Laurie's Loft

Come and see the new digs at http://flamingo8.wordpress.com/.


Looking forward to seeing you!

Best,

Laurie

How can I be energized after four hours of sleep and teaching a full-day seminar?

I am energized by the joy of talking with writers about writing.

Today was my Get It Published! (Not Self-Published) Seminar, an experience that not only affirmed my love of writing, but also deepened my love of writers.

I was reminded that we strive to write well, not just to impress or entertain, but to connect, and not just to connect, but to connect from private places where we were once scared, lonely or brave. I saw this happen in my seminar.

And I saw, at days' end, the birth of a writers' group.

And I even got paid for it!

Blessings abound.

Best, Laurie

I'm late for West Virginia Day, but I have a good excuse: On that day, June 20, my husband and I were renewing our marriage vows among the wildflowers of Dolly Sods, at 4,000 feet, the highest plateau of its type east of the Mississippi River. We went to the Bear Rocks area of the plateau, a playground of pink tufted shrubs among pots and piles of lichen-covered boulders. Large rock slabs overlook the layered mountain vistas, and we picked one of these for our vantage point on the surrounding beauty and on our 25 years of marriage.

For a brief "link tour," click the text introducing the image, but be sure to use the back arrow to return to the blog. Our rock looked something like THIS, and the plateau landscape, something like THIS. If you want to see what the view looks like right now, check out the Forest Service’s real time image HERE. There is no substitute for being up there yourself, but the feel of the place is best captured for me by my friend and artist/photographer Bruce K. Haley (bkhaleyphotography.com),

:
courtesy of B.K. Haley Photography.

We had a simple ceremony, with nature as our witness. The bride wore white – cargo pants and simple top, that is, enhanced with faux pearls and a wildflower nosegay from the groom (purchased, not picked from those sacred grounds), and the groom wore a white polo with his cargo shorts and hiking boots. First we sat on a rock “couch” overlooking the view and read greetings, memories and poems sent by family and friends, then we stood and shared the vows we had written.

This was our vantage point. We had driven pitted and potholed roads (note to Forest Service: road repair needed!) to get there, but our marriage has driven through pits and rough terrain as well. In fact, on our drive from Charleston the day before, we had one of our characteristic entanglements: airing feelings, misunderstanding, fighting it out until understanding and laughter emerged. Before our ceremony, I had opened a card from a couple close to us: with tears of recognition, I read the first words of Edward Abbey’s poem: “May your trails be crooked…”

I love our crooked trails, the way Barron and I stretch and challenge and drive each other to higher vistas. At 25 years, the view is breathtaking.

Hello friends,

Hello friends, ah -- found time! Cancelled meetings, my house is empty, even the dog is at my husband's office-- so here I am. Writing in a quiet place is such sweet pleasure. Saw a couple of good movies recently, Smart People and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. With both movies, I had the pleasure of knowing very little about what I was about to see. My movie therapy ritual is to go to a weekday matinee, lately on Monday, and relish this quiet, solitary indulgence (even if there are a few people in the theatre, the experience is between me and the big screen). I enjoyed both of my recent picks, because they weren’t entirely predictable, and the characters were not entirely heroic or entirely bad. The lack of predictability allowed me to wander off with the movie.

My life is feeling a little like that right now. Introvert Power is launching in July, and I don’t know what is going to happen when it hits the shelves. I have accepted the challenge of learning Arabic, though I’m not sure if I can do it and I have no idea where it will lead me. I am exploring new career opportunities, and I don’t know which ones will open to me and which ones will slam in my face. All I know is that things are changing; the plot is thickening and I have a hunch it’s going to turn out well. I feel the tension, though, and movies help me to enjoy the not knowing, the “going along for the ride” – even when the ride is my life! Hmm, the ride is my life, and it’s the ride of my life – think I’ll put my hands up and say wheeeeee!

Hello dear friends. I love to be here and, yet, do not allow myself the privilege often enough. Recognizing this, I'm here. In my loft -- my virtual mind. But with friends.

A scholar by the name of Kathleen Damiani describes the Dragon as a "binding of the soul, which, like the acorn shell, binds the seed of the life force until conditions are right for the seed to burst the shell apart and grow into the light " (Dr. Damiani has much more to say on the Dragon and on Sophia at her beautiful site, aptly named sophiaandthedragon.com.)

Damiani often captures my experience, and she did it again. I am so bursting that I worry about the people in my path. Now, the bursting isn't beautiful like a sunburst, but it's mean and angry and bent on destruction, intense and focused, like a burning beam reflected off a mirror.

This intensity is lining up with the anticipated launch of my book, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength (check it out at introvertpower.com). I destroy quite a lot in this book: assumptions that extraversion is the mental health ideal, decades of misinformation about the number of introverts in our society. Yet, writing the book felt more like giving birth, like a creative wave knocked me down and carried me on a joyous excursion beyond the boundaries of our stayed assumptions.

But waves also crash. Waves break boulders into fine sand. Creativity and destruction are partners, passionate and conflictual, but deeply committed.

I can feel my acorn shell cracking around me. The old no longer fits. I don't know what I'll do without my shell, but I know I want out.

As Bette Davis put it in All About Eve, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

Happy Reflection Time! If you’re an intuitive introverted optimist like me, you probably relish stepping over into a New Year. It’s the time after the overstimulating holidays, after the parties and gatherings, when we get to stay in, chill out and cuddle up—and think. Here’s some of what’s been cooking in my internal loft:

· “Taking care of things.” We use this expression frequently, but don’t often pause to consider what we’re saying: taking care. I have a history of neglecting self-care when it’s boring or inconvenient – ordering new glasses, fixing broken stuff, finding the right product for my hypersensitive skin. Here’s an example: I spent hours last night hunting for a toothpaste formula without fluoride, which gives me a rash on my chin (look it up – it’s pretty common!). There are about a million different kinds of toothpaste formulas—sensitive, whitening, super-platinum glow with diamond sparkles—but I found NOTHING without fluoride, at least for adults. I finally purchased some “training toothpaste” for toddlers in Fruit Splash. I ultimately did discover an adult formula without fluoride, and I had used it successfully in the past without realizing why: Tom’s of Maine “natural antiplaque tarter control plus whitening” toothpaste, the peppermint one. Thank you, Tom.

Anyway, my hunt for this toothpaste is the very kind of thing most of us avoid doing because it’s a huge hassle. And when we do invest time in “taking care of things,” we often think about all of the other more important things we could be doing. This leads to another theme in my head:

· Taking or Giving? If you’re on my subscriber list (if you’re not, sign up at wakingdesire.com), you received a blessing I sent, taken from a letter by Fra Giovanni. The essence of his message: take heaven, take peace, take joy. In this context, “take” refers to “taking in” or “allowing.” I have been reading the words of another wise monk: Brother David Steindl-Rast, whose article, “Learning to Die” is a masterpiece. You can read it yourself at his site: gratefulness.org. Bro David notes the language we use regarding time: we take, spend, borrow and even kill time, but we rarely talk about giving time.

So, I’d like to think of my toothpaste expedition as a generous gift to me, a gift in the service of care and love. I gave time to something that needed time. I now deliberately substitute “giving” for “taking” when I think about time. Try it – it feels SO much better.

· The Ultimate Care Challenge. After about a year of dabbling in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, I started 2008 with the conviction to employ his ideas. WOW. This guy knows what he’s talking about. This isn’t your typical time-management program with priorities and goals and schedules. For me, this is a book about “taking care.” It’s not easy, but it’s also not oppressive. The basic idea is to put together all your piles and cluttered ideas and thoughts in your head and—clear two whole days for just this—go through every piece of paper, every idea and decide what the “next action” is. The next action may be to find a phone number or to ask somebody a question. The trick—and this is really tough—is to NOT PUT THE PAPER BACK IN THE BOX, to not skip over to something more interesting. WOW. I have been doing this (you’d need to read Allen’s book for the whole system) and, I tell you, taking care of those pain-in-the-ass items feels so liberating—and so loving.

As I reflect, it was the pain-in-the-ass responsibilities that helped me bond with my babies: the late night vigils, the diapering, clipping tiny fingernails. Giving is evidence of love, and giving time to your own care helps you feel loved and worthy. Resolve to give yourself the pain-in-the-ass care, not just the fun kinds of care like movies and popcorn (though these are important, too). Barrel through the resistance, your impulse to put it off. Feel the love.

Take—rather, give—care,

Laurie

I continue to be happily immersed in Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength. I’ll keep you posted on the book, but I’m writing to share something that touched me—something about October.

October, I have discovered, was the month, over 100 years ago, when Vincent Van Gogh entered, and soon lost, a stormy partnership that marked his descent into madness. As I look out at grey skies, falling rain and fallen leaves, as I hear of families ravished by the California fires, I think of the fire within Van Gogh and his friend Paul Gauguin, and the tragic end to their collaboration.

I tend to avoid tragic literature and films--I'm a sucker for the Hollywood Happy Ending, but Van Gogh has taught me that tragedy is not just, well, tragic, but also can be inspiring. Tragedy helps us recognize the limitations of human effort. Tragedy gives us pause, instills a kind of reverence, and gives access to the shared reality of loss. This is loss without explanation or blame. Just loss. Just sad, and yet, the glue that binds peoples’ souls. Van Gogh’s story is our story. He was an intensely private man—an introvert—who longed for a relationship big enough to embrace his fiery intensity. When he found Gauguin, he imagined he would be that friend, an artist he admired deeply.

Gauguin was not that friend, and it was not his fault. It was not Van Gogh’s fault for wanting more. But during their brief collaboration, they both painted intense beauty--October beauty, a legacy to their relationship. But when Gauguin moved out of the house they shared, they both suffered greatly: Van Gogh lost his mind and eventually took his own life; Gauguin felt the blood on his hands – people blamed him, and perhaps still do. If you get a chance to read the letters between the two artists, Gauguin responds to this sentiment and exposes his own suffering.

For all of you who have lost relationships or have lost a dream, I dedicate October to you, along with Van Gogh and Gauguin, my two favorite artists. As you relish the vivid colors of Fall, remember: the painful stories also hold amazing beauty. And the painful stories are shared stories. You are never alone.

Blessings, Laurie

Hi Friends,
Whoa -- it's been forever since I've written! I am deep into a book due out this spring: Introvert Power. My husband is guarding the door while I immerse myself. It is so amazing when you find that "sweet spot" of work where it is pure joy, and that is what this book is providing me. (Though yesterday was pretty pure hell--the tortured writing that drives us to drink, but that's been the rare exception. I came out of it with some bruises, but won the battle -- chapter complete and probably one of my best.) I need to be parting with you again shortly. Today I need a change of scenery and will move my office to one of my coffeehouse haunts.

Oh -- speaking of introversion, I would love to hear from those of you who would rather sort through trash than attend an office party. If any of the questions below inspire a great (or even mildly insightful) thought, I'd love to hear it! Email me at laurie@wakingdesire.com

What do you feel/experience in solitude?
What is your favorite time of day?
Where do you like to go to be alone?
what is your favorite solitary pastime?
What kind of environment would you live in if you could?
How do you prefer to interact with people?
How important is sleep to you?
Do you get down on yourself when you prefer to be alone? If so, what kinds of things do you say to yourself?
What do you like best about being an introvert?
What would you like extroverts to understand about you?

Catch up with you later. I'm diving in again...

Best, Laurie

Hello all:
So good to be back here at the Loft. Summer is in full swing, and it seems to be the time of year when my writing projects demand the most. It's a happy burden, however. Summer offers new sources of inspiration, and the latest came from a team of race car drivers. I took my son and his buddy to a Driver's Edge training course in Richmond, Virginia. This program is the coolest thing ever: It's free and it helps young drivers (16-21) deal with and learn to handle dangerous driving situations. They have brand new BMW cars for the trainees to take "to the edge": purposely driving fast into a skid on a wet road, quickly changing lanes and slamming on brakes--all under the instruction and supervision of race car drivers. The instructors are awesome. I would love to see every new driver get this kind of training. They have a national tour, and you can also bring the course to your area. Check out driversedge.org. So here's the lesson I took to heart:

According to the pros, the most important aspect of driving--and one that is often overlooked in driver's training programs-- is where you look. If you're spinning out of control, where do you look naturally? You look at what you want to AVOID. Then you hit it. This is why so many young drivers plant their cars into telephone poles. There may be open space all around, but the car precisely hits this small target.

The instructors talked about how hard it is to look to open space. When they taught the skid exercise, they trained the drivers NOT to look at the cones, but to look to where it was clear--to look to where they wanted to go. Wow -- what a great life lesson. In everyday life, it's easy to focus on the obstacles rather than where we want to go. We fill our time with concerns about what's getting in the way of what we want, and we get stuck.

The day we returned from the training, we got news that a friend of my son's was in a car accident: she hit a telephone pole. Fortunately, she and the passengers were uninjured, though the driver suffered a mild concussion.

It's a challenge to look to the open road, to entertain greater possibilities for our lives, to trust that the wheels will follow our eyes (they do!), and to cruise forward. I think we all could use more of this kind of driver's training.

Think about where you want to go and set your eyes in that direction. The telephone poles should stay out of your way.

Bon Voyage!

Laurie

Hey all:

Yes, it happened. The spammers won, though it was an empty battle for them. I disabled my "comments" function. I was getting thousands of spam messages, and the intrusion was putting me in a bad mood. It's curious me that people who launch spam would think their efforts would breed anything but contempt. Actually, there seems to be evidence that "shoved down your throat" mass marketing doesn't work. For a fun read, check out Purple Cow--it's a great little book on anti-mass marketing, on making a product or business a standout, or "purple cow" rather than the topic of redundant advertising (listen up, Anatrim and Viagra).

I have had the opportunity to talk to some folks who visit the loft regularly, so I know you're out there, despite your "no comment" status. So sorry.

Best, Laurie

P.S. Though you can't comment here, you can reach me via my website: www.wakingdesire.com, and I would love to hear from you!