Life Happens

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

As a society, we take offense more often than we once did. One of the few advantages I have discovered from being old is that you notice important stuff like this. Not to say that you can do much about it other than taking note. I don’t know why we are all so thin-skinned, but it seems easier these days to be mad, injured, misunderstood or downright pissed than to talk.

Maybe the multiplicity of personal breaches correlates to the impersonal nature of texting or social media. Heck, I have friends on Facebook I wouldn’t know if I drove over them. From my perspective, chatting via text, if you can call it that, is a set up for misunderstanding. With the nuance of body language absent, how do you know what someone means? Unspoken clues in a conversation can make a huge difference in understanding and can help to avoid hurt feelings.

When I hold our collected foibles up for scrutiny in this column, it may feel as if I am pointing my wizened finger at offenders in judgment as I stand above the fray. For a refreshing change, today I am tearing a page from my own sordid playbook for my object lesson du mois. Prior to a recent book event, the shop’s proprietor emailed me the following: “In reading the book, I noticed that the black character is written in a dialect. I want to ask if you would not read that section as part of your book talk. If we had black members of the audience, I am concerned that they would feel uncomfortable in the shop. I think the conversation about whites writing black dialect has changed a lot in the past few years. Please read from another section.”

At first, I must admit the missive put me off, one might even say offended me. Ashamed as I am to admit, I found myself verging on shooting the messenger. Forgive this next mixed metaphor, I applied the brakes only moments before I could brush my hands together smug in my own offended sensibilities. A small voice at the back of my mind shouted, “Why?”

Why, indeed. My host could not have been more within the bounds of propriety to ask me not to offend the shop’s clientele. Not ready to let go of my indignation, however, my next move was to go to The Oracle (Google). I typed in the question how, indeed, had the conversation changed over the years in regards to whites writing black dialect and waited to see the changes. Again the wee voice shrieked, “Why?” Was I waiting for the Oracle to speak because I wanted the answer? Of course not! My mind, once offended, did not plan to stop until a meal was served in the form of some sort of crow and consumed by the other party involved.

My overwrought reaction was to a perceived reprimand. I was asked not to make a customer uncomfortable. Well, (hear the outrage with hand squarely on hips) no well-brought up Southerner would dream of making anyone feel uncomfortable. I embarrass myself at times at how deluded I can be. Once I scraped away all of my knee-jerk needs to exact revenge, I had to appreciate the deluge of irony.

When I stopped reacting and feeding my bruised ego, I realized if I didn’t want to offend anyone in the bookstore, I would not be able to read a word from my latest novel, or any of my novels for that matter. Everything I write about is designed to offend—alcoholism, drug addiction, family dysfunction, racism, rape, sexual abuse, incest, just to fit on a few, all taboo subjects. The great preponderance of readers would find something offensive in my subject matter. So why do I, a self proclaimed good little southern girl, choose such inflammatory subjects you might ask? To start a conversation, about taboo, about how easy it is to take offense and how difficult it is to move beyond a perceived attack. I stand before you hoisted on my own petard, writing about offensive things and getting caught up in peevish details. What a gift! Taking offense is a choice. One we all tend to forget and in the process give our power away.

These days, folks, me included choose injury over a conversation. Using their pet peeves, region, political ideology, patterns of speech, education, you name it as a barrier to honest discourse. We aren’t meant to agree. What would be the point of different points of view? Communication is the exchanging of thoughts and ideas not browbeating someone into agreement. I don’t know if we have dumbed down because of the ways we relate or we are just lazy? Could our sensitivity be predicated on the need to be right? Could it be that we are too invested in our own worldview and aren’t interested in anyone changing it? To protect ourselves, we retreat to hurt feelings and taking offense. Hubs suggested people are frightened of a more than usual uncertain future. Spoiler alert: the future, no matter the times, is uncertain. That’s a fact of life. I admit I don’t know why we are so prone to put up our metaphorical dukes, however I know for a fact it isn’t helping any of us.

Since I’m no better at jumping to the offensive than anyone else, I can’t offer any pearls of wisdom other than just stop it. Treat the need to defend and entrench like any bad habit. The first and hardest step is to notice it. From there you can enlist all your usual habit breaking aides including laughing at yourself. Taking yourself too seriously is a dangerously slippery incline leading straight to being offended. So quit it! Learn to laugh at yourselves. Honestly, it can’t help but improve your life. Chances are you are every bit as ridiculous as I am.

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

A number of years ago, long about the time that I started to notice I had lived more life than I lay before me, I came up with a theory: the reason people die is that they cease to feel relevant. This observation didn’t just drop on me like an anvil. Like a fine wine, it developed over time. Furthermore, I’m certain culture holds a big key to longevity.

The first blush of this idea dawned when I realized I had no more idea whose face was on the cover of People magazine than a goose knew how to multiply nine times eight. The who, what, and where of the Kardashians was a complete mystery, the why anyone cared, even more so. Like most people, I live my life making choices as to how to spend my allotted attention. Pop culture, I left any overt interest in my rearview mirror around the advent of the Bee Gees. Mind you I didn’t entirely turn my back. US, and People the purveyors of the culture were my go to reads at any medical office. My children filled in the gaps in rest of my sketchy knowledge base.

What I didn’t realize at the time was I was enjoying one of the few and greatest spoils of middle age. I still had skin in the game but no real cognitive investment in what celebrity lost twenty pounds or the present occupant of Jennifer Anniston’s bed. One of the few benefits of a time in life where people are wrestling with questions with far reaching consequences like what to do about Mom and Dad and how to steer your teenager through the pitfalls of a ferrous sex drive without losing your mind or gaining a grandchild.

It wasn’t until the progeny flew the nest did pop culture all but disappear in my everyday discourse. Suddenly tabloid headlines screamed of dire dilemmas faced by complete strangers. Easy enough to dismiss, but I warn you do so at your peril. The slope is treacherous, possibly leading to a rapid downward tragic trajectory.

Steady, there is no need for a full-bore panic attack nor must you choose quantity over quality of life, at least not yet. If you don’t become immediate twitter pals with Hollywood royalty (as if you even knew how or with whom) you will survive. Out of necessity, I possess a plan to remedy the situation. For if a long life requires a primer on present-day pop culture spoon-feed daily, kill me now.

Here are ten suggestions that won’t guarantee longevity but can make what time you have a lot more interesting and relevant to you and yours:

1. Take little steps out into the new and unknown like finding a different way to get home once in a while. Introduce yourself to someone new. Buy an article of clothing you would never have thought of wearing until now. Slowly up grade your look.
2. Embrace change. You don’t have to give it a huge bear hug. Try one of those tepid embraces you saved for your mother’s aunt who you saw exactly twice in your life.
3. Mix up your routine. Better yet throw it out altogether. Do something you haven’t done in years or ever. Show interest in your grandchild’s favorite computer game. Learn some of the jargon. Ask if you could play. Take your kid to a movie. Better yet take your kid’s kid to a movie of his or her choice.
4. Go out and test-drive a new car every month or so. Make it a different car and sometimes one you always wished for. It is amazing how hard it is to drive a new car. You have figure out where the clock is or how hard to hit the breaks good stuff for your brain creates new neuropath ways.
5. You don’t have to know them well enough to pick the Kardashians out of a lineup but work on remembering their names. I know. I know. Believe me. I know. The dividends of adding new synapses will be worth it, I promise and it will blow your younger relatives away. This is what puts more grooves in your brain.
6. Every once in a while break the law. I’m not suggesting that you rob a bank. Break the speed limit. If you are uncomfortable driving too fast go forty in a thirty-five mile an hour zone just push it the tiniest bit. If you have a lead footed history drive the speed limit. Tear those DO NOT REMOVE labels off your pillow instead.
7. The next time you go out for dinner go someplace you have never been. Eat a cuisine you’ve never eaten. Introduce a new recipe to your dinner rotation at least monthly.
8. Take a class in something you have been vaguely interested in but never had the time for. Make time for new often. It makes for more brain plasticity.
9. Travel to a spot you’ve never been. It doesn’t have to be far, or exotic just new to you. Learn a foreign language or skill.
10. Read a new book regularly. If you need suggestions I would happily make a few.

Becoming more relevant has a lot to do with climbing out of your comfort zone. It’s up to you. Following old established habits and patterns while comforting could be shortening your life span. I’m not willing to take the chance. There is not a pillow in my house with a do not remove label on it. Next week I’m going to test-drive a Porche Panamera just for the fun of it. How about you?

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend about the upcoming release of the third and final installment in my Apron Strings Trilogy – If It Ain’t One Thing… This friend, having been cautioned by a mutual acquaintance that the material might be too heavy for her, admitted to not having read my previous books. I didn’t understand, I said, how the subject matter would offend her but would love to hear what her thoughts were if she ever did decide to read the Apron Strings series. The next day, after pondering our earlier conversation, I texted that our shared friend probably knew her better than I and perhaps the material might well be too difficult. I can only speak from my perspective. I like to read things perceived to be difficult.  I want what I read to challenge to my status quo.

In response to my text, she typed “I’m sure [our mutual acquaintance] said what she said knowing I can be sensitive to ignorant fear- based racist attitudes… It’s something a person who is not of color can’t understand.  Unless a person has grown up in a black/Latino neighborhood, they have only an outsider perspective of what it is like to be in a black or brown body.”

Her text elicited an avalanche of introspective ruminations on my part. Right, I am inexperienced in the world as a black or brown body since I possess neither. No particular shade of skin, however, is required to have an adverse reaction to ignorant fear- based racist attitudes. The paramount question in her words is “what do I know about being?” Am I only cognizant of what life is like in my own white body?    

Knowledge as to how it would be to be the President entirely escapes me, but I find myself sure on a pretty regular basis I might be better at it.  I cannot view the world as anyone of my children, despite the fact that they each spent nine months inside of my body. Hubs and I have managed to live together for thirty years, and I haven’t a clue how things stack up from his eyes. My siblings—their worldview and feelings on the subject are as mysterious to me as a stroll on the moon. I hear what they all say, but I am unable to comprehend with any amount of certainty what it is to be any of them.

A few weeks ago, I was party to a chat wherein someone was asked her occupation. The answer was far from the truth, from where I stood. Thinking better of a confrontation at that exact moment, I left off questioning my friend’s integrity until later. In the time between then and later it occurred to me I didn’t grasp for sure that we shared the same reality. Think about witnesses to an accident. There are as many versions of an event as there are pairs of eyes viewing it. The assumption is that we all reside on the same page, but do we? If you think so share a memory with a family member and ask if they remember it the same, then share the results with me.

Who am I without the benefit of memories, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings? I have glimmers of who and what, but only occasional ones. Wait, you say, aren’t all those memories and all essence au moi? Don’t those things make me-me, and separates me from the rest of the seven billion people on the planet? How would it be possible to give those up to go out in public without my unique way of seeing?

The hacks we use to personalize ourselves helped us mix in consensus reality until recently. Now, the primacy of our wants, needs, and preferences are a hindrance. Our ability to connect suffers as we cling to our own brand. None of us knows what it is to truly view life through another’s perspective. One of the perks of being a novelist is, having to see life through your characters’ points of view. The process of writing my books forced me to climb out of myself, if only temporarily, and use memories of my own experiences and the stories of others’ experiences to think and act as another person. Often, I find myself seeing the world through my character’s eyes, particularly those of my Apron Strings Trilogy character, Ethel.

All of us seem to demand the world be, as we alone perceive it. The dire predictions for the future require a significant change. Our precious individualism has become a threat to our survival. The time has come to give up all our unnecessary distinctions, our valuable and sensitive uniqueness and get around to celebrating the only thing we all have in common—humanity.

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

My story starts in Charlottesville many many decades ago. Before polls in travel magazines rated Charlottesville’s happiness factor, the place exuded charm. Being a bit more of a quiet backwater known only to a select few then it was a good thing. My father used to crow about Albemarle County’s rank as the third richest county in the country in per capita wealth. You just can’t see it he delighted in adding—long before conspicuous consumption. How he knew that fact he never said. And like what topics were taught in school, I never thought to ask just took what I was told as the gospel.

It is hard to know where Ethel, the main character in the first two books of my Apron Strings trilogy starts and Lottie, my negro–her word– childhood caregiver and family’s maid, ends. Memory tends to devolve towards fiction as facts fade into the mist of time.

Since the Lee statue controversy crawled out into the light of day and dragged with it the inherent racism of my upbringing, I’ve been trying to remember, to conjure, or to channel what Lottie/Ethel’s wisdom how might spotlight the events of this past weekend. One thought come through loud and clear, “Ain’t nothin’ new here.”

At the age of six, I lived with my family across the street from the Unitarian Church on Rugby Road in Charlottesville. The torching of a cross on the church’s front yard by a white supremacy group called the Seaboard White Citizen’s Council scared the hell out of the grown ups in my world. It had to conjure images so much more dreadful and loathsome in Lottie’s mind.

Kept from viewing the incident, I remember the disruption it brought to what little peace existed in our not so peaceful household. I wish I could say my mother had enlightened views on race relations. Like many people of her age and geography, she was a mixed bag of beliefs on the subject. While she and my father pointed fingers and lobbed righteous indignation about like tether balls, Lottie held fast to one notion; love has no color. She didn’t throw shade on the misdirected minds that burned the cross. With a quiet grace, she went about the business of her life, which gratefully included taking care of me.

Children are blessed with an uncanny sense of recognizing love when they experience it. Despite the events going on next-door Lottie’s love for me and mine never wavered. At no time did I feel adrift in a loveless world; a feeling, I can assure you, I would have recognized the feeling if had it been present. I can’t even guess at the horrors the flaming cross evoked for her but she remained steadfast in her conviction.

Despite Lottie’s shining example, I didn’t arrive into adulthood without a lot of unconscious racism. On a recent trip to Uganda, on several occasions, I found myself the only white person in a throng of Africans without fear. I hadn’t realized how my white privilege spawned such a deeply seeded dread of the other; like it was in my bones.

Up until recently, I honestly thought the statue debate just a silly political aside. With the help of a leading edge therapist who’s new psychological modality enables her clients to examine thought patterns that have a “charge” around them; I have freed myself of a lot of useless emotional baggage. The Lee statue came up in a session this past spring as an aside. I found myself vehemently reiterating my history lesson. You know the one, the fallen hero, the great leader, the reluctant slaveholder. When I looked at the intensity of the emotions surrounding my story I realized I had a lot of work to do. For me to move on in a healthy way I had to dismantle my own Southern icons that served only to make me separate from the other.

The process started by questioning my beliefs. How does Southern define me? Why was General Lee so important to me? In the process, I uncovered a fun fact. When I was going to school Virginia history was taught in the fourth grade, the eighth grade, and the tenth grade with a heavy dose in the eleventh grade under the guise of U.S. history.

I bet you can guess whose star rose around the 1850s Virginia sky. That’s right, General Lee’s. What child brought up in the children-are-seen-not-heard world questions what they are taught in school? It wasn’t until I did some independent thinking on my own and then some investigating, did I unearth the truth. What I was taught in regards to Virginia history was a myth. My fourth-grade teacher corrected us when we referred to the American Civil War as anything other than The War of Northern Aggression. I remember being told by another teacher that it was a pernicious Yankee lie that the war was about slavery. The conflict was over states rights.

For a week or two, I mourned the loss of a childhood hero as I set about redefining what it means to be Southern. Taking Lee off his pedestal allows me to appreciate maybe for the first time the true hero in my story, Lottie and her constancy in a world of anything but.

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

Travel, why do we do it, to see other sights, broaden our minds, and learn new ways of being, or for the fun and novelty? Ever since my son John returned from a trip to Uganda last summer, he has been asking me to go back with him. I didn’t understand until I got there, he had been joking. He never expected me to take him up on his request. The joke turned out to be on him.

When he first told me of his plans to visit Uganda I asked an incredulous why? For a man content most times to let a few well-chosen words suffice as an answer, he only shrugged a reply. I, more loquacious by a factor of ten, found myself also bereft of words when the same question was put to me a year later. A mysterious primal urge defied explanation while drawing my interest.

Two previous trips to Africa, was as different from this latest as Zwieback is to banana bread. They set a stage for extraordinary contrasts. When we considered visiting this intriguing continent we chose a tour. It was the antithesis to Hubs and my usual wandering around in foreign parts. But seemed the safest way to avert a disaster.

I met lots of chambermaids, guides, bartenders and support staff on that trip. I never once left a compound or strayed out into a street without a cadre of minders. Everyone was jovial, charming and likable. The same qualities, undoubtedly that got them their jobs rather than exemplifying the citizenry of a country.

With no agenda or tour-guide nipping at my heels, I looked forward to seeing the sights. I found myself both exhilarated and terrified. That is until Church greeted us at the airport. A younger sister bestowed the moniker finding her sibling’s name a challenge. Church Fridaus, a friend John, made on his last stay appointed herself our guide. She also acted as a representative of the Ugandan chamber of commerce. According to our wig-bedecked docent, (to give herself more cred) for a white person to be in Kampala unaided by an African amounted to a suicide mission. John and I impressed upon her that she should lose the wig straight away before we set about to disprove her suicide theory.

Since my view of the city appeared to be a labyrinth of clogged streets and menacing motorcyclists, I couldn’t argue. My princess-and-the-pea sensibilities recoiled when I first laid eyes on my Ugandan lodgings. Used as I was to several more stars in the ratings and loft in the mattresses. Kampala met all the criteria for an exotic city. My interpretation of the word runs more to romance, delicious foods, and extraordinary sights. The traffic alone negated any romance Jambs are a way of life. On time, is a western concept. Clouts of frustrated tourist stand looking at their watches. Meanwhile Africans and expats arrive without apology when they do.

Mass transit does not exist. By default the job comes in the form of thousands of motorcycle taxis. They swarm like hornets through and around traffic. Boda-bodas, as the taxis are called, are the only way to get from point A to point B on time. Safety, however, is an issue when using this form of transportation. They drive on either side of the road, on sidewalks, weave in and around traffic and never stop at a light. Boda-bodas were off limits to us white folk. Though our keeper hopped aboard one, if Kenny the driver was missing in action.

As we sat in the interminable traffic, a constant reframe of careful emanated from our over-cautious-hostess. I don’t know if Church has a larcenous soul or a vivid imagination. She saw cell phones plucked from unsuspecting hands, while on a boda-bodas, standing at street corners, or sitting in a car in a traffic snarl. Despite all the dire warnings, we brandished our phones about filming the cityscape. Neither of us lost our cells even while filming aboard the dreaded boda-bodas.

After two days of no so great western style restaurants, I suggested we try an African one. Had that first meal been my sole foray into African cuisine I would have delighted in the subtle tastes and flavors. As meals turned out, I experienced a preponderance of African food in my seventeen-day stay. The problem, whether for lunch or dinner was the monotony. The only variance in the menu was the choice between goat or chicken with steamed bananas, white rice, plantains, beans, Irish (white potatoes), vegetable gravy and fruit for dessert.

The fruit could not have been more delicious, especially the pineapple. It became my go to breakfast. I never thought of myself as a picky eater (as a friend once said “we’ll eat anything look at us!”). That is until I bit into a commercially grown hard-boiled Ugandan chicken egg. I had a strange sensation of what’s-wrong-here when I took a bite and noticed nothing but white. Wondering how an egg could be yolkless, I inspected further to find the yolk to be the same hue as the white. Odd as it was, I hardly suspected the color would affect the taste. As I started in on my second bite of egg, I began to gag. A person at the table across from me had that moment noshed into a similarly cooked egg with a gray yolk.

Church and her husband Geoffrey work in the slums. They keep tabs on several woman and their children. Many men in Uganda marry, produce children, move on to another wife and make more children. Since most lack jobs, few support the women and children they left. The Kampala slums have a disproportionate amount of single mothers in residence because of this. When I was invited to visit the slums with Geoffrey and Church, I wanted to find a reason, and I assure you any would do, not to go.

I couldn’t fathom being in the squalor an African slum conjured up. Seeing children no more than four-year-olds begging in the streets with their month’s-old siblings strapped to their backs was mind-boggling enough. Having been a single mother the stories of the families the two shepherded were especially heart breaking. It didn’t allay my dread that I needed to have a police escort equipped with AK-47s.

Every square inch of the place assaulted my senses. Mud huts crammed into each other among more filth than I could ever have imagined. I went into several homes and met countless children. I came away awed by the kindness and joie de vivre exuding from so unlikely a place. There is more discontent on street corners in the United States than I saw in that slum. I’m glad I couldn’t find an excuse not to go.

A few days later we went to the Kampala Home for the Handicapped. Church whispered to me as we approached the grounds that even she couldn’t work here. I shuttered then steeled myself for a magnitude of horror and sad circumstances. If this angel of misery couldn’t handle what was in store how was I?

I had no idea how many afflictions disabled encompassed. Nor did I know that some of the afflictions I saw there existed. In a few minutes the scales fell from my eyes and as I looked past the handicap at the unmistakable joy for life the children possessed. Someone asked a volunteer how she kept from being depressed. She responded, “How could I get depressed?” The attitude of gratitude that permeated the school was palpable.

Though my body might have wished for a more varied menu while I was there, I left Africa with my soul fed.

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

Last winter I read a fascinating book by Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., and Ph.D. The book Power vs. Force is an endeavor to calibrate human consciousness. As a renowned doctor, psychiatrist and consciousness researcher few are more qualified to make such an attempt. Using applied kinesiology, Dr. Hawkins tested thousands of people on a myriad of subjects to map human thought.

Dr. Hawkins is not without his dissenters. He used Applied Kinesiology to test the participants in his study and based his research on those findings. It is not surprising that the most objections to his work come from those who view AK as a pseudo-science. Conventional medicine has little to say good about it- not much better than random choice according to the American Cancer Society.

I don’t happen to fall into the dissenting category. I am also not a scientist, quite the contrary when it comes to woo-woo count me in. I believe we are energy beings. Using vibration to heal seems more efficient and makes complete sense to me, but I’m out there.

My interest in kinesiology peaked after reading Power vs. Force. Several practitioners from chiropractors and kinesiologists to doctors of Chinese medicine have used it on me in the past, and the results verified in that my symptoms have gone away or lessened. I am enough of a skeptic that I am not inclined to believe my own results I might well have healed because that it what the body does. It is impossible for me to discount the placebo effect and because of that kind of thinking animals are excellent subjects for me to prove the efficacy of esoteric modalities.

With a few inquiries, I discovered a teacher of kinesiology right here in Ruckersville. I signed up for the class that minute. I left the course with a rudimentary knowledge of how to apply kinesiology and also reconnected with Stacey Donnelly.

Stacey has been studying this practice with the intention of creating a course for horses. With a well-deserved reputation as an expert horsewoman, her barn is filled with animals so polite you could invite them to tea. She asked me if I would like to help her test her critters (I am the muscle. Who could resist that?) so that she would be ready in the fall to teach her course in Applied Kinesiology for equine folk.

In no way am I attempting convince you of the veracity of AK. As far as alternative therapies are concerned laser treatments are off the scale for some people, and I view it as mainstream. As I said, I’m pretty far out on the whacky spectrum, but nonetheless, I feel compelled to share my story.

My dog Hagar as some of you might remember over his five years has suffered from multiple health issues with his knees and spine. I thought, after his last knee surgery, he would be healthier. Not so, with the knees taken care of his neurological issues rose to preeminence. After a few laser treatments, it became apparent to me his situation would be an excellent experiment for Stacey’s abilities to heal, and it wouldn’t hurt him. When asked, she was eager to apply her knowledge and relished the chance to hone her skills.

Hagar walked with exaggerated action is his right foreleg like a prancing pony or a trotter. Stiff after inactivity, he appeared to have inflammation between his shoulder blades. The first time she worked on him besides the decrease of inflammation nothing much changed.

A few days after his third treatment Hubs, the two dogs and I took a walk in the woods. A noise unheard by us humans beckoned the dogs. Sophie shot down the path no surprise there. The shock was her brother’s reaction. In his five years never had I seen him dig in with his forelegs and power himself off like a Grand Prix jumper. He caught up with his sister in less time than it took him to realize he wasn’t in pain. I say that because before then he had been modulating his behavior his whole life because he was in pain.

The fracas just out of eyeshot hastened Hubs and me along the path in time to spy Hagar take down a huge ground hog. The G-hog was every bit of three feet long, some thirty pounds and very determined not to go down without a fight. With blood dripping from his jowls my great big old hound dispatched his prey as if he were a seasoned killing machine. I can’t say it was the most pleasant of sights but the evident pride and satisfaction it created in my dog made the entire event heartwarming, not to mention illuminating.

No double-blind study is this but in three sessions with Ms. Donnelly, Hagar stepped from his reticent milk toast behavior seemingly content to monitor himself and walked by my side as a powerful fully alive man dog. That is impressive. If I dreamt it up, way to go me, what an imagination! If he came into his own because of the work, Stacey did then WOW! That’s all I gotta say about that.  Try it and see for yourself.

Facebook

Twitter

email

Facebook

Twitter

email

By Mary Morony

All have experienced that dreaded dead in the productive waters whether composing a thank you note or a year-end corporate review. Shucks, half of Keswick has authored at least one book, so I imagine you are aware of the feeling. Writers’ block creeps in when least expected like a nighttime burglar. A blank sheet of paper though terrifying is nothing compared to when the muses move out of town for the season. It would not make a wit of difference if I had just finished writing 32,765 words when the stream ceases, advancing to the 32,775th word might as well be the millionth.

One of the earmarks of this non-flow state is that not being able to focus on a topic long enough to garner a little enthusiasm about it. Excitement is the single most important factor in driving creativity. If there is no passion, count on no flow. The ethereal aspect of creatively stringing words together is maddening when the direction is elusive.

To begin with corralling words into stories is such a delicate balance of intangibles. Sure some rules are required, but the juice is what makes the magic. If I’m not diligent at killing off my babies, I might have fifteen or twenty pages of two paragraphs lying around my desktop. My erroneous thinking is that I can still cobble them together and make something coherent. Don’t let the ghosts of aborted brainchildren litter your mind. Ball those near misses up and throw them away. They are distractions.

Sometimes when the imagination engine needs a kick-started, I type for ten minutes or so. I press keys down in no particular order. After awhile, the logical mind either gets bored or decides to turn its attention elsewhere allowing the more creative part of my brain to jump in images begin to appear, a story emerges. This practice works miracles. I am sure there is a very simple explanation for how it is so effective, but you won’t find it here. That’s fodder for another piece.

I use a Pomodoro clock. (An Italian discovered that cutting large projects into manageable sizes made them more achievable developed the Pomodoro Technique. He used a tomato-shaped timer so-called each segment of twenty-five minutes a Pomodoro- Italian for tomato.) Turn the alarm on and write until the beeper goes off. Write about anything but write. A remarkable thing occurs not too dissimilar to random typing. After a while, a story begins to take shape. Ideas drag along others of a similar nature. Before long you are typing something that interests you and with some luck your readers as well.

The trick is to keep at it for the entire twenty-five minutes. You can’t stop and think. You can’t go to the fridge. But you can scribble down a grocery or the words to Fere Jacques. Don’t edit or correct spelling. Don’t go back for any reason—this is a forward march sort of deal. After the chime has sounded you can clean up what you wrote, eliminate the chaff and delight with the start of a whole new endeavor.

Putting words on paper is the idea not to produce a finished product from the outset. All innovative efforts happen in stages if you try to rush one stage or skip a stage you might be creating more problems down the road. The easiest thing to do is meet the formations. When you are done, you are done. There’s little to fix or rewrite, and you won’t need to employ all my mind tricks to find your way around the recalcitrant muses.

Editing at the right time is a good way to keep your juices on the move. I edit when I lose my focus about a half to three-quarters of the way through. But before I do, I stop and walk around a bit. When I come back, I start from the top. The process of rewriting helps shake out some more thoughts. More times than not I will have achieved my goal amount and can afford to cut out any extraneous words, something I am loathed to do if the process is started too early in the project.

Discipline now there is a dirty word. I like to think that all my tricks help in that regard. And they do but only if I use them. Sometimes lack of zest or words is not the issue at all. What is afoot is laziness. I don’t feel like it. This is a good time to take a walk, a nap or a break. Start anew with a new improved dedication to disciplining yourself. Most times when I give myself permission to walk away, I bring new eyes to the project I sit with it.

If you’ve read any of my books, you are aware I am a proponent of controlling your mind by controlling your thoughts. Under no circumstances should you allow the indulgence of saying, I can’t do this. Your helpful mind will supply you with a thousand examples of how you won’t be able to accomplish your goal. This applies to everything in life not just writing.

Most of these tips apply to any problem caused by your creativity coming to a slow crawl or worse. They boil down to faking it until you make and disciplining yourself so that you can use the old bootstraps theory.

Writing, like most things imaginative, is a matter of believing you can do it and applying yourself to the task until it’s finished. Writer’s block is a mindset that only possesses as much power as you give it. My suggestion is not to give any power away. It makes life so much harder when you have to wrestle it back.

Facebook

Twitter

email