American Darling Valve

Okay, here it is: the absolute embarrassing truth. I didn't do SQUAT this week on AW. Zip. Zero. A big fat enchi-nada. Didn't write a single morning page (for the second week in a row). Didn't get caught up on my chapters in the AW book (I'm still on Week 5). Didn't do any exercises. Didn't do an artist date.

I had good intentions when I rose early this morning. I planned to break out my spiral notebook and fountain pen and get down to business. And then I planned to catch up on the chapter reading--weeks 5 through 8. Oh...but let me just check email first. And maybe I'll read just a few blogs, since I'm a couple of days behind due to work overload. Next thing I knew, hours had gone by. Crap.

But the sun is shining and it's warm outside. So when Jeffrey got home (after only half a day's work...yay!) I walked around the corner to get us some Japanese take-out for lunch. And after we ate I grabbed the camera and said I was going out for an artist date. While waiting for our food, it occurred to me to challenge myself to take photos of only things I could find on our block. So I circled the block twice, slowly, and let my eyes wander. I saw things I've seen many times before (we've lived here 10 months) and things I'd never noticed before (including an adorable little house on the opposite side of the block that I've walked and ridden by a gazillion times and never noticed--it's tucked back from the street a bit). The result was what you see here. Nothing exciting, except that I paid attention. Or maybe I should say that I walked with intention. Speaking of which...

I really do intend to stay in the AW mix. My lack of involvement has a lot to do with being super-busy at work the past few weeks. I'm regularly working overtime, but it's a good kind of busy. But I come home feeling a bit fried, like I don't want to do anything other than grab some dinner and lie like a slug on the couch watching TV, reading the newspapers and dozing. And maybe I just hit that spot that Cameron talks about--where you begin to develop a love/hate relationship with AW. I noticed a few weeks ago that I went from really enjoying writing morning pages to absolutely dreading them, and feeling unable to focus for more than a page. Life is full of rhythms...I'll eventually find mine again in AW.

One thing's for sure...even though I might not be feeling inspired by the process right now, I'm incredibly inspired by the AW group. Y'all rock!!

inspiration share

This is an "A" blog in the AW group, and weeks ago we A's and B's were asked to share something that inspires us. I didn't have a chance to do that without my computer, but I wanted to tell you something I did that I found fulfilling. One night while Jeffrey was at a gig, I was reading some of SARK's Succulent Wild Woman. It's been a good companion book for this process for me. I enjoyed the passage I'd just read, so I began to re-read it...and then it occurred to me to read it aloud. So I started reading aloud, but not in a monotone...I started reading it as if you were all sitting here with me, as if I were performing The Vagina Monologues or something. I started breathing differently and reading with feeling and emotion and projection. And it felt really powerful to do that. It really gave life to the words. (I know that sounds corny, but it did.)

Here's the passage I 'performed' in my living room that night:

Once we've rambled through our dry and tame places, we can begin to explore succulence. Succulent wild woman is a process, and an adventure. To discover, and recover, your own succulence is a voyage of the interior and exterior. Succulence comes from your center--the sweet, true part of you--your essence--that belongs to no one else.

Wildness is relative. Wild is a state of mind that relates directly to succulence. We are each in a process of being and becoming a succulent wild woman!

I am sharing my own journey so that you can be a part of my exploration.

I am very real--deeply human, partly human, splendidly and horribly imperfect, bent, disguised, loud, ever-changing, thought-full and thought-less, wildly narcisstic in certain spots.

How are you most human? What would a map of you look like? There are so many ways to be named and defined, yet we are ultimately a mystery. What a glorious thing!

~SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

So after 'performing' this bit two or three times that night, I had a thought: I wonder if SARK would allow her material to be pulled together into a play? What a powerful, women-centric performance piece that could be!

What would a map of YOU look like?

Try this with a passage from one of your favorite books. But do it when you're alone--its power lies in the freedom that comes from not being inhibited by the presence of others. After all, weren't we all fabulous rock stars in the privacy of our bedrooms, 'singing' in front of our mirrors with our hairbrushes as mic's? ;)

Recapping Week 6

Anyone home?? I'd gone from "I really should be writing morning pages" to blithely going about my mornings after J'd leave for work having coffee and reading the paper. I forgot morning pages even existed. And my bookmark was still firmly planted in the early pages of Week 5. But, I was pouring a lot of time and energy and effort into the Black History Assembly production at school, and it was giving me a big creative payoff. Friday's performances were so rewarding to witness--to see how far the kids had come and to see them so excited to be performing. So even though week 6 was completely lost in terms of AW group parameters, it was found in terms of feeding me personally.

The theme for Week 6 was recovering a sense of abundance, and having our PC finally arrive certainly helped with that. I even had one day last week where I put on a jacket I hadn't worn in about 6 months and found a five-dollar bill in the pocket...I walked to the bus stop, boarded the empty bus and the driver stopped me from depositing my $1 fare, saying "Don't worry about it"...I took my seat and found a shiny dime on the seat next to me. So I guess the universe was letting me know that there really is abundance everywhere...sometimes when I least expect it. ;)

Recapping Week 5

Here's where I fell almost completely off the AW wagon. I've still only read a couple pages of the Week 5 chapter. I only wrote morning pages three days that week, and two of those days I only wrote half a page. I simply couldn't stay focused on the task when I'd sit down to write. I was barely hanging onto the idea of AW by my cuticles. Artist date? What's that?? Although, in my defense, this was the week when I got really involved with working on the Black History Assembly at school. I'd pulled the band together for the assembly, but this was the week when I started working with the kids at the rehearsals and really jumping in with both feet. I was growing more and more down not having access to my blog and my blogging buddies and the AW group, but working on the assembly was my saving grace. So even though I wasn't following the book and the guidelines, I was doing something I really loved and felt passionate about...for the first time in a very long time. So I was feeding my artist.

Recapping Week 4

I didn't even know this was the week of reading deprivation until Sam mentioned it on the phone that Sunday night. I hadn't read the chapter yet, even though it was the second day of that AW week. Oops...I'd already plowed through two Sunday papers. I gave the reading deprivation a moment's thought, but I was growing depressed over losing my internet 'life,' so giving up reading (one of the very few pleasures and comforts I have) seemed too much to ask. I did cut back though. I did continue to read the two daily newspapers I have delivered (the Davis and San Francisco papers), but grew selective in my book reading. Mostly that week I savored small passages from Deepak Choprah's The Book of Secrets. I was in need of something to inspire and nourish me, and it filled the bill. (I'm still reading it...I'm savoring it slowly.) I continued reading a chapter a week from SARK's Succulent Wild Woman, which I'd bought as a companion piece for this AW journey. My morning pages dropped way off--I only wrote them 3 days that week, and each time I only wrote about a page-and-a-half. I completely forgot about doing an artist date. And although I read all of the exercises and did them in my head, I didn't write them out.

Recapping Week 3

Our laptop died during Week 2. I was feeling quite high when we lost our internet connection. I'd just had a fabulous solo day in Portland...and then BOOM...no internet connection...and no funds to immediately buy another laptop or PC. I was devastated because I felt so engaged with my writing and my blogging and the AW group. I tried to psych myself up and remind myself that I'd done AW more than a decade before when I hadn't needed an internet connection. I thought surely without being able to check email or read blogs I'd have LOADS of time to devote to AW. I realized at the end of Week 3 how ironic it was that the week's theme had been recovering a sense of power, because I'd spent week 3 feeling mostly power-less...over the money situation, over not having internet access (I have it at work, but the school's 'safe search' function blocks all blogs and web-based email), over my job situation (my nasty coworker was bad-vibing me as usual and being particularly passive-aggressive), etc. I did write my morning pages every day that week, even if a couple of times I wrote less than 3 pages. I had liked the "Detective Work" exercise from previous AW attempts, I so did that. In fact, I did most of the exercises that week. My artist date that week was a watching a day-long marathon of "Project Runway" while Jeffrey was at work. I love that show.