Following Yonder Star

When I was studying piano, lo those many years ago, my teacher wrote my lesson in a spiral notebook each week. She would list the things I was to practice (Major scales, two octaves, hands together, Czerny Number 5, with metronome 120, Mozart Sonata in G Major, First Movement...) and sometimes put notations about specific areas to focus on in my practice time (Dynamics in the Mozart, even tempo for the 16th notes in the Czerny, so slow down if you need to!)  She kept a box of little gold stars at the side of the piano, an at the end of the lesson each week (if my performance rated it) she would place a gold adhesive star on the notebook page for that week's lesson.

People, I craved those gold stars SO much. To the very last lesson I took from her (when I was 19 years old and engaged to be married!) I still sat with bated breath on that piano bench wondering if she would nonchalantly reach into the box, pluck out a gold star, touch it to the tip of her tongue and place it on my notebook. (She did.)

My husband, who was also one of her students, has said the same thing. That tiny mark of approbation, usually given with no other fanfare than a satisfied nod of her perfectly coiffed hair, was worth a million dollars.

I still think most people (especially children) respond better to positive reinforcement than negative consequences. One of the most successful strategies I ever used to get my son to clean up his room was the ribbon reward system. Each night I "inspected" his room, and if it passed muster, he got a ribbon. At the end of the week, if he had seven ribbons, he was allowed to pick a prize. The prizes weren't "things," but certificates he could cash in for a trip to the arcade, or for staying up an hour past bedtime, or a game of Candyland. This worked to help him get in the habit of picking up his toys and see that there were positive rewards for cleanliness! (Well, it worked until he was a teenager, and then all bets were off in the room cleaning department.)

In that same way, my piano teachers little gold stars gave me the extra impetus to practice my lesson each week. The star meant I had pleased her, and because I respected her, I wanted very much to earn her affirmation.

As grown ups, we don't get a lot of gold stars. More often than not, we only hear about the stuff we do wrong. Deep down inside, I think most of us are still tender hearted enough to need a little soul-stroking once in a while, even if it's for something as simple as preparing a meal or remembering to take out the trash without being reminded.

It's the little gold stars that give us the impetus to keep going, even when the going is difficult and we think we'll never make it through.

Here's hoping someone puts one on your spiral notebook today.

Write On Wednesday: Let's Start at the Very Beginning

I'm on the cusp of a new writing project, one I've been pondering for a long time, and so I've been thinking about how different and difficult it is for a writer to start at the very beginning. Unlike other artists, the writer  begins with nothing other than an idea, a thought, a fleeting glimpse of character or concept. A musician has notes on the page, the potter molds a lump of clay, the photographer a subject in her lens. Yet the writer - all we have are words in our heads. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to look at or listen to and think, oh a bit more contour is required, a softer dynamic is needed.

Sitting before my screen this morning, in the two hour window of writing time I have allotted for myself today, I think about looking for a dictionary and leafing through it, just to gaze for a moment at the tools of my trade laid out before me in black and white, maybe leaf through it and find a few that catch my eye, a few that I could pluck off that page and place somewhere onto my own.

I've decided the real building blocks of a writer's trade aren't words, but thoughts. The words are vital, of course, but they are the material, the conduit to convey those thoughts to the world. I'm pretty good with words. I'm not so good at thinking, or at least the kind of quiet and thoughtful thinking that leads to good writing. I have to work at mindfulness, at focusing on the subject at hand. Like most people, my head is filled with a million thoughts, trampling monkey like through my brain. Should I check my e-mail one last time? Who has posted on Facebook? What an interesting article someone linked on Twitter. Oh, the dogs need to go out and I really should brush them when they come in. Oops, forgot to make the grocery list. And where is that recipe for lentil soup I wanted to copy?

Plunked down in the middle of real, everyday life, it's difficult to still the mind long enough to contemplate anything, much less an all-important beginning.

Still, I enjoy the beginnings of things, and it is, as the song says, a very good place to start. There were times when I had to start at the middle of things - musical things, work things - and it's never quite as satisfying as beginning right at the inception, being there from the get-go and seeing it through to the conclusion.

A New Year is a good place for a new beginning. I have determined to make this year a writing year, to get really serious about this book I want to write. I'm setting definitive goals - a first draft (shitty though it might be) of one chapter per month. I've enrolled in a writing class* to help me get started and keep me on track.

And this morning I began, pulling over 2000 words out of nothing but my head, heart, and experience.

The very beginning.

I've started.

How about you? Are you at the very beginning of something?

*If you're interested in beginning a new writing project, there are still a couple of spots in the writing class I'm taking. A referral from me gets you a 20% discount too :)

Into the Light

We are only just past the winter solstice and already I sense the presence of more light at the end of the day. I am always seeking light, wandering the house in the early morning opening  blinds, lighting candles and turning on lamps as soon as dusk settles in. It isn't just that my old eyes need light to read (although they do, they really do) but that my spirit needs it to breathe. Although I love real light, love pulling open all the window shades and letting in pour in, I often I keep draperies pulled tight across the window to my soul. Curtains of guilt, self doubt, fear, and regret not only prevent light from entering my heart, but also prevent me from allowing my own inner light to shine. They have hung there for years, strewn with cobwebs and laden with dust.

As we move into a new year, I want so much to pull aside those musty coverings, expose the things that hold me back and plummet my spirit into darkness. I want to let light shine on my hopes and dreams  - the ones that tell me my life is worthwhile, that I have something to offer the world, that my love can make a difference.

This morning I will put away the wreaths and ornaments and Christmas candles, tuck them safely into boxes and bags where they will wait patiently until next December as I live out the year in front of me. As lovely as they are, their time has passed and the house will feel cleaner and brighter without them.

This afternoon I will spend some time with these pages. I will give myself the gift of seeking clarity for my spirit, purpose for my mind, and a focus for my work. And I will ponder the message in this short film by Katrina Kenison, whose new book I am so very eager to read.

Mostly I will look for light.

Inside and out.

May your year be illuminated by love and peace. And may all your dreams come true.

*Image by photographer Lars Ven De Goor

TLC Tours: an Extraordinary Theory of Objects

What an extraordinary little book this was. Subtitled "A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris," it is a series of illustrated essays that depict author Stephanie Lacava's passage through her rather dark and disturbed adolescence, one marked by anxiety and deep depression. The story  begins when the family moves to Paris during the author's early teens, and her already perilous sense of self seems to fragment even more as she struggles to find her footing in a foreign country. The reader sometimes feels lost right along with her, as she wanders the streets of Paris in her little slip dresses and cardigan sweaters, looking for her own particular set of wonders. Reading the book was something like viewing Lavaca's world through a stereopticon¹. Each essay is a scene in her ongoing saga of isolation and the obsession with objects which seems to ease her anxiety.   It is through her extraordinary collection of objects - from a fascination with Jean Seberg and poison arrow tree frogs to a box of glass eyeballs - that she orders and makes sense of a world in which she feels alienated.

The book becomes as much a field guide² as it does a memoir, because the objects that attract Lacava's attention are described in detailed footnotes, as well as illustrated in exquisite pen and ink drawings by Matthew Nelson.   The book is designed beautifully, measuring only 5 x7 inches, with the kind of cloth cover and beveled pages rarely seen in mass market hardcovers.

An intriguing, brutally honest trek through the world of an outsider, and how this very extraordinary young woman learned to cope.

Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

 ¹A stereopticon is something like a slide projector which has two lenses, usually one above the other. These devices date back to the mid 19th century and were a popular form of entertainment and education. Americans William and Frederick Langenheim introduced stereopticon slide technology—slide shows of projected photographs on glass—in 1850. For a fee of ten cents, people could view realistic photographs with nature, history, and science themes. At first, the shows used random images, but over time, lanternists began to place the slides in logical order, creating a narrative. This "visual storytelling" directly preceded the development of the first moving pictures. Before long, nearly every parlor in America had a stereopticon with a series of popular slides often featuring natural wonders of the world.

²A field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife, plants, animals, or other objects of natural occurrence. It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects.  It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with paintings or photographs and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification keys to assist with identification, but the publicly accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, color, shape, location or other descriptors. The most popular early field guides in the United States were published in the late 1800's, and were guides to plants and birds.

Simply Having...

There are things I love about the Christmas season. The sense of hope and excitement, the renewed emphasis on doing things for others, the traditional activities and events. The decorations and lights - I really love Christmas lights.

My first memories of Christmas are of the sharp pine scent from the tree, my father and grandfather muscling it in through the front door while my mother and grandmother scurried behind them sweeping fallen needles off the dark wood floor. I hovered in the doorway on the other side of the room, watching from afar as they wrestled it into place in the red metal stand. Once they finally secured it in place - an operation that usually resulted in much grunting and groaning and half-muttered expletives - the fun part could begin.

Decorating.

Lights, strands and strands of big, bulbous lights in all the primary colors. Plus bubble lights, thin colored cylinders containing effervescent liquid that magically burbled away. Tinsel - skinny, silvalicious strands draped all over the branches. The ornaments came last, blue, gold, red, green, silver balls of thinnest glass.

When it was all done, my mother tucked a red felt skirt around the bottom.

My father switched out all the lights, save for those on the tree.

Oh, the glory of that room bathed in the rainbow colored glow of the Christmas tree. It washed over me like the warmth of baptismal water. It filled my tiny spirit with excitement and wonder and peace.

That's the feeling I keep looking for now, more than 50 years after those first early memories of Christmas times. That feeling of being enveloped in wonder, in love, of being cherished and nurtured.

When I was growing up, Christmas was easy to navigate. My maternal grandparents lived with us. Several of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side were nearby. My paternal grandfather lived five miles away. My father's siblings and all my cousins lived within hailing distance. We saw them all at some point on the Christmas Eve-Christmas Day continuum.

Now, everyone in my family is scattered hither and thither. My father, gravely ill with cancer and Parkinson's disease, is in Florida. My mother, frail but still fighting, is here in Michigan. My only child, with his wife and child, are in Texas. My grandparents are, of course, long dead and buried, and most of my aunts and uncles with them.

No one wrestles a pine tree into the living room. We just pull one out of the box (pre-lit) and plug it in.

There is no juggling of schedules in order to make it to all the relatives houses before the end of  Christmas day.

Tonight, we had my mother here to our new home, and celebrated our tiny Christmas. I made dinner, and she sat at our dining room table which she says is the most beautiful dining room table she has ever seen. She picked at her food, as she is wont to do now. She opened her presents - new warm pajamas, candy and nuts, and the traditional calendar featuring pictures of the two little dogs we all love so dearly. She went home to her big house, where she will be alone for the next week.

Tomorrow, my husband and I will fly to Texas to visit our son, daughter-in-law and grandson for Christmas. We are blessed beyond measure to have this new child in our family, to have his parents together to raise him with love and security. We are in awe of him, and would be perfectly happy spending every day just watching him do what he does.

But tonight when I drove my mother home, I realized that I will never have my family all together at Christmas again. I wonder what it would have been like -  if my parents had not gotten divorced, if my son had not moved away, if we had all stayed in one place like people used to do. I imagine my grandson here in my living room playing with his toys, my son and daughter in law sprawled on the floor beside him and my parents tucked side by side on the sofa. The dogs would sleep quietly on the hearth (except for Molly, who snores something awful) while the fire gently blazed. Jim and I would pour a glass of wine and survey the scene.

I would turn off all the lights save for those on the huge pine tree we had wrestled into that empty corner by the staircase.

And I would be bathed in wonder and love.

Wishing you the peace and beauty of Christmas, the joy of family, and the hope of a bright tomorrow.