And it's time, time, time...

Well, my September post-a-day challenge has been going on for a week now. The structure (as you may have figured out if you've been following along) is:

Tuesdays - a ramble, the kind of post I've done all along in this blog
Wednesdays - other people's work, something I find inspirational
Thursdays - thoughts on creativity
Fridays - the observed world
Saturdays - an original piece of my work beyond the usual boundaries of this blog
Sundays - sharing. Links I love
Mondays - tips, pointers, suggestions and links to make the start of the week a little easier

I'd love to know what you think of this so far. All of that being said, let's move onto the ramble.

* * *

There's a song called Time by Tom Waits, one of my favorite musicians, on his album Rain Dogs. Like many of his songs, it's wistful and poetic and obscure and fills my heart with a longing for a broken down life that I probably would never really want. For the chorus Mr. Waits moans, "And it's time time time/ and it's time time time/ And it's time time time that you love /And it's time time time."

He's right, we do love time. As much as we curse it, long for it, waste it and kill it, most of all we love it. Time is what we have and our most precious commodity. I think about time a lot, especially about how time flexes and changes according to our needs.

I'll leave the science of time to physicists and its ethics to philosophers. I'd like to examine wonderfully flexible personal time, with four different examples of thinking about it discussed in order of increasing abstraction.

1. Time as a measure of distance and ease. When we travel someplace we are rarely asked, "How many miles is it?" as an estimation of the distance. While that may be more factual - I traveled 350 miles - it's far less useful. We are asked, "How far is it?" and reply, "Oh, it's easy, about six hours." What we're really answering is "How long did it take you get there?" I know, this is obvious.
   
   But this six hours is variable. I don't think 350 miles is too far to travel to visit a friend. It's close enough that I can drive down for a weekend every couple of months. However, if the friend were instead the love-of-my-life then this six hours would be interminable, the time-as-distance becomes far longer and more painful. If the traffic had been bad and it took me ten hours to drive then the same 350 miles would have been a much longer road to travel and I would reconsider flying, which would take four hours, cost more and be less comfortable than riding in my own car. I'd be less likely to see my friend as often; the currency of time wouldn't make it worth it.
   
   A hundred years ago that same 350 miles would have made a weekend trip all but impossible, while two hundred years ago it would have been a perilous journey of several days; the currency of time would require an extended visit.
   
   Time, distance and the economy they create are woven together in our vocabulary and thought.
   
   
2. Bodily time. Ask a five year old how old she is and she may very well tell you she's "five-and-a-half." Ask a 95 year old how old she is and it's unlikely she'll mention the half year. The six months of the -and-a-half is a significant portion of the five year old's life. She's likely to have a much-sharper recollection of everything that's happened to her in that last six months than the 95 year old, not necessarily because of age-related memory issues, but because she has so much less, in general, to remember. Her sense of time is immediate, while the older person's sense stretches out over a longer span.
   
   We retain that sense of time in our bodies, learning how to tell how much time has passed by how we feel. As someone who hasn't worn a watch in many years, I usually have a pretty good sense of time, because my body knows about how long an hour is, or about when 3:30 might be. I also know I am feeling the cumulative passage of time in my life by a greater accumulation of aches and pains. Bodily time.
   
   We mark time by the changes in our bodies, some clearly marked (the onset of adolescence) and others less so. I saw my mother recently after a gap of several months. After she hugged me she began to stroke my hair; I thought she was trying to tidy it. She was instead startled by how much gray I now have. I hadn't noticed the change because it's been gradual, but to my mother this was a dramatic shift in bodily time, reminding her of the passage of time as we both age.
   
   
3. Before and after. There are instances that define us, a single moment that has such a powerful effect we are never the same. It's as though the brief experience that may last one minute or five or maybe an hour colors everything else. It becomes the dot on our timeline that creates before and after. Think about it.
   
   In one moment your whole life changes. I know I have those moments.
   
   - Before I knew had cancer (one sentence). After I was a survivor (one bike ride).
   - Before I told my first story in a performance venue. Afterward, eight minutes later, when I knew this was what I was born to do.
   - Before I found myself stepping between my lover and the assailant, offering calm words to defuse the situation (one second). After, when I realized both how fiercely I love (no one hurts someone I love) and how deeply I believe in alternatives to violence.
   
   These moments are so brief and so clear. They help us know who we are, but they take so little time, for all that those few minutes have more than their seconds worth of value. What are your before and afters?
   
   
4. Books. This is perhaps the most abstract and most curious instance of personal time on this list. Everytime I read a book, especially fiction, I am reminded that books are physical representations of at least four kinds of time co-existing in one moment, in one physical object.
   - The author and editor devoted considerable time to create the narrative bound in my hand. This time has already happened but is now physically represented by the book;
   - The narrative described within these pages has its own sense of time, whether it's a single night (A Christmas Carol), a lifetime (Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All) generations that see the creation and collapse of a culture (Cloud Atlas) or an epic (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings);
   - I, as the reader, will spend my own time experiencing this narrative. That amount of time will vary depending on how long I take to read it and whether or not I'm enjoying it ("The time flew by!" or "It took me forever to read.");
   - and lastly, the book itself exists as a physical object moving through time as well as space. Old books have their own stories to tell by their type, their binding, their smell, annotations or objects left by previous readers. Time becomes a physical presence in the book itself.
   

These example of personal time barely scratch the surface; Alan Lightman explored many variants of time in Einstein's Dreams, so if you're interested in playing around with these ideas more you may want to check it out. I'd be interested in your experiences of personal time, how you measure the seasons or your life or any other places where time becomes particularly intimate.

It is, of course, time that we love. Not time the abstract concept, but what we do with it. The people we share it with and the experiences that create us.

Tomorrow I'll be looking at two artists I find particularly inspirational. I promise, the post will be nowhere near as wordy as this one! In the meantime, thank you for your time.

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

Monday, Monday...

I know Mondays can be hard. I often find the beginning of the week hits me like a brick wall I wasn't expecting, even though I had every reason and every reasonable expectation to assume that yes, Monday was going to happen. Honestly, it's not as though the kinds of things that happen to me on Mondays are so terrible, just that it's the shift from weekend life back into the more regulated and scheduled work-week that I find so challenging.

On Mondays throughout September I'd like to try to lighten the Monday load a little, soften the blow just a touch and maybe offer a tool to make the week seem a tad less overwhelming.

Here goes.

Remember. Monday is, quite literally, the Moon's Day. There is a reason you are still dreamy and drifty on Monday, you're still half in the realm of starlight and hidden answers. According to the old nursery rhyme, "Monday's child is fair of face," so today you are especially lovely (yes, I know I'm distorting the meaning of the rhyme, but work with me here). And Monday won't last forever. It's only one day.

To pass the time. Part of my challenge with Mondays is regaining focus. To help myself come to wherever and whenever I need to be, I often write lists. So here is your Monday challenge:
Write a list of three things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the day. Only one can be practical, the others have to be joyful, silly, or otherwise intended to help remind you that this is only one more day in your life. Because that's what it is - a day in your life. How cool is that? Feel free to post your list as a comment to give yourself a little bit of accountability, then send me an email for follow-up.

Here's my list:

• Drive home from the house of stories with minimal whining (the one practical thing).
• Take at least three pictures while on the drive.
• Once home, lie down in the backyard and admire the sky. Or the rain. Or the stars. For at least five minutes. Afterwards write down a few of the wonders I saw today.
  

Don't take yourself too seriously. Laugh a little. Here's a site that reliably makes me chuckle. Please note, this isn't for kids. Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Have a wonderful day. The Moon and I are both rooting for you.

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

Sundays are for sharing

September Sundays are for sharing. Here are a few of my favorite places on the web, I hope you enjoy them.

• Keri Smith is an illustrator who has influenced my beliefs in creative play. I love her work.
• PostSecret saves lives and encourages us all to be a little braver through art and the anonymity of the web. I've blogged about it before here.
• Sur la Lune is my favorite fairy tale site. It's not the most academic nor the most lyrical, but for my money it's the most passionate and loving I've come across.
• And last, but not least, my thirst for odd knowledge is often sated by Mental Floss.
  

Enjoy!

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

When I'm not writing...

As mentioned in a previous post, I love stretching creatively. I do this with more or less success, but I usually find that these stretches help me become a better writer. I've also discovered just how much I love creating, whether it's visual arts, writing, cooking, or something else entirely.

Throughout September, Saturdays will be my day to (gulp) share some of my other creative endeavors with you. It might be mixed media arts, a poem, fiction or something else entirely. I thought I would start with this.

I made this in response to a collaborative art challenge, where I had to make collage then give it away. I decided to make one about something that distresses me so I could send it away, out into the world and then not see it again.

It helped.

And if you don't know the words, look them up, they're some of my favorites.

Collage is a particularly functional art form for me, since it gives me permission to build narrative into a visual form without having to worry about my non-existent drawing skills. I've become adept enough at it that I'm going to have a few pieces in galleries in the coming months. I'll let you know when that happens. No doubt you'll hear some about the creative panic it produces. This collage is an early piece, but one of the first I loved enough to be willing to share.

I'd love to see some of your art. Feel free to post links to pieces of art you made in response to challenges in your life, art that helped you work through and release problems.

* * *

In response to the contest on 9/3, Old Gaming Mamma, John, Colleen and Tim all win prizes. If I've not contacted you for your address please email me.

I'd love to see more responses to the question of what feeds you creatively, how you stretch. We all need all the help we can get.

And come back tomorrow for a mishmash of links that I love, a goulash of the web. How's that for a terrible metaphor?

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

The observed world

As you know by now, I'm blogging daily throughout September. To make this a sustainable practice I've come up with a structure for posts. Thus far it is:

Tuesdays - A ramble. An essay of some sort or another, the kind of thing I've been doing all along.

Wednesdays - Work by others that I find inspirational. Poetry, visual arts, music, etc.

Thursdays - Feeding the muse. Creativity boosters and challenges.

Fridays (that would be today) - The observed world. The overheard and seen a.k.a. my life as a voyeur. Not the creepy kind.

I've written before about how much I love keeking (if this makes no sense to you read this). Observing the world, of it but not quite in it, is where I try to live. I love liminal places, where I can linger and pretend I'm watching the best movie ever.

* * *

Walking through a local shopping district this week, I overheard the following exchange between a middle-aged woman and a somewhat younger man. Both were white, missing some teeth and dressed casually in clean clothing.

She: I'm not saying do it for me because I'm your mother -

He: I'm not living large here!

She: You have a kid! You have to take care of her!

He: I'm going nuts with this shit everyday.

She: Oh, you have it so hard, shrimp every night, you come over and clean out the fridge -

He: Fuck you!

She: Would you say that to your kid?

Later on that same walk I saw two older black women, well dressed in neat, out-of-fashion, well cared for dresses. One was much taller than the other and very thin. She had a beatific expression on her face that may have been because she was wearing a truly glorious, large hat. She and her friend were walking slowly through the crowds of the homeless, of the iPod wearing oblivious, of the harried commuters. They were holding hands.

Who have you seen today? What did you hear?

Tomorrow, Saturdays, are for original creative work. Come back for a surprising glimpse into my strange, skewed world.

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

Feeding the muse - some thoughts and a contest

On Thursdays throughout September I'll look at feeding the muse, how we can best serve our creative selves. This is entirely selfish. I'm undertaking this blog challenge to give myself a creative boost and I've been developing a workshop on creativity and play, so writing about it once a week gives me a chance to organize my thoughts with the hoped-for side effect of giving you, the reader, something fun to think about or do.

I struggle to remember myself as a creative person. In the midst of work and commuting and day-to-day life it can get really hard. The deeper I get in the struggle the less creative I feel and the more likely I am to forget that it's when I do something, when I stop complaining and just act, that I remember who I am. I remember the writer, the storyteller, the keek, the assemblage artist, the listener, the cook and so on. We are what we do, not what we say we are. We are defined by our actions.

When I get into one of those stuck places I sometimes try radically different things to push me into new territory. I try something new with the mindset that I can't fail, all I'm going to do is play.

I've become a great proponent of creative play. It feeds me in so many ways, helps me feel revitalized and alive when I might otherwise feel lifeless and limp. By approaching a task or activity as play I have permission to go in any direction without judging myself and it's that voice of judgment that so often turns into a creative roadblock.

This is a sampling of some of the things I do for creative play. Note that I try to get away from words when I'm playing, since much of my usual creativity is around language:

• draw on construction paper with crayons. I deliberately use a medium from childhood so I don't worry about that the medium might drive me to try to be "better." These drawings are terrible - I have the drawing ability of a first grader. It doesn't matter. I'll just play with color and shape. Sometimes I'll draw out story elements and find out something I never knew about the narrative (did you know giants have golden hearts?).
• creative destruction. I'll take several pages from a magazine, rip them up at the same time, then reassemble them into new pages and try to figure out what the new articles, ads and images might mean. It's been a great leaping off point for stories and collage.
• write notes on sticky pads and leave them where others might find them. They say positive things like, "Don't worry. You are beautiful." I feel really good about leaving these notes where I'll never know what happens to them.
• make things to give away. Little things like bookmarks (I cut the blanks out of watercolor paper), snip out an image or two, laminate it and leave it somewhere. Or tiny little alters made from matchboxes or other things I can just leave with a note saying, "free." Since I know it will be claimed by someone I will never meet, presumably by someone who likes it since it's just sitting there and is free, I'm freed from constraints of audience and skill. I can play with the medium knowing it's just something joyful I'm sending out into the world.

This is just a sampling of my creative play. I do these kinds of things when I'm feeling fruitful and especially when I'm not.

So, here's a challenge for you. The first three people who comment on this post with a list of at least four things they do for creative play (ways they get a creative jump-start) and a little bit about how that helps them will receive a tiny present via US Post. It might be an emergency creativity kit or a piece of micro-art or something else entirely. All you need to do is comment with what helps get you out of ruts, how you stretch, how you feed your muse.

I reserve the right to disqualify disingenuous posts, so don't just cut and paste my list or one you find on another website. Make sure I can contact you somehow so I can get your address. And most importantly, have fun. Even if you're not one of the first three, share your ideas. I'd love to see them. I'm sure we'll inspire each other.

Friday we'll take a look at the world around us with a little bit of eavesdropping. Who knows what evil (and humor and love) lurks in the hearts of men (and women)?

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

What inspires me - poetry

On Wednesdays throughout September I'll be looking at other's creative work that I find inspirational.

This week I'd like to look at a few poems. Next week, the 9th, I'll look at a few paintings. We'll see what comes after that.

When I read the right poem at the right time a couple of things happen.

• I feel a deep and aching resonance with both the written word and the world. I feel recognized.
• I feel a need a to write, to at least try to capture this sense of recognition on paper.

This latter phenomenon means I have written a lot of bad poetry in the style of various poets. I'm hoping my loving family will burn this, unread, when I die. At a minimum I hope it makes them chuckle.

Here are a few of the poems that I have found to be particularly moving in the last few months. These are well known, oft-spoken poems, but they have been an anodyne in the midst of chaos.

* * *

I have needed kindness lately, in my own heart, for myself and for others. This poem helps remind me.

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

* * *

And this poem helps me to remember to move through the world with my eyes open. What better way to live?

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

* * *

So, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? When have you known kindness? And what poems move you to tears and joy?

Tomorrow I'll be thinking about creativity, so check back in. See you soon!

Building a better blogger - we can make her better, stronger, faster

The blogger in question being me.

I've been struggling with my vision of myself as a creative being lately. There have been a multitude of external pressures that I've used as an excuse to not write/not tell/not create and I'm getting annoyed. I'm sure this is a recognizable lament for some of you while others are rolling your eyes and have no sympathy.

In an effort to get off my creative butt (boy, that's an image we don't need to explore) I'md giving myself the challenge of a blog post a day for the month of September. This, obviously, is the start. I've registered at NaBloPoMo though I'm not yet sure how much of a difference this will make. I decided to undertake this challenge a) because NaNoWriMo has really worked for me in the past - I've written two 50,000+ word novels as a result - and b) my friends Elsa and Anna said if I blogged daily for a month they would too. You can find Elsa' blog here and Anna's is here.

To make this an achievable goal I've set up a schedule where I'll post on a different topic for each day of the week. Some topics will require more thought than others, so I will theoretically have lighter writing days and heavier. Tuesdays, today, are for the longer kinds of essays I have typically written here on this blog. You'll have to come back tomorrow to find out what Wednesdays are for.

I really miss writing regularly, I miss having a writing practice. I miss feeling like a creative person, it's as though part of me has been in hibernation while I've been working/taking care of others (not taking care of myself)/doing everything but what I say I love. I'm hoping this will help. If you get interested in this project and want to encourage me I'd welcome comments and cheers. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing what this month will bring.

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer

Brace yourself

for news tomorrow.

(this is my attempt to build suspense.)

If you don't know what's on the horizon, come back tomorrow and see. If you do know then come back anyway!

To keep you company in the wait, here's a bit of poetry:

Happiness
by Jane Kenyon
There's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of what was lost, and take from its place the finest garment, which you saved for an occasion you could not imagine, and you weep night and day to know that you were not abandoned, that happiness saved its most extreme form for you alone. No, happiness is the uncle you never knew about, who flies a single-engine plane onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes into town, and inquires at every door until he finds you asleep midafternoon as you so often are during the unmerciful hours of your despair. It comes to the monk in his cell. It comes to the woman sweeping the street with a birch broom, to the child whose mother has passed out from drink. It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker, and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots in the night. It even comes to the boulder in the perpetual shade of pine barrens, to rain falling on the open sea, to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Driving in my car

And the value of public, private spaces.

I have lately had occasion to spend a lot of time in my car, driving back and forth to visit with ill friends, to stressful jobs and to other difficult places. There has been little opportunity to breath and ponder this convergence of events and even less time to check in with myself to see how I am.

My family and loving friends ask me how I’m doing, they’re justifiably concerned, but whenever they ask I smile automatically and say, “I’m okay. I’m holding up. I’m fine. There’s too much to do to worry about it right now.” While they may know this isn’t true they know better than to push. I would love to confide my worries and anxieties, but somehow opening that door seems like too much to do right now, as though once I were to start I just wouldn’t quite be able to stop. Frankly, I don’t feel as though I have the time for the release or the energy to worry about taking care of them taking care of me.

The people who know me best ask how I’m taking care of myself. I’m exercising. I’m writing (though you may not believe it). I’m taking a lot of baths. And I’m driving. It’s when I’m in the false privacy of my own car that I can really let go. I’m sure you know how it is: You turn the radio on far too loud and wail to some song or another, pretending the tears on your cheeks are for the lyrics or the memories they evoke. You know why you’re really crying, but right then you don’t have to explain it.

Other times I rant. I roll up the windows and yell at the universe, asking it why it does what it does. The people driving by either assume I’m on a hands-free call or a loon. It doesn’t really matter. I can rave and finally tell myself whatever it is I need most to hear.

I think these public, private spaces give us a freedom to express ourselves that we may not have with loved ones (we worry about what they may think of us afterwards or if they will be distressed by our pain) or with paid listeners (therapists sometimes think the therapy is more important than the listening and get in the way of letting us hear ourselves). When I’m in my car or writing in my journal in a café or part of an emotional crowd at a movie, I can let myself feel and process without worrying about anyone else.

Some people say cities create a devastating social isolation. This is certainly true sometimes, but I also think these kinds of conglomerations of people give us the opportunity to be alone in public, gives me a chance to sort things out in my own mind and heart without question or interruption but with the reminder that I am one of many. Nothing I feel is utterly unique. I take comfort in that sometimes.

Next time you’re out driving, look around. You might see me, singing my heart out to some Beatles song or another. Smile. And drive away.

(c) 2009 Laura S. Packer