Morning Pages – 4.4.16
Good morning. I’m not sure exactly why I’m doing this, sitting down in the mornings to write to myself, and sharing it with anyone who cares to read. I’d prefer to write in my journal, longhand, for myself, privately. But that’s not what I’m being asked to do. It’s weird, how I know these things. How do I know these things? Maybe that is the wrong question. Who cares how I know? I just know.
It’s as though I’m waiting for something. I have the sense that when I look back on this time, I will understand why it is I did it this way (= daily, early in the morning, publicly). Something is coming through; it’s my job to get up and go stand in the field and wait. Or I’m like an outfielder on a baseball team; I just stand out in left field with my glove, waiting for the ball to be hit over here.
What’s funny is that I don’t doubt for a second that a ball is gonna be hit over here. I know something’s coming. And even though I don’t know what it is, I know that my job is to get up early and type my thoughts – without regard for whether or not it’s interesting to other people – and then the nugget will come.
I heard an interview with film director Patricia Riggen, who’s from Guadalajara, Mexico, recently. She said she’s been working so much, she has been “not happy” for awhile. I was listening to the tail end of the interview yesterday as I was on my run; she was saying that when you make a movie, it’s all encompassing. You don’t have a social life, because making the movie takes up all the time you have. Yet she said this with such humanity and warmth — I get that she’s a hard worker and all that, but she still had a connection with her soul, her humanity. She didn’t say she was unhappy, she said she’s been “not happy.” She said she recently passed a cafe, where people were at a table talking over coffee, and she joked that she remembered a time when she could do that — talk to a friend over a coffee — but it hadn’t been in a long, long time.
And I kinda had this ping of recognition. It’s not that I work all the time. It’s that I’ve gotten pickier about who I spend my time with. I have spent some time since last fall looking into the difference between judgment and discerning. I can be judgmental — I have a strong sense of vision, meaning I see how I want things to be very clearly. This can make me a pain in the ass. Partly because I’m stubborn. I manage this by doing things alone, because then I can do what I want without having to negotiate. But I sense this may be shifting as well; or maybe just me softening my approach, inviting people to do the things in the way I envision.
Just got that I have been a director/producer since I was a kid. Literally, in putting on variety shows and staging plays in basements and hotel hallways across the midwest. I was the one writing the scripts, casting and directing my brother and neighbors and cousins. Ah…. got it.
So this is great when I work, but when I’m not working, it’s hard for me to transition to let other people drive the bus. It’s partly about relinquishing control, but I also am still learning how to take care of myself when I’m out in the world, when I’m not driving the bus. Okay, maybe it’s all about control. Rats.
I’m pretty dang satisfied, most of the time. But what I notice is that I have this desire to have a “regular life” — where I go out with a friend for coffee, or go to a book club, or any of the cozy creaturey comforty things that “regular people” do… but it’s in conflict with how my life is currently arranged. This is up right now as we move in t-minus 60 days to a place where we’ll be for years, and I’m fleshing out what I want to add, subtract or tweak in my life.
Part of the reason I don’t have a social life here is because we’ve moved twice in the past year and a half. And I made the conscious decision not to invest energy in establishing friendships here, because I had the sense that M might get a tenure track job and we move again. And we are. That’s the vestigial thing about growing up moving around a bunch, as I have; I have this baked-in sense of “if you don’t like where you are, just wait, and it will change.” It sounds passive, but it’s actually some pretty zen shit that I got in elementary school. Detachment. When I’m in a place that I love, it also reminds me that “this too shall pass”… I remember when I could feel that I was not going to stay in Montana, and I had just met the thitherth — two friends that I had prayed for, for many years — and I just had this sense of “appreciate this now… this isn’t permanent.”
So I kinda think I’ve been biding my time a little bit… enjoying Cincinnati but intentionally not putting down roots and holding my breath a little bit, waiting to see where M & I settle. And I get the sense that Buffalo contains great friends for us, and a great life, and we’ll get to be there longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere. I’m like a kid at Christmas. I’ve never been to Buffalo. And yes it’s snowy and no, its not New York or San Francisco. I don’t want to live in those places anymore, anyway. It’s like a plane that has been in a holding pattern and now has been cleared for landing. I’ve been happy enough alone, but I sense that I get to finally find happy in a neighborhood, in a geographical location (a lot of my placemaking is done in the sky; through the internet; through felt connection across large distances… yes, I am lucky and yes, I am grateful. And yet. I am really looking forward to having friends stop by our house and sit on our couch. And I’m looking forward to a whole crew of game players. And I’m looking forward to dinner parties. Like regular people.)
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