Writing Rehab

It’s been a minute since I’ve written. When we last spoke at the end of August, I was fresh into the idea of “new beginnings,” of finding my way back to the page. Of tackling this creative life and this writing thing with renewed vigor.

As evident by the length of time since I’ve been in this spot, that didn’t happen.

Actually, it DID, just not in the way I originally envisioned.

What really happened was in some ways even BETTER than what I had envisioned.

For the past three months, I’ve been in writing rehab and the experience has been life changing. CREATIVE life changing.

This particular rehab evolved over the time I had planned to jump full steam ahead back into writing. I had a fancy new planner with dates marked in for a blog post every week; a Medium piece every week; for creating a You Tube channel and doing videos; for posting daily Instagram stories.

Wow. Can you say unrealistic expectations? After all, I’d been living a couch potato creative life for years, with little more than social media posts to show for it.

My creative muscles were flabby and weak. I might as well have decided to run a 26k after no more training than walking Lacey around the block.

As the month of September ticked away and with it every single deadline on my new calendar, I realized two things. I could either give up completely and walk away feeling like a failure, or I could try to rehabilitate the creative being inside me that was crying to get out.

So I picked myself up, took out a brand new spiral notebook and InkJoy pen, went to the bookshelf, pulled out my battered copy of The Artist’s Way, and took the first step into writing rehab. Forget the blog posts and the Medium essays and finishing the draft of a memoir by December 31. It was back to the beginning, and what I think is the most important thing a writer -or any artist - can do for themselves.

Morning Pages. Three pages of longhand writing about absolutely anything on your mind. There is no right or wrong way to do them, no editing, no care for grammar or punctuation, form or facility. Julia Cameron champions this exercise as “the primary tool of creative recovery.” And it works on so many levels. It’s a commitment, it helps set a rhythm of showing up, it frees you to write about anything without worry. It loosens the creative clogs in your brain, helps clear the negative thoughts. Something about these three pages - which usually take me about 20 minutes to write - is invigorating, therapeutic, and relaxing all at the same time. It’s such a small investment of time, with huge creative payoff.

Once I got back into a committed routine of morning pages, it was only a matter of days before I could feel creative cylinders start firing with ideas. I write morning pages on the front side of the notebook page, leaving the back side free for inspirational quotes from whatever I’m reading in the morning, or ideas for things I want to write about. I started doing the pages in September, and my October notebook has every page filled, front and back.

I think morning pages are the key for my creative life to flourish. I was devoted to this practice back in the days when I maintained three active blog communities, and was posting nearly every day. Over time, and with changes in online writing, my commitment to morning pages faltered, and with it my creative output and energy.

As important as Morning Pages are, my Writing Rehab 2019 has involved other vital aspects.

Good reading is essential. Before I write morning pages, I read. As poet Jane Kenyon advises, “keep good sentences in your ears.” Accompanying my first sip of coffee are pages of an inspirational book. During rehab this fall, I’ve read (or re-read) The Artist’s Way, The Right to Write, Wild Words, Writing Down the Bones, and Still Writing. This morning reading provides a gateway into Morning Pages, with all the benefits therein.

Like any good rehab program, my writing rehab has included care of my whole self. I’ve learned two important things about my mental and physical well being that are necessary for my creative being to flourish. Both require a level of self-discipline I wasn’t sure I could sustain at the outset.

Daily exercise is critical. Having an energetic puppy who needs a walk every morning helps. Those walks outside in the fresh air on quiet mornings are restorative and rejuvenating. On those walks I work out a lot of things that come up in the morning pages. My mind expands in proportion to the earth and sky around me.

It’s vital to keep my distance from the internet. I don’t go anywhere near my phone or iPad until at least 9:00 - after I’ve been up for about three hours, done my reading, morning pages, and walk. Then I sit down for 30 minutes (set a timer!) and check email and social media. After that, I do my best to stay away from the internet until about 5:00, when I sit down with a glass of wine and give myself another 30-45 minutes online while dinner’s in the oven.

Make no mistake, this is HARD. Since I retired and am home a lot more, I’d developed a bad social media binging habit. My iPad sits on the kitchen counter, I pass it literally 100 times a day, and most of those times I’d pick it up and scroll through Facebook or Instagram. Really. But no more of that. When I made this rule for myself, my hands actually shook at the thought of it. Now I keep a book on the counter, and when I get the urge to pick something up, I pick that up instead. It’s not quite the dopamine rush you get from a romp through the FB feed, but it’s close.

Clear the mind with clean eating and drinking. I went into September about 10 pounds heavier than I like to be. My clothes were tight, I was feeling bloated and heavy. Looking at my eating and drinking habits over the entire year, I had to admit that both were far short of ideal. My diet was heavy on carbs - breads and pasta were becoming mainstays of almost every meal. Sugar was creeping back in after a long time of limited use. My wine consumption was regularly far more than the recommended six ounces per day.

Once again, back to things I know work to make me feel better. I’ve dramatically lowered my use of all of the above. The weight is down, my gut feels better, my mind is more focused, my blood pressure is within normal ranges again. I dare say I’m even sleeping a little better at night.

Most importantly, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction that I’ve been able to conquer some of these demons. After spending most of 2019 feeling like an abject failure and the worst kind of slug, I’m going into 2020 with a renewed sense of vigor, vitality, and MISSION for my creative life.

This is a LONG post - but all this has been percolating for a couple of months now, and before the year ended I wanted to share it with you, along for my hopes of what the new year might bring. So if you’re still reading, I thank you.

As the positive outcomes of writing rehab became evident, I began thinking about what I loved about writing and why I started blogging almost 15 years ago. Writing played two vital roles in my life then and that hasn’t changed: It helps me make sense of life in general and my own in particular, while allowing me to connect with others through sharing those stories. I knew if I was going to be satisfied with any of my future writing endeavors, they would have to involve a way to create through connection and community. Although I have a love/hate relationship with being online, it’s still the best means of satisfying those craving.

I’m back to planning and plotting for 2020: for a monthly email missive, direct from me to you; for a personally curated journal of creative prompts that will encourage you to celebrate your favorite things about life in general and your own in particular; for creating a community of women in their third trimester of life to share hope and hard-earned wisdom. And this time, I’m in shape and ready to go the distance.

My Creative Rehab has now become my Creative Practice - a way of life that strengthens me, grounds me, inspires me, calms me.

I am committed to sustaining IT, as it sustains me.

How about you? Do you feel the need to strengthen your creative muscles? What might your creative rehab program look like?

Among the Trees

My zen garden sanctuary

The first tree I ever loved was a plum tree, a riot of dense lacy blossoms in spring that morphed into the deepest of purple leaves through the summer. It stood in the front yard of my childhood home and blanketed my bedroom with its lavender tinged shade.

When we left that house and moved across town, I made my first acquaintance with a Hawthorne tree whose early May profusion of dark pink flowers charmed my romantic teenage heart. It blessed me on my wedding day with a riotous display of color, and provided a stunning background for photographs.

Our first home as a married couple was the house my husband grew up in, and it was filled with trees, including an orchard of heirloom fruit trees with origins dating back about 100 years. The dividing line between our backyard and our orchard was a stand of 20 foot tall pine trees my father-in-law brought from Wyoming as saplings.

But of all the many trees on that 300 square feet of proprty, I admit to two favorites. The first a Crimson King Maple planted in 1954 to mark the year of my husband’s birth. I have a black and white snapshot showing him as a one year old, hanging onto the spindly trunk of a tree barely taller than he is. By the time we moved into the house 20 years later, the tree is at least 30 feet tall and spreading dense shade over more than half the yard.

I was even more partial to the ancient Ash tree with its trunk so strong and wide I could barely wrap my arms around it. Our house faced the east, and this tree protected us from the most fierce morning rays. When our son started school, I took his picture every year on the first day, watching him grow strong and steadily upward like the trunk of a young tree himself.

We moved to a condo seven years ago, and chose this particular location largely because it was an end unit surrounded by trees. In the fall, a stately maple whose leaves turn the brightest shade of scarlet I’ve ever seen suffuses our upstairs bedroom with crimson light. In spring, a delicate magnolia’s rotund blossoms appear overnight and disappear just as quickly with the first rainy day, reminding me to enjoy those fleeting moments of beauty before they are so abrutply gone.

Again I have a particular favorite - a slightly scraggly Hawthorne on the shadiest corner of the garden. Each spring we hang chimes from one of its branches. Over the years I laid memorial stones underneath it — one for my mother and each of the little dogs we lost since we moved here. Early summer mornings I wander through the yard, coffee cup in hand, and stand in its shade, listen to the mellow tone of the chimes, and reflect on the three loved ones whose memory I mark in that spot.

One of the pitfalls of condo living is that we don’t control the property our home stands on. And so the Powers That Be decided our Hawthorne tree was creating too much shade resulting in bare spots on the lawn. Yesterday they cut it down, leaving a barren spot in that corner of my garden and another one in a corner of my heart.

Poet and novelist May Sarton wrote in her essay, The Death of a Maple (from her memoir Plant Dreaming Deep): “There is no comfort when a great tree goes. There is no comfort in the dying struggle.For many months I missed something in the air over my head…that branch high up where once the oriole sang.”

I miss my crooked little tree and the zen-like atmosphere it created in our suburban garden. I know the world has far more painful problems to solve, but sensitivity to nature and the atmosphere it creates might be a characteristic worth cultivating if we want to find different ways of solving them. Because trees connect us with the natural world in a unique way, offering us shelter from the sun, a breeze to cool our face, a home for birds and wildlife. They provide a feast for our eyes with the changing seasons, and nourishment for our bodies with their fruit.

The poet Mary Oliver writes this of “being among the trees”*:

They give off such hints of gladness/I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves/and call out, “stay awhile.”/The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say/”and you too have some/into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled/with light, and to shine.

I feel sorry for those who cannot appreciate the beauty of trees, who cannot hear the music in the wind sighing through their branches, who cannot delight in the way sunlight sneaks in and out of the leaves. Perhaps there is a hollow spot in their heart. Perhaps they are missing some key element that connects all living things to one another.

Perhaps they simply do not know how to shine.

*When I Am Among the Trees, Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006