How to Offend Your Neighbors
I had good intentions. I truly did.
I wanted to paint every room in my house a different color. At the paint store, Morgan (my downstairs neighbor) and I chose what we hoped would be a deep, calming blue, like diving into a swimming pool on a hot day. It turned out looking more like Smurf blue. Okay.
Once the blue was done, I decided to paint one of my favorite spiritual quotes on one wall.
I read "Only love is real" in a book about A Course in Miracles, and I thought it would make an inspiring quote for me to contemplate each day during breaks from work.
I began, painting high on a ladder in thick, white block letters.
I soon finished, happy with my wall.
But then Morgan gently noted that I hadn't left much space between the "is" and the "real."
Since I wrote it high on the wall, it was visible from the street below, as we are on the second story.
So to Palestinians passing by -- people affected every day by the brutal Israeli occupation -- it looked like my wall said:
"Only love isreal." Or, to the quickly glancing eye,
Only love Israel.
And I had written the unintentionally political message in white on a blue wall, exactly the colors of the flag of Israel.
Who does that? Sets out to write an uplifting spiritual quote and ends up reminding her neighbors of the bane of their existence?
Me. I did it. Hahaha.
Although this happened close to when we moved into this apartment back in March of 2013, I thought it blog worthy now, since each time I tell the story it gets funnier. Mistake + time = funny.
Don't worry, I hussled back up that ladder to paint over the "real" with my Smurf blue. I moved it way over to the right and down, at such a safe distance that "is" and "real" could never, ever, be in danger of turning into "Israel."
Now the wall looks like this:
Lesson learned. Don't move into the middle of an oppressed people group and write a pro-oppressor message on your wall.
Love is real,
How to Turn Conflict-Zone Living into a Video Game
Welcome to the first Packing Lust post of 2014! I'm so excited to get back to posting after a nice, long, good-for-the-soul holiday break.
Let me set the scene for you. It was mid December, and Charming and I were looking forward to our family's visit with warm anticipation. We decorated. Charming made a star-shaped tree topper out of aluminum foil whose star shape would later be called into question.
Morgan (BFF, land lady, and co-owner of the cafe downstairs) did an AMAZING job decorating the restaurant, turning its already warm atmosphere into a festive tribute to the season.
And then, as if perfectly timed, it started snowing. How quaint. I took this picture with plans to show you what I assumed would be a light, pre-Christmas dusting.
But then it kept on snowing.
And snowing.
And snowing. Until we were completely snowed in. Except for Jelly, who is an unstoppable canine force.
The power was out for days. Propane was running dangerously low. Charming was fielding calls from freezing employees who didn't have a way to heat their homes, but who were more concerned about the run-off flooding Gaza and displacing thousands. I spent a day downstairs with Morgan and Saleh complaining about how cold I was. They let me sit in the spot closest to the fire, piled blankets on my shoulders, and put their dog in my lap. I went out at one point and got into a life-or-death snowball fight with strange men. I survived and promised Charming (and myself) I wouldn't leave again during the storm.
The roads out of town were closed. My vision of greeting my family at the airport wouldn't come true.
When they landed at Ben Gurion Airport, they had to make their own way to a hotel in the city. Little did we know, Tel Aviv was sunny and practically balmy.
As soon as it was remotely possible, we got into a 4-wheel drive vehicle and headed for the beach. Getting out of town was like leaving the wreckage of a zombie-desolated city. Cars were sliding all over the road. At one point, I left the safety of the Jeep to make a mad dash over ice for an ATM. Armed with cash, a first aid kit, extra water and blankets, we started our journey to the coast, neither of us sure if the roads would be open or passable.
We made it. It took twice as long as normal, but once we were out of the treacherous hills, it was an easy trip. It was so great to finally see my family and enjoy a Tel Aviv coastal sunset.
I should note now that this isn't my entire family. My dad and two more siblings weren't able to make it for this trip. Maybe next time. We had such a wonderful time with our smart, funny, loving, and very patient and gracious family. We made sure their trip included lots of good food, starting on our first night together in Tel Aviv.
The next day it was back to Ramallah, where the snow was melting.
Charming outdid himself with his breakfast spreads. We ate.
And ate.
And ate.
and ate.
And went all around both Israel and Palestine, including an emotional visit to Hebron. Very few people were around, except for the TIPH observers. (Temporary International Presence in Hebron).
The family were good sports the whole time, turning the challenges of 3rd-world living into levels 1-5 of a video game. Level one being getting through passport control, and level five being a moment in Hebron when, upset Charming hadn't tipped them enough for their (unrequested) services, a huge gang of boys surrounded our vehicle and tried to trap us in the parking lot they had lead us to by closing the gates. We escaped our would-be captors by a very narrow opening. Perhaps our good luck was due to all the holiness, including a trip to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
Here they are stooping low to go in the door that was made small to protect the Church of the Nativity from marauders on horseback, and presumably, tall people.
We took them out to Ein Kenya, which is a beautiful spot of nature near Ramallah, and home of Juthour Arboretum. We got our exercise, and my mom, brother, and sister managed to hang out looking like models for sunglasses and active wear.
We went to Jericho and on down to catch a view of the Dead Sea.
The trip gave me the opportunity to do some Gensplaining. I love pretending to know what I'm talking about.
Prince Charming got to do some tour-guiding as well. It was a pleasure when our visitors were so open-minded, curious, and eager to talk about the joys and challenges of the region.
Seriously, family, your visit and wonderful mindset rocked and made every minute fun.
I thank all three of you for being intrepid & adventurous,
positive and resilient in the face of obstacles and setbacks,
and extremely stylish and radiantly attractive.
I was so sad when you packed up to leave.
We love you!
How to Create a Beautiful Website Without Wanting to Die
Do you ever want to just give up before you start working on your website? Ever thrown yourself down dramatically on a dock and said “How am I ever going to create a beautiful and functional website about my sea shell collection?”
Yeah, me neither. But if you want to create a powerful website with minimal drama, you’re in luck. I’ve got a list of my favorite tips and resources right here for you. This is for those who don’t want to mess with a lot of code and aren’t professional developers, yet want to have as much freedom as possible over the look and feel of their site.
Here, for free, are my best steps and tips (and what I do) for creating websites:
Steps
1. Use WordPress.org (not WordPress.com). Follow this tutorial to get WordPress working for you to create a self-hosted blog that you will turn into an awesome website. Self-hosting via WordPress.org is the single best, industry standard way to get the most out of your website. You will eventually regret it if you go with Weebly or a similar service because when you’re ready to grow, they can’t grow with you.
Think About Theme
2. If you are going to use a free theme, select one with lot of positive reviews, not a new, untried one. Look from the dashboard of WordPress under the Appearance > Themes > Install Themes tab. However, I recommend learning on one of the themes that comes pre-installed free with WordPress, and then paying for the Headway Theme.
3. Now it’s time to learn the basics of WordPress, such as how to add a new post, create a menu, and add photos. The WordPress Codex has everything you need, starting with some basic terminology.
4. If you are willing to pay for a theme, I recommend Headway, which you can download here. You’ll probably only need the base plan ($87). Headway allows more customization-without-knowing-code than any other theme I’ve tried. Not convinced? Read more about it here.
5. I recommend watching tutorials to help you learn how to design in Headway, which involves minimal coding. Search Google or Youtube to find a video that answers your specific Headway questions, or you can find free tutorials here. If you are willing to pay to make your learning process and time shorter and sweeter, I recommend Websites Made Easy, by Nathalie Lussier. She has a way of breaking down technical projects into actual human language. I personally use her Websites Made Easy tutorials and I love them.
5. My favorite website to find royalty-free images to use on your blog or site is Photo Pin. I love how it helps you give proper attribution.
6. For editing images, you could use a program like Photoshop that takes forever and slows your computer down, or you could use PicMonkey, which I recommend.
7. Install a few basic plugins from the WordPress Dashboard. I recommend Akismet, BackupBuddy, and JetPack by WordPress.com.
tips
Break it step down into bite-sized pieces. Make a list, and cross each one off as you go.
Pace yourself — don’t try to get your website up and running perfectly in one day.
All most every WordPress question has already been answered somewhere out there — Google and Youtube are your best, best, best, best, best, best friends.
Rock on!
Yours,
Your Worst Enemy
I recently wrote about enthusiasm being your best friend. So, if enthusiasm is your best friend—then what is your worst enemy?
that would be pessimism, unhappiness, darkness, gloom and meanness.
the lesson to learn is don’t let these unhappy complainers, and critics drag you down to their level. don’t let them grind you down. sometimes it is hard to resist joining them in their weltschmerz (german)—”world woe”; romantic melancholy and sentimental pessimism.
The Blender Story
This is part of the Don’t Be Like Me series, a new column of mostly true stories illustrating what not to do in life.Email me if you’d like to contribute. We all have a story.
When Prince Charming recently came home from a three day trip to Gaza, he was all “Agh… this really stressful thing happened…. someone almost got arrested and I lost my right foot in a freak accident, do you still love me?”
And I was like “AHHHH! That sounds horrible but this blender, and arg, and I am so frustrated. Pay attention to my needs first and then I’ll try to listen to you better.”
Prince Charming: Ok, what’s the problem? (I love him so much.)
Me: I should have used the food processor for this but I don’t know how to use the d____ thing and I f-ing hate it!
(I’m attempting to use a butter knife, spatula, and chopstick simultaneously to dig the cementing pie-gel from under the sharp blades of the vitamix blender.)
Me: I HATE COOKING!!!
Prince Charming: You know, I can show you how to use the food processor.
Me: No! Cooking shouldn’t be like that! You should’t have have to assemble a complicated piece of machinery to cook! And then you have to wash it. And it’s so dangerous! All those moving parts. Ah! I want to push a button and do it! Cooking should be, like, easy. If I can’t figure out how to do it by myself, it isn’t worth it! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! WHY IS MY LIFE SO HARD???
Charming: So you didn’t have to learn how to use the oven? You just naturally know how to do everything?
Me: You probably have a point but I really don’t want to tell you that right now. That is why I said that first part in a quiet Shy Ronnie voice AND THIS IN MY LOUD YELLING VOICE: ITS NOT THAT I KNOW HOW TO DO EVERYTHING, IT’S THAT WITH A LITTLE EXPERIMENTATION, YEAH, I CAN FIGURE ALMOST EVERYTHING OUT. BUT I’VE MESSED WITH THE FOOD PROCESSOR FOR LIKE TWO HOURS AND I STILL CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT. I DON’T WANT TO NEED HELP, I DON’T!!!!! OK?
You can probably see where I am going with this. It’s crazy to think you can do it all on your own. No one ever accomplishes anything magnificent all on their own, not even a vegan pie crust. If we look around, we are generally surrounded by kind, supportive, one-footed or two-footed people who are willing and eager to help us learn what we need to learn, go where we need to go, and be the people we need to be.
Don’t be like me and try to do it all on your own without help. We are all in this together.
ADDENDUM: Don’t worry, Prince Charming did not really lose his foot. That was a metaphor for an extremely stressful experience that took a toll on him. Thankfully, not THAT much of a toll.
Pie crust-covered hugs (the best kind),
(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lintmachine/2987986325/)
Why Selling Art is an Act of Compassion
I was recently talking to a fellow artist — a photographer– and I told her that I looked at her photos when I was having a bad day and needed to feel better.
her response was incredulous. “do you really mean that? or are you just saying that because you’re my friend?”
I couldn’t believe she was asking me if I really meant what I said. Her work is stunning. Her business is growing. Her clients are overjoyed. Is she still maturing as a photographer? Yes. She’s still finding her voice and vision. But her work is already way above that of entry-level professional photographers.
Like many artists who are in a similar stage, she is having trouble charging what her services are really worth. She underestimates her own abilities, which is something I frequently see in my work as an artist coach. This underestimation undercuts her ability to market and sell her services.
There’s something she doesn’t understand, and it is something many artists don’t understand. This something is the single most important thing I can tell an artist about selling art:
selling art is an act of compassion.
It’s not about you. It’s not about your skills, or lack thereof. It’s not about your fears about not being able to fulfill your artistic vision. Every artist has growing to do.
SELLING ART IS ABOUT THE EFFECT YOUR ART HAS ON THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE IT.
And that effect is a powerful one. Art makes people feel something. As humans, we need to feel. We need to feel strong emotions of passion, excitement, surprise, shock, connection, serenity, joy, rage, and the whole gamut. Perhaps if you truly understood the affect your art has on people (not everyone perhaps, but the special group who “gets it” who is it your job to find) then you would see what an act of compassion it is to create and sell art.
There is no other industry or field that can claim such a noble purpose. Some people think that selling a utilitarian item – a washing machine, for example – is easier than selling art, because a washing machine does something we all need – it cleans our clothes. We all need clean clothes, right?
More than clean clothes, we all need beauty in our lives. Beauty makes us forget our troubles for a moment, and it can also sooth our wounds, acting as a balm for heart ache. In slums around the world, people don’t own washing machines. They walk around in dirty clothes. But take a look at photos of these slums, and you’ll see the satellites and television antennae. Somehow, they found a way to bring art into a place missing most basic necessities.
All great art comes out of love, not just for ourselves, but for others. Let’s remember that when we sell our art, we are offering one of the most numinous experiences a human being can have. That is priceless, of course.
Yet human psychology teaches us that people value what they pay for more than what they get for free. Value, or benefit to the viewer’s life increases when he or she pays for art (with money or something else of value).
Therefore, not only is making and sharing art an act of compassion, but selling art is an even greater act of compassion.
By pricing your art well and communicating clearly about it (which is all selling is), you as an artist are actually increasing the amount of joy your customer can feel about your art.
I hope this is starting to sink in. By selling your art at the right price, you are effectively improving the quality of your customer’s life experience more than even meeting his or her basic needs would. Don’t believe it when someone tells you humanity’s need for transcendence is less than humanity’s need for basic necessities. If that were true, the world wouldn’t be at war over ideas. While there is violence over access to basic resources, world peace is much more threatened by ideas like culture, religion, equality, love, and freedom. We fight hardest for the things that bring us a sense of connection and transcendence.
I believe if art was more valued in the world, there would be more peace in the world. Art brings people together. Art lifts people up, making them feel better when they otherwise might turn to violence. The value of art is its great potential to bring world peace.
As artists, it’s our jobs to be the first to value art. The way we value art is by creating it and selling it. Have compassion on the world by selling your art.
♥ ♥ ♥ ,
(Heart image credit :http://www.flickr.com/photos/bestrated1/371032725/)
What I Gained and Lost in the Packing Lust Move
Welcome to the new Packing Lust! I've had a challenging time (adventurous is my preferred word) giving the website a complete makeover and moving it from Weebly to Wordpress. I learned a lot in the process, so overall it was a positive experience. I couldn't have done the move without the help of a Bangladeshi technical whiz who goes by the moniker Genius Fred. Thank you, Mr. Ferdoush. Wordpress is a much more powerful platform that allows me to self-host my blog and do much more with it than I could with Weebly. I'm gaining flexibility and control over the design and user experience of Packing Lust. However, I had to make one major sacrifice to move to Wordpress.
I lost your comments.
I wasn't able to import your beautiful words of support and encouragement to the new site. They are gone. However, it's very important to me that you know how much your comments mean to me, even now, when they are gone from individual posts. Through the year and a half that Packing Lust as been around, your comments made me feel connected, supported, and encouraged.
I want to give special thanks to Natalie, Maria, Calli, Lucia, Mo, Trog, Special K, Dan Kenney, Philip Harold, Grandpa, John Tolhurst, Rewa, and all of you who took the time to comment (for your privacy, I listed your names as you chose to in your comments). Special thanks to Natalie and Maria who would win first prize for blog support if I was giving out prizes. Knowing that all of you are keeping up with what we are doing on Packing Lust means the world to me. Each time there is a comment on the blog, I excitedly click to see it and my heart is warmed by your words.
Please keep commenting on the new blog if you enjoy the writing and photos. Thanks so much!
What’s More Fun Than Being a “Serious” Artist?
Answer: Being a fun artist.
That is, having fun creating your art. If what you are working on isn’t something that you would not read/watch/view/experience during your weekend chill time, stop! Do something fun.
One of my favorite artist-writers, Austin Kleon, suggests:
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.
I wholeheartedly agree with Austin on this one. You've got to be inspired by what you already love. Or, you’ve got to create something that you have looked for, and not found. Ideally, a combination of the two.
AND HEY, YOU CAN BE AS “SERIOUS” AS YOU WANT TO BE.
If that’s truly who you are. If you are working on an anomic novel where the main character’s journey is one long walk through the rain, ending with her suicide, that’s totally cool. As long as that’s the sort of fiction you read when you are trying to relax after a long day.
So have more fun as an artist by creating the sort of things that you enjoy. I know that if you make the sort of art that is fun for you to consume, your work can find an audience.
Take action now by making a list of the books you are reading and the art you love. Compare this list with the projects you are working on. If there are no similarities, you may want to rethink that project.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.
How Artists and Writers are Usually the Opposite of Driven Business Types
Today I got an update from Jonathan Fields of Good Life Project. He interviews all kinds of people who are changing the world in a meaningful way. I’m a fan of his show, and read the bio of the man he recently interviewed, Chip Conley. Here are a couple snippets.
“As the founder of the legendary hotel group, Joie de Vivre, he shattered the status quo for excellence in hotel leadership and customer experience.”
and
“Chip was riding the crest of the wave. Then things went south…
With his success as an author he began traveling the country speaking to packed houses. But the hellacious schedule found him undernourished both creatively and physically. While on stage his body failed him in the most profound way. He literally died on stage. Chip’s heart had to be restarted several times in the amublance to the hospital.
He made it through, but it was a wake-up call. Conley wasn’t here just to build an empire, he was here to create meaning.”
The thing is, we’ve heard this story so many times. Ambitious business person experiences stress-related health problems and realizes life is about more than making money.
When artists, dreamers, and creatives hear this story, we simply can’t relate.
The “lesson” seems obvious. We start out in life instinctively knowing that this journey isn’t about empire-building, but rather, about meaning-building. In fact, we may wish we could focus a little more on making money — like Chip Conley before his heart attack.
However, what the artist instinctively knows about life is a huge gift, and also a massive head start. Some people need a heart attack to slow them down and get them to focus on what’s important. For others, it’s natural.
The challenge for artists, creatives, and dreamers who want to make meaning AND money is to focus on consistently building habits, or rituals, that combine both business skills and heart-based creation.
The way to start is through the 12 Rituals for Art + Income.
Genghis Khan Golan
We Came, We Saw, We Ate Chocolate
Our planned road trip for this vacation.
The Packing Story
Hitting the Road
How to Make Jibneh (Guest Post by Prince Charming)
How to Make Jibneh by Prince Charming
Simple White Cheese
Ingredients
Instructions
- Heat two liters of milk in a pot until it is almost too hot to put you finger in. Don’t let it boil. turn off the heat.
- Immediately add ¼ cup (125 grams or so) of white vinegar or the juice of half a lemon, mix.
- Let sit for 20 minutes until the curd and whey have separated (when you see white chunks of cheese floating in yellowish liquid, it is done)
- Strain this through a cheesecloth. I usually tie this to my kitchen faucet and let it drain overnight, but if you want to eat it immediately just ball the cheese in the cloth and press it until most of the whey is out.
- Add a couple pinches of salt and mix.
- If you want paneer or queso blanco, you can press the cheese slightly using heavy cans or jars set on top of the cheese in a carton. Here is how it looks pressed:
Sawtain! (Double Health = Bon Appetit!) *** Al albak (right back atcha -- literally "to your heart") Prince Charming
3 Ways to Take Control of Your Time
The 4th ritual for art and income is turning your schedule into your own personal fairy tale. That means owning your time. It means not letting someone else take the reins of your day. It means having time to do the things you want and need to do — making art, working on your career or business, spending time with the people you love, and anything else you need to do.It means doing what’s important without feeling guilty or like you are forgetting a commitment.
Without further ado, here are three ways to take control of your time.
1.
Find your soul-mate calendar situation. This love relationship doesn’t have to last forever, but it does need to be exclusive. Settle on one calendar set-up, and stick with it. I prefer Google calendar, but if a beautiful notebook with touchable, soft pages is what works for you, choose that. It has to be something you will use.
2.
Practice three ways to politely decline invitations or demands. If your default is “sure!” or “yes!” when someone asks you for something, it’s time to change your default response to demands on your time to something like: “No thanks.” “Let me think about it.” “Maybe…. can I get back to you?” This is the key to owning your time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, and those who make the most of it spend those 24 hours doing activities they enjoy and that move them closer to their goals and desires.
3.
Aim for a state of grace, not perfection. No one, least of all those with the gifts of imagination and creativity, is perfect at managing their time. We all forget appointments and commitments. Grace means saying sorry when you let someone down by forgetting a
commitment. Grace means forgiving yourself and moving on when you let yourself down. Grace means high standards and higher levels of kindness to yourself and others.
Take action on idealizing your schedule by asking a few people you admire how they keep track of their commitments. Then create your own unique system so that you can create your ideal schedule.
Calli's Visit to Israel and Palestine
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Poor Calli's entry to Israel via Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv this visit was prolonged as they put her through the standard series of interviews they do when finding out someone is visiting Palestine.
I paced and worried as over an hour passed from the time her plane was supposed to land. I knew that they were holding her in a room somewhere by keeping her passport hostage.
When she finally emerged and after joyful and relieved hugs, she told me they asked many of the same questions over and over. They even asked "Aren't you scared to be going to the West Bank?" which after so long living in the West Bank seems like a funny question; the gap between how the average Israeli seems to perceive the safety/instability of the West Bank and the actual reality on the ground is so wide.
While Calli has been here, we've talked a lot about how the people of these interwoven countries react differently to the perceived threats they offer to each other. In Israel, there are bag and trunk checks at the entrances to major malls and parking garages. There are lines for free gas masks. In Palestine, they don't plan much more than three days out for anything. Life is too unpredictable to try to control anything. There could be a protest, closure, or (in Gaza) a missile strike. The result in both countries is the same: people who live with constant stress and anxiety.
Here I've not observed the sense of The Good Life, or the relaxed openness I've found in countries like Italy and France. In both countries I demand or take what I need - it is never given to me without strong action. In Israel I must demand loudly that the server at a restaurant come take my order because that's what everyone does. No demand, no service. In Palestine I must cut off other drivers in traffic because that's how everyone drives. If you don't cut someone off, you simply won't be able to go where you need to go.
Another interpretation of all this loud demanding and offensive driving is that is it simply part of the passionate Mediterranean culture of the area. But I think it's a bit more than passion I'm observing. I sense deep rooted fear and oppression. It's almost impossible to avoid tapping into the fuel line of fear that runs people's lives here.
In addition to talking about the ups and downs of life here with Calli, we've made sure to experience a lot of the ups, starting with hummus and salads on the beach in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon. Calli is a gifted photographer and took many of these photos:
Later in the evening we went to the Tower of David light show which got great reviews on Trip Advisor. It was very impressive and well-produced.
Last night we enjoyed evening and sunset views from Hosh Jasmin restaurant in the West Bank near Bethlehem and Calli enjoyed her new favorite drink - Leemoon bee nana, or lemon with mint, an icy sweet thirst quencher.
Now we are headed out for some shopping and yoga.
Thanks for visiting Calli, it's been wonderful to share our temporary home with you!
Day of the Catastrophe
My Brother's Wedding & Back to Palestine
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It's always a challenge getting back to our little slice of heaven in Palestine. Last time my taxi home from the airport broke down, forcing me to hang out on the side of the highway for an hour while a replacement came.
This time, our first flight was late, meaning our entire trip became delayed by almost 24 hours. Then upon our arrival in Tel Aviv, we discovered that the airline lost all three of our checked bags (one was filled with books donated to a local library, but yes, we still traveled with a rather un-minimalist amount of stuff). After filing an incident baggage, we jumped in the special cab reserved for us (not one in the regular queue, which can only travel within Israel) . After a trip free of engine problems, we finally arrived home.
Home to our garden gate, that is. Morgan, our neighbor, rushed out to meet us at the entrance, explaining that we couldn't go into our house yet and it would be best to wait in the cafe for ten minutes or so.
Apparently, the bees, who live in a hive on the roof, had escaped. A swarm of them was filling the hallway
entrance to our apartment, thereby blocking our entry. Exhausted from our voyage, we just had to laugh. We waited ten minutes, and then gingerly stepped our way through the remaining cloud of confused, tired bees to our apartment. It was wonderful to be home and great to see Jelly Bean.
The last leg of our USA trip included my brother's beautiful wedding and then a trip to the family cottage at Holden Beach.
I practiced my photography a lot at the wedding, snapping some portraits with Prince Charming's 50mm lens.
NOTE: These photos are in a very small size because the internet is very, very slow right now, which means each photo is taking several minutes to upload. I will wait as long as it takes to upload my favorite photo from the wedding in a larger size, so when you see the bigger photo, you know that's my favorite.
East Coast USA Travels
Plunging Headfirst Into Creative Terror
“I can’t deal with the roller coaster of creating!” Does this sound like you? One of my clients said something similar, and it got me thinking about how to deal with this particular roller coaster without tossing your cookies or, worse, falling off the ride altogether.
First, let’s acknowledge that we kind of love the roller coaster. I know I do. Creating – and the emotions that go along with it – meet my needs for variety and adventure.
Roller coasters are supposed to be fun, right? Thrilling, a little scary, but ultimately, an adrenaline-filled blast.
That was the case when Prince Charming and I rode Tatsu at 6 Flags in Magic Mountain, California. It’s billed as “the tallest, fastest and longest flying coaster on Earth.” The seats flip after you get on so your body is open and parallel to the ground. At one point, you are plunging headfirst toward the ground, with no cage or car. It feels like flying. It was terrifying.
Sadly, the emotional experience of creating is not quite as thrilling as Tatsu. I saw a graph that described the emotions during an entire project from conception to completion.
You start off optimistic about the novel you are writing. The enthusiasm! The dreams of literary fame! But very quickly that emotion drops off. You begin to feel doubt: about your abilities, your story, your characters. You begin procrastinating because the story has lost your interest. Perhaps you keep going, but now your expectations are low. To even finish would be an accomplishment, never mind the Man Booker Prize.
This is where most people give up.
But not you, because you are reading this blog post. You aren’t most people. You are focused on your own sweet growth, and making a greater contribution to the world. You know that you’ve made a promise to yourself, and you are not the kind of person who would break that promise.
HERE IS HOW YOU KEEP YOUR PROMISE TO YOURSELF.
You must know that this isn’t about pushing yourself through. That will only lead to literary constipation. This isn’t about dragging your ass to the computer, unlike the butt-in-chair advice you’ll get from many writers. That is masculine advice, and it comes from a sense of being at war with yourself. Sometimes I will advise a masculine perspective. I even recommend the book The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, as a general guide for artists. Yet when you are emotionally low is not the time to be at war with yourself.
When you want to toss your cookies on the emotional roller coaster of creating is when you need to make it easyon yourself. Nurture yourself. Have fun. Scream. Get up and dance. Look in the mirror and tell yourself how gorgeous you look. Be silly.
Set up a writing (or painting, designing, etc.) schedule of mini-goals or baby steps on the path to finishing your novel. Reward yourself every time you finish a baby step. Make them as tiny and incremental as necessary.
Fun little baby steps and lots of rewards was how I finished my first book. It helped that I was on my honeymoon while writing the middle section, and that my rewards could be long kisses and wine-sipping Grecian sunsets. Get creative with your own rewards.
Remember, it doesn’t matter if you give up and start again 100 times. All that matters is that you picked up the pencil, laptop, camera, or paintbrush again.
Take Action
Be present to your emotions during your art creation. How are you feeling right now about your project? Write down each separate emotion. Consciously feel your way through each emotion, and then acknowledge that each of them can be helpful, as long as you choose to move through them, and not get stuck there. Emotions – all of them – help us become better artists.
I would love to read about what you do when you hit emotional low moments during creating. Please let me know in the comments area below.
New Birthday Camera!
I've been practicing shooting in manual a lot. Some shots of my beautiful home here.
Prince Charming views my new hobby with pride only slightly tinged with jealousy of my brand new equipment. He's wanted me to share this hobby with him for a long time, and has taught me the basics of aperture, depth of field, exposure, shutter speed, and ISO. I learned a lot from his assignment to shoot a chessboard.
But my favorite thing to shoot has always been people.
My Birthday Letter
As a birthday present to myself, I thought I’d write an open letter to the girls of the world. This is inspired by a special CNN did called Girl Rising where anyone could submit an open letter to the girls of the world via their website. That project is now closed, but I continue to be inspired reading letters from the likes of Christiane Amanpour, Queen Rania of Jordan, America Ferrera, Gloria Steinem, and other celebrated women.
Posted here exclusively is my letter:
Dear Girls of the World,
Some of you will eschew the word “feminist” because you believe in equality between the genders. “Feminism” sounds, and is sometimes used contextually, as if it condones world domination by women. A better substitute is the word gylany, which means a society based on equality between the genders.
Most of us do not live in a gylanist society, but we are growing that way and there is much you can do to foster it. Here are twelve of my suggestions for doing so.
- Think freely and for yourself; you don’t have to take my suggestions or anyone else’s.
- Learn to love reading; continue to read and learn for your whole life.
- If you rail against emulating your culture’s female role models or icons, find a new role model or create your own in the powerful realm of your imagination.
- Travel. The world is, in general, a less scary place than you may have been raised to believe.
- You can do it all, but not at the same time. Commit to a goal, and see it through without distraction. Commitment dispels the confusion you might feel about what you are supposed to do in the world. You cannot make a wrong choice about this.
- Seek a variety of friends from backgrounds that are different than yours; talk with friends more often about ideas rather than about other people.
- You can live your life the way you so desire it. Don’t let anyone take away the pen that writes your own life story; it is yours alone.
- Beware of gurus who tell you the world is black and white, with clear cut rules for right and wrong; especially beware of anyone touting rules about your sexuality or body.
- Exercise; dance; be athletic; learn martial arts or self defense.
- Remember that everyone is doing their very best, especially when it doesn't seem like it.
- Seek to grow, connect, and contribute; that’s what we are here on this planet to do.
- Love without fear, and never be ashamed of who and what you love.
Heroes and Villains
Sunday, May 26, was a lazy day for me and Prince Charming. We had some movies lined up to watch, and the first was a documentary called Five Broken Cameras.
Just a couples hours later I've still got post-cry shakes. However, I also feel very glad that this documentary exists, because the end is hopeful, and the story is so human.
It's about a Palestinian man, a peasant who lives off the land, and gets a camera to film his kids childhood. His youngest son is the cutest little guy ever, and I fell in love with him over the course of the documentary.
The story is told through the five cameras he gets in succession, each after the last one is broken, often by a flying gas canister or related accident. Through these five lenses, we see what the camera saw in its life, and we see the story of how each camera met its end. Of course, what we are really seeing is the story of the families in this Palestinian village that is on the edge of several Israeli settlements. We see the wall go up, and we see the olive trees burned over and over by the settlers at night. We see the soldiers come to the homes at night to take children. We see people tear gassed, we see them throw rocks, and we see a man committed to nonviolent resistance gradually become scarred and angry as he sees what is happening around him. We also see, most hopefully, that he is always trying to heal in the best way he knows how.
I loved this film as a reminder that we must heal ourselves and each other, and to heal we must, like a doctor, first see the wounds. We must be witness for each other to the atrocities that take place in our lives.
Once you've seen the wounds in Five Broken Cameras, go watch another film. This one was part of a coaching training program in leadership, indirect negotiation and strategic intervention. Anthony Robbins has been studying what makes people change their lives for a good for many years now.
He had a conference on leadership planned on September 11, 2011. Instead of canceling after the terrorist attacks, he somehow got people to stand up and really speak the truth about how they felt about the event. There was a Muslim man who got up and said "this is retribution." Well, of course many people wanted to attack him, and even tried to there at the conference. One man, an Orthodox Jew with relatives in the West Bank (fundamentalist settlers - the kind of people who burn Palestinian olive trees) got up and offered to talk peacefully with the Muslim man.
Robbins led an indirect negotiation between the two men ON 9/11 itself that transformed both of them. They formed a Jewish-Muslim organization for understanding and peace.
I laughed and cried watching that film. It's called Negotiating Conflict: Leadership in Times of Crisis. According to this website it's available in full-length for free, although you can watch a 7 minute summary here.
We all wonder how peace will come to the Middle East and other areas of ethnic and religious conflict. The sorts of transformative moments shown and experienced by the viewer in these two films is our only hope for peace.
And now may I bring you from May to July?
A few days ago:
"What do you think happened? It had to be something tragic." I looked at my American friend, who has lived in Palestine for much longer than I have.
"I don't know. Something beyond tragic, I think," she said, looking at me intently.
I didn't know exactly what she was getting at, but I did know that is not what you say when someone loses a child. Losing a child is tragic, and one of the worst things that could happen to a parent. I could think of few things beyond tragic.
We were talking about a mutual acquaintance we both saw on occasion, ____ , a woman who lives in a nearby village. We had both known _____ to be cheerful, with a quick and genuine smile. Although she spoke little English, I enjoyed when I got to see her, since she would always communicate through her shy, dazzling smile. Knowing that she was a poor, kind, and intelligent woman who worked hard to support her special needs daughter and her dissolute husband only made me admire her more.
The last time I saw her, she tried to smile as usual. And her mouth moved. But her eyes failed to hide a pain that was too big to push behind a smile. I am haunted by that telling look - her attempt to smile as I said goodbye to her.
"I think someone must have done something to her child," my American friend said.
At first, I was confused. But then I realized -- "If her child had died, she would have just told us."
"Yeah."
The next day, my American friend looked rather pale, and told me she'd seen an article in the paper. A 14-year old girl from a nearby village had been gang raped by a group of seven men, each between the ages of 17-26.
I grimaced. "That's horrible."
"Have you put it together yet?"
"You think… it was ____'s daughter?" I didn't want to believe it.
"It must be."
"How do you know for sure? We have to find out."
How do you call someone and ask, in imperfect Arabic, if their daughter was recently gang raped? I don't know, but my brave American friend managed it, and later confirmed that the victim was indeed ____'s daughter.
My friend also told me that this group of men had gang raped before. Yet that time, each of the families of the men had paid off the victim's family to not press charges.
The story showing up in the newspaper meant ____ had refused to take a bribe from these seven families and was pressing charges.
I likely don't know all of the ramifications of that decision, but I do know that this poor woman is turning down much needed money to support her daughter and fight for justice. She's making a decision that some other parent her in village did not make for her little girl. She's a hero.
I also know that means there are seven families in her small village who want nothing more than to shut her up. Seven powerful families who are now aligned as her enemy - this poor woman whose special needs daughter was lured into an apartment only to be beaten and raped by their sons.
How can we help her? We are working on connecting her with a lawyer specializing in women's legal aid. My hope for her is that, if she wants it, she can gain refugee or other status that will allow her to leave with her family to start a new life in a place where her daughter won't spend the rest of her life fearing the seven men who will likely not be brought to justice. Then again, we can hope for justice.
And you know I wouldn't leave you without a way to take action - to do something to help ____. The Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling is reaching out to support her. You learn more about them here and donate here.