WON'T SOMEONE PUSH ME OFF THE DIVING BOARD, PLEASE

I am in creative agony.  I have written a book and will self publish it soon.
The content is done.  It's not the book I thought I would write first. (I have several lined up)  It's about a less known side of me (or not--we are all so obvious actually). I may have mentioned it here. The title is I Pray Anyway:Devotions for the Ambivalent

I pray. And I am a skeptic and a believer and a perpetually curious searcher 
that can't find one home base or spiritual certainty.  And, still I pray, my way.
The book has a prayer poem for each day of the year and a monthly entry about my personal bumps and bruises from my own religious roller coaster. I share my kind of prayer practice.  

I am shy as the time comes to publish. I want everyone in the world to read it except people I know. But I am ready and eager even BUT I can not get the cover so that it feels just right. I have had many versions and worry that I have ruined them all with too much tweaking.  

So help push me off the diving board.  I WILL HAVE THIS BOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON BY NOVEMBER 1ST.  READY OR NOT.  (THERE IS NO READY)  

THANKS CHRISTOPHER

I need the holiday, I'll take it.
But let's remember that this land and people did exist before Chris.
How do we honor a whole history of almost anything?
So much cultural bias and narrative.
We have to let go of the idea of winners over losers.
Somehow.
Somehow.

STALKING JOY

After a lousy week and too much lousy world news, I had lost my joy.
I know I've lost it  when I get locked into sarcasm (usually funny but still sarcasm) and gallows humor.  My optimism takes on a jaded touch of trying too hard. 

I needed to find my joy again. So I dedicated half a day to doing only what gave me joy. Harder than it sounds. Luckily I had time alone.  First you have to remember what your joy feels like and then do what you have to do to stay with it.
Joy to me is like carbonated satisfaction. It's not raucous like happiness, nor indulgent like pleasure. Joy lightens and refreshes and reorients to a kind of positive innocence.  

Here's where my joy took me today:

—I had an invalid morning. Coffee and reading in bed. I only read what grabbed me and changed when I lost the joy in it. I looked at a book with paintings and commentary of Picasso's work. Then I switched to a novel. I never got to the point of boredom because I stayed with joy and changed when i realized I was "doing my duty" in some way.

—I had two phone calls that were going to head into unpleasant tasks. I told both callers that I was having a 'joy' day and I'd deal with tasks on Monday.
Bewildered but acquiescent, they agreed. Triumph. I turned off the phone.
Joy, joy.

—I sat on the porch in the sun and enjoyed the details of window boxes that soon I will destroy. Just stared and enjoyed.

—I gave some time to being sad about sad things--just sat with it until it evaporated and joy re-appeared.  

—I held still a lot. 

—I kept the discipline of shifting actions as my joy did. If it diminished, I waited til the next joy pull came.

—I did some odd task that gave me joy--like clearing a book shelf of 20 books

—I pulled in my antennae that are so sensitive to other people and kept close to myself--attuned to me.

I wish I could explain it better. It is such a good practice to do a reset for joy.
Joy just is, but sometimes needs attention and amplification. On another day, I might have a different list of joy givers. The practice is to stalk and consciously grow your joy.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Good ol' Ben feels like my soul mate. Always has. From my first sixth grade report on him to this morning.

My latest crush is my falling back in love with my library. (Thank you Ben for such a good idea) Yes, people should have access to books and for free.  What a radical important idea for a democracy.  

I have re-discovered the inter-library loan.  I call the library and give them a list of books (up to 15) and they tell me when one appears and I go pick it up.
For free people!!!!  For free.  

I am ecstatic. No need to buy. I save my iPad for travel or the odd book I want to share on Facebook. The library staff laughs (and enjoys) my absolute joy when I pick up books. The last time I picked up books they asked, "Is this still like your Birthday for you?"  Yes, yes and yes.  If I get jaded about free books at my command, available with ease, then all is lost.

I leave extolling America and Ben, for creative energy, for the radical idea of democracy, for big ideas that generate good change, for an insatiable hunger for progress and learning. Yippee.  

Ben was a scoundrel and ready for adventure (and romance too). He drove John Adams nuts with his womanizing and exorbitant book buying when they were in
Europe together.  No wonder I love him.  Let's hear it for Ben!!  We need this kind of zesty positive energy full of possibilities.  

THE PLEASURE OF LETTERS WRITTEN ON PAPER. HOW QUAINT!

Here's how I want to start:

—Dear reader, hope this finds you well. Thanks for the kind words you shared about my latest writing. I've been in the end of Summer hectic transition to Fall and look forward to a reading and writing frenzy instead. I have the books you suggested stacked on my already stacked desk. My book I PRAY ANYWAY—Devotions for the Ambivalent should go to Createspace this week. 
Hope this letter finds digging into your own work after a great Summer. Forgive my em dashes—

This is a poor imitation of a letter from the book Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker. I read it over the week-end and it was and is so sooooooothing. Every single letter back and forth between author and editors is so polite and lovely
(a word I rarely use). The cadence is almost courtly even when discussing punctuation.  I find reading letters written before the 60's so reassuring. (Poor ol' sixties--they are not to blame for absolutely everything.)  You know, that they recent TIME magazine asks the question, "Is etiquette finished forever?" or something like that.  

Anyway, if you want some calming and civility, read correspondence from the near or distant past. It shows how far we have come in a decline to crude tidbits of projectile vomiting viewed as writing or communication. (Sorry, I didn't know that description, itself, would be so graphic. Irony emerges!  

So dear reader, I recommend the book Elizabeth and The New Yorker. Elizabeth Bishop was/is quite the poet and worked with some greats at the THE NEW YORKER magazine. She drove them nuts with her erratic punctuation as I do my  writing colleague.  The point is to enjoy a kind of civility that is not at all restrictive, but uplifting in style and substance.

AND NOW, THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM A 2 1/2 YEAR OLD.

Reminders from a babysitting grandmother/YaYa:


—Bedtime should not be at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted! All that cuddle and ritual and book after deadly book needs morning energy.

—Anyone who thinks they don't pray, will if they can't get that darn little person to take a nap as the oxygen beckons just out of reach

—Building  a tight routine is excruciatingly boring and doesn't work when you most need it.  Chaos is only slightly worse

—Peak moments of toilet training only happen when you absolutely have to be out the door on the dot for the most important appointment of your life and you have to go into  Bhudda mind or lose yours

—Repetition builds learning.  Repetition makes you repeat what you wished the little kiddo already knew.  Repetition makes hate your own voice.
Repetition is unrelenting punishment for kid and adult. Repetition only works for learning when it's fun which produces the need for fun games for things that should be dull, like brushing teeth and, which in turn, become deathly boring.

—We all resort to sugar under duress. Thank goodness for bribery with sugar and just a teeny tiny drip of cold medicine when there is no cold.

—Demanding relentlessly really does work.  


—Give-up trying to find the lost "y" for the alphabet puzzle

—Know that you are normal if a heart squeezing moment resets you to "over the moon"  about your kiddo and don't beat yourself up when all you want to do is freeze dry your two year old while you catch your breath



–

THANKS OLIVER SACKS

Oliver Sacks died this past week.  Oddly, I haven't read a lot of his books. He was Professor of Neurology at NYU and wrote books about his clinical practice.
He recently finished his memoir, On the Move.  I did read an article of his that stuck with me. It was about the Sabbath.

I spent the day, yesterday on the front porch in total quiet.  That, in itself, is a miracle, given the car repair garage across the street and a house guest and a frequent and welcome granddaughter visit.  The quiet had that poignant feel of Summer sliding into Fall. The window box flowers were having their last fling at freshness.  Everything was poised in an in between moment. Hushed and achingly (not an overblown phrase here) perfect.

I picked up a magazine and read Oliver Sacks' comments about the Sabbath.
He had not been an observant Jew for years but was visiting a cousin. He had finished his memoir and had been told shortly after that he was dying of cancer.
No reprieve.  He went to Sabbath at his cousin's home.

The peace of the Sabbath, of a stopped world, a time outside of time, was palpable, infused everything, and I found myself drenched with wistfulness, something akin to nostalgia.

He goes on to say more about the Sabbath as his death grows closer:

I find my thought, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thought drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one's life as well, when one can feel that one's work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

That is the tone of the moment I had on my front porch. An intimation.