A Dream with a Plan

It's been awhile.

I've been telling myself I will write when I have something to say.

I've been telling myself I will write when I have more time.

That when either - or both - opportunities arise, that's when I'll write.

How can I move my writing forward?

How does anyone nudge a life from dream to action?

A dream without a plan is just a wish.              

           - Katherine Paterson                                           

So here's the plan:

Designate a notebook only for writing. Discover the words, sketches, memories, dreams and
worries living within its pages. Make meaning.

Write quickly the whispered ideas that drift into conscious thought and back out again almost before they're  known or recognized.

Commit to writing. Write every day. Remember: Writers write.

Set a writing schedule. A workable stick-to-it schedule. And write - no matter what other pressing needs demand  time and attention.

Seek stories that need telling. Stories that feel important to write about. Or fun to write about. Write what you know. Listen to the heart speak and write it all down. Find a voice.

Write in multiple genres, platforms, and formats. Work on more than one piece at a time.  Write to learn. Write to know. To explore. Write to make meaning. Write to sculpt words. Bend and twist and shape words until ... a new way to say what needs to be said emerges.

Read. Reading and writing are forever intertwined.

Bring a camera everywhere. Seeing life helps write it.


                        


Go out into the world. Witness. Watch. Listen. Absorb. Experience. Live. And write.

Take risks. Trust. The words will come.


I live my whole life feeling like a writer in my heart and doing next to nothing about it. It's hard to look that fact of my life in the face, but I'm looking square in the mirror now.

And it's time for me to write.

Special thanks to @elleluna for her inspiring new book, The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion  You can find it here.

Old White Farmhouse

I've driven past the old, white farmhouse a hundred times. It sits facing a highway now. All day and long into the night, cars and trucks race past it on their way to somewhere else.  I look at and love the old place almost every time I pass. I'm saddened by its emptiness and grieve a little that its time for living seems to have come and gone.

I'm curious about the laughter which must still live as a memory within its walls.  I imagine a warm kitchen and the smells which float, like ghosts, up the main staircase toward the bedrooms upstairs.  I see me, standing there on the porch, shucking corn and watching the sun set over the fields out back.

This beautiful farmhouse is beginning to show her age.  Her white paint weathered gray by time and inattention, the farmhouse stands simple and honest.  It's me who personifies her loneliness. It's me who longs for a happy family growing strong and loving within her walls. It's me who wants her to live again. It's me who's wanted - for years - to stop by for a neighborly hello and a visit.

Yesterday, I did.

I couldn't get around front to back because of all the snow.  The side of the farmhouse though was humble and sweet and I'm so sentimental about it. All of it. Not bothered that I couldn't go inside, it was enough for me to be standing so near.

She is strong and sturdy. Resolute and patient. Farmers still work her fields, renting the land from year to year from a conservation trust. Seasonal hunters walk the woods at the pasture's edge hoping for a pheasant, or turkey, or deer.  The sun still rises and sets in her windows every day. This old beauty is not ready to fade away just yet. There's always hope.

While visiting yesterday, I met an elderly couple who showed up for some cross-country skiing across the snow-covered fields. I learned from our conversation that the nephew of the original farmer intends to live in the old house again.  Her tender roof will soon be replaced.  I'm sure her plumbing will be updated and I bet her sagging side porch will be lifted. 

My heart was lifted, too.

We're all busy. We drive life's highway rushing from one important place or task to the next. And I'm learning it's important for me to stop once in awhile. It's important for me to stop - and see - up close what my life's been passing each and every day. A wondering. A wish. A thought saved for one day soon or someday when.

Yesterday's stopping filled my heart in a way passing by never, ever will. There's hope in the stopping. There's grace too, and a deeper connection to the inside of me.

Someday soon, I hope you stop too.

Peace, Barbara

Doors

Heaviness persists. Deciding to let go and live more lightly is apparently a great idea in theory, but difficult for me to put into action. The week's been a bit about intentions and some starts, a burst of energy or two, but not much resolution - and far too few steps forward .


I realized today that it's the struggle which feels most uncomfortable, not the actual growth. I also came to understand that as long as I'm stepping forward at all, I'm not standing still. I'm going to give myself credit for movement - however small it may feel.

On Wednesday, I bundled myself all up and went for a walk in the cold. More steps forward. I found this door down one little alley.  It's striking - all black and stark and standoffish - but humbled a bit into place by the contrast around it. Doors can be like that: either all warm and welcoming or kindly go away.  

Some doors should never be opened at all and it's best not to be curious about what may be on the other side. Others - locked - prevent our passage even if we wanted to walk through.  I've walked through more than one door I shouldn't have and avoided altogether those which might have opened a better opportunity in my life.

Doors.  You're in, you're out.  On one side or the other.  Open or closed.  But either way, there is some element of choice about a door.  Considering my very real need these days to keep stepping forward, I wonder what literal and figurative doors I could choose to walk through this week, as well as which to walk right by.  

I'm on the lookout for specific and conscious choices here, and while there's an element of chance behind every choice, there's also an element of hope. Decisiveness feels like another step forward.

Be an opener of doors.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace, Barbara

Living Light

February feels like the longest short month. I've been shut in. Shut in by weather, some worry, and a bit of circumstance. The snow keeps coming and all the piles make it hard to see around life's next corner. Time, opportunity, and sub-zero wind chills make it hard to be out and so I'm in. Life feels like it's closing in and cluttered and sometimes claustrophobic. Everything feels heavier.

So I'm making living lighter my focus this week.  I've had a lot on my plate - like we all do - and then there's the folks who keep bringing their plates to my table. In my head, I know I'm not responsible for clearing or cleaning their dishes, but in my heart, I add them to the stack.  More heavy.

Enough with the heavy.

So how to live lightly?

Honestly.  I'm not sure just yet.  But I aim to find out and I've got six whole days of February left to do it in.  We're on winter break with just about a week's worth of living by design ahead. Plenty of time to clear the clutter. Start a fresh new focus. Any day now, Spring - with its opportunity for new growth - will come knocking on my door.  I want to be ready to fling that door open and breathe deeply.

I need to find a new equilibrium. Work and play and planning. Create and build, balance and bless. Both expect and deliver. Encourage and ask.  Find my way and feel around for the faith I may have lost in these darker days of winter.

First step. Day one. Today: clear some surfaces.

A typical week works havoc on my sense of peace and organizational calm. Life's living lands all over the place. Student journals pile high on my desk - on top of the bills and the calendar and the mail. My desk is the first flat surface to conquer. A nightstand cleared of creams and books and notes and half-finished bottles of water. Ditto the bathroom counters. The kitchen counter. My bedroom floor. Tables.

As Dr. Seuss so famously wrote in The Cat in the Hat

They picked up all the things that were down.

See some space. Open. Dust. Polish. Clean. Place something green and growing. A special frame and photo. Order. Lightness.

I feel lighter already.

Peace, Barbara

Weathering the Storm

The forecast gives you some notice but the truth is, when your feet hit the floor, you have no real idea what the day will bring.  Today's deal could bring you anything from couple of pairs to a flush to flat out fold. There are no real predictions.  No sure bet.

We try to prepare.  We stockpile supplies.  Ask for advice. Run some water into the tub. Gather the family and pray for the best.  The snow will fall and the wind will blow and we are powerless over it all.

God's plan is not necessarily my plan and He hasn't cleared it all with me.

So as the storm rages, we count time by minutes survived, not by minutes in the future.  We put a candle in the window and hope tomorrow will come.

We remember today's storm produces tomorrow's rainbow.  The storm will pass and the challenges of winter along with it.  Our hearts will warm, spring will come, and we'll all grow just a little from the experience.

Granola as Metaphor

My life's been a bit off balance this week. Several storms filled the New England sky and a couple corners of my heart off and on. It's hard to feel steady and certain during weeks like this one, and I never really got my momentum revved up and ready.  

Balance is important but kinda hard to come by sometimes.  A life of balance -  equal and opposite -  is one part action to every part reaction: work and play, dreaming and doing, achieving and aspiring. Life, I know, is equal parts struggle and splendor, and both even out in the end, if not necessarily in the moment.

To feel more grounded in the everyday and regular, I often seek the warmth of the kitchen. I find my footing there with my hands in the hot, soapy suds of the sink and the familiarity of flour and baking. Wooden spoons, measuring spoons, whisks, and my nesting mixing bowls both comfort and inspire. It is here I will remember what balance feels like.

Granola is good-for-you food that doesn't take itself too seriously.  A go-to of crunch and chew, sweet and salty, it satisfies more than one craving at once.  Like life,  you can toss a whole lot of anything and everything into the mix, and it all somehow turns out okay in the end.  See?  Balance.

My recipe is based on Alton Brown's from the Food Network.  You can find his recipe here.

Bake up some balance:  METAPHOR GRANOLA

                                                                                                 Preheat oven to 250

In a large mixing bowl, gather:

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup shredded sweet coconut
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup +2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

In a separate bowl, mix:

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (real) maple syrup
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 teaspoon salt

Combine the two mixtures.  It's going to take a bit of work to moisten all those dry ingredients, so I dump everything into the biggest bowl I can find.

Spoon onto two cookie sheets and spread into an even layer.  Bake for a little over an hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so. 

Stirring gets a little messy - but then, so does life.  I used the biggest spatula I could find and faithfully flipped every 15 minutes or so - just enough time to get lots of little tasks done in between. Toss in a load of laundry, send an email, clean up the oatmeal you got all over the floor.  All doable in 15 minute chunks of time.  It's multitasking that smells so good.

After you take the granola from the oven,  let the browned loveliness cool while you take a nap.  When you wake up, return the granola to a large mixing bowl.  Add a couple cups of dried cranberries or raisins.  I also tucked in - by request - some tiny, dark chocolate chips.
I didn't measure because measuring chocolate is just silly.

Go ahead and marvel at your creation as you spoon it into jars for safekeeping.  The texture.  The playful pop of color.  The balance.


Peace, Barbara

Possibility

Possibility. A word wrapped in hope. 

A far-fetched cousin of reality,  possibility refuses to look at life exactly as it is. Reality lives in a world of Monday mornings, but when you hang out with possibility, it's always a Saturday night.



Possibility's a party with balloons, streamers, confetti flying with the air with good fortune and a round of smiles for all.  Possibility believes in - and celebrates - you and me, all of us. Inviting us each morning into the dawn of one more day where dreams are just waking up.

It's sometimes hard to see possibility. I wonder what I've overlooked by no more than the habit of day to day living. The comfort of my habits drift me along through my days until I reach the stopping place at the end. Possibilities punctuate life's potential with question marks and exclamation points - not periods.  


What if ? !


Possibility knows imagination.  A thinker of new ideas, possibility rides shotgun on a spontaneous trip down an unknown road, and inspires the courage of change.

What will I find when I fling open my mind? My heart? How will life change if I pay attention and look hard for what's possible? What will I see? Where will I go? Who will I meet? 



Is it possible to be kinder? More generous? Is it possible to complain less and praise more? Give more and take less? What's possible in my relationships? My job?  


What's possible in this day?

Let's find out ...

Peace, Barbara