Pho and Everything else in America
Saying Goodbye
My trip began a week earlier than we had planned with the passing of my Aunt Jenny, who had been suffering with brain cancer for almost two years. I wasn't planning on going to the memorial service, but after I talked to my mom, Prince Charming and I decided to scramble and see if I could fly home to NC for a week before our regularly scheduled trip which would have begun in NYC. I could and I did. It was great to be with my family during this really sad time. Of course, joy was mixed into our grief, because Aunt Jenny's suffering has ended.
It's always fun to get together with my big family, even if though what brought us together was sad. Being one of the oldest cousins on this side of the family, I remember the birth or toddlerhood of most of my cousins, who now, inexplicably, have become handsome young men.
The handsome part is explicable (those good genes everywhere) but not the grown up part, and not the "men" part. I have no idea why there is a preponderance of males on this side of the family. Out of my seventeen cousins, there are 13 boys and 4 girls.
NYC
Next Prince Charming flew over and I flew up. We met in NYC where we enjoyed civilization, including lots of people-watching and wandering the streets of Manhattan. During our time in the city, we ate things like hipster pork sammies served on chopping boards with artisanal sasparilla soda. But more importantly, I met my other soulmate, that aforementioned bowl of Pho. The first time I ate it, I regretted not being able to finish the bowl. Even though I was stuffed, I immediately wanted to go back to the restaurant. I begged Charming. I hoped for burps that would bring back the taste. I had a very vivid dream in which I was eating it again. So of course we went back a second time. I made sure to get a pho-to of the two loves of my life.
I think this pho-to captures the crazy look in my eyes revealing my obsessive adoration.
Both times after I took that first bite of Pho, I felt my unborn child move in my womb. No joke. I wasn't sure if I'd felt fetal movement before, but the kid loved the pho and decided to let me know. Oh! Yes, we are expecting. This is the first time I've mentioned it on the blog. If all goes as planned, we'll have our baby in December.
After eating the Pho the second time, we left the restaurant. I was just thinking of how excited I was to tell everyone about the Pho and the baby kicks, and then I looked down and there on the ground was a fifty-dollar bill. No joke. The streets of New York paid for both meals.
The Boat
Immediately after the second pho-ntastic experience, we met my family on this cruise liner in Brooklyn.
We had a lovely family reunion on board Cunard's Queen Mary II.
Boston & Halifax
This cruise had two stops: Boston and Halifax. Boston was rather rainy and cold due to Hurricane Arthur. We spent most of our time inside foggy-windowed cars, busses, and restaurants.
Halifax, Nova Scotia was more fun. We debarked and enjoyed shenanigans around the old port city.
Then, back in NYC after the cruise, we took the last opportunity to hang out with the family for a while and enjoyed a nice, long, getting-a-bit-lost walk on and around the Brooklyn bridge. My sister hurt her knee and had to be carried part of the way.
Portland
From New York, Charming and I parted ways with the family, enjoyed a couple more days in the city, and then got on a plane bound for Portland, Oregon.
My dear college friend and travel buddy Elizabeth and her husband Chris had welcomed, just a few days before our arrival, their firstborn into the world. What a little bundle of heart-melting sweetness! I'm so thankful for getting to share this special time with Chris and Elizabeth and their tiny one.
Elizabeth and I both had the extreme good luck to fall in love with and marry devilishly handsome, virile men who do all the grocery shopping and cooking for the household. I know. You want to hit us. It is pretty awesome since we all know the corollary to "love covers a multitude of sins" is "a fresh baked loaf of sourdough bread covers a multitude of sins."
The guys talked sauces, charcuterie, and local produce. A friendship blossomed.
Chris took us out chasing waterfalls and showed us the splendid natural beauty of the area.
And of course there was lots of gorgeous hipster food, including the city's famous Voodoo Donuts (second photo down).
My weekend activity in Portland was the World Domination Summit, which was incredible, and which I will postpone writing about until later this month. For now, suffice it to say I rode in a hot air balloon.
San Francisco
After Portland, we jumped on a flight for San Francisco. This time, it was all about seeing family, friends, and enjoying my uncle's amazing electrified Cruzbikes.
Los Angeles
A few quick days in LA were next, and that trip was about seeing friends too. It's been more than two years since Charming and I have been together on the West Coast, where many of our friends and connections live. We are so grateful we got to spend some time with these folks and even more who aren't pictured.
Back to Palestine on One of the Last Flights
3 Ways to Give Back and Improve your Creativity
I was recently talking to a young photographer-filmmaker, and he was telling me that he planned to teach media classes to high schoolers at the same time as he was building his own career in media. I thought what a wonderful way to give back.
People tend to think of giving back as something unselfish they can do with their free time - something that will serve others. It's true that giving back requires thinking of others, and it's best done without expecting anything in return.
However, the secret about giving back is that it can also be a powerful booster for your creativity-based career. While I think it's important not to be entirely motivated by what you can personally gain from giving back, I do think there's nothing wrong with being partially motivated by what you will gain from giving back.
Here are three ways to give back, along with how they can help your creativity-based career:
1. Teach.
Whether you're volunteering or teaching for pay, something about the act of sharing your craft and art with others can help cement your own understanding of it, and even help you make breakthroughs in your art. Hint: Teach before you feel ready.
2. Write thank you notes.
Expressing gratitude to those you've helped you learn to be a better artist, or to those who've helped your career doesn't just make people feel good. It also serves to keep you and your art in the mind of people who may be able to help you by giving referrals or connections.
3. Give your art away.
This has to be done strategically, so that the perceived value of your art doesn't decrease, but occasionally doing things for free can really serve a person or organization who needs what you have to give. And the bonus is that when you give something away for free, people feel indebted to you in a positive way; they want to help you and your career in any way they can. I always sell more books than usual after I give a bunch of books away, presumably because people who got it for free recommend my book to their friends, who then pay for it.
Bonus: Another way you can give back is by commenting on blogs like this one. Can you think of a way to give back that I didn't list? Comment below for the benefit of all the readers. Thank you!
Holy Land Sites: Nazareth and the Dome of the Rock
In late May and early June my dear friend Kimberly came to Palestine to visit us.
Kimberly is a friend I've known for a long time - since before our first year of college when I called her in the summer of 2003 to find out what kind of person my future roommate was. I knew we'd be friends when I found out she drove a car that she'd painted the exterior of, covering it completely in brightly colored flowers. She still an artist; now she's a professional painter and muralist. And one of my favorite people in the whole world.
Of course, since this is her first time to the Middle East, we made sure she got to experience plenty of Holy Land sites around Israel and Palestine during her two-week trip. Many of the places we went have been covered previously on this blog, but we did take her to two places that were new to me: the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian city of Nazareth in Israel.
Photo credit goes to Kimberly for almost all the pictures in this post.
The Dome of the Rock
Commonly confused with Al-Aqsa Mosque (which has a silver dome) the Dome of the Rock is the famous gold-domed shrine on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. You can see the dome behind Kimberly in this photo.
Only Muslims are allowed on the Temple Mount and in the Dome of the Rock, except for during limited visiting hours. Getting to the Old City of Jerusalem is difficult enough that planning to be there during certain hours simply hadn't happened for me previously. However, during Kimberly's visit, we made it happen. The guards told us the visiting hours on our first trip to the old city, and on the second, we experienced the Temple Mount.
First we walked up the wooden footbridge over the Western Wall.
We encountered a stack of riot gear on the way.
At this point we were in the center of the center of one of the most religiously turbulent places in the world. Through the wooden slats, we peered down upon the holiest place in Judaism, the Western Wall, the only remaining piece of the Temple. Ahead of us lay the Dome of the Rock.
The Dome of the Rock is a sacred site in Islam because tradition says that miracles occurred there, including the Prophet Muhammad's ascension into heaven. Additionally the Foundation Stone around which the Dome of the Rock is built is sacred to Jews as it's considered to be the foundation of the Temple and was the location of the Holy of Holies.
All this results in a strange simmering stew of resentment for members of both religions. On the day we were there, tourists wandered curiously around circles of robed Muslim women who sternly yelled religious chants from texts they held their hands. Some of the tourists appeared to be Jewish, and some were pretending to be Muslim so they could enter the shrine.
One Muslim friend told me he was praying at the Dome of the Rock and a bunch of female Jewish Israeli tourist soldiers entered the male prayer area without appropriate clothing. Apparently the Israeli army uses its military power over the region even to the point of openly disrespecting one of the holiest places in Islam.
Kimberly and I were both labeled as non-Muslims by the guard in front of the shrine, presumably because our heads weren't covered. We weren't allowed to enter, but it wasn't clear whether that was because we weren't Muslim or because we weren't dressed properly. To the guard, it seemed to be the same thing. We circled the shrine and consulted with some tourists who had seen another group of tourists who were allowed to enter. They told us you had to "pass" as Muslim to enter. We were unwilling to lie about our religion, but very willing to dress differently, and that seemed to be all that mattered to the guard. We donned scarves and tried again, only to be turned back because we were wearing t-shirts that showed our elbows.
I'm 80% sure we would've been allowed to enter if we'd covered everything but our face, hands, and feet, so if you are a female non-Muslim who'd like to visit, make sure you dress accordingly.
Kimberly and I had to settle for walking around the grounds of the magnificent shrine.
It was truly spectacular.
Nazareth
Nazareth is famous for being the birthplace of Jesus. We toured the Church of the Annunciation, where tradition says Mary received a message from the Angel Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus.
I loved the courtyard of the church, where portraits of Madonna with child hung, each from a different country, and reflecting a different idea of Mary's appearance. My favorites were Thai Mary and Chinese Mary.
The church is new, so very different in appearance from traditional churches I'm used to visiting. I was happily surprised to discover that the modern interior was warm and soaring. The multiple levels and open central area allowed the chanting from the ongoing Greek Orthodox service to waft up to tourists on the floor above.
None of the photos captured the beauty of the interior, so you'll just have to go visit the church yourself to see it. Here's a sneak peak of the ceiling.
More Fun
Here are a few more photos taken around Israel and Palestine that I can't resist adding.
Kimberly got to see a herd of camels,
enjoy the Dead Sea and mud,
and see the Church of the Sepulchre.
Juthour Arboretum
I also took Kimberly to Juthour Arboretum, our neighbor's project to preserve the natural heritage of Palestine.
They've made incredible progress on the Arboretum over the past year, and now are running an Indie Go Go campaign to raise funds to forge a sustainable, green Palestine. Please support it below. It's a great cause, and a politically neutral one.
That's Just Wrong
I'll end on a funny note, which is a hilarious onesie we saw when we were shopping for a mutual friend who is having a baby. When clothing with English on it is produced and sold in countries where English isn't widely spoken, this plane-wreck of a fashion situation is what can happen.
Yes, that's for real.
Thanks for a wonderful visit, Kimberly.
Looking at Hot Models: Creative Success through Mentorship
Think for a moment about the big creative dreams that make you feel amazing. Are you writing? Painting? Making abundant money from selling your creative work to an enthusiastic audience? Perhaps you sigh and think about why you aren't there yet. Maybe you have some fears or concerns that are getting in your way. Maybe you saw someone else succeed at cost to their family or health.
This is where mentorship comes in. It's very hard to do something that we've never seen anyone else do. Creative success on your terms becomes easier to achieve in direct proportion to the number of people in your life who are modeling the kind of success you desire.
Yet it's quite rare to have these models around you naturally. If you, say, you grew up in a family of rock stars, and you want to be a rock star, you are very lucky. Rock stardom will come much easier to you than to someone who has only seen rock stars from the mosh pit.
Most of us need to do a little bit of (fun) work to create mentorship in our lives. It's pretty easy.
I've boiled it down to three steps.
1. Find some hot models to look at.
No, not the Victoria's Secret kind, unless you aspire to design lingerie or walk the runway. Find people in your creative sphere who are on fire - whose success you want to emulate. You probably already have someone in mind, perhaps the person who inspired your to get into your field in the first place.
2. Do more research.
Often the first people who come to mind, upon closer inspection, don't have exactly the kind of success you'd like. Say there's an artist who's work you L-O-V-E, but you discover that he's deeply depressed and drinks heavily. That's probably not a lifestyle you see as optimal for yourself. So look for artists who are successful, happy, and healthy. They aren't hard to find once you scratch through the surface of the cultural stereotype of the drunk, depressed writer or artist.
Follow these folks you find on Twitter, bookmark their websites, and support their work in any way you can. Read up on anything you can find about the way they get the work done while maintaining a happy, balanced life. Soak in their example until what they've achieved starts to seem normal and do-able to you. Even if you never meet them, their example can do wonders for your own career.
3. Connect to a mentor.
Ideally, you connect to a mentor and build a supportive friendship so that you can learn directly from someone whose example you'd like to follow. However, in the real world, it's not always possible to build a friendship with someone who may be in another country or simply too busy to take on a new protege. In these cases, your mentor can be a coach or simply a supportive person in your life who is willing to listen, encourage you, and be consistently positive about your ideas and goals. A good coach or mentor is someone who asks about how your creative work is going and helps you stay excited, motivated, and laser focused on the next step to take in the direction of your dreams.
Here are some good guidelines to keep in mind as you communicate with a mentor.
- There's no need to use the word "mentor" until your relationship is well established and has lasted years. It's a serious word and using it too early is kind of like proposing marriage on the first date.
- You may want to consider paying to be part of a mentorship program or hiring a coach who has helped other people achieve results similar to what you desire in your life. This is true especially if you work from home or work alone a lot, as those conditions make it harder to mix with people in your industry.
- If possible, make contact with more than one mentor and make sure you mention it to your other mentors. Some of my best mentee experiences have resulted by my letting a mentor know that I'm also working with another brilliant mind in the industry/area. It helps the mentor know that you are making connections and are ambitiously pursuing excellence.
- You job is to ask questions and listen. Don't use a mentor's time to complain; instead, ask for his or her advice about challenges you are facing and then give them an update about that challenge next time you meet.
Email Template
Finally, here's an example email template you can use to reach out to someone you admire. Make sure you customize it to your voice and personality.
Dear ______,
I'm a big admirer of your _________ and you inspire me especially in the way you ____________, _____________ all while _____________. (Specific qualities you've noticed.)
I'm a writer/artist/creator myself, and I'd love to know more about how you _______________________. Specifically, ______(One specific question they can answer in 5 minute or less.)
Thanks for being such an inspiration.
Regards,
If you get a response, feel free to send more brief questions. Be yourself and be ready to think creatively about how you can make their advice work for you.
8 Steps to Declutter Your Career
This is a guest post by Australia-based career coach and consultant Caroline De Kimpe. Enjoy. - Genevieve
Simplifying your job increases productivity, effectiveness and achievements.
And guess what? Simplifying is exactly what will help you land that promotion or get a salary increase.
When I first came to Australia I had one suitcase full of cloths and toiletry. Since I arrived (in 2006) I moved 5 times and like most people, each time I took the opportunity to throw away “stuff” I wasn’t using any more, to declutter and prepare for a fresh home.
Still, each time I had more boxes to move.
It’s similar in our career. Our first job is very straight forward and (most of the time) we don’t have high expectations and stress. As we climb the ranks, we have bigger teams, projects, more responsibilities and are faced with more politics. This goes often hand in hand with longer working hours and more stress.
Each time we gain a new role and we increase our responsibilities, we automatically increase the expectations we have of others and ourselves.
When it becomes too much and we feel overwhelmed our performance will start to decline, our health will go backwards and, more often than not, we'll be in a bad mood all the time.
All of which will create more stress and unhappiness.
Getting Rid of What Doesn't Serve You
Just like when you move house, once in a while, you need to declutter and throw away what doesn’t serve you anymore in your career. You have gained more roles, and with that greater responsibilities and expectations and to manage them as effective and efficient as possible you need to re-balance.
I believe a simple and effective way to start balancing your life again is to simplify as much as you can.
These are my top 8 tips to simplify your job or career:
- Open calendar (and closed door) policy. To make sure you don’t get distracted all the time you need to make yourself less accessible to everyone. Ask your team members to book a time with you to discuss their problems and challenges instead of disturbing you every 5 seconds.
- Set boundaries – decide how much time and energy you spend on specific task.
- Clean – have a clean work space.
- Make time for yourself. Take does lunch breaks! You need to simplify from the inside out: your thinking, your decisions and your actions. Making time for yourself will give you clarity to do so.
- One task, one focus - try to avoid too much multitasking; it often creates “starts with no finishes”.
- Create an efficient system or routine.
- Have a “one pager:" a business plan, sales plan, life plan, goal plan etc. Make it one page (or a one page summary) – much easier to follow and to keep with you.
- Don’t complicate if it’s not necessary; choose the easiest way when possible and appropriate.
Caroline De Kimpe is a career transformation coach for men and women who have a corporate job and want to break out of their rut and transform their ordinary job into their dream career. Visit her website here.
10 Steps to Self-Publishing Success
I want you to know how easy this is, because the internet can be a confusing place, distorting the simplicity of making money from your creative work. Also, opportunities come and go, and it's very hard to gauge whether opportunities in the world of self-publishing are legitimate or not. I'm here to tell you that you can write and widely publish a book with zero marketing budget. You can do this, and here's how. I welcome questions about this process and ask that you please post them as a comment on this blog post. That way, other people can learn from your question. I promise, if you are curious about something or confused by something, someone else shares your query.
Let's get started.
When deciding to become a published author, I saw two possible paths:
1. Write a book proposal (a new skill for me that would've meant hours of learning), and send query letters to dozens of publishers, hoping that some intern would select my proposal from the slush pile and think "yeah, minimalism for grandparents!" I could wait months or even years for a book deal, and then finally get one, eventually signing a mediocre contract allowing me a small cut of the profits.
2. I could get started writing the book right away. I could spend my precious time on this planet writing valuable content for thousands of people, not proposals or query letters that one person would see, if I was lucky. I could have my books in the hands of my intended audience in less than a year through self-publishing. I could use the magic of the internet for free promotion and then keep a large portion, or all of the profits.
Obviously, I chose #2.
And I've been so glad that I did. It's outrageous that would-be authors are expected to spend hours of their time sucking up to publishing executives -- an impossibly narrow bottle neck. It's not a system that allows quality to get through. It's a system that is almost entirely lottery.
Did you know that the average nonfiction book published (self-published or traditional) in the US sells only about 250 copies per year? My books are now in the hands (more accurately, on the Kindles and iPads) of about 20,000 people. And that's just the number from the past 3 months. Not all of those people bought my book. Most got it for free. That means my royalties are modest. I just checked my royalties for the past 7 days -- $300. Although as far as I can tell, my royalties have been increasing steadily by month, after a tiny launch in December 2013. Royalties only show signs of increasing as more and more people read by book and tell their friends about it.
Several hundred dollars coming in month after month could be a life-changing, attitude changing, game-changing amount for a first-time author who needs some encouragement that his or her book royalties can eventually ramp up to form a full-time income.
Search the web for "self-publishing advice" and you'll instantly be confronted with lugubrious warnings about the outlook for self-publishers. The main problem? No one buys your book because no one knows about it. The idea is that traditional publishers, with their large marketing budgets, can bring your book the attention it deserves. And for a few lucky books a year, the system works. But the sad reality is that for the average author, the system fails. The publishers fail to do enough to put books in enough hands to create the best marketing: word-of-mouth.
So how did I get my book out to 20,000 + people when my marketing budget was about nill?
I'm here to save lives and careers.
I'm ready to share the secret, so that other first-time authors can quit chasing the rainbow of publishing houses and start changing lives with their writing. Rejection used to be a normal part of the job for authors. Collecting rejection slips may be responsible for the high rate of alcoholism and suicide among writers. More poignantly, I believe it causes most budding writers to just give up. So I'm here to save lives and careers. I want you to express your creativity, to create a work that will speak to someone, and I want you to get it out there into the world as soon as possible. Here's how.
The Step-by-Step Process:
1. Write your book.
It has to be good. The only way to tell if it's good is to get feedback from others, so gather a team of supportive yet honest beta readers who are interested in your topic or genre.
2. Rewrite your book.
Re-write your book keeping the feedback of your beta readers in mind, but ultimately listening to your own intuition. (Not your ego. Learn the difference.)
3. Have someone else copy edit your book.
Don't do this yourself, even if you're a professional copy editor. You won't be able to see typos. It's not your fault. The brain is wired to skip over things it thinks it knows already, so you are incapable of seeing errors in your own text if you know what you intended to write.
4. Have a cover designed.
Look up the cover specifications for Kindle Direct Publishing and have a cover designed. I designed my cover myself because I didn't have the budget to hire a designer, but eventually I'll have it redone by a professional.
5. Upload your book using Kindle Direct Publishing.
I used Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to publish my books. Here's why:
- Even if your book is written in Microsoft Word, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) will format it into a .mobi file for easy reading on Kindle. This process takes about 15-30 minutes. You submit it for review, and 12 hours later people can purchase it on Amazon.com
- Other companies that let you get your electronic book out there (i.e, e-junkie and various book selling sites) do negligible marketing for you.
- The Amazon website internal marketing machine is more powerful than all other booksellers combined, especially if you use Kindle Select.
- Anyone in the US (and many other countries) can purchase your book, whether or not they have a Kindle.
6. Enroll your book in Kindle Select.
Kindle Select is an optional program within Kindle Direct Publishing that involves exclusivity with Amazon. You cannot sell or offer your book in electronic form anywhere else for the three months your book is in the program. (Or more, if you re-enroll, which I recommend.) It's completely worth it IF you are a beginning author with a small audience. Here's why:
- As I wrote above, none of the other booksellers are worth your time when you can instantly get your book to so many people through Amazon.
- Kindle Select allows you to run promotions and free days. They internally market your promotion days, so that hundreds or thousands of people download your books, leading to the all-important word-of-mouth affect.
- You get higher royalties on international sales.
- Enrolling in Kindle Select also means people enrolled in the Kindle Owners Lending Library program can borrow your book for free, allowing your book to get into even more hands.
When might Kindle Select not be worth it? When you already have a large email list of thousands of eager fans ready to buy your book. In that case, you may be better off selling your book directly to your fans and keeping 100% of the profits. Even then, you may want to enroll your book in Kindle Select after you've offered the book directly to your audience for a few months and given them the first opportunity to buy it. This will allow you to reach even more people while still having your initial launch be to your biggest fans and best customers.
7. Run free days promotions.
You can run two types of promotion on with Kindle Select: free days and discount days. I have only experimented a little with discount days because free days seem to be working so well. You want to schedule your free days for at least two weeks in advance so you have time to build excitement and spread the word in your community.
8. Publicize your free days to book lovers.
While Amazon will do some internal marketing for your book, you want to give your free days the best possible shot at reaching a huge audience. Again, I'm on a budget, so I look for free ways to do this. My favorite is the Author Marketing Club. With a free membership, you can use a tool they have that lists a bunch of websites for book lovers. Use the tool to reach out to the folks who run these websites, tell them about your free day, and often they will tell their audiences about it. Many of these websites have a simple form you fill in with your book's information. For others, you need to shoot them an email. Make sure you tell your personal network about your free day as well.
9. Edit your book anytime.
This is something I really love about KDP. If a reader points out a typo, or you think of something you left out of the book, it's really easy to upload an edited book document. You'll be done in 5 minutes, with no disruption to your book's listing on Amazon. After publishing Minimalist Living, I realized that I hadn't given people enough incentive to sign up for my email list on my website, so I edited it to include the benefits of signing up for my email list. My subscriptions increased. I can even go back and change the cover any time I want to.
10. Renew your Kindle Select enrollment, and keep having and promoting free days.
Authors consistently see a spike in sales immediately after free days. This is probably because a bunch of people hear about the book and are intrigued, but have missed the free days. Or because people get the book for free, and then recommend that their friends check it out. It's very important that free days are only occasional and very special. That way the integrity of the value of your book is maintained. Don't make the mistake of giving away your book too often. However, most people, I think, err on the side of not giving their book away enough, meaning that their book never gains traction. I think the Kindle Select program hits the right balance for you.
That's it!
That's it! It's that easy.
Problems with Amazon
I should add that while I love Amazon and the programs they have for authors, it hasn't been an entirely perfect experience. Amazon uses an algorithm to remove fake reviews, but it's flawed, so that sometimes real reviews get deleted too. This can be especially frustrating to a first-time author. You can go from having 5 reviews to having 2 without understanding why. Since reviews help you get more reviews, the beginning can be a little slow going if Amazon removes the few reviews you do have.
The second frustration I've encountered is that my book isn't available globally. It's available to those who hold a credit card based in a bank in the US, Canada, and a small group of other countries. This means that my friends in the Middle East can't download it. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with local publishing laws.
Despite these problems, Amazon KDP is overwhelmingly worth it for self-publishing authors. It's so far above the competition that at this time, no other options are worth considering.
Sit Down and Write!
The hardest part of this whole thing, is of course, writing the book. Get to it!
My First Trip to Gaza
Foreword: I'm re-posting this old blog entry about my first trip to Gaza because somehow it disappeared entirely from Packing Lust, probably during the transition from my last blogging service to Wordpress, the one I use now. It's one of my favorites, so I was so sad when I thought it was lost to the void forever. (I didn't have a back up of the text, just the photos). However, Prince Charming managed to find an archive of it online, despite my deleting the old blog before I knew it had gone missing. "Nothing can completely disappear from the internet," he says. (I now back up my blog regularly.) This was originally posted December 18, 2012. Enjoy.
Entry at Erez
"You're not a journalist or anything, are you?" the Israeli soldier in the first booth at Erez Crossing Point asked.
"No." But will I write about what I see? Of course.
Until the New York Times picks up this blog, I am not a journalist. I am free to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez Crossing thanks to Prince Charming's NGO-worker status and my status as his wife. And from this unique position, needing neither journalist's credentials, nor being blocked from writing by my organization (as Prince Charming is), I can simply tell you what I experienced on my first, short trip to Gaza.
Not that it was simple for me to get into Gaza. First, an employee at Charming's NGO got me coordination with the Israel government and a visa with Hamas, the governing body of Gaza.
We arrived at Erez Crossing on December 12th.
I put my camera away since there was a "no photography" sign at the entrance. The crossing looks like one modern, airy, new airport terminal. It's a large building with a lot of bullet-proof glass and shiny surfaces. We entered after a quick chat with the Israeli soldier who asked if I was a journalist. Then there was an interview with a passport control officer who shuffles papers and flips through every passport. Like many passport officers, she had shimmering, perfectly manicured nails. I think if I were a passport officer, I would too. The only thing there is for a would-be border-crosser to do as you shuffle, flip, and make phone calls is to stare at your hands.
At this point, I need to introduce Osama, one of Charming's colleagus in Gaza. Osama is a Palestinian who lives in Gaza and he is rarely allowed out of the strip. However, he was allowed to visit the West Bank for his job for the first time in a while, and when we went to Gaza, he re-entered with us to rejoin his family.
"Back to jail!" Osama said merrily as we entered Gaza.
Once across the border, we caught a special golf cart we called a tuk tuk that took us across a kilometer of open land that acts as a sort of "no-man's-land" between Israel and the administration of the Gaza border.
The covered path across no-man's-land.
The tuk tuk is officially for handicapped people, but if it's open, anyone can use it. Charming remarked that the tuk tuk driver has one of the weirdest jobs in the world. Can you imagine when someone asks "what do you do," saying "I drive a golf cart back and forth across the one kilometer separating two countries in conflict."
We then got out at a checkpoint known as Hamsa Hamsa or Five Five, in English. It's run by Fatah, the political party in charge of the Palestinian National Authority, which is the name of the government of Palestine. The Fatah checkpoint is only there because Israel won't talk to Hamas, the political party governing Gaza. Hamas is considered by Israel, the U.S., Canada, the E.U., and Japan to be a terrorist organization. While they seem more humane than other extremist Islamic groups, say the Taliban (who tried to kill Malala Yousafzai), it's their habit of firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel gets them labeled as terrorists.
After the buffer zone of Hamsa Hamsa, we reached Arba Arba (Four Four in English) by cab. Arba Arba is run by Hamas. We picked up our previously arranged paperwork and Hamas officials searched our bags. Cars from the Gaza office arrived and I met more Gaza staff members (of Charming's NGO).
During our twenty minutes at Arba Arba, a magical moment happened. 12/12/12 at 12:12. Charming and I got a photo to memorialize:
Gaza City
After these three different checkpoints, we arrived in Gaza City. Osama pointed out some of the destruction from the recent conflict. One thing that struck me was the precision of the attacks. Of course the Israelis made mistakes (see above note about children killed) but for the most part, (if we allow ourselves to sweep away the image of 35 dead children with that phrase) Netanyahu kept his promise when he said "...my government has instructed the Israeli Defense Forces to conduct surgical strikes against the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza."
A surgical strike in Gaza City.
Another precision strike leaves a nearby palm tree and a mosque untouched.
Destruction in Gaza City.
More wreckage in Gaza.
As we drove into the city, Osama greeted a fellow commuter he knew.
The people in Gaza use a lot of donkeys and horses for transportation and conducting business.
A special export of Palestine is the strawberry. When I tasted my first strawberry here, it was as if I had never tasted a strawberry before. Charming says the Dutch import them from Gaza and the fields are treated with great care and expertise.
Once we arrived, Lulu, the office receptionist, kindly drove me around Gaza City so I could see the sights. Having already seen a lot of destruction, I was eager to see the beach.
Enjoying the sight of the sea in Gaza.
It was lovely, this portion of the beach having had a walkway put in by Jawwal, our cell phone service provider. There were horses galloping along the water's edge. You can see them tiny in the background of the above photo.
But after that nice photo, I have to show you what happened before we saw the beach, before we had even left the street in front of Charming's office. As Lulu began to drive in front of Charming's organization, a group of men jumped out of a nearby car, and seemed to attack the car in front of us. Men jumped and were pulled out of that car. I didn't have time to feel scared. I snapped a couple photos.
Lulu, composure and smile perfectly intact, backed up, and turned off onto another street. I simply thought the incident it was a bit of road rage on the under-construction, traffic-clogged byway. It wasn't until writing this blog post that I noticed the large knife in the brown-jacketed man's hand in the second photo. Was this a car jacking? A car burglary?
The second photo.
Maybe this explains why, a bit later, Lulu said "you don't seem scared. Some foreigner are afraid to be here." I was thrilled to be somewhere warm and sunny with an ocean view. I didn't think much about the underbelly attributes of Gaza until I was out.
Lulu took me to her future home, a fourth floor condo still under construction.
Lulu in her future condo building.
View from Lulu's future home.
We drove by the Gaza City fishing port.
Like a scene out of a Tom Waits movie, near the center of town there was an abandoned circus. I wondered if I'd see a lion or trapeze artist roaming town, feeling lost.
Finally, my tour ended at Lulu's family home where I met her mother, two out of seven sisters, and her brother. We had coffee and cookies served on a tray decorated with hand-embroidered cloth.
Rafah
Later that evening, we drove with Osama and Arwa down the coast to Rafah, which is on Gaza's border with Egypt. Tunnels connect Rafah to Egypt, and Osama said "Everything you see came in through the tunnels." The streets were filled with the same early-model Mercedes that most of the population drove, making Rafah feel like we were in a movie set in the 60's.
On the way to Rafah, we stopped at a fish restaurant splendidly located with a view of the water. The only sign I saw said "Fish Frsh." Fish Frsh kept live fish in large pools fed from the nearby ocean.
Patrons can attempt to net their own fish for their own dinner plate. I tried, as Prince Charming, Osama, and Arwa looked on.
I failed. Osama said he'd never been successful either. One of the employees got down into the tank and netted us a couple of fresh fish, one of which showed up on my plate 20 minutes later.
We had a wonderful time chatting and laughing over dinner with Osama and his wife Arwa. Osama is a big fan of argila, which is a very popular hobby/habit/vice all over Palestine. It's also called sheesha, hookah, or, affectionately, hubbly bubbly. We laughed over the fact that extreme Muslims frown on women smoking argila in public because it looks suggestive. Of what? Oh dear, the culture is far too genteel for anyone to actually say what it might be suggestive of. I'll leave it up to you to guess.
Many thanks to Osama and Arwa for being such generous and warm hosts who genuinely seem to love their adopted home, (they are descendants of refugees) yet are honest, educated, and well-traveled enough to rue the fact that they are stuck in Gaza unless they can get jobs overseas. Osama would want you to know that his favorite meal in the whole world is Kentucky Fried Chicken, and he wants peace for many reasons, but partly because he really wants Gaza to get the franchise. He also speaks with enthusiasm about how resilient the Palestinians living in Gaza are. Seriously, I can hardly overstate how kind, hospitable, and tolerant Osama and Arwa are. I wish them the best and hope for peace and all the opportunities they could ever want for themselves and their family.
Ladies Brunch
Prince Charming's office in Gaza is majority male, and so the next day the few ladies at the office invited me to brunch with them at a restaurant in Gaza City overlooking the ocean. I always ask permission before featuring anyone on the blog (except men who attack the car in front of me) but a few of the women at the brunch didn't feel comfortable appearing here, so the only photo I'll show you is of the view of the ocean when it started raining in the middle of brunch.
Apparently, it only rains a few times a year in Gaza, so this event was cause for great joy. The women got up and rushed to the window, opening it and putting their hands out to touch the rain. One of them told me "If you ask Allah for anything while it rains, he will give it to you." Another said that as a romantic, she loved to walk in the rain.
As you know, I'm coming from Ramallah, where it's been cold and rainy for weeks. I was surprised at their enthusiasm and then remembered how rare rain was in L.A., and how I'd felt a similar sense of blessing being poured from the sky when it rained there. I sat back and enjoyed the sound of the rain as it poured loudly on the roof of the restaurant where we sat warm and dry.
At the brunch, and several times throughout my visit to Gaza, I tried to find out about the details of the traumas and miseries of a) being in Gaza during the strikes, and b) being a woman in Gaza. My leading questions were not met with complaints or tales of woe. Lulu told me that the day after the ceasefire, everyone was arranging parties and gatherings. Osama drove by a group of men playing soccer by the beach and said "Is this resilience or what!" Others echoed those sentiments. The people of Gaza want to be happy and to have peace just like any other people in the world. They want outsiders to see that they are caring, strong, resilient, and hopeful. They try to see the blessing in the rain.
Exiting Gaza
Getting back into Israel from Gaza was a lengthier process than going in. We quickly passed through Arba Arba and Hamsa Hamsa, this time walking the kilometer from Hamsa Hamsa to the Erez terminal. (The tuk tuk wasn't around.) We walked through large turnstile doors, and then into a room with two large tables. The only direct contact one has with any Israelis during the process is with passport control. In this room, we couldn't see anyone, but Charming told me to open my bags and show them to a camera. The soldiers watching must have been okay with the contents of my bag, because a green light flashed on one of several entry doors, meaning I could go in. Charming and I entered a warren of small chambers separately. Nothing happened in my first chamber, except the light turned green, and I passed into a second, identical chamber. The red light turned green, but when I pressed the door, it didn't open. Someone uttered something in Hebrew that I didn't understand. I tried again, then realized I'd been pressing on the wall, not the door. I found the door, and it allowed me to pass into a luggage checking station. Again, I wasn't sure where to go, but when I looked up, I saw officials looking down on us from a glassed-in upper level. They motioned to me where I should go. Via this system of cameras, speakers, bullet-proof glass, and compartments, the Israeli officials are kept safe from would-be attackers.
We loaded our bags onto a conveyer belt, and another light turned green, allowing us to pass into the room where we picked up our luggage. We only had one more obstacle to get through: passport control. "What's your father's name?" The same well-manicured lady asked. I told her, and she said "What's your grandfather's name?" "Which one?" "You father's father." I told her, and she let me back into Israel. Charming's interview lasted much longer, about an hour. He and the nice-finger-lady chatted, and then he was sent back into the terminal to wait. Finally, after another chat, they let him through. His current passport/visa/paperwork situation is complicated and it took a while for the soldiers to ascertain the legitimacy of his papers. Once they did, we were free to re-enter Israel with a dual sense of gratitude and guilt for those we left behind.
Top 10 Food Blogs for Foodies
No post and email from me today, partly due to the insanity of tax day for my U.S. readers. In case you are checking, here's a consolation prize: Top 10 Food Blogs for Foodies from LifeScoop. Enjoy.
If You're Thinking of Starting a Creativity-Based Business...
I wrote this self-coaching guide for Fairy Tale Life (before I moved my creativity coaching to Packing Lust) to help you decide whether you should start a business as a writer, artist, photographer, performer, designer, or any business where you will be offering a product or a service that you create or co-create.
The outcome we are aiming for here is for you to make a decision to:
a) Start a creativity-based business as soon as possible.
b) Start a creativity-based business on a specific date in the future.
c) Not start a creativity based business at this time.
If you are considering starting a business with a partner, make sure both of you answer the questions individually, and then discuss your answers together.
THE QUESTIONS
1. Do I believe in myself?
I don't just mean this in a Disney musical sort of way. It's not just about believing you are a good person with talent. It's about trusting your ideas, skills, gifts, and ability to grow. It's about believing in yourself when no one else does.There will always be times when other people validate your work, but when those people aren't around, or when other people criticize, you are your most important validator and encourager. Can you find things to love about your work? Also, can you believe in your ability to persevere while you close the gap between the quality you aspire to and the quality you actually produce? This is the gap Ira Glass refers to when he says "It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions."
2. Am I growth and learning-oriented?
The first place this applies will be in your market research, that is, in talking to and learning from potential customers, clients, or fans. Are you open to your business not looking exactly like you first envisioned? Can you learn about what people really want and need and apply those lessons to your business?
Can you build new habits that will at first feel uncomfortable or scary? Do you have the can-do attitude that is summed up in Marie Forleo's mantra "everything is figureoutable?" Do you love to learn about how to improve your work and your business?
3. am I sincerely focused on and committed to this idea?
In the first question, you asked about your belief in yourself. The opposite of belief is doubt, and self-doubt is a powerful killer of dreams. The best way to combat self-doubt isn't through willpower to stop negative thoughts, but rather, the willpower to focus on your art and your vision of your business as you build it. Once you've researched your business idea, and made sure there is a possible audience for what you do, you've got to fully commit and focus. Doubt will certainly come up if you are human, but your focus and commitment need to be stronger than that doubt.
4. Can I help people connect?
Seth Godin writes, "In the connection economy, there's a dividing line between two kinds of projects: those that exist to create connections, and those that don't."
As an artist, your job is to create the work. As an artist who is also building a business, your job is to help people connect over the work. Do you feel comfortable in this role? Can you answer questions, foster conversations, and reveal your process enough to make people feel connected to you? Will your projects create connections?
5. Can I make the space?
To run a business, you will need to make physical space and time space. You'll need to actively manage your time, which often means using a calendar. It means prioritizing chunks of time in which you will work with focused effort on your business. It means finding & paying for childcare if necessary. It means clearing out a room, closet, or other space where you will work.
6. Do I honor commitments to myself and others?
Danielle LaPorte says that the secret to success is to do what you say you are going to do. Of course, this is a high standard, and life is full of opportunities for white lies. (Did you really keep in touch with everyone whose high school yearbook you wrote in?) But language is powerful, and if people don't trust your words, or if you don't even trust your own words, then your business may falter. Can you keep appointments and be on time, or communicate clearly if you have to cancel? Can you deliver products or services when you state that you will? Can you stick to your policies even when they are inconvenient?
7. Am I open to suggestions and ideas without being overwhelmed by them?
There's a delicate line between being open to growth and opportunity and staying focused on creating your vision. You have to learn to walk that line. If you are too open to every new thing that comes into your landscape, you could get overwhelmed and creatively stuck. Yet if you shut your eyes to all new ideas, you may miss out an important life or business opportunity. Have you developed your own personal sifting process so that when new ideas come in, you can implement, discard, or save for later?
8. Do I have the support of a few people close to me?
It's true that not everyone in your life - or even in your family - may understand what you are up to when you choose to start a new business. That's okay. But I believe that you need to have at least one or two close friends or family members in your corner who believe in you and are cheering you on. Bonus points if your romantic partner is on board. You supporters will be there to give you pep talks when you lag, sympathy when the going gets tough, and ideas when you feel uninspired.
9. Do I have savings, a good bridge job, or some other way of staying out of debt while I build my business?
While businesses can grow quickly, it's common that in the beginning they cost more money than they bring in. And if you don't have a built-in audience that you've already cultivated, then give yourself plenty of time to gain fans or clients. In the mean time, you'll need a way to keep paying the bills. You could save up (the amount will vary depending on your budget and your business), you could keep working in your current job, or you could get a bridge job. A bridge job is one that covers the bills but doesn't drain your creative energy. It helps if your bridge job meets a need for you that your business doesn't. For example, if you are an artist who spends long hours alone in the studio, an ideal bridge job might be bar tending to meet your need to socialize. Your spouse or partner also might agree to take care of the bills for a time while you build your business. Finally there are artist communes and artist housing projects worth looking into where your cost of living could be very low.
10. Do I have a clear purpose in life that I know on a deep level and is this business connected to it?
I know, this last question is a doozy. But I believe that without a sense of purpose, life is less fun and less meaningful. I love how Mark Twain puts it: "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Your purpose can be in a 10-page mission statement, or in one word, such as "love," but you need one and it needs to resonate deeply with you. Your purpose may change or evolve with time. Do you know your purpose? If so, how is your business idea connected to your purpose? Running a business takes as much time as you are willing to give it, and that time will be more fun and fulfilling if you can identify every day why what you're doing matters.
Let's Talk about Yesses!
How many yesses did you have? Did you say "yes" to all ten questions? If so, congratulations! You may be ready to start a creativity-based business! If not, can you work on turning any no's into yesses? If so, your decision can be to delay starting a business until a certain date in the future. I believe self-doubt can torture entrepreneurs, and is the greatest killer of new businesses and new ideas. I wrote this post to help you make a strong decision and vanquish self-doubt. Now that you've answered these questions, I hope that any doubts you have about your decision to start a new business are gone, and that you can move forward with confidence in your decision.
I wish you luck, fun, and magic in your new venture. Know that I am here cheering you on.
"Yessing" you all the way,
