I moved to Los Angeles six years ago with a silenced voice and a broken spirit. I was married at the time, to the drummer in my band, and we'd been on the road touring full time for about six months. There was no planned end for the tour, and until a few weeks earlier, no plan to settle in California. There had been no plan to settle at all, actually. We just booked gigs and drove around the country with our bass player, sleeping in relative's spare rooms, stranger's lumpy couches, and on rock club floors. Every day we drove into a different town, every night we drank beer, and every morning we drove off.
It's strange to talk about a music tour and realize that my prominent memories have nothing to do with music. My then-husband and I had spent the money we got from our wedding gifts to buy a van that we rigged to run on recycled vegetable oil. Just before our first anniversary we found a new bass player (our original beloved one had no interest in hitting the road) and the three of us loaded the van with all our most prized possessions - drums, guitars, amplifiers, microphones. We drove out of Boston in the Spring of '06 with an extended Chevy cargo van full of songs and dreams. I grew up going to folk festivals. All my heroes were singers and road warriors. I'd dreamed of touring for as long as I'd been writing songs. Since my first east coast road trip from college back home, I'd wanted to see the country. My drumming husband and I met at Berklee College of Music where we both did graduate work, and then gave up our jobs and apartments to live out our rock star dreams. Right from the start I felt ungrounded. Despite the good attendance of our shows at the beginning of the tour, as we made our way down the eastern seaboard I had a sinking feeling. Not sinking, actually. More like drowning. Locked in the van for hours on end, I lost all sense of schedule. Always surrounded by people, I misplaced all sense of creativity. I filled my days with numbers and papers instead of poetry and melody. I sent business emails and phone calls to bookers and promoters, and counted the cash at the end of the night. The unfamiliarity of each new town made me too anxious to venture far from the van. The only exercise I got was the heavy-lifting of sound equipment at the beginning and end of each night. The only time I sang was for the hour or two of the gig. The rest of my days were silent. By the time we got to Los Angeles, it was just the two of us. I'd started having emotional breakdowns on stage, crying at lyrics I'd sung for years, alternately self-medicating with coca-cola and gin-and-tonics. One night in New Hope, PA the tourist season had ended and the club was near-empty. We played the opening bars to our first song and my throat choked. I cried so hard I couldn't sing. We dropped the bass player in Virginia with his folks, and pointed the van west. I didn't care where we went - I'd go anywhere my husband chose, as long as I never had to sing again. He picked L.A, and to this day I believe this was one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me. Almost a year into our lives as Californians, a woman I worked with but barely knew gave me a flyer for a 12-week workshop based on the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I didn't know anything about the book or the workshop, but I instinctively knew that this was what I needed for some deep healing of my creative spirit. I hadn't sung in over a year, hadn't played guitar, hadn't written a song. I was working long hours in the celebrity endorsements department at a top talent agency, lost and trying desperately to find a new dream, a new career. The Artist's Way workshop that winter was a spirit-saver. I drank up the weekly meetings like I'd been parched. I was parched - desperately thirsty to be around artists of any sort, deeply needing to tap back into my own creative depths. Those twelve weeks helped me begin stitching my creative spirit back together. After the twelve weeks were over, I took some more workshops with facilitator Kelly Morgan, the inspiring woman who I began to consider my mentor. Soon, I became Kelly's assistant in the workshops, meeting weekly at her home with a small group of other assistants, and helping to hold the space for new Artist Way students' healing. Ultimately the workshop helped me to unveil other desires. I found my longing to regain body-wellness during those workshops and in my weekly one-hour "artist dates" that the book prescribed. I remembered my love of yoga, and found Rising Lotus Yoga, a beautiful studio near where I worked. That summer I delved deeply into my yoga practice in a personal 40-day challenge in which I practiced every day (resting every 7th day). It was the discipline and surrender that I needed, inspired by Boston yoga teacher Baron Baptiste and the transformational journeys of biblical teachers. Later that year I enrolled in the Rising Lotus Yoga teacher training program, and spent the next nine months studying yoga and unraveling my marriage. Whatever is no longer serving us, the yoga practice teaches us, begins to fall away. I felt renewed, like a phoenix rising from the ash, like a lotus growing out of the muck. In the years since those Artist Way workshops with Kelly and my yoga teacher training at Rising Lotus, I re-found my voice. I remembered my love of writing. I discovered that I love teaching. I learned to nourish myself with good food made well. I would be remiss to not mention the love that has come into my life through my dear man Darby and his beautiful daughters. Songwriter Patty Griffin has a line in her song Love Throws A Line: "We run out of luck / We run out of days / We run out of gas a hundred miles away from a station.... Just before we can't go any further / Love throws a line to you and me". The Artist's Way, Kelly, Rising Lotus, yoga, California.... they all threw me a line, a life saver when I was drowning in the muck of dreams that were no longer sustaining me. Last year, when I began The List of 100 Things, I included two lines about a vision I had: #60 - revise creative yogi proposal#61 - send creative yogi proposal to Rising Lotus Inspired by all these things and wanting to share the healing, I've created a one-day workshop for the yoga community of creative spirits. There are so many students I have met at yoga studios and in classes who chat with me later about their screenplays, their books, their music, dance, films, paintings. Finally, because of last year's List of 100 Things, I created this workshop. I sent the proposal to Rising Lotus sometime in 2012 and they loved it. We booked a date right at the beginning of 2013 because since it seemed the perfect time to fan the flames of the new year's creations.... and now the workshop is coming up. That I created this workshop (step one!) and moved past my fear of rejection (step two!) were major accomplishments from my List last year. On January 13 I'll check off item #4 on my List for 2013: #4 - Teacher Creative Flow workshop Here's a link to the event, if you are in Los Angeles and interested in attending. There's early bird pricing - only $35 for the 3-hour workshop. We'll do a mixed level yoga practice (appropriate for all levels) to start and then move into writing and interactive exercises. I already know some of the folks who have signed up for this, and I'm looking forward to us all inspiring each other as we uncover, discover, and tap more deeply into our creative spirits. Here's the blurb from the poster about the workshop: In this 3-hour workshop we will embark on a hero’s journey – because we are all the heroes of our own story – and unleash the creative flow through movement of the body and the pen. We will tap creative inspiration and loosen the grip of hesitancy and fears by releasing the blocks of our past stories. This workshop will begin with a 1-hour yoga practice. We’ll focus on breath, movement, and sweat to quiet the surface thoughts and find our inner strength, balance and joy. Following the asana, we will move into writing practice, playful sensory explorations, and small- and large-group interactive exercises to spark, inspire, and unlock the creative flow. Sunday January 13, 2013 12:30—3:30pm $35 adv / $40 day of This workshop is open to all levels of yoga practice. All types of creative spirits are welcome — actors, writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, painters, cooks, parents, teachers… Bring your journal, a pen, and your curiosity. Rising Lotus Yoga 13557 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks 818-990-0282 •risinglotusyoga.comm xoxo, A I have been reading Ernest Hemingway lately. He writes in "A Moveable Feast" that he would go to great lengths to think about writing only when he was actually sitting down with pen in hand. The rest of the time he'd allow his subconscious to do its work by distracting himself with social engagements and the books of other writers. I understand the subconscious, or at least the theory of the subconscious. Oftentimes I wake today with the solution to yesterday's elusive idea, or emerge from a yoga practice with the clarity I had been missing all day. I've resisted this blank page all morning because I have two thoughts swimming around and I haven't been sure which one to explore. The result, of course, is that I have been mining the internet for articles to read, looking for complete distraction and hoping that while my back is turned one of the two ideas will emerge dominant. During this year of The List I have also discovered that running and writing have been consciously and intrinsically linked. I'm fairly new (again) to them both as a disciplined practice, and The List has entwined them as both near-daily practices. During my solo runs I often turn my mind to a story that I am trying to work out. The thumping of my feet on the pavement somehow loosens my mind to ideas. Throughout the Odessa months I walked through Texas conversations while running my route here in Los Angeles. I'd write in the mornings, run at noon, and sometimes write again in afternoon or just let it go till the next day. For better or worse, about 2 months ago, just around the time Odessa was finished, I found a running buddy. This has helped immensely with my mileage increase, but now many of my weekday runs are spent in conversation instead of quiet contemplation. So, the two thoughts that are swimming around in my mind today are Time and Running. Running, because I have already posted here about writing (and will surely continue to do so), and as I said, they are intrinsically linked. Time, because earlier this week I received this email from a friend: I woke up in the middle of the night thinking this: you have a full-time job in addition to cooking, blogging, singing, teaching yoga, writing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Where do you work full time and how do you do that, if you don't mind me asking. While I slept and allowed my mind to soften into subconscious problem solving, my friend was losing shuteye over my schedule. And so here we have it, it looks like today I am writing about Time. By the way, have you seen this poster? This manifesto is on one of those magnets I see at Whole Foods or on a friend's refrigerator. Maybe it's on your refrigerator. Our fridge is a jumble of report cards and drawings, but if I were to find space for a reminder-type magnet, this might be the one I put up. I generally hate being told what to do, especially when it brings up that "no duh" reaction, but this is one of those calls-to-action that I love to read in the checkout line, partly as a reminder and partly as a positive reflection of my own life. It's that line in the second section that really speaks to me. If you don't have enough time, stop watching TV. And the one before that, about the job and quitting. With all due respect to my friends who work in the entertainment industry (I'm included in that group, actually), and with all recognition that there is some excellent programming out there, TV is useless. Unless you are an actor or some other creator-type who can learn from active TV-watching, it is a waste of time. Most of us tend to watch TV passively, so when I say it is a waste of time I mean it in the big sense - TIME. Our precious 70 years. Our 25,550-some-odd days as humans. The divine gift of life. The likely one chance we have to exercise our true nature as creators. The active choice of how to live. The act of being alive. Who cares about life after death. Let's talk about life before death. Now I must pay attention to one of my chatty inner voices. This one wants me to apologize: I don't mean to insult you. What do I know? I get up on my blogosphere soapbox and think I have the answers, but perhaps I am just a different bird. This is the way I choose to live. We all have to make the right choices for ourselves, and truly I do not judge someone for watching a show. But then, you did lose sleep over my schedule last night, and you did ask the question... It's just that until I left home for college, I watched way too much TV. By my senior year of high school I was already feeling the crunch of time and the regret of wasting my early years with something that distracted me from my real work. The work that my spirit longed to do. My soul path. My creative life. I don't know how to say it any other way, and I can't get more specific than that. It has less to do with specificity of project and more to do with intentional living. As I packed my bags for college I wondered how much better of a musician I would have been if not for the sitcom-squandered early years. Time is all we have, I knew that at 17. I left home with 2 duffels, a trunk, a new laptop, and my trusty clarinet. I never regretted leaving that old black and white set my folks had saved for me. My dad still doesn't get it, but all I can say to him is that I love my very full, but very creative, intentional life. So, here were my thoughts as I answered my friend's email: 1) WHAT TELEVISION?: Everyday I look at the clock and know that I will spend 8 hours at my office day job, exchanging precious time for peace of mind. I run for an hour during lunch. At 6pm I will get in the car and either drive to teach yoga, and later do my own yoga practice, or just get right to a yoga or spin class. Afterwards would I rather sit in front of the TV, or read aloud to the girls, connect with Darby, work on songs, edit photos, tweak recipes, read Hemingway? The weekends hold endless soul-filling activities, some of which I get to almost weekly like the farmers market, some of which happen only occasionally, like gardening or visiting the arboretum or hosting a party at our house. Would I rather watch a movie? Yes, about six or twelve times a year, I would, and I do, snuggled up with Darby on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and a bottle of hot sauce. Luckily all we have is a flat screen and a DVD player. Have I mentioned how Darby and I are perfectly suited for each other? It was almost seamless when we merged our homes. 2) FINANCIAL VERSUS CREATIVE NEEDS: Since my post-college days I've been trying to find the balance between my creative and financial needs. I've bounced between the walls of creative endeavors (with no income) to financial endeavors (with no creativity). During 2006, when I was a full-time touring musician, I realized how my peace of mind and dependability of income are related. The salary from my day job is, shall I say, not a hellavulot. As it turns out, that's been somewhat of a blessing. It only meets my basic financial needs, but along with the company health insurance, that's a pretty good foundation. It meets my foundational needs -- financial well-being, physical health, food, and shelter. My other three careers - writing/performing music, teaching yoga, and personal chef/catering - are all creative and bump up my income enough to satisfy my cravings for buying gifts for the people I love, taking little holiday escapes with Darby, and good olive oil. I don't have a lot of unscheduled free time. I prefer generosity, but for right now I parse out my time carefully. Big projects take longer. The relationship between creativity and financial satisfaction is a balance I am still trying to work out, but there's an energy lately that I dig. This period of my life is the first in which I truly feel both creatively fulfilled and financially stable. Eventually, as more of my income is derived from creative sources, I will be able to find more balance in my schedule. 3 ) WRITE LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER: I'm dedicated to writing for a couple of hours a few times a week, at least, which means getting as efficient as possible with my work. I've always been a morning person, and my best writing happens at 9am. My intention is to write Monday through Friday. Sometimes I can organize my day-job work to allow for some writing time, sometimes I cannot, but most importantly I strive to not allow the internet to become what TV used to be. Even on a day like today when I have been a bit scatterbrained, I consider a day spent writing, time well spent. 4) KEEPING THE VISION: when I feel exhausted and a bit overwhelmed, I try to keep my vision on an upcoming short getaway with Darby. It helps on the weeks that hold tons of cooking, teaching, and music gigs. They are all things I love to do, but when I'm a bit low on sleep and quality time with Darby, it helps to have Big Sur on the calendar. 5) WORK THAT BODY: I exercise at least once daily, often twice, with a 5 mile run during lunch and/or a spin class/yoga practice in the evening. The running thing is a direct result of The List, but even before that I always went for walks. On the weekends I usually just get a long run Saturday and a good yoga practice Sunday. Our bodies were meant to move, and being a writer/musician is sendentary work. Our minds work better when our bodies work well. Also, despite the time commitment, I find that in general I am more productive when I am getting regular exercise. 6) THE TOP: Darby. He's the pirate's booty. He's the treasure chest of gold. He's the top, he's the tower of Pisa, he's the smile on the Mona Lisa... I deconstructed my life with the tiny glimmer of hope that there was a relationship like this for me in this lifetime. There is. I have it. I know I've won the jackpot, and I do not take it for granted. Darby is the single most important priority in my life. He and I both know that essential to having a healthy relationship with each other is having a healthy relationship with ourselves. Together we support each other in finding and creating our individual visions of the lives we want as individuals and as a couple. All that said, we have just booked a one-night getaway to the beach. Sure, the beach is only about 15 miles from our house, but we rented a little cottage in Venice Beach for one night next weekend. Completely unscheduled for one night and the two days on either side of it, we will lose track of time, soften our gaze, and breath a little deeper.
#57 -- spend a lazy day at the beach Sometimes it only takes a 15 mile drive to get a world away. A. Divine '09. 2009 flipped my life inside out and shook out anything that wasn't super-glued down. It started with an angel card in a yoga class on the first morning of the year. Of course I pulled the birth card, and of course I interpreted it in the easiest way possible - a baby. I wanted one. I wanted to go through pregnancy, childbirth, babyhood. The man I married said he wanted the same thing, and I suppose it was a true gift that he never stepped up to the plate. We never had enough money, he said. He wasn't ready yet, he said. We'd be ready when his music career finally took off, he said. Meanwhile I began to prepare my body. By the end of '07, I'd nixed all refined sugars, flours, animal products, and non-organic foods from my diet. I ate mindfully, I exercised more. I practiced meditation. I found a yoga studio and went to classes every day. Quietly on my mat I sweated out the toxins, let my breath expand my lungs and heart, let my body dance so that I would be strong enough to carry a child. Then on New Years Day 2009 I pulled that birth card and my heart fluttered around in my chest as my breath caught in my throat. Was this the year? They say that as we deepen our yoga practice, things that no longer serve us begin to fall away. I became stronger, more flexible, more balanced. But just as they say, the things that were no longer serving me in an positive, authentic, healing way began to fall away... like my marriage. After 8 months of untangling a nagging feeling that had started as a funny feeling and then permeated every waking thought and sleeping dream, one day I looked over at the man I had married and realized that I did not want to raise a child with him. I did not want to navigate life with him. I did not want to wake up and go to sleep with him for a lifetime. My life with him - the life in me - had shrunk smaller and smaller until I felt like I'd been painted into only the tiniest spot of light. My inner light was still shining, but it was like a candle in the darkest of nights. He was a good man but not good for me. I was too young to settle but old enough to appreciate how precious life is. I could not write the next 40 years or so away for a tarnished ring and a misplaced vow. Ultimately it was the nighttime dreams of shattered windows and dark corners that reminded me of the greatest relationship I would ever have - the one with myself. I could no longer settle for the least common denominator of good enough. My spirit wanted, needed, to be lived fully, to celebrate the gift of whatever may be left of my 70 or 80 years. My heart banged at the bars of my ribcage, begging to be set free. If I cut myself loose from my marriage, without a solid promise of romance or child in my future, at least my spirit would be free. I came to the point where I could not live any other way. Through the months of unraveling the stitches of my life, I filled journal pages in self-exploration. What did I want from life? What did I want in a relationship? What was I looking for in a partner? What were my deepest desires, my hopes, my values? As I unpacked the boxes for my new apartment, I embraced solitude. I spent quiet evenings curled up with my kitten, reading yoga philosophy and indulgent novels. I took photos with my new camera and sat in the glow of my computer learning how to crop, dodge, and burn. I cooked meals and poured crystal glasses of wine, just for myself, remembering how to nourish myself. I slowed my pace at the flower stand and brought home peonies and lavender, because they are beautiful and completely un-useful. Darby and I met on July 4th that year, divine '09, and slowly invited each other into each others lives. We spiraled inwards for months with brief conversations at the yoga studio or online, until Sept. 3 when he came to my apartment for an evening of music exchange, conversation, cookies, and prosecco. We kissed that night for the first time. From the very core of my heart-wisdom, against the logic of my mind that told me we still barely knew each other, I knew that this man would be my deepest love. We moved slowly, toeing the edge of the cliff for weeks on end, but the gravity of love tugged at my cells and it was everything I could do to keep from falling fast, far, deep. We practiced yoga together, both on our rolled out side-by-side mats, and in our careful, conscious movements as we entangled our hearts and lives. Zen ‘10. We spent the lazy day of New Years 2010 in each others arms until we laced up our hiking shoes and climbed some local trails. Darby and I made it back down the mountain just as the sun was setting on the first perfect day of a new year. I do not know why today I am writing about those months of '09. This blog was not created for writing my life story, or at least yesterday when I began this I didn't think it was. I've never written about those last months of my marriage, except in my closely-guarded journals, but it feels right to me now, without knowing where any of this is going, to just write what comes and worry about the direction later. It feels somehow like that's where the story of my current life begins, so perhaps it is fitting. Besides, I've been having only fits and starts with #98. #98 - Embark on a new writing project Maybe whatever comes out here will help birth the new project. Or perhaps this is the new project. I began today's post about New Years '09. The List Of 100 Things To Do in 2012 also began on New Years. Forgive the abrupt fast-forward. There is no easy way for me to close up the entire unraveling that occurred in '09 and then quickly knit you the tapestry of what emerged later that year. Just know that Darby and I fell completely in love, and have entirely entwined our lives in a beautiful, sexy, conscious way. These past years I have grieved about not having a baby of my own, and I am learning about the other ways to be a mother, as step mom for two incredible girls who just this week began 3rd and 7th grade. On New Years Eve, as the calendar flipped into 2012, Darby and I rolled out our yoga mats next to each other at the studio where we both teach and often practice. The NYE intention-setting class was the only plan we'd made for our holiday evening. We'd created a new cooking project that autumn - Love Them Apples - and we were entirely exhausted. What would 2012 bring? More of all the good stuff life had lately been sending, along with some extra sleep, I hoped. I always have my journal with me on NYE, so I don't miss anything in case some insight on the past year strikes. Without any plan to do so, sitting on my yoga mat that night, I began this list of 100 Things To Do in 2012. Maybe it was the need for a vacation with my man, or the desire for a few quiet days in nature, but #1 surprised me. #1 - go back to Big Sur with Darby Last autumn, just after Love Them Apples started, we ran off for two wonderful days in Big Sur. We fell in love with the moody coast line and redwood forests. Neither of us had ever been there before, so Big Sur is entirely ours to share and explore together. We found a delightful place to stay on the south side of the region called Treebones and are smitten with the charming folks who work/live there, the magical organic garden that feeds the restaurant, and the quirky places to spend the night. As I started creating and living through The List, Big Sur has been on the top of my mind. We did go back this past Spring. It was perfect, as I knew it would be. We spent our days jade-hunting on the rocky beach, hiking through golden grasses high above the Pacific, enjoying indulgent meals at Big Sur Bakery and Treebones, breathing in wildflowers everywhere, talking about everything and nothing, and holding each other through the chilly nights in the Sibley tent campsite.
Between the kids' school schedule, music festivals that we're playing, and yoga retreats we're cooking for, it looks like I won't get to cross off #85. #85 - go away for a week with Darby We still need a holiday though, so we may end up running off for another short 3 day/ 2 night trip to Big Sur this Fall. Perhaps in 2013 we'll get our week away. For now I'm not at all bummed about possibly having a few more days this year in what may be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. |
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