Pilgrimming

I look out my window at Seattle and reaffirm my love for her…

even as something in my wise gut tells me she probably doesn’t have me for keeps. So much of me just wants to hunker down in this city and end my twenties here and build my thirties here. I adore her; she was the first city I really ever fell for. Before that, I never considered myself a city girl. I liked wide-open spaces. Too much pavement made my soul feel claustrophobic.

This weekend I traveled to Yakima, Washington for a wedding, and I remembered again how restful I feel with wide-open landscape, crickets in the evening, and the conspicuous absence of sirens. My friends and I built a fort and slept outside on the porch; somehow, it felt like being a kid again, and I loved it. Who knew little old Yakima, Washington could sweep me off my feet? I wish I could rent a cabin and have a writing retreat there. I want to hear crickets, drink evening tea, and write stories.

This next weekend I am traveling again, but this time to a city– Indianapolis. This will be my second trip back to the Mid-west in 3 months to attend a conference. I love exploring a new place and I so admire the women who are putting on the conference, so I am pretty thrilled at the chance to go. The conference is on Christian Feminism (and you thought that was an oxymoron.) It is run by the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus; I found out in early June that a full scholarship (including my airfare and hotel) was being provided for me. Incredible!

I will be meeting some wonderful writers (including Letha Dawson Scanzoni, a new friend of mine), as well as hopefully talking with some professors of Women’s Studies and Literature. I noticed several of the speakers at the conference have backgrounds in the academic disciplines in which I am interested.

It is time for me to get serious about graduate school applications in the fall. I am currently looking at programs in Literature and Cultural Studies, which would let me look at books as cultural artifacts, and then I could bring in studies of psychology, religion and feminism. My heart starts to flutter when I imagine being back in a classroom. It is hard for me to stay out for too long…but the process of being accepted in somewhere won’t be easy. And the process of being open to moving will take some time in my heart, too.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

So, I think this 3-minute youtube clip is hilarious.

Maybe you have to be an aspiring writer to think it's so funny. I am not sure. But every time I want to distract myself from writing, I am tempted to watch this...again.

Ted.com

Have you discovered this web site? You need to.

There are fabulous 20 minute talks by some of the world's most interesting people. Who doesn't have 20 minutes to be inspired?

I recommend the talk by Malcom Gladwell on how to be happy. You can click here to listen.

Oh gosh, I still have such a writer-crush on this guy. His great hair, his high-anxiety body language, his New York Times bestselling books...so adorable. I thought I had transferred my crush to Yann Martel, but I am smitten all over again by Malcolm.

Sigh.

Words on Words

What I have learned about words is that they don’t respond well to control. They prefer surrender and freedom. They ask that I trust them a bit more. As Anne Lamott says, they wouldn’t mind if I would just learn that it is ok to make a mess. It is perfectly alright to splatter them over the page and trust…because the subconscious force of writing, that force which makes all the surprise and the energy, gets locked up when I am afraid of coloring outside the lines.

If words are my paint, and the page is my canvass, than I am invited to stand before the easel quite differently– than, say, if my words were little controlled specimens in a lab experiment. Last summer, when I finger painted for the first time since I was 7, I tasted something of this messy, colorful process that I would like to try with my words on a page.

But, as far as I can tell, there are two reasons I don’t trust making a mess. Very basically, I don’t trust I can clean it up. I am just learning to believe that in the disorder something will emerge that guides the telling of the story, and that I can trust the story. And the second reason I fear messes, is that I feel out of control and I simply hate looking at incompletion. I get anxious when I have to look down on the “shitty first draft” as Anne Lamott dubs it. I like to be in control (I know that will shock most of you.) And so, it is fascinating that I, at the moment, seem to be choosing words for my life vocation.

I spend most of my days wrestling with them; they are quite devilish.