All in a day’s work

Bacon and eggs.

Leave a comment

Did your mom ever tell you to start your day right by eating a good breakfast? Mine did … and I spent my college years (and more time than I care to remember) NOT starting my day off right at all.

Mom was probably referring to fueling up for physical energy, but I’ve come to understand the phrase as meaning much more. Now, I start my day right with rituals that fuel my mind, body and soul:

Meditation. I take a little time every morning to simply be. Whatever time I can spare, it’s usually about 15 minutes.

Morning Pages. I practice Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, so I write three pages of “brain drain” in longhand each morning. This takes me about half an hour and it’s amazing what this does for my thinking  process.

Breakfast. I break the evening fast with something to eat every morning. I may be doing other things, too – but Mom is right. It sure helps not feeling hungry on deadline.

Exercise. Because I work freelance, I shift my daily schedule to suit my needs (something anyone can do, really). So I don’t have to get in a daily walk at the crack of dawn. I usually take a break from working with a walk outdoors. If it’s raining (and it is many days here) I walk the 14 stairs in my house.

Accomplishing any one of these rituals could start my day “right,” yet when done all together, they are the bacon and eggs of my day.

And I’m very grateful!

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons, jeffreyw

 

Do you like reading my posts? Why not sign up for an email subscription? You receive a little somthin’-somthin’ to ponder every Tuesday and Thursday.

 

Here, let me say that for you.

Leave a comment

Writing the story of a person, business or service is a very personal experience – especially for the writer. To express someone else’s thoughts and ideas accurately, this writer attempts to define the true essence of the subject matter. “What do you really mean?” is the question I answer for myself –and for my clients, pretty much. Then, I get it down on paper using appropriate words, bringing it to life.

The right words, yes … but also, I use format to help tell stories, too. What’s the best way to describe stand-out attributes? Headline? Poem? Long sentence? Music? Picture? Spanish? What kind of feeling lives behind the words? All CAPS? Italic? Bold? How long do I want to hold another’s attention? All these things communicate a thing’s true essence. Especially together, with words. Thoughts and ideas don’t live in a vacuum … can I create an environment in which it can live? Thrive? A moment?

For a writer, this train of thought is second nature. For this writer, at least.

Photo Credit: Flickr, GRwitters

 

Software update.

5 Comments

I’m a PC, and I let my PC update programs automatically.

When these updates fail, an error code is produced … so many times, it’s an unknown error. To me and my computer.

Try and get help with it, and you enter a virtual door that opens to a door that opens to a door that opens to another door. No help, though (Was this helpful to you? No. How can we make it more helpful to you? Exit.)

It’s quite fascinating to me that computer illiterates like me can even update our computers so seamlessly to begin with. Still, I keep wondering about that unknown error “646.”

Each time I turn off my computer, it tries to update itself again –with no luck. Poor thing.

I can feel PC pain. Which is a little like back pain that wakes you up at night. As the poet Rumi says, “No need to snore like a buffalo when this wonder is walking the world.”

Tee-hee.

Synchronicity.

2 Comments

I have (too many) moments in my life when I feel alone, not good enough. I’ll step away from my computer, my office, my doubts – and look for a reason to believe.

I search for it in poetry, and read from A Year With Rumi, by Coleman Barks:

January 6 – Sometimes I Do

In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that light becomes this art.

I look for the spark in other people’s work, like seth godin’s Blog:

January 6 – Soles

There’s a sign on most squash courts encouraging players to wear only sneakers with non-marking soles. I’m not sure there’s such a thing. If you’re going to do anything worthy, you’re going to leave a mark.

I hear musical theatre in my head, especially Stephen Sondheim:

Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new …

give us more to see …

I cry a little and give thanks for synchronicity.

 

Downtime.

Leave a comment

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all.

Wake up at the usual time … but stay in bed. Set the coffee to brew … and finish the entire pot yourself. Prepare a meal just for the fun of it. No microwave. Read all morning in your pajamas. Finish the story. Put plans aside. Let the day unfold. Walk out the door and keep walking. Nowhere.

Listen to the clock ticking. Don’t say a word.

Enjoy the downtime.

Accomplish now.

Leave a comment

THE START OF SOMETHING. A satisfying place to be. All anticipation and lightning. Until compromise comes up.

Where did this word get such a negative connotation? NO COMPROMISE – Movie trailers. Ad copy. It’s actually inherent in the word’s definition; settling differences by concessions, giving in – exposed to vulnerability. Mutually, of course.

If the tree doesn’t bend, then it cannot live completely, in harmony so close to others. Accommodate. Connect. Debate. Pool resources … Mind meld, work as one, creative partnership, give and take, simpatico.

Look what we can accomplish now.

 

How to do more of everything.

1 Comment

I start my day with this:

I need to get more of everything done today.

Not a good sign.

Re-group. Move forward. Let it go. Let it grow. Kinder. Gentler. Flow.

Better.

Now, I can get more of everything done today.

 

Ebb and flow.

Leave a comment

Wake up call from a wrong number. Dream interrupted – about a boy I know from high school, distinctive eye glasses. Thoughts brimming over with triumphant pictures of men embracing, giving thanks with words I do not understand. Feel the meaning, though. Grateful for the 34th Man. Savoring a cup of joe. Ashamed of recent mortgage foreclosure news. Delighted with an unexpected sunny day. Angered by reports of bad behavior at a company where I worked 17 years.  Embarrassed by past actions. Lamenting short memory of cats, Americans. Raising the bar. Considering what to have for breakfast. Actually, lunch.

Ebb and flow.

Connection.

Leave a comment

Video transcription can be a tedious task, and an important one nonetheless. The more detailed and complete video transcription is, the better an accomplished writer/producer can craft the material into a compelling story.

With this work, I make the connection. Find the reason. Write the story.

“When you smile at people … they smile back,” says Janice Brown, a patient at The Art of Dentistry in San Diego, CA, “and you establish a connection with other people in a way that I never knew was available for me.”

More than 25 years ago, a horrible bike accident knocks out all of Janice’s teeth, and she endures emergency dental and facial surgery. The doctors do the best they can at the time, but it leaves her with a smile she is not comfortable with.

It changes her life. “I had planned to be a broadcast journalist. But because I lost my smile, I thought I should become a lawyer,” she says. “I thought I should use my brain.”

Her experience at The Art of Dentistry changes her life once more. “A number of friends have said to me, what have you done lately? Have you lost weight? Did you color your hair different – they don’t know what’s happened…

…And all I do is smile at them.”

This is it! The reason to believe. And I write the story.