? What’s behind the sudden compulsion to dance all night, move to Paris, or cultivate a hangover? I think Tuesday is a sort of empty spot in the week. There is the weekend (a time for exceptions and indulgence). There is Monday (a time for fresh starts). There is Wednesday (by the end of Wednesday, you know you are half-way through). There is Thursday (the Simpsons). There is Friday—which is essentially the opening act for the weekend. On Tuesday there is none of that. No fresh start. No respite. No satire. No sense of accomplishment. Just the not-quite-middle of our daily grind, at the center of our all-too-predictable lives. And on Tuesday, the predictions are dire.

But maybe that’s the gift of Tuesdays; they show you where you are: stuck in your hometown, all the shops closed, nothing to buy. Maybe one friend you can tell your blues to, but she understands you so well that she’s powerless to comfort you–she’s got the same disease. So you have to turn inward, despite yourself, and in doing so, you find, that, like a cactus, you are actually full of juice.

The other gift of Tuesdays is that I am officially declaring it Inter-Galactic Artist Kindness Day (kindness has been scientifically proven to cheer us up). You can participate in many ways, and one of them is to come to this blog, and/or subscribe to it. Because I tenderly promise you (and myself) consistent, home-cooked encouragement. Much of what I know and am learning about creativity (don’t worry, it’s not too much) will be available for your consumption every other Tuesday. I will be here to remind you that even now, great work and great discovery are possible. Even today, your voice is worth hearing. There is somewhere to dance. You are less alone than you may imagine. Change is possible, failure is opportunity, boredom is the true mother of invention and you never know when you will find your next great love smiling at you.

Also, tomorrow is Wednesday.

Every body is absolutely different, but there are some common tendencies with modern life and particularly with artists in modern life. One of them is that we sit too much; I know I do. Prolonged sitting, even with reasonable posture and footwear shortens our hip flexors and hamstrings. Often we keep our arms forward when we sit. We do this when we drive, write, draw, paint, and play many popular musical instruments such as drums, piano, and guitar. Keeping our arms forward for extended periods shortens our pectorals.

This isn’t a fitness blog and I’m not making personalized recommendations to you. I just want to share in very simple terms what I plan to do as soon as this draft is complete. I hope it opens ideas to you of how you want to care for your body during the rigors of creation.

First off, I’ll stretch my hamstrings. They are the muscles running down the back of the thighs. An easy way for me to do this is to bend forward at the hips and with straight knees, try to connect the front of my torso with the front of my thighs. There are many other ways to stretch the hamstrings but this one is easy for me. I’ll hold each stretch for seven slow breath cycles, which is how many slow breaths it takes me to cycle through a minute.  There are various opinions about how long it takes for a muscle to stretch, but a minute is conservative and measurable, so I’m going for it. When I stretch I want to feel it and I still want to be able to breath easily.

Next, I’ll stretch my hip flexors with a forward lunge. I’ll make sure and tuck my pubic bone toward my ribcage, maintaining a long lower back. Again, there are many stretching options but this one is easy for me. I’ll do both sides of course, for a seven slow breaths each and at that same moderate intensity.

I’ll end with a pectoral stretch on each side. I’ll put an open palm against a wall a little lower than shoulder height with my arm straight or close to straight out to the side like an airplane wing. I’ll  then pivot the rest of my body away from the wall until I find that same moderate intensity, then I’ll hold for seven slow breaths.

And that’s it. Time to go do it now!

I’m back in the same cafe, typing this more slowly than usual because last Saturday night I accidentally slammed my right index finger into a car door. Feeling ridiculous and also quite worried, I visited the ER. No broken finger bones, thank God, just the chance of losing a fingernail. They wrapped it up thick in gauze and told me to keep the injured digit above my heart for the next 48 hours. Naturally the next step was buying lots of ice cream with my roommate. I walked around the store, amplified finger held high, perpetually on the verge of pontification. I commanded aisle six. I recognize this constantly sore and wagging finger. It’s the enemy’s trademark gesture.

Over the course of the next week, Seattle succumbed to snow. The whole city shut down while the people of Capitol Hill tested the sledding capacity of such diverse objects as actual sleds, pizza boxes, air mattresses, cookie tins, and blow up dolls. I was home much more than usual, marveling at the stretch of quiet time. I reserved a corner of my attention for my index finger as it slowly started to heal. Bathing, brushing my hair, dishes, putting on a sweatshirt, daily life is a little more tender with this injury.  I’m reminded constantly of the enemy which gives meaning to its presence.  Watching out for it is helpful; in this time my psyche has shaken loose a few major assumptions and I’ve found myself writing differently, more slowly but with more freedom.

This is powerful stuff.

I take stock. I write three pages, front and back, repeatedly finishing the line What I’m noticing now is… Afterwards, I take a highlighter to it, noticing what hold interest, what holds power.

I’m writing this in a coffee shop. The man across from me just asked the woman beside me if it was strange that he was polishing his shoes.

Stirring her coffee with a long, plastic straw she looked up. “Yes”, she answered.

“Would you rather I not do this here? He asked.

“Yes, she replied. “I’d rather you do that at home.”

“I was anxious to do it”, he explained.

“Oh, were you”, she replied.

“Yes”, he asserted.

“Well, you asked me and I answered”, she retorted. “Do what you must”, and she returned to her knitting.

Oh the things I might do, if it weren’t for the enemy. They’d be so much worse than polishing my shoes. I can think of a few things I wouldn’t do, too.  For starters, I’d never get out of bed when I was tired. In fact, I’d never get out of bed at all.

You see, without thinking too much about it, I believe that without the enemy I would be useless and unlovable and impractical and dead. So I’m very loyal to my enemy.

It’s time to consider this belief.

I fill one page, front and back, finishing this sentence over and over. What’s right about harboring my enemy is… I fill another page, front and back finishing this sentence:  My experience without the enemy is… 

It’s the very cliché of hypnotism. It might as well be swinging a stopwatch in front of my face. It might as well have a mustache with curled up ends.

“You are getting very sleepy”, it whispers. “The sky is gray. The insides of your eyes are also going gray. Noise from the room is seeping in, inside your skull. Inside and outside jumble together. You are crumpled and soft. I am the only voice you can distinguish.”

I sink into the red pleather couch.

“You are listening very close to me. I have something important to tell you, something true.”

Dramatic pause. I’m fully collapsed.

“This thing you are writing sucks”, it announces. “It sucks for many reasons. Give up now. Drink more coffee or whatever. Anything. Just stop.”

Shut up, I write. I’m f*&%ing writing right now.

As artists, one of our fundamental aims is to counter the enemy’s agenda. And of course, we are the enemy. We’re here to stay and so is it and so we must learn to defend ourselves against it.

I open my notebook to two adjacent blank pages. I dedicate one page to the enemy. I dedicate the next to my own defense. Both pages, as well as the very act of writing, will be threaded through with observation. I write an attack. Underneath it, I note how that feels. I write a defense. Underneath it, I write how that feels. I fill the front of the two pages. Then I look them over. I notice that my defenses consist of explanations. I notice I don’t like it. Why should I explain myself to the enemy?

I open my notebook to a fresh page. I write down a concise message from the enemy. Underneath it I write defenses that aren’t explanations. They are short things, things like “Stop!” “I don’t need you!” “F*&% off!” I fill a page. That feels better.

Growing up, my grandma often cared for me. I remember one morning she crashed our ’66 bug into a redwood at the bottom of a hill. I started to cry. She observed me, than informed me of a study. Apparently, someone once decided to document the reactions of hungry babies. Some babies screamed, my grandma said. Some babies cried. Some babies attempted to solve the problem by hunting for a breast. “I always thought you were a problem solver”, she said. “But here you are crying, and crying won’t help.” Here I am indeed. Two decades after the fact and I take for granted that, when a problem occurs, I should focus exclusively on solving it.

The familiar is easy to take for granted, but in naming it, we enable ourselves to see the power and peculiarity of it. This is an effective way to expose the enemy because:

The enemy is defined by its agenda. And.

Its agenda is to keep us within the familiar.

The enemy is just a crude guidance mechanism, made by and for a child who had no real knowledge of how to navigate this world. It interferes with art. It interferes with anyone who wants to live a life with freshness and vitality; it interferes with anyone who would like to admit the great and mysterious unknown.

It’s no longer needed.

I spend two full pages, front and back, repeatedly answering these questions, one right after the other: What does the enemy tell me? When did I first receive this message?

I know that the enemy is more than just judgment or an overzealous editor. For instance, there’s that gray fog that comes over me when I get nervous about teaching and tell myself that after eight years, I’m not allowed to be nervous about teaching. Or there’s that bloated feeling I keep getting, like physically bloated, right after I’ve spoken highly of myself. There are even certain compliments I’ve paid myself. Things like I may be plain, but at least I’m not tacky. Or it’s good I didn’t say anything. Silence is elegance.

I spend a page, front and back writing from the line “I recognize the enemy in…” I include my emotions. I include my body. Afterwards, I reread what I’ve written, highlighting lines that interest me.

When I was a freshman in high school, I learned which girl the boy I liked was smitten with. I found her picture in the back of the yearbook–a full color, studio shot. She had a stylish bob. My hair was wild. She had earrings all the way up the sides of her ears. I had rhinestone studs that I took out before soccer games. She had curves beneath her blue sweater. Beneath my hand-me-down tee shirts, I was still waiting for puberty to pay off.

I decided she was better than me. Naturally. Like, a better, more valuable human being. And when, every now and again, I’d forget how repulsive I was, I’d open up the yearbook to remind myself. I did this long after I’d stopped liking the boy. I did this after graduation.

The enemy lives in comparison. The enemy lives in judgment.

I fill one page, front and back, writing from the phrase: I judge myself when…
  A new page for a new phrase: I judge others by… 
One final page for this last phrase: I’m judged as…” Whenever I get stuck, I return to my line.