Facebook

It was only a matter of time. Everyone at my university is doing the Facebook thing. You know, you think you're on top of technology with the blog, with e-mail, with the mp3... It began back in January when my students started talking about Facebook. It came up from time to time but I thought, well, that's what the kids are doing now (like text messaging and msn and all that stuff that I know I'll never make time for). But then we had a big "issue" on campus, and suddenly the Facebook groups were where the activism was happening (in large part). Anyway, I have set myself up on Facebook. But since my blog is private from my workplace, I can't post my Facebook information here.

Personally, I think that Facebook would be a fun thing for the MFA-ers to go to. We could even set up a group. You can write on people's wall (like blog commenting), send them gifts, and "poke" them (I haven't done this yet because I don't know what it is and I don't want to do anything rude by mistake). I have hesitated to send out an invitation to join because I know that we are all way too busy (myself included, but I appear to have discovered yet another trigger for me addictive personality). The reason I think it would be good is that it is even more oriented to community building than blogging.

If you think you might be interested, let me know and I'll send you an invitation to sign up and be my "friend". Or you can just go here: http://www.facebook.com/. If you're already registered, so much the better. Seek me out! I don't have very many friends at the moment. :(

First Flowers

The first flowers in the garden have started to bloom just this week. It's so amazing how they just sneak up on us. One day, it's miserable and cold and no end seems to be in sight. Then, suddenly, when you're not even watching, new shoots start to spurt and then...purple flowers.

Wouldn't it be great if writing were like that, where you could just leave it for a few days and then, when you came back to it, it would be fuller and more colourful and textured than it was when you last checked?

My fourth submission is challenging because it is not behaving as cooperatively as my untended garden. I have neglected it and now I want to start nurturing it again, early in the mornings, quietly, before the demands of the day try to divert me away from what really matters. A different kind of patience is required.

Stop!

My head was spinning a lot this week and one of the times that was happening was this afternoon, and in the midst of it I walked past a stop sign. And that took me back to an exercise that I was taught when I was learning how to quit smoking (a long, long time ago). What you do is, if your mind is going all squirrelly and you can't shut it off (back then it was the single-minded craving for a cigarette; today, it's much more diverse and far-reaching!), you picture a big red stop sign and you say "stop!".

So I was walking past this stop sign, and my mind was running hither and yon about this, that and the other, and I remembered that exercise, and I looked right at the sign and yelled "stop!" (okay, I kind of looked around a bit to see if anyone was watching, and I didn't yell it so much as say it very loudly in my mind, silently to myself). And the next thing I knew, everything but the stop sign was gone, and a kind of silence descended, and suddenly I noticed what a beautiful day it was, and I could smell spring, and the light was just perfect, and I realized that today had been quite a productive day in its own little way, and it was Friday, and I had plans to take the evening off, and, well, life can be pretty good when my head and my body are in the same place!

Light as a Feather

Ah, that feeling of clearing a major task off the desk! Add to that the sudden lightening of my workload at the day-job for the next few months, and well, I feel as if the lightness of my present being could just carry me away like a feather on a soft breeze.

I don't even know what to do. I feel as if nothing is a good choice right now, even though technically there is not nothing to do. I had some space open up for me this week in a wonderfully welcome way, so I am taking a little overnight trip to Toronto tomorrow just for fun. The documentary work, for which I had set aside Tuesday and Wednesday, got postponed. I almost cancelled the trip, almost starting filling in the days with other commitments, and then I said "STOP!" I changed my ticket so that I could make it to yoga at 6:30 tomorrow morning and have a nap afterwards if I should choose to do so. I am getting on the train with nothing but a book and my birch shawl (which is coming along quite nicely now that I understand the pattern; it is also light as a feather).

I need to give a special shout out to my sister MFA-ers, congratulations on mailing Sub. Three! Only one more to go this semester. I am so grateful to have you women to lean on.

If anyone knows how to carry this lightness into the daily grind, rather than have it reserved only for those fleeting moments immediately after meeting a deadline, please share your insights!

Maybe It's Something about the Second Semester

Is the second semester a time for a collective crash or something? Did anyone tell us that it is the hardest (God help us if the third is harder)? Or is it the full moon? Or the alignment of the planets? Or global warming?

Yes, I was running with an idea yesterday, yes, it has given me something to go on, yes, there is more there than there was yesterday or the day before. And yes, it is deepening, kind of. But it is also spread out all over the place, with little spikes of promise here and there. Can this really be what I think I want to do for a living?

I've had to make a decision. The decision is that I am willing to send whatever I have to my advisor, in the hopes that she can give me some direction. We're supposed to know that it all starts off badly (the whole shitty first draft idea). We're supposed to know that there is usually a kernel of something that can be nurtured into full bloom with some love and attention (remember all those drafts of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"?). We're supposed to know that fear, insecurity, self-doubt, loss of faith are as much a part of the process as that eureka feeling, moments of triumph, surges of confidence, times where we think "hey, I can do this," and the conviction that the Universe is good.

But on those days where I feel like I just want to crawl out of my skin and slither away from the keyboard, to do something practical or nothing at all, well, those are the days that it is hard to remember the rewards of sticking with it. Maybe one row of birch will get me back on track, knowing the promise that it holds.

Running with an Idea

Have you allowed yourself to run with an idea lately? I mean, truly run with it with no expectations or goals or anything attached to it? After a few days of hitting a wall, today I decided not to have any expectations at all, to allow myself to run with an idea. I picked up some little jots and notes from Saturday, when I did a bit of "empathetic questioning" following Carol Bly's technique in Beyond the Writer's Workshop. This morning I grabbed onto the core idea that came up while I was doing that and decided to run with it. La, la, la...it has born some fruit (not in abundance, but there is some new growth and it is worth chewing on).

The great thing about empathetic questioning is that its only objective is to get deeper into the heart of the piece. Carol Bly really makes me feel better because she says that a first draft inevitably feels flat (oh yes, how I know this to be true!). But that is not where it needs to stay. By asking yourself some questions about whether you are managing to say what you really want to say, trying to get to the "truth," you can push the piece deeper. Since right now I have a very shallow draft the various bits and pieces of which are connected together with a thread that is hardly visible even to myself and would certainly be invisible to anyone else, including my most attentive advisor, empathetic questioning and running with its findings was all that it took to break free from the disjointed surface of this story. It has allowed me to "look forward and plan ahead free-spiritedly." How liberating. Instead of feeling stuck, I feel released.