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Serving and amplifying that service
OK, when I finished up the last post, I was a little bit flip, indicating that serving myself was the primary goal. And it is. And I’m supposed to think beyond that to complete these exercises.
For the past 15 years I have worked in corporate jobs, and while it served me well enough to build a bit of equity, it’s not the right thing to keep on doing. The people I’m serving are not bringing beauty and truth into the world. The work gave me a means to provide for myself, support art and contribute to a happy healthy society, but is it time to be more engaged as a creative human being.
I think some of how I stay engaged without a straight corporate job will be volunteer service, at a shelter for humans or dogs. When I can’t contribute as many dollars each month, I will give hours. I serve my community as an election judge, being one of the people who keep elections as fair and level as possible in this day and age of electronic voting machines.
Sewing and leatherwork provides people a means to protect, cover and adorn themselves. That’s a good thing to have. I’m making a tote bag, which oddly enough was the last thing I tried selling in 1995 when I gave up trying to sew for a living.
Writing fantasy fiction serves people by providing a door to step outside and think through things in a different way.
Overall, providing shelter too is the prime objective though. In addition to being in a warm safe place myself, I have two people and two dogs in this house at this very moment. We would be all be a lot closer to homeless if I weren’t paying the mortgage and bills on this place.
Which element of your best work do you most want to amplify this year?
That’s a tricky one for someone trying to turn her back on 15 years of work. My best work in the past has been making data flow smoothly. I can’t get my mind around it lately, adrenal fatigue and menopause and autoimmune disease has played havoc on my ability to do my best work.
See more about this exercise which has me adding to this blog semi-regularly for a while at: trackingwonder.com/quest-2016
More questing
Short hits to catch up several of these – www.trackingwonder.com/quest-2016
Would they miss you if you were gone?
What would have to change for that question to lead to a better answer?
The dogs would miss me.
Things I need to do: Get better at keeping in touch with nephews, nieces. Talk weekly or so with them using phone, skype, play games online with them. For folks here in town, I need to get out more, see friends, and reach out so I talk to people each day, some each week, and some even each month.
What can you stop doing in 2016 such that it would allow you to focus on higher payoff activities?
Dicking around on facebook, maybe, I can spend an hour a day doing that. But, it is my primary means of keeping in touch with family and friends right now.
Zoning out in front of the TV. Putting on pajamas when I get home and staying in them as long as possible, so I’m never presentable to go out. Failing to set specific goals and failing to set patterns of spending time writing, exercising, cleaning.
Of these 3 options, which one is most important in your work right now:
- Quality of life
- Quality of work
- Quality of compensation
I enjoy my quality of compensation – because it is what makes quality of life. Compensation is a means to the end. I enjoy work and will do pretty much whatever it takes to maintain a quality of life which includes clean toilets – I was about to say indoor plumbing, but I’m flexible – and food in the refrigerator.
I’m ready to ditch being well-compensated and driving to an office in a large corporation, and start doing freelance work for myself in a paid-off house. So definitely, quality of life is my driving factor.
How will you better clarify whom you serve and what you do for them in 2016?
Lean Manufacturing has a principle of defining what actions are necessary by only doing what is value-added for a customer. All else is a form of waste, which might not be able to disappear to nothing but has to be treated as wasted time instead of value-added effort. There is a book I’ve been reading online at work which has exercises for the reader to take a close hard look at work efforts and identify which ones are truly adding value, and which ones are just going thru the motions.
So this question is right on target – first, who do I serve? then, what do I do for them?
Not to sound self-serving, but my primary goal is to take care of myself. As I said above, all else is just a means to make sure my needs are met. I want food, I want shelter, I want security. I want comfort. I want any challenges to be challenges of “how do I make that happen” or “what is the best answer” – mechanical or intellectual challenges.
Challenges I wish to avoid are: “What the fuck I can’t afford tires or insurance, and I can’t get to work without the car” or “The last three meals have been navy beans and cornbread, I hope to get $3 to buy some black beans and brown rice soon.” Other challenges I hope to avoid for myself are “fuck, I can’t breathe” and being taken to the hospital.
Work is a means to achieve a calm happy place. I’m floundering, like a fish out of water, gasping and upset and flopping around. Ready to evolve into breathing air. I’m going to fix that soon. My workplace is not fun, people are not kind, it’s too stupid and competitive and people are working on the wrong things to truly add value.
So, I’m going to go upstairs and mend a dress so I go out tonight and see friends – somehow that hits all the notes of seeing people, taking care of myself, solving mechanical problems. Mending this dress, which is a beautiful vintage dress studded with rhinestones, is a step towards 2016.
Daydreaming
Today in catching up on writing prompts: What recurring daydream for 2016 inspires you to do business as unusual like never before? http://trackingwonder.com/quest-2016/
Hm. Recurring daydream. I have several. Mostly, I just want to sleep. Have I mentioned that my overall primary feeling is “exhausted”? And what is a daydream about sleeping?
I have several conflicting ideas. I sort of want my own home in the country. But can it be close to everything, bus ride to museums, walking distance to a grocery store, near the library? I’m tired of driving. I sort of want an artists’ colony. I sort of want to run an RV park with house concerts and people all around. I sort of want to be myself. I sort of have novels bursting out of my head which would be as interesting to write as they will be to read. I sort of want a quiet business doing sewing and leatherwork. I sort of want to put a few things in a backpack and get on a bus. I’m all over the map on what I want for next year.
I think the one unusual thing I can do to as never before is to clean, to sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain a clean, orderly home. a home which is quick to sell and pack. The 5S methodology, which comes from Toyota to “lean” manufacturing worlds is shown here: http://www.kaizenworld.com/what-is-5s.html
That might not be the awesome insight the writing prompts were designed to pull out, but that is the one thing I can do in the coming year which will make any and all of my daydreams come true. Plus, I won’t feel the crushing weight of detritus piling up, mending and books and dust and … I’m exaggarating, on the whole my home is one of the least-cluttered. But I want less.
Failure and advice
Failure is something I know this year. I’ve been failing to keep track of things, failing to get work done on time and on quality, failing to be present and be aware.
Tardy. Grandma’s birthday, no card sent. A week before Christmas, no cards sent. Taking a certification test tomorrow, barely a plan to get it done and very little studying. I did watch 8 episodes of True Detective in the past 5 days though. Hours of TV a day is a type of failure. Withdrawn, I’ve been rather withdrawn. Failing to do the right things each day to set the next day up for success. Failing to keep homemade food and menus made and groceries purchased. Failing to keep myself healthy.
Now I’ve signed up for this series of writing prompts designed to help me set resolutions for 2016 – www.trackingwonder.com/quest-2016 – and I’m over a week behind on posts.
The prompt is: How would you do business as unusual in 2016 if you knew – no matter what you chose – you would not fail?
Well, what is failure? Not keeping commitments. Not keeping a roof over my head and food on the table. Not being able to provide for others. Descending into panic until I’m hospitalized and hooked up to oxygen. What does it mean to say “you would not fail”?
How could an external force guarantee that I would put the correct things on my to-do list each day and get them done too, without crushing stress? What situation would guarantee that hearth and home would be safe and secure, and all those around me would be OK too?
I want to write speculative fiction, and yet I can’t imagine this world. Onto the next writing prompt, I’m five behind already.
And that. Helped. Here’s what I have to do:
(1) Skip the things that aren’t crucial and are blocking getting on to the next item on the list. Mark items “Not applicable” as needed to define and focus on the real needs.
(2) Stop trying to provide so much to so many. Cut down on the charity, informally to friends, to people on street corners, to feeling like people who’ve lost their homes are your responsibility,. a big endless black hole where no matter what I pour in, it sucks the soul right out of me. Define and focus on the real needs. It’s not what I’d do if “failure were not possible” but it is what I need to do to stop feeling like a failure.
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And the next prompt: What advice would your future self a year from now give you today?
(1) See above (2) See above
(3) Look at what has to be done and try to set it up so that one effort knocks out two or more items on the list of things to complete.
Questions
“You wake up to discover a knock at your door. A wealthy uncle you barely knew has passed and left you a fortune. It’s more than enough to live out your days in glorious splendor, but there is a condition. To be eligible to collect, you must commit your full-time working energies to the pursuit of an answer to a single question of your choosing for the next 12 months.”
A question I could spend a year researching is:
“What would happen if … in the aftermath of the War of 1812 and subsequent empire building, an independent Cherokee state had been established?”
It’s not so far fetched. John Ross had a good start with New Echota. Sam Houston married into a strong Cherokee family, and if they hadn’t of thrown him back out, we could have had a Cherokee first lady of Texas.
These were strong people defending rights to land in the best styles of lobbyists and lawyers. People with a printing press, who understood the media, and still inexplicably lost. Lost, but continued to win. Oklahoma is a quiet triumph, their descendants have some great mineral wealth and some of the most educated towns in the US, facts barely known outside the empire they built.
Back to reading Jacksonland.
Questing for 2016
I joined an online community with writing prompts for 2016. I’m not sure what the whole marketing spin is, but it seemed like a worthwhile project.
First observation – questing and question share a lot of letters. Questing is a basic form of a plot. People go on a quest, and that forms the core of a book.
I signed up for this group because I feel I have unfulfilled dreams that have been back burnered, out there but not committed to achieving, for 2015. And probably for 201x. I have been kinda loafing, quietly underachieving, coasting, for five years. Why? Dunno, just being takes so much energy, there isn’t a whole lot left for playing a starring role in the life I spin around myself. Just keeping the bills paid, laundry done, grocery shopping, and commuting to work each day has been as much as I can handle. I’ve lost touch with friends, rarely go out and see music, have tons of people I haven’t seen in over a year, stopped hosting parties, haven’t had anyone over for dinner or gone out to others homes in forever. Now that I say all this, it’s a light depression, a pall over my normally cheerful energetic life.
First writing prompt – “What I need to tell myself most about 2016 is ….”
“Keep breathing.”
Twice in the past year I’ve had to go to the hospital for an asthma attack with a strong underpinning of panic. I cannot catch my breath. I’m angry, I’m upset, I’m unable to fucking fill my lungs with air, until I nearly collapse.
“Loosen up.”
The urgent care center listened to my lungs and said “You’re very tight.” Yes. My muscles, my bones, my joints, my tendons, my ligaments, have been in this adrenal-fueled panic for 49 years. If just one thing goes wrong, it will all collapse and I’ll be hungry, cold, homeless. I’m drowning. I can’t catch a breath, I can’t catch a break, I can’t do anything right, I’m in this constant panic for all that I practice a fun-loving easy-going exterior.
“Let it go.”
Shame and guilt from past wrongs done and received continues to haunt my self talk anytime I’m quiet for just a moment.
“Sell this mortgaged home and get into a paid-off home.”
I hate debt, I can’t tolerate a high load of monthly bills, and trying to do it since 2007 just isn’t me.
And that, my friends, is what I need to tell myself in 2016.
Mustang Sally
“Ah, so this is part of the United States,” the old woman muttered as she dropped off the growler. “What year did this land become part of the US?”
“1845” I answered quickly as a quiz whiz kid.
“And before that it was called?”
“Texas.”
All that week as I sipped from the jug of homemade wine she’d delivered, I pondered the puzzle of Mustang Sally. Her odd way of appearing out-of-sync with the times.
Left Brain Right Brain No-Brainer
Writing. Sewing. Cooking. All good. But then there’s … math problems. I signed up for an online logic course, and it prompted a world of remembering. As a child, I would sit and do math problems. For fun. They tickle a corner of my brain where answers are proven, cut and dry, out in the open — symbolic but without hidden layers of meaning.
Offline, I went to a class on metaphor at the library. There have been writing classes at the library, the library by the wet pond where the dog and I go visit turtles and blue herons, the library just over the hill and down to the right, each month. But I was oblivious, failed to read the postings or calendar and missed them until Monday. I saw an advertisement in a free newspaper and showed up, enjoyed the people and Jo Virgil, the teacher — only to find out it was the last one. The city is shuffling the library staff and the people who organized the effort are off to other corners of town.
Life is But a Dream: Using Metaphors as Truth on Wheels
Wherein I learned that when something outlandish happens, to consider: “If it were a dream, what would it mean?”
(Speaking of Outlander, do I have some catching up to do on my responses to novels, movies and music.) First, a few exercises in metaphor.
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First, write down a list of 7 objects. Now, pick two unlikely unlike objects. What might they have in common? Combine them in a description; you have two minutes.
The stopwatch counted down the seconds. Inexorably, nerve wracking, tick, tick, tick. Time was short, and each time her anxiety ratcheted up her klutziness followed, making the odds of of winning the contest more, and more, and more remote. Tick, tick, tick.
Suddenly, a turn in the obstacle course and a calming thought. As a baby, she was put to bed with a teddy bear, a teddy bear with a ticking heart. Loved, comforted, she entered the home stretch and won the million dollar prize.
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What caught your attention today? What might it mean? Saturn, saturn changing signs from Libra to Scorpio caught my attention today, true, as did new growth on the morning dog walk.
The dog tugged to the left, politely asking if we could please continue along the creekbed and cross under the road, to the wide open field beyond with its burned out regrowth and dragonflies and wildflowers, so many good smells? The way we do most days, safer than crossing up at the street. We hadn’t been that direction in a few days, rain, puddles, mud and wet feet — but maybe today it was dry enough, I conceded.
Jumping gently from high spot to high spot, we peeked into the dark concrete tunnel. All along the floor under four lanes of traffic, in a smear of silt layered on concrete, green rye grass sprouted. Things taking root in unlikely places, silt resulting from last summer’s fire and seed meant to help the land heal. Soon, washing away in the next good rain. Today, providing a bit of extra footing as we gingerly made our way under the road and out to the sunny field.
Deep in the land of single-wides and spring fed swimming pools
In writing class, I practiced character sketches. I don’t want to be bound to human characters, so I challenged myself to write from the viewpoint of a plant.
Stone water tank
Looping around the road construction on the way back to the motor court, we noticed a large stone tank in the middle of a crowd of dilapidated single-wides on the high lonesome prairie.
A bit later, looking at archive pictures of the Big Bend area, there was a picture of a very similar stone tank with an explanation of how the settlers found springs and built tanks.
That tank? May be spring fed. “Yup, here we are in the land of single-wides with spring fed swimming pools.”
And from that idea, these paragraphs bubbled up:
It was midnight, and she rustled as the owl landed, shook her leaves, and accepted the weight on her branches. She followed the owl’s gaze searching the scrubby land for any movement, searching for possums and tasty treats.
Shadows from the distant bright moon danced across the landscape as the clouds parted. The owl launched off, flying fast, not swooping towards the ground, heading directly away from … what? As the tallest tree for miles, she could see great distances over the windswept plain.
Nothing. There was a whole lot of nothing. In all the many years she’d stood sentinel over this land, the spring had attracted deer and foxes and mice to sip a drink of cool water bubbling from deep in the soil.
She remembered when she was a seedling, then a sapling, twining her roots deep into the rocks where the cool clear water tickled. As her shadow grew, traveling tribes came for the spring water and rested a spell under her branches for shade.
She looked at the tiny sod house to the right, which she’d watched being scraped out of the meager prairie all those many years ago. The home builders toiled mightily with mules and sharp blades to scrape stones from the ground, put seeds into the dust, and stacked the stones around the spring to build a tank. The others came furtively by the light of the moon.
Thinking back, way back, to that time of the bright flowers blooming, and the anger of the traveling tribe denied access to their spot. And the fire, the hot fire. It scorched her lower branches, but left the home builders unable to move, stretched out across the staked plains, until the coyotes came and howled and tore at their flesh and the big cats ran away with their white bones.
And still the spring burbled and filled the tank. The flowers bloomed. Travelers filled their pouches and rested in her shade. Until this past time of cold, when the white snow tickled her leaves. The warm time came again, but the rain didn’t fall, the flowers didn’t bloom. The spring was dry. Her deepest roots could barely find any water to sip, and none reached the surface for the visitors.
But she couldn’t follow the owl. She must stay here, waiting for the rain, waiting for the spring.
First kiss with trolls
In another writing exercise, we do a “clustering” activity (mind-mapping without the TM).
Somehow my little circles of topics based on a center item of “First Kiss” are just few easy steps from a first kiss scene starring someone like this dude, a troll from Tenth Kingdom.
- Troll from fantasy mini-series Tenth Kingdom
“Troll breath. No amount of mint can ever ward away troll breath. Trolls who smoke manage to improve their breath, the heavy nicotine sourness lends a sweet note to their sulfurous air.
generous splooge 