resolutions

I love the fresh start of a new year, but usually my resolutions are cliches: lose weight, eat better, stretch more, blah, blah, blah...

Not this time.  2010 started me on this path to authenticity.  I know, it's an overused word.  What I mean by it is this: I'm going to be true to me.  I've spent nearly forty years trying really hard to be what others expect, letting little bits of me peek out here and there.  This last year, though, I started to let more and more out and found that people still liked me.  Sweet freedom! 

Here are my resolutions:

• Stop overthinking EVERYTHING. Start trusting my gut.
• Write EVERY DAY. Send out query letters.  Freelance more. Find a literary agent by the end of the year.
• Paint, draw, collage, CREATE something new - weekly.
• Get organized.  Don't worry if it doesn't look like what others expect organized to look like.
• Dance.  Even if no one else is.
• Spend time with people that fascinate me.  Beware.
• Wear more color.  This does not mean that I'm giving up the black, so don't get too excited. 

 Happy holidays!

design

I recently read A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink and came away feeling better about myself as a creative person.  It basically states that the future of the United States will be innovation and creation.  Because we're losing our manufacturing sector to the global economy, we need to come up with a new way to be a superpower.  Why not in design?

There is, of course, a lot more to this book, but it was the idea of design as a commodity that I couldn't shake.  Who doesn't appreciate (if not love in a lustful, heated way) great design?  Why else is the iPhone so popular ?  The apps?  Those are design at work, too.

As a person who was once voted "Most Creative" by her peers (thank you, Class of '90), I have been wandering lost through the desert of careers unsure of what I could do with this exalted honor.  What the hell does it mean to be creative?

I've been obsessed with design all my life, I just didn't understand what it was.  I didn't have a name for it. I loved to see my dad sketch ideas for guns (he's been a part-time gunsmith for as long as I can remember) and then watch as he created that idea in his shop.  It was amazing to see something on paper come to life in our old garage.  While I don't have the same appreciation for firearms that my dad has, I do admire how he worked out his ideas from conception to finish. 

When our daughter was two, my husband used scrap wood to create a castle for her, complete with turrets.  It was thrown together rather quickly and looked great.  Pieces of wood that would have been thrown into a landfill became the bricks of our kid's playhouse.  Great sustainable design.

I write every day.  I have to, I always have, whether someone else is reading it or not.  The other thing I do everyday has to do with design of some sort.  The way I see it, I might as well get more serious about it.  I'm looking into masters programs in industrial design.  I have a few months left before I finish my marketing management degree and then it's on to focus on the art and science of design.

wealth

I grew up poor. 

More than once, I lived in a trailer.  My family's nicest home was a tract house in a low-income subdivision.  My dad was a trucker; my mom a motel maid. 

I remember getting a ride home from a very nice boy that I really, really liked and telling him not to drive down my driveway.  I didn't want him to see the bright blue trailer we lived in my senior year.  I told him I didn't want his car to get muddy.  He laughed, "So you should get muddy instead?"  It was a John Hughes moment and I was Molly Ringwald. 

I vowed to be more than that.  I'm not.  

So far.

I got the dreamer gene from my folks, but I have a strong reason to go beyond the dreaming stage - my daughter.  I didn't go to college after graduation because my parents told me not to get any loans.  They didn't have any money set aside for it and I didn't have enough to go to the great schools I could have, so I didn't.

She will.  I'll make sure of it. 

[Oh, and I'm going to live in Italy, too.  And write books.  And drink loads of red wine.  Expensive red wine.  Don't doubt me.]

chill

Right now I'm waiting alone in an empty house. Not my house - which is chaotic, small and messy - a house in which no one lives. A window repairman will be here soon and I have the key.

It's peaceful.  I've forgotten what complete quiet is like.  I miss it.  I don't mean quiet to be just about noise in this case.  Everything in this house is beige and there is no furniture.  There isn't even a scent in the air but the perfume I sprayed on this morning. All of my senses are taking a small break.

This is something I need to do from now on - find some time to shut down.  I worked on a revision until 2 am and, frankly, the paper still sucks.  I was supposed to have finished another by today, but got hung up staring at the other, willing my overactive brain to make a dry research paper come alive for the person who will be grading it. I doubt I achieved excellence.

I used to teach guided meditation.  I used to meditate almost daily.  I did yoga and stretched and took walks so that I could look at trees. 

What happened to me? 

Somehow I've become this hurried, worried, spacey blob of a human and I'm realizing I do this a lot.  I find some peace, simplify, then start worrying that I'm lazy, going nowhere, have no money or whatever and quickly throw myself into 15 different projects/roles and then get fried. 

This quiet, beige room is reminding me that I need to chill.

1%

Finished my marathon!!!! 

It was pretty impressive, too.  I was last.  Seriously.  Two days later my chiropractor managed to put my ankle/foot/something-in-that-region back where it was supposed to be. 

I did all 26.2 miles in seven hours.  Now I get to say I'm part of that 1% that finished a marathon AND I can mark that off of this Bulleted List.

Next up, flamenco...

new york times bestseller list

This is a MUST do.

I will be a published novelist, even if I'm older than Grandma Moses when it happens.  With any luck, I won't have to wait quite that long.

This has been a dream for as long as I can remember.  There are chapter books I wrote in fourth and fifth grade written on wheaty brown school paper locked in a box somewhere at my parents' house.  They'd be comical to read now, but I took writing seriously and did it every day - a habit I need to reestablish. 

There are 550 days until my fortieth birthday.  I vow to add to my working novel every one of those 550 days, even if it's sometimes just a sentence. 

 And there it is in writing, a vow to finish this novel before I turn forty.  Keep me on task, please.

reading

Change That - Teach Someone to Read

Thirteen years ago I lived in a tiny duplex close to the train depot here in Boise. My only neighbor was a single mother of a beautiful two-year-old girl.

One day, as I was hauling a load of groceries from my car, I noticed them sitting on their front stoop looking through a large picture book.

"Is your mommy reading a nice book to you?" I asked the toddler, who just smiled.

"Oh, I can't read," my neighbor said.

At first, I started to laugh. Then I realized she was dead serious. I promised to teach her, but she said,"It's okay - it's not important."

What?????

I tried to explain that reading was THE most important skill anyone could have, but she never took me up on my offer.

My daughter is a new reader and every word she points out to me is a gift. Words are magic. Words have taught me to cook, to replace a carburetor, to tie a necktie, to do my taxes. I remember the pride I felt when I was allowed to check out chapter books while the rest of the kids were only allowed little kid books. Words gave me a sense of self and made me special. Words have broken my heart and words have made me fall in love.

The only way to create a better existence is through education, whether you're teaching conservation or peace, and one of the best ways to reach others is through the written word. My life changed the day my father taught me to sound out words.  Listening to Rhiannon read brings me an infinite amount of joy.

If I were granted one wish to change the world, it would be global literacy.  I'm pretty sure the rest would work itself out if the world's people were able to read and understand.