Write On Wednesday: Creative Confabulation

When my son was in elementary school, he developed a fascinating creative friendship with another little boy in his class. The two of them spent hours together creating a multi-layered cartoon series based on the Star Trek TV show, but replacing all the characters with cartoon animals. (Kirk was a kangaroo and Spock was a spaniel.) Their version was called Car Trek, and it included written stories, books and books of cartoon panels, as well as audio and video recordings.

It was serious business for these two 8 and 9 year olds - more important to them than almost anything else (including school work, of course). They talked on the phone every night, plotting and planning the next episode. They had long discussions about the proper shade of Prismacolor pencil, and their biggest disagreement once occurred over whether to use Gray Number 2 or 3 for the Enterprise. (If my son reads this, he’ll probably correct me on the color numbers because I’m sure he remembers them 25 years later.)

The point is, they learned early on the benefits of creative collaboration, and in the process produced literally hundreds of drawing, stories, and recordings. 

Over the years of my writing online, I’ve made a lot of marvelous and inspiring friends - other writers, poets, photographers, and artists. We’ve communicated back and forth on our blogs, on social media, in e-mail exchanges, and once or twice on the telephone. 

Mostly though, these creative friendships are conducted from afar.  For a while now, I’ve been craving a creative friend in “real time,” the kind you can meet for coffee every so often to share ideas and cheer each other on. Although I have a lot of friends who are creative, we don’t connect on quite the same plane. We’ve met and forged our friendship over different areas - church or music groups or volunteer activities -  and it seems that’s where they’re destined to stay. 

Recently though, I made contact with a professional creative who is practically in my backyard. Christa is an astounding musician, who performs professionally throughout our area. She lives in the same town I do, and is a full time artist/entrepreneur, who makes her living through music. She has been so supportive of Life In General, and we decided to meet and see how we might help bolster each other in our respective creative pursuits. 

We met last week for our first creative confabulation, and it was fabulous. It was energizing and inspiring to meet someone like Christa, who is doing the hard work necessary to make a living pursuing her passion. It reminded me again how relatively easy I have it in comparison, but inspired me to work all the harder for that very reason.

lthough we’re not in exactly the same creative fields, I think our collaboration will be mutually beneficial anyway. Here’s why:

1. Mutual accountability: During our meeting, we brainstormed some things we each could do to promote our latest ventures - a CD for her, and Life In General for me. Then we each came up with a list of things to do before our next meeting. Having that accountability factor, knowing we’ll meet again and have to “report in” is a great motivator, especially for a couple of perfectionists like we are. 

2. Creative Energy: There’s something about verbalizing ideas that incites a different sort of creative thinking. As we talked, ideas seemed to appear in the classic light bulb manner. “What about creating a book club package for Life In General?” Christa suggested when I mentioned I’d been invited to a couple of local book clubs who were reading the book. “You could offer a complete package including copies of the book to local libraries, and I bet they’d love to feature a local author!” Ambitious and creative ideas come from brainstorming out loud.

3. Mutual Support: It’s wonderful to have the moral support that comes from someone who understands the creative process. But as we talked we realized there were concrete ways we could support each other as well. Writing reviews for each other’s books and CD’s, linking to each other in our social media accounts, being a source of connection in the real world as well as in our individual creative sphere.

“Every man works better when he has companions working in the same line, and yielding to the stimulus of suggestion, comparison, emulation.” Henry James praised the power of group activity long ago, and certainly some of the most creative work has been born out of artists circles like the Impressionist painters, the Bloomsbury group of writers. Although I’ve always considered myself as someone who works better alone, I’m seeing a great benefit to spending real time with someone who provides the stimulation of “suggestion, comparison, and emulation” - Creative Confabulation.

The Sunday Salon: Sunday Soothing

With snow falling steadily outside, I can tell the weather forecast is going to prove true. We are in for a good, solid winter storm today, and I’m so thankful neither of us have anywhere to go. 

I am happy to see the last of January, even though we’re beginning this new month with rough weather. January was a stinker of a month. I’ve been sick on and off for most of it, one of my dogs has been sick on and off for most of it, my mom is not doing well. The weather is cold and icy, it’s difficult to get my outside walks in and they often lift my spirits as well as get my blood pumping. 

Then there was the  Parenthood finale. <sob>

Lest you think it is always sweetness and light at chez Becca, do not be fooled. This past month has dipped into the dark side on more than one occasion. So I am in need of soothing. 

I take comfort on days like these in books, in music, in warm snuggles with my animals.  My friend Christa’s beautiful harp CD playing softly in the background. A hot drink, the warmth of the fireplace. A favorite blanket wrapped around my shoulders. The sharp, citrus scent of a Clementine as I separate it into sections, the sweet juicy flavor when I pop it into my mouth. 

Small things that soothe the spirit. I need them in spades today.

January was a good reading month. I finished eight books toward my goal of reading 100 books this year. I don’t normally set reading goals, but after keeping track of my reading for almost 20 years, I notice I always hover between 80-90 books per year. Why not make it 100? I thought this year. 

So I’m working on it. It’s funny how setting that intention has made me more mindful about my reading time. I’ve been more likely to carry a book from room to room, to make sure I have my book in the kitchen to read a few pages while I’m waiting for the oven to preheat or a pan to boil. I’ve been less “guilty” about sitting down in the middle of the day to read for half an hour. I have a purpose! A reading goal! So it’s all for the greater good. 

I’ve also been actively using Goodreads this year, although I’ve been a member for a long time I’ve not used it as a book tracking system. I am also a Goodreads Author, so Life In General has a page there too. 

The last book I read in January was Jo Jo Moyes Me Before You. Several friends told me what a wonderful story it was, and they were not wrong. But it was a tear-jerker - and I probably didn’t need to add any more emotion to an already somewhat emotional week for me. However, I loved it, and highly recommend it. 

I’m starting February reading with a completely different genre - a literary suspense novel by Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests. It won’t be soothing reading, necessarily, but I suspect it will keep me nicely entertained on this snowy winter day. 

Bed on the Couch

When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, 

And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all the day. 

I posted this photo on Instagram the other day. It was captioned, “Cozy bed on the couch, day three." The hashtag -#sickgirl-further defined my condition. 

Today could be called cozy bed on the couch, day five. This most persistent of maladies has kept me literally on the couch since Saturday. More disturbing is that this current episode is the third bout of this mess I’ve endured since mid December.  The symptoms are old news - cough, body aches, sore throat, headache, congestion, earache, upset stomach. Apparently I’m not the only one whose been going through this revolving door of malaise. According to an informal poll among my Facebook friends, this is rampant.

I realized today how complacent about my good health I’ve become. I was a sickly kid, always on the verge of coming down with something or other, even if that something was mostly in my mother’s overactive and fearful imagination. At the slightest sniffle, she had the thermometer in my mouth and was on the phone to the doctor, scheduling an appointment. (To be fair, I was asthmatic, and had made enough middle of the night trips to the ER for breathing treatments to make any mother wary. And mine was especially so.) Then she’d make me a “cozy bed on the couch,” with my two pillows at my head, my favorite blanket, and a pile of books to keep me company. Just like the child in Stevenson’s famous poem, The Land of Counterpane.

I outgrew the asthma, but most of my adult life I’ve been prone to sinus infections and even a normal head cold invariably ends up as bronchitis or sometimes pneumonia. When I was actively working in schools and exposed to so many different germs, I was sick quite often during the winter. I became pretty adept at powering through it.  I recall once accompanying 15 students at a State vocal competition, then playing the second night of a three night run of 42nd Street all while running a temperature of 102 degrees. 

The show must go on, and all that.

But I’ve since learned the hard way that rest is a key component in treatment and recovery. So every time I got sick this past month, I have been diligent about stopping in my tracks, staying inside, drinking a lot of fluids - all the things my mother taught me to do when I was firmly entrenched in those long ago bed on the couch days.

Nevertheless, I keep getting sick, and this past week was a doozy. I can’t recall when I’ve felt so completely wiped out. I dragged myself downstairs in the morning only long enough to get some toast and hot water  - another mark of the seriousness of this episode? Neither coffee nor wine had any appeal whatsoever - and then I’d be back to my bed on the couch.

As with every gray cloud there are silver linings. Enforced stillness is sometimes good for creatives. In between my fever dreams I’ve actually had some good ideas for things to write about. I’ve read a lot, putting me closer to my goal of reading 100 books this year. My mom has gone full throttle into Mother mode, making dinners, dog sitting, offering mom-like advice in several phone calls during the day. She loves to be needed (and what mother doesn’t?) My dogs have enjoyed spending these sunny winter days romping around in her backyard instead of cooped up in the condo with me.

My poor husband though- not only has he been forced to listen to my coughing, snuffling, moaning and whining, he’s had to look at me in my saggy flannel pajamas, trailing my blanket around like Linus. 

And now is not the time to remind me that my word for 2015 was VIBRANT.

Normally I might think that these recurring episodes of sickness are about my body trying to tell me something. But I’ve been taking pretty good care of my body for some time. I eat well, I exercise moderately every day. I don’t overdo my activities anymore, and the things I choose to spend time on are just that - things I’ve chosen which makes a world of difference in how you perceive time spent doing them. My life is pretty stress free these days, which is saying a lot for a woman my age.

So I’m left pondering what the message is here - because I always believe there’s something to learn from every experience, that every small thread of the universe connects us to a larger story within our own lives or in the world around us.

I guess I’ll crawl under that blanket on my cozy bed on the couch and see if something comes to mind. 

If you have any ideas, let me know. Just don’t get too close - I might still be contagious.

The Sunday Salon: Reading Robinson

Gilead, Home, Lila...for the past two weeks I’ve been living with Marilynne Robinson’s characters in these three novels set in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. My heart has ached with them as they look for grace in their lives and relationships. I’ve rejoiced with them over small moments of warmth and closeness. I've pondered with them - why do things happen the way they do? What does it mean to forgive? How do we learn to trust ourselves and the people who profess to love us?

I have to confess. I first read Gilead and Home about three years ago, and was not in love with them. They both seemed so heavy and introspective. I needed more to happen. 

My reaction bothered me. I had heard so much praise for Robinson’s body of work. She is a writer’s writer, I heard. All the readers and writers I respect most love and study her work.

It seems she is an oracle. Why did this book fail to move me?

So when I heard about Lila, the third novel in this grouping that would focus on the woman who married Reverend John Ames of Gilead, the novel that would tell Lila's hard scrabble story and reveal how a young woman drifted in off the street, ended up married to a much, much older man and bearing him a son, I decided to tackle the other two books again. In preparation.

This time around, I got it. All of it. The reasons writers especially love Marilynne Robinson. The things this woman does with words and ideas, the way she forces the reader to just slooooooow down, savor and ponder every sentence - it is a master class in going deep. These are very spiritual books, they delve into topics of faith and grace and fate, of honoring mothers and fathers and family history. Of being a good neighbor and a good steward of gifts. 

They are not books to read when you’re waiting in the doctor’s office. They are not books to read while lying on the beach.

They seem best read in a quiet room while the fireplace crackles and sputters, with maybe a cup of coffee close at hand. Or sitting on a long front porch overlooking a grassy meadow, while birds sing on the wires and wind shushes through the pines. In a place where you can sit and be still. Where you can read without the distractions of modern life.

Reading all three of these books together is like being baptized in the River Robinson. It’s a total immersion baptism. And I’m coming up refreshed and renewed, just as it should be.

How about you? Do you ever immerse yourself in one writer and read all their books in a row? 
What are you reading this week?

The Family Business

My husband and I were born and bred in Detroit - The Motor City - and automobiles are definitely in our blood. Both of my grandfathers came to Detroit expressly because of the automotive industry. My maternal grandfather by way of a small town in central Kentucky, my paternal grandfather by way of a small village in Armenia. But because of Ford Motor Company and Timken Axle, they were able to provide for their families during Depression years and The Great War. 

No surprise then that my father whet his teeth at Ford’s, learning enough about the tool and die industry to open his own business and then become an automotive supplier. 

My father-in-law worked for Chrysler, my mother-in-law worked for Ford, and both retired with good pensions and benefits, the kinds that have long since faded from the business world. Although Jim has never worked directly for an automotive company, he has spent his career in designing and building the inner workings of those huge factories where cars are assembled. 

My first car was a 1972 blue Chevy Nova with a 350 engine; my second car a 1976 silver Trans Am, “screaming chicken” and all. Followed by a 1978 Corvette silver anniversary edition, which my dad bought for me in May of 1979. My relationship to my husband was originally inspired by my desire for a ride in is 1971 black Mach One Mustang.

I think my son considers our old 1979 Bandit Tran Am his mechanical “brother” since Jim bought it the day after Brian was born. And I have a sneaking suspicion that our grandson’s middle name (Alexander) was chosen based on the fact that his monogram would be CAR. Which is perfect, since he is a complete and total car enthusiast, and at the age of 3 is already “driving” his Dad’s Pontiac GTO through the neighborhood.

So I’m a car girl in every way. Our whole family is loyal to the American automotive industry. The only “foreign” car we’ve ever had was my 2007 Saab turbo, and the year after I bought it the American car companies went bankrupt. I know I can’t take responsibility for that. But still. I’m all American from now on. (Or a least, American labeled.  I realize that a good many parts and pieces of American cars are no longer manufactured in America. That is much to my chagrin - but that is an entirely different story than the one I mean to tell today.) 

The American automotive industry has fed and clothed me since the day I was born.

It’s kind of our family business. 

Because of all that, a good portion of our income has always been spent on cars. And I’ll admit, as I’ve gotten older I’ve sometimes wished I had some of that back. Did I really need to lease new Lincoln Mark VIII’s every two years for eight years running, to the tune of $500 a month each time? That was a good chunk of change down the proverbial drain, even though I did really enjoy driving that sleek, smooth riding, powerful car around town.

One of the things that’s happened to me as I’ve aged is a definite diminishment in my enjoyment of the automotive experience. It’s a sad fact about getting older: the things that once brought great pleasure seem sort of ho-hum. (I know, there’s another story implicit in that statement too, but I’m not about to go there.) Maybe it’s because I’ve been relegated for the past five years to what I consider an “old-lady car.” Or maybe it’s just because the cars I can realistically afford aren’t all that appealing. If someone were to offer me one of those Shelby Mustang GT’s like I saw on the floor of the auto show yesterday, I would probably be much more enthusiastic. 

But maybe not. I think my priorities have simply shifted. These days I think more about saving my money to make sure we have a nice home for our retirement, that we can spend winters in Florida or somewhere else warm. I don’t do a lot of driving anymore anyway, and I’m beginning to have more interest in comfort (yes to heated/cooled seats and steering wheels!) and less about how fast I can get off the red light.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” This Bible verse seems very true to me in these days, as I think about the ways our lives will change in the years ahead. As we walked around the floor of the Auto Show yesterday, instead of dreaming about what color car I might get next, or trying to decide whether to get a two door or four door, or which had the most horsepower or the sleekest lines, I was planning how best to coincide my next car purchase with Jim’s retirement so that it made sense for our budget. 

At almost 59 years of age, I’m certainly well past childhood. I had a good long run of playing with cars, and I’ve got some great car-related memories (especially in the aforementioned 1971 Mach One Mustang that belonged to a certain first boyfriend). Even though I spent a lot of money in my “salad days” of car ownership, I don’t really begrudge it. The feeling of speeding down the highway with the windows down, the t-tops off, and the radio blaring rock and roll is a feeling I savored time and again. I don’t know for certain that it’s completely over -somewhere deep down I still may be holding out hope for that red Mustang convertible - but for now it feels as if I can put my cars away in the annals of my memory and travel on.