swamped, and color therapy

As with last evening, there will no -- or few -- deep thoughts or reflective musings from me tonight. I am quite literally swamped with work -- good in a way, though on a short-term, immediately temporary basis. Other freelancers and independents will likely understand what that means.

There has been no additional painting, as much as I'd wanted to get back to that today. I have conducted an unprecedented number of interviews today, all on little or no notice. My call and e-mail volumes were enormous.

To top it off -- because, after all, when it rains, it pours -- I have family coming into town tomorrow evening, and have just gotten word that an old friend from Virginia is in Portland this weekend for a conference. All this is happening while I absolutely have to do a large amount of work over the weekend.

But I am not complaining (much). I do love my work. I just wish it were steadier, rather than these waves of crunch time followed by more quiet troughs, but I am working toward a more even flow.

I did notice, however, that with the official beginning yesterday of the house painting project(s), there was a definite shift in my personal energy. This could be due to the fact that the color in the master bathroom -- and I've also started in on the bedroom now, with the same color -- is one of my favorites and easily has my house feeling much more like my own space. The existing colors of this place have been a constant, if unconscious, reminder of previous residents. My home is finally becoming my own.

But I'd also colored my hair recently -- I tend to make changes to my hair when dealing with heartache -- and even this has me feeling more like myself. I am really rather witchy looking.

Reclaiming myself through color. What a concept.

painting, day 1

Not much of a blog entry from me this evening, I'm afraid. I am covered in "Roslyn's Blue," a color I picked out yesterday for the master bedroom and bathroom.

I went to work on the bathroom a few hours ago, thinking that it's a small space and should go quickly. "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang oft agley," as the saying goes. Small space, sure, but lots of corners, cabinets, and fixtures to negotiate. I'd not even considered trying to paint behind the toilet tank, but I did it. I covered every square centimeter of that wall, without removing the toilet. And I have the paint in my hair, on my clothes, and on my skin to prove it.

There remains a fair amount of space over the sink to be painted, as well as the walls surrounding the shower, but I think I'm done for the evening.

I'm glad I started this project, however. I'll finish up the bathroom in the next day or two, and have already started on the bedroom -- if painting about six square inches of one wall counts as having started. The master bedroom is huge, and there's still the entire downstairs to paint as well -- and there are several gallons of "Falling Rain" awaiting that project start.

It's a lot of work, but I'd forgotten how much I enjoy these household projects. It's all about making a house a home.

Now it's time to try to wash this paint out of my hair, and to try taking a shower with the ladder still dominating the bathroom.

home holding pattern

I’ve been reading the first book of Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series — Storm Front — and just this morning, I’ve come across the following passage:

Here had lived someone else who knew that the only thing waiting at home was a sense of loneliness. Sometimes it is comforting. Most often, it isn’t.

This got me to thinking again about this “intentional vacuum” I’m creating in my home, clearing out that which no longer serves me as a means of inviting in more of the life I choose to create for myself.

I’ve been living very much a “bachelor” lifestyle, for lack of a better term — granted, my home and schedule are significantly more organized and livable than those of many (but not all) bachelors I’ve seen. It wasn’t until reading this passage in Butcher’s novel about a wizard private investigator that I realized that my house doesn’t feel very much like a home — at least, it doesn’t feel like the home I want to live in.

In recent months, I’ve found myself reminiscing about the house I left behind in Virginia. I loved that house. I owned and lived in it for seven years, and I’d absolutely made it my own. I replaced major appliances — including switching the house over form oil to gas for heating — tore down walls, stripped wallpaper off of every wall and ceiling in the place, rebuilt the screened porch, planted a garden…. That place was a real home, and I loved it.

I’ve been in this condo now for almost four years. I’ve made some changes — ripped up the downstairs carpet, painted the kitchen, installed central air, planted some herbs, and the like — but for the most part, I still haven’t made this place my own. I’ve not made the investment of my time, energy, and vision into creating a home for myself here.

I suppose I kept thinking of this place as being temporary, that I’d stay here until I found something better, until I found my mate, until I moved on. All of that is absolutely still the case — after all, today is merely the space and time connecting yesterday to tomorrow — but it has given rise to rather tenuous feelings and circumstances in my life as a whole. Not to mention that my house doesn’t feel like my home.

To build the life I want for myself tomorrow, I have to commit today. If I’m living a life of waiting, then the forecast for tomorrow will similarly be more waiting. To create the home life I envision for myself moving forward, I’m going to have to get to work right here, where I am now. That means finally picking a couple of paint colors and making some choices about what rugs, artwork, and pieces of furniture to keep and what to give away, instead of waiting around to “see what happens” before making any decisions.

I’m not sure how or why I got myself locked into such a holding pattern, but one thing’s for sure: My house is not a waiting room. I choose to make it my home.

optimism

A friend wrote late last night in response to yesterday’s “intentional vacuum” blog entry to tell me how much he admires my optimism.

I responded that in all honesty, if it weren’t for my optimism, I’d probably be dead by now.

The people who know me reasonably well will understand that statement. Maybe this has to do with something a spiritual counselor I know calls “potentiality” — the ability to see the highest potential a person has within him/herself, even if that person isn’t embodying it at the moment. Somewhat along the lines of what Anne Frank wrote in her diary:

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Or maybe it’s because looking for the bright side in just about everything is an easy way to keep sane.

For instance, even though I’m in the midst of getting my heart broken, I’m keeping focused on the positive aspects of my most recent relationship. For one, even though I’d not been with anyone in a long time and had been afraid of getting involved again, I discovered that I’m actually rather good at being close to someone. It’s comfortable. I like it. That was a happy surprise. Also, I learned that I do want to marry and raise a child with my husband — again, something I’d not known previously.

These are good things to know about myself, and this allows me to hold a vision of what I want to create moving forward.

The tricky part of that, however, is not getting emotionally attached to specific outcomes. Building a vision of what I want that involves specific institutions, objects, people, places, timelines, or other details can fuel expectations that more often than not will get dashed on the rocks. It is, as my mother likes to say, a matter of holding the vision alongside the mantra, "This, or something better."

So I’m still generally hopeful, and am becoming more practiced — through trial and error — in the art of detached optimism.

intentional vacuum

Nature abhors a vacuum.

That certainly explains the state of my house. ;) When I get stressed or am feeling doubtful and uncertain -- in the absence of tranquility -- my house has a tendency to get cluttered. Things really got out of control after Nanook's death, and the chaos came home to roost in the midst of Journey's illness and then in my dealing with Lakshmi's anxiety and socialization problems. After that, I suppose it was a matter of inertia; even though my living space was uncomfortable, I was exhausted and addressing organization required more energy than I had to expend.

But I've slowly been crawling back out of this. Before I lived with animals, my living space was very tidy. I can assume I'm naturally orderly. Unfortunately, I didn't develop too many new organizational skills to adapt to living with the four-footeds.

I'm taking some time now to more actively pursue the life I choose to create for myself. I've learned through recent experience that I do want a loving partnership. I want marriage and a child. As I'd been growing older, and was still single more often than not, I'd gotten very comfortable not making space for anyone else. It's absolutely appropriate that we fill the gaps in our own lives (and not expect someone else to do that for us), but as with any new venture, we do have to carve out the time and space necessary to let the new energy in.

When I was in college, a good friend of mine gave me his perspective on why he thought I was still single. He told me that I was absolutely what he and many other men were looking for -- attractive, smart, vibrant, confident, funny -- but that my life seemed so full that he wasn't sure where or how he'd fit into it. Part of that is reflex -- filling my own time with my own pursuits, since there wasn't anyone around to share in it -- but I hadn't seen how I'd unintentionally been edging out what I wanted.

More recently, I was honestly surprised by how much time and space my relationship required. And even though that is on hiatus now, or possibly even over, I got a wonderful taste of not only what I do absolutely want in my life, but of the fact that I need to get better about making room for it.

In my neighborhood, there are between two and four people living in condos the same size as mine. There are also quite a few singles, like myself, but these are typically older women who have family regularly come to visit. Sure, no one else has a banshee dog like I do, but I still look around my space and wonder where a family would fit. (Ideally, I wouldn't be living here with my family -- but would be somewhere with a fenced yard -- but that's beside the point.)

My bedroom closet -- built for two -- is full, mostly of clothes I no longer wear. My bookcases are stacked with volumes I've not touched in years. And so on. If I were going to share my living space with a partner -- either having him move in here, or my packing up to join him -- I would certainly want to pare down my possessions. So why not begin that process now? Why not start, today, to clear the space -- in my life and in my home -- for the reality I want to bring into being?

Nature abhors a vacuum. Isn't it reasonable to assume, then, that creating space in my life for what I want is a more active invitation? I should tackle that closet anyway -- there are perfectly good clothing items in there that simply aren't being used -- and in the process, I am also clearing the way for my partner's clothes, literally and symbolically. Just as making a clean sweep of my desk when completing one project makes room for the next, so too can de-cluttering my living space help to attract real love and light into my life, and make it welcome.

plastic windows

Up until this evening, I firmly believed that the plastic windows in paper envelopes could not be recycled. I suppose that must have been the case when I first started recycling -- back in the Stone Age, apparently.

This is good to know. I just wish I could get back the untold hours I've spent "processing" the vast amounts of junk mail I received each week, all in the attempt to remove plastic that turns out can be recycled.

Doh!

co-working trial

Wednesday afternoon, I headed over to Souk in downtown Portland. Stories about co-working — independents like myself converging on office space to work in parallel — have been frequently in the media in the past several weeks, and I’d been curious about trying this out.

To accommodate a video being made for one of the Meredith publications, Souk was offering free hot desk space to anyone who wanted to come down and "work" while the video shoot was going on. It was the perfect opportunity.

Co-working is not foreign to me. For several years, I’ve been regularly packing up my computer and heading out to a coffee shop or to the library to work remotely, at least for a few hours, sometimes several days each week. Working alone in a home office can be very isolating — particularly when you also live alone — and sometimes I just crave being around other people.

Coffee People had a wonderful set-up, with plenty of table space, free WiFi, occasionally adequate access to electrical outlets, friendly staff, and no limit on how long “remote workers” could hang out and be productive. They even let you bring in outside food and beverages — as long as it didn’t come from Starbucks. There was a core group of us who would descend on the coffee shop at various times, and we built up our own casual little network. We’d help each other out if someone had a question or was experiencing technical difficulties. We referred each other to friends and colleagues for goods and services. It was great.

But then Starbucks bought Coffee People. It’s just not the same. The re-designed space isn’t at all conducive to productivity, the Coffee People baristas and managers have all moved on, and the WiFi connection requires a paid subscription.

I’ve been hunting out other spaces and found a few — Bella Espresso, Longbottom Coffee, and the Hillsboro Library — but they’re just not the same.

So when co-working venues started appearing in the news, I paid attention. Of course, excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I discovered that none of the co-working spots in the metro Portland area are located anywhere close to me. Souk — in downtown — is the nearest one, and requires an hour-long light rail commute, each way. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even on an occasional basis.

But, a free hot desk for an hour or so made it worth my while to try it at least once.

When I arrived, the video crew was already setting up equipment and rearranging the main room. I settled in at one hot desk, resolved some problems connecting to the WiFi network, and started working. A few minutes later, I was asked to move to one of the hot desks in the center of the room, where they’d be shooting video. Apparently, I was just part of the "background" for those shots, as the action focused on three men sitting together at a table in front of me. In reality, these Portland professionals had never met before and spent their time introducing themselves and talking about their work, but in the video, they appear to be having an interesting and productive meeting.

A few minutes later, I was asked to move again, this time to one of the conference rooms. Souk offers several conference rooms as well as private offices to those who need them. For a while there, I appeared to be a conference of one, until a few other people were relocated into the room with me. A restaurant manager and I both had our Mac laptops and were doing actual work while also contributing to the pretend business meeting. One guy stood up at a white board and pointed to words like "national," "marketing," "energize," and "global."

I asked if there was any possibility of expanding the business galactically, which started the conversation on how to set up franchises on Jupiter and what the plan was for full solar system domination. It was a fun couple of minutes. Then they shut off the cameras, and we were free to leave.

Souk has a nice space. It’s clean and open, and I can imagine how this could really help people to connect to boost their productivity, while also encouraging more focus and motivation in a professional setting. Trust me, I often feel like anything but a professional when I’ve got cats pushing file folders off the desk onto the floor, the dog is barking and dashing in and out of my office, my neighbor is standing in his courtyard yelling at someone on the phone, and I’ve just barely gotten myself dressed before sitting down behind the computer.

Other than the location — ideal for some folks, but definitely not for me — there were only a few drawbacks I saw at Souk. One was that the windows in the open hot desk area are higher up toward the ceiling, so the only view you have is of the sky and the upper floors of surrounding buildings. Also, the desks — and everything on them — vibrated whenever someone walked across the floor. These are hardly deal-breakers but were jarring in the short term. Also, the WiFi network seemed sluggish.

I’m glad this idea of co-working is catching on. If a similar space became available closer to me, I’d be a charter member. In the meantime, you can still find me on occasion at a local coffee shop or the library.

keep on keeping on

I’ve missed the past two days in the May blogathon. There’s been a kind of personal crisis that’s gotten in the way of quite a bit lately.

Which brings me to today’s blog topic: sometimes all you can do is just keep on keeping on.

Moving to Portland was a huge change from Richmond, Virginia — where I’d grown up and where I’d lived as an adult for more than a decade. In many ways, this relocation was very good, but this change also presented some unexpected challenges. There are some things I’ve been grappling with since I got here, not the least of which was the untimely death of my beloved Alaskan husky, Nanook — followed several months later by the trials of Lakshmi, an illness in one of my cats, and the severe diabetes, seizures and ultimate death of my dog, Journey.

It’s been a year since Journey’s passing — that anniversary was this past Sunday — and there are parts of my life that are still recovering from those very difficult months of prolonged trauma and grief. My life was impacted in ways I couldn’t have imagined, and it has been a struggle to come back from all of that, as well as from some other hits I’ve taken.

But that’s life.

In the past several months, things have really begun looking up, on several fronts. It was wonderful to feel my optimism at last being rewarded. Things weren’t perfect, of course, but good things were happening, and I was really enjoying myself. I felt like I was finally firing on all cylinders in the three most important areas of my life — my work, my love life, and my health.

And then a huge wrench got thrown into the works — something completely outside my control, and I’m still not sure what the outcome might be. In the meantime, there’s frustration, anxiety, and pain involved, along with a great amount of compassion. I feel very much in limbo. The temptation to ignore pretty much everything but this current crisis is rather strong, to sink all my energy into fixing this. But I don’t have that option. It’s not my problem to fix. It’s not easy to turn my attention to the rest of my life and just let this sit, but sometimes that’s all I can do.

I grew up in a home of high drama and didn’t learn at an early age that giving something room is not the same as ignoring it, and that backing off is not necessarily the same as abandonment. I had to learn on my own that some things take time, that some problems really do need to be tackled head-on with full force, but if I find that I’m beating my head against a wall, a better strategy is to take a step back and look for a doorway through. And that no measure of love or good intention gives anyone the power to solve other people’s problems.

So I’m keeping on keeping on, or trying to. I’m working on investing my efforts in areas where I can have positive and productive impact — in hopes also of gaining a more balanced perspective on what is not within the realm of my control. I simply have to trust that the rest will work itself out.

twitter

About three weeks ago, I joined Twitter.

I’d been hearing about Twitter for several weeks, but had no idea what it was. Even when a friend and fellow writer tried to describe it to me, it still didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why would I want to post tiny little descriptions about where I was and what I was doing, and read similar offerings from other people? It sounded like a self-indulgent waste of time.

The reality of it has proved far different.

I don’t have a huge number of followers, nor am I following all that many people on Twitter. There’s not a whole lot one can say in 140 characters or fewer, so I choose my words and phrasing carefully, and I don’t post every little thing that comes to mind. Sometimes it is pure whimsy, but mostly it’s about some of the smaller details of life that I’d just like to be able to share.

Rather than being a source of distraction and procrastination — big reasons I don’t keep IM windows open when I’m trying to work — I’ve found Twitter instead to be a means of motivation. Many of the folks on my follower/following list are other writers, and I like reading about what they’re up to during the day. The mundane and sometimes even tedious daily tasks of the writing life make sense to me, and there’s a kind of solidarity in keeping abreast of other writers’ activities, and in posting updates of my own.

And when I do start feeling various diversions and interruptions pulling at me, knowing what my fellow writers are doing can even help me stay on task — not so much out of competition, but more in the spirit of right association. When those around me are being productive, it’s easy for me to be productive as well, and vice-versa. Hearing about other authors’ book signings, e-mails from editors, and book proposals in process can inspire me to dive into some of my own query and proposal work that I’ve been putting off. Even reading complaints about sources and PR people is a comfort when I’m dealing with the consistent frustrations and tedium that come with writing professionally.

I’ve also found Twitter a fun way to stay in touch with “real friends” as we all go about our days, and to learn from relative strangers who are skilled in areas of expertise that are completely foreign to me. I may not have the intimate and far-reaching international network that others have built, but I’m enjoying myself all the same.

I’ve not yet added my “Twitter feed” to the Ravenwald website, but I’ve been thinking about it. For now, you can find my Twitter page and profile here: http://twitter.com/jenwillis

I’ll keep twitting away.

blogathon

Some of you may be wondering why I’ve suddenly been blogging so frequently. I’m part of a blogathon — sponsored by fellow writer (and fellow Portlander) Michelle Rafter. All participants are posting new blog entries every day for the entire month of May.

(Of course, I didn’t find out about it until 7 May, so I’m about a week behind everyone else.)

I’d initially started this blog with the idea of posting once each week. For the first week or so, that was a piece of cake. I was actually having to hold myself back from posting daily. That was in autumn 2004. After a short while, I found my entries were less frequent, and my blogging motivation was waning. I wasn’t sure what to write about, and what to keep to myself. Plus, I was convinced no one was reading this thing anyway.

More time went by, and I was sometimes lucky to post one new entry per month.

This year, I’d been getting better about returning to the once weekly blog schedule, but it was still way too easy to slip. That’s why I joined in on Michelle’s challenge. Post at least once a day. About anything. Even if all I’m throwing up here is the ingredients list from my dog’s breakfast. (Interesting to note that “dog’s breakfast” has also been used to euphemistically refer to the human brain.)

The logic is similar to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), in which I’ve participated annually since 2004. Write 2,000 words a day, every day, for the month of November. By the end of the month, you’ve got a first draft of a new novel. It’s hard work, but it’s wicked fun.

I figured that writing once a day, about anything, would be a good exercise — not only in revitalizing my blog (assuming I’ve not frightened anyone away with my strange range of subject matter of late), but in spurring on other creative juices, too. And I have to say it’s going rather well. I started out the process by typing up a tentative list of topics I thought I might cover during the month, yet I’ve scarcely had to refer to it. Enough comes up each day that I generally still have to pick and choose what to write about. No dearth of material here.

Save for this evening, perhaps. This is my Saturday post, which will actually be going online in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I’d not factored in a cook-out with my boyfriend’s pals, followed by back-to-back hockey games. My apologies.

I’m not sure that I’ll keep up this same pace after 1 June, but I won’t have any doubt that I’d be able to continue blogging daily, if I wanted to. This is also a good indication that I have plenty of material for regular podcasts, too — it’s just a matter of working podcast writing and production time into my schedule. Sometimes, once you’ve decided to just dive into the middle of a challenge, it’s not nearly as difficult as you’d anticipated.

hot puppy

It’s wickedly hot here. For May, and for the Pacific Northwest.

Although it was snowing just a month ago, the mercury hit 87-degrees (F) yesterday, and has passed 97 today. I’ve finally broken down and turned on the AC — mostly for my poor husky puppy, who has been clinging to me, panting and whimpering most of the afternoon.

I had central air put into the house shortly after I moved in. Most homes here in Portland don’t have air-conditioning — for the most part, it’s unnecessary — though it does feel like it’s getting a bit warmer here a bit sooner each summer. As an eco-conscious gal, I dislike even having AC — much less using it — but it’s becoming more and more of a necessity, even though I use it sparingly. Turning it on before it’s even June really doesn’t make me feel good.

My last full year in Richmond, Virginia, it first hit the 90-degree mark in April. Our last over-90-degree day that year was in October, so we effectively had six months of summer. Both the heat and humidity were getting harder and harder for me to take, and each summer I spent increasingly long hours and days lying around on the bed — even with the AC running — because I simply couldn’t function. When I get hot, I run fevers and get sick to my stomach — thanks to some problems with heat exhaustion when I was a teenager.

One summer in Richmond — I think it was 1995 — we had an atrocious heat wave that lasted about three days. I was living in an old house without AC and not much in the way of window ventilation, either. I remember spending the entire weekend lying on the floor, with my cat and Alaskan husky stretched out nearby. Occasionally, I’d get up to change out the water bowls and ice cube trays I’d set in front of the box fans. I was exhausted and dehydrated, but I was still better off than being outside.

A move to the cooler weather of the Pacific Northwest greatly appealed to me, with its mild, dark days and frequent rainfall. Even the winters are easier here — though it first snowed in November, and then again last month…. Five months of winter?

Yesterday’s high temperatures took me by surprise, and not in a good way. But I had fair warning that we’d be even hotter today. I got as much work done before 10:30 a.m. as I could, then ran errands before my brain officially melted — but I was already sweating by 8 a.m., and we cracked 80 degrees soon after 9. I bought every popsicle mold Bed Bath & Beyond had in stock, and — as I type — I have orange juice, cran-grape, limeade and Dr. Pepper popsicles setting in the freezer.

The cats were first curled up in dark corners of the house, but in the afternoon have taken to stretching out across the floor. I’ve been unable to think all that straight and so was just lounging on the couch, having a rather unpleasant pseudo-dream about being alone in a mini-sub that was being attacked by a shark. Maybe something I could turn into a screenplay for the Sci-Fi Channel.

It’s getting later in the afternoon, but the heat is holding. I thought I could just hang out on the couch and try my best not to move until after sunset. But my dog was increasingly in distress. This poor Siberian-wolf has a thick fur coat she can’t take off. It’s nearly 90-degrees inside the house right now, and it could take a while for the cooling system to really have an impact, but at least it’s getting better for her.

That’s the hot and steamy report for this afternoon.

little patients

This past Tuesday, I was at Legacy Emanuel Hospital for a media event put on by the Children’s Cancer Association, Nike, and the Portland Trailblazers. The unveiling of the Music Rx media cart was held in the Infant and Toddler’s playroom, and in addition to the planners, designers, basketball players and reporters, there were cancer patients present.

And they were all children.

One of the Nike designers, who is a friend of mine, said he had no doubt that these children were chosen for the morning’s presentation because they looked pretty good at this point in their treatment and were able to be cheerful and smile for the press. My friend had been in and out of the hospital for several months working on this project, and he admitted that the process had been tough.

“Even though you’re there to work on the project, you’re surrounded by these sick children,” my friend said. He watched healthy-looking children deteriorate rapidly from one week to the next. “These kids look okay today, but if you saw them again in a week, you wouldn’t recognize them. The treatment takes such an incredible toll.”

Some of the kids looked perfectly healthy. Then there was Faith, all of perhaps five or six years old and the spitting image of her father. She enjoyed playing with the toys and giving and receiving hugs. She had a huge smile on her face during the entire event. But her skin was a sickly grayish-tan color, and she weighed only a fraction of what she should — and she had a feeding tube taped to the side of her face and running up through one nostril.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. She was so obviously happy, and yet so obviously unwell. I had to physically turn away from her so I couldn’t watch her. I concentrated instead on what the fabricator was telling me about the materials design process, and fought back the tears I could feel welling up.

These children didn’t ask to be sick. It’s hard enough coming into a world that is increasingly complicated and frightening, particularly when you’re little and are totally dependent on the big people around you to take care of you, but to get smacked with a life-threatening illness right out of the gate is just plain cruel. Of course, the parents didn’t sign up for this, either. Who adopts or conceives a child with the fervent hope, “Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if my child develops cancer!”?

I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d talked to everyone I needed to talk to and just couldn’t do anymore glad-handing. I stepped out into the hallway, out of the crush of people — cancer-riddled children, healthy adults, and freakishly tall basketball players alike — and checked my voice mail. I sent out a few superfluous text messages. I sat down on the couch and busied myself with taking notes.

That’s when a young mother rolled over my way with her son. He was all of perhaps 18 or 24 months old — it’s difficult to tell a child’s age when s/he is sick — and he was riding in a big red wagon, complete with pillows, comfy blankets, an IV stand and other monitoring equipment. The scant hair on his head was scraggly and growing in patches. No doubt the rest had fallen out. He had scabs on his arms and chest from where tubes had formerly been inserted, and surgical tape holding down the current lines and tubes. He was fussing, crying, uncomfortable and in pain.

His mother sat down in the chair beside me and called her husband on her cell phone while one of the hospital volunteers brought her a piece of cake from the event still going on in the playroom.

Her son was in too much discomfort to even listen to his father’s voice on the phone. The young woman placed the piece of cake inside the wagon with her son and stood up to continue rolling him down the hall. Then this little boy did something that nearly made me burst into tears.

He reached for the plastic fork, carved a big chunk out of the piece of cake, and held it up to offer to his mother.

In the midst of his own dis-ease, this little child’s simple act of generosity and love toward his mother just floored me. Like Faith’s unwavering smile, the spirit of these children remains steady and undaunted.

the jewish thing

“Why do you want to convert to Judaism?”

I get this question a lot, sometimes several times from the same people. I was asked this again last evening — while at the rock gym with a new climbing buddy (that in itself is likely a separate blog entry) — and I realized that I’ve probably not adequately answered such a query on this blog.

So here goes.

I was a student at a Montessori School from the ages of 2 to 9. While there, I was exposed to many different perspectives, cultures and religions. We celebrated anything and everything. It was fantastic. I learned the commonality of faith, rather than the separateness of traditions. Of course, I also had no idea that Christmas and Hanukkah were two different holidays, that a menorah and a Christmas tree don’t naturally go together.

It was when I transferred to St. Catherine’s Episcopal School for Girls as a fourth grader that I learned I wasn’t Jewish. It was rather disappointing.

Around that same time, I turned ten. As was the family tradition, my father’s father presented me with a leather-bound edition of the King James Bible — “Words of Christ in Red” — with my name embossed on the cover in gold. I still have that Bible. As a child, I used to read the Book of Genesis over and over again, and the story of Abraham was a particular favorite. I loved the idea of being called out into the wilderness, away from the safe haven of the city and previous belief, out into the unknown. Indeed much of my life has mirrored that very pathworking. But I’d get to the part about Joseph heading off into Egypt, and I’d lose interest and go back to the beginning again.

At that same age, I was asked to speak one morning in our Lower School chapel service — something each student had the opportunity to do at one time or another. I prepared a short talk on the Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — and emphasized that as the core of moral behavior and a common tie among all people. Not bad for a ten-year-old! At the time, I had no idea that was THE foundation — or the “on one foot” description — of Judaism.

There were other experiences I had along the way, such as going to a Friday evening, student-led Shabbat service when I was at Duke. I felt immediately welcomed by the other students, and it was so soothing and peaceful that I thought this was a great way to round out the week. I started studying Judaism on my own, but had no idea that conversion was possible.

The seeds for my conversion had been sown long before I actively began this process a year ago. But that still doesn’t answer the question of, “Why?”

I’m in a place in my life where I’m looking to put down roots, at long last. I am attracted to the strong community that Judaism offers, as well as the deep grounding in age-old tradition. But I’m probably most excited about the eternal questioning that Judaism not only encourages but practically requires — it’s not about accepting anything on blind faith, but instead is about really turning something over and over in your own mind, to find your own wisdom and to make the question itself a part of your personal experience and understanding.

This emphasis on study and experience appeals to my own questing self, the drive that has led me to pursue religious studies in a variety of academic and spiritual venues. A focus on action and social justice also obviously appeals to me. A deep tradition in mysticism speaks to the more esoteric side of me that yearns for illumination and communion. Add that to the fact that difference of opinion within Judaism is viewed more as an opportunity for learning and deeper development — rather than as a divisive threat to order and stability — and the attraction is pretty clear.

As I’ve stated earlier, my personal beliefs — which tend more to the Universal than the religious — are very much the same and are continuing along the same trajectory of growth and discovery. It’s simply that this is the first time in my life that I’m actively choosing a community and an affiliation. There have been rough patches — dealing with the misunderstandings and sometimes outright prejudice of family and friends — and times when I’ve wondered just what the hell I’m doing. I’ve worried about anti-semitism and don’t yet know my own position on zionism.

But I’m a year into this process now, and I’m still excited about it. So that’s my not-so-brief attempt at an answer this morning.

badges

I was at a press event this morning. All of the official greeters had badges. The public relations people had badges. The designers and fabricators — of the new product being rolled out — had badges. Even the celebrity guests had badges.

You know who didn’t have badges? The members of the press.

Standing around at this event, watching the demonstration and then talking with folks afterwards, I kept thinking of that episode of “The Brady Bunch” where Peter decides to become a reporter, starts calling himself “Scoop” Brady, and sits behind his typewriter with a card reading “PRESS” stuck in the brim of his hat.

Sure, I wasn’t the only member of the press who wasn’t armed with visible credentials. Like I said, you could easily look around the room and identify who was with the media, because we were the only ones there without badges. But I started wondering about making up my own photo ID to be laminated and suspended on the end of a lanyard.

It could say whatever I wanted it to, within reason. I doubt I’d make up something that said, “Jennifer Willis, Pulitzer Prize Winner” or some similar fantasy. But a simple, “Jennifer Willis, Freelance Journalist” — along with a list of my professional memberships and featuring a recent photo — might at least help me feel more official, and might even open some doors for me. (Figurative doors, of course. Even if I put a fake magnetic stripe on the back of my self-created ID badge, I doubt it would get me through even the simplest security system.)

On a more serious note, I remember hearing from my fellow interfaith ministers who were on the scene in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City. Those who had ID cards identifying them as ministers — even when they had created these cards themselves — were allowed unfettered access to Ground Zero in order to minister to the rescue workers and to the wounded and dying.

If another such tragedy or other momentous event were to arise…. It might not be a bad idea to look into freelance press credentials — to find out if any of the professional organizations I belong to offer such a thing, and/or to consider creating my own.

(And I got all the way to the bottom of this entry without once quoting, “We don’t need no stinking badges!”)

del.icio.us

I’d heard of del.icio.us before, but I’d not looked into it. It wasn’t until another writer recommended the service for keeping track of websites used in research that I decided to give it a whirl.

I’m a research website junkie. For real.

My 2.16 GHz MacBook frequently starts complaining about the huge number of websites I’ll have open at any given time. When I do decide to give it a rest and shut down Firefox, I’ve learned not to be surprised by dialog boxes asking if I really want to close the 83 tabs I have open.

It’s nuts.

I do a lot of research, whether I’m working on an assigned story, digging up facts and figures for a lead or pursuing topics of more personal interest (like a recent search for a decent shrimp and grits recipe that didn’t use cream). Add that to keeping an eye on what’s going on in the world and checking in on professional online forums, and I’ve soon got dozens of websites on my desktop at once.

To reduce the processor load, I had been copying and pasting URLs into blank e-mail windows from time to time, then putting a date and occasionally even an umbrella topic (assuming all the links were related to one another) in the subject field. That helped me save the URLs I wanted to visit later without junking up my bookmarks folder — which, frankly, I never use anyway — but then I ended up with dozens of this URL lists in my Apple Mail Drafts folder.

So I’ve been giving del.icio.us a try this morning, and so far, I like it. If there’s a URL I want to save, I can tag it however I’d like — for instance, assigning "seo," "writing," "blog" and "tips" to a blog entry by Michelle Rafter on "What Freelance Writers Should Know About SEO" — et voila! The URL and my tags are saved to my online del.icio.us account for easy access. No more hogging up my processor memory with vast armies of Firefox tabs. No more (relatively) inefficient URL lists in e-mail drafts.

Excellent! This should be a big help moving forward, in minimizing the number of tabs I have open at any given time and in organizing and keeping track of sites I’d like to revisit for specific purposes.

Of course, now I’m realizing I should go back through my lists of links in those draft messages…. Ugh. Some of them date back nearly four years!

I also finally installed Google Analytics this morning. We’ll see if that ends up proving useful.

mother's day and little baby ducks

This Mother’s Day, I find myself thinking of my son and how different my life would be today had he lived.

He would be 19 this coming August, would be in either his last year of high school or first year of college, and would be getting ready to vote in his first presidential election. I smile when I think of that last opportunity, remembering how excited I was when I was a new voter, casting my absentee ballot for Democrat presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

It was probably a blessing to everyone that I lost him — in the downstairs bathroom at my parents’ house, in the wee hours of the morning, while I was home on break. I was in an unstable and abusive relationship, and adding a child to the mix would have been a disaster. It was several years before I acknowledged the miscarriage, and now the memory makes me feel both wistful and sad.

Several months ago, I blogged about my childlessness. What I’d not admitted was my fear of trying to have a child — knowing how difficult it would very likely be and the high risk of miscarriage. Losing a pregnancy when I was just a kid myself is one thing; I’m not sure how I’d handle losing a child I wanted and had tried so hard to conceive. It’s not something I’m willing to face without a steady and loving partner, and at 38, I find that time is running short.

This, I believe, is the first Mother’s Day I’ve thought about my own lost motherhood. Before today, I don’t think I’d ever thought about whether a future Mother’s Day might actually belong to me. I don’t think being a “puppy and kitten mama” counts.

The day does, however, belong to my mother, my stepmother, my sister, my friends and many, many others. This will sound silly and sentimental, but I hope the sun is shining down on them all today.

There are some new mothers in my neighborhood, and this morning I’ve seen them out playing with their offspring. I was outside walking a bit ago and happily spied clusters of little ducklings out on the water with their parents, scooting around like tiny, feathered bumper boats. While I stood watching them, a neighbor came running down to the water with his camera, and we discussed different vantage points that would yield the best photos while causing the least intrusion to the duck family outing.

Cruising back to my place, I remembered a song I’d heard on the radio when I was a child:

“I Love,” by Tom Hall

I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow-moving trains, and rain
I love little country streams, sleep without dreams, Sunday school in May, and hay
And I love you too

I love leaves in the wind, pictures of my friends, birds in the world, and squirrels
I love coffee in a cup, little fuzzy pups, bourbon in a glass, and grass
And I love you too

I love honest open smiles, kisses from a child, tomatoes on the vine, and onions
I love winners when they cry, losers when they try, music when it's good, and life
And i love you too

Not a bad song for any day of the week, but especially lovely this Mother’s Day. I hope you’re having a good one.

opening day at the farmers market (and the honey puppy)

Today was opening day at the Beaverton Farmers Market. Saturday mornings spent wandering through fresh produce, cut flowers, organic dog treats, nursery trees and locally made treats — all while listening to live music from local performers — is one of my favorite summer activities.

It was a gorgeous day for it, too. These cool, gray, overcast days really appeal to me, and it’s precisely this kind of weather that played a major role in my decision to relocate to Oregon.

This morning, the place was hopping! It wasn’t quite as packed as it gets in July and August when the rows of vendors are choked with people, but things were definitely headed in that direction. There seemed to be more vendors than last year, and I was surprised by the array of goods available this early in the season.

One vendor I’d not seen before was The Happy Barker, whose banner carries the slogan, “Dog is great, dog is good.” I’ll look forward to trying some of their vegan dog treats in the coming weeks — assuming my dog behaves herself in the meantime.

I picked up some herb plants -- 2 oregano plants, catnip, mint and sweet basil ($3/each) -- and bought organic leeks for $2.25/bunch and fresh-cut asparagus for $2.99/pound. I also bought local wildflower honey, to help stave off seasonal allergies.

I stopped by Safeway on the way home to pick up some bath soap and such — and checked out the produce prices. At the grocery store, leeks are about $3/bunch, and asparagus is $3.99/pound, so the farmers market was a real deal: Fresh, local and less expensive.

Of course, after bringing my purchases inside — save for the herb plants — I put away everything but the honey. I ran upstairs to check e-mail and change my shoes, then came back down to find the honey was MIA. I checked the canvas tote I’d carried at the market, the bags from the grocery store, the refrigerator, every place I could think of to locate the missing honey bear.

Then I got a terrible feeling…. I looked over at my husky — the Banshee dog — sitting next to the couch, obviously very pleased with herself. I slowly approached, and soon found the honey, buried in the couch beneath the throw pillows, the cap having been ripped off, honey seeping slowly into the furniture and (new) pillows.

Most of the honey was still in the container, thank goodness, and I think the couch cover can be saved. Who knew huskies like honey?

Later, the Banshee insisted on “helping” me plant to herb starts. Her assistance consisted mostly of dashing around the courtyard trying to steal my gardening tools, barking at me from inside the house and tearing around inside the garage wreaking havoc that I don’t want to examine just yet.

rejection

Rejection is a regular part of any freelancer’s working life. Often, rejection begins to feel like “situation normal.” You’ve worked and re-worked a pitch on a story you know is ground-breaking. You can feel it in your bones. You’ve studied your target markets and sent your query to a publication you’ve dreamed of writing for. Then you wait for the editor’s reply. And you wait. You follow-up with an e-mail message or phone call. You wait some more. Finally, the editor gets back to you — if you’re lucky — and declines your idea.

It’s difficult — sometimes impossible — not to take this kind of rejection personally. You can tell yourself that adversity is character building, but it’s still frustrating. I’ve been writing professionally, in one capacity or another, since the early 1990s, and I’m still learning about how not to take this lying down.

On the chance that it might be constructive, I’m sharing some of my strategies for dealing with rejection. These are mostly for rejections received from editors I’ve not worked with before. If you have your own to share, I’d love to hear/post them!

1. It was the idea that was rejected, not you. It may sound silly to point this out, and I do feel like an idiot when I feel a personal sting after I’ve had a query turned down. When you’ve put your heart and soul into something — even a story pitch — it’s easy to start personally identifying with it.

2. Consider the reason for the rejection (even if the editor doesn’t give you one). Was the idea not especially timely? Did the publication run a similar or related story in the past year? Was the idea simply not a good fit for that publication? Take a few minutes to look over your query to see if anything might be missing — even though you were sure it was perfect the first time.

3. On the heels of #2 above, send it out again. Tweak or re-work the query for another market, and get it back out the door pronto! Just because one editor (or more than one, as the case may be) didn’t buy the idea doesn’t mean it won’t be perfect for the next editor on your list. One thing is for certain, though: No one will ever buy your story pitch if they never hear about it.

4. Take a time out. For me, this can be anything from taking a hike with the dog or heading out to do some rock climbing, to sitting in meditation or relaxing with a good book. The point is to step away from the computer — and from the offending e-mail rejecting your story idea — and to take both a mental and physical break. When it’s time to come back, I usually find that I’m full of new story leads as well as ideas on how to salvage/rework the previously rejected one.

5. Acknowledge the rejection. Send the editor a quick reply letting him/her know you received the message. Keep it short and upbeat. I like to thank the editor for his/her time and indicate that I’m looking forward to submitting again and working with him/her in the future. You can even respond to the rejection with another query, if you’ve got another pitch that might be a good fit for that publication.

6. Vent. This is one option I admittedly don’t pursue all that often, but if you’re really angry or disappointed, find a friend — a fellow writer might be the most sympathetic — and feel free to indulge your woes for a few minutes. Just know it’s really not a good idea to do this publicly (particularly on the web) where your comments are visible to not only the editor in question but also to other editors you might want to work with.

7. Suck it up and get back to work. It’s important to keep moving forward — inertia is seemingly my worst enemy — and this is easily the strategy I employ the most frequently. Writing is all about sitting your butt in the chair — and keeping it there — and getting the work done. There is always more work to do, whether it’s making progress on a story already assigned to you, updating your professional website or starting in on the next query idea on your list. You can even spend some time organizing your office — anything that boosts your productivity.

So that’s my quick hit list of how I deal with the rejection that is a consistent part of any writer’s life. I also keep in mind a bit of sage advice that has bolstered me for taking a few chances I might otherwise have shied away from:

Don't worry about making a fool of yourself. Making a fool of yourself is absolutely essential.

— Gloria Steinem

How do you deal with rejection?

israel at 60

I find myself feeling uniquely unqualified to offer any real perspective on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel as a modern nation, being celebrated today.

What has already been stated by so many others is true: a Jewish homeland, especially in the aftermath of the Shoah/Holocaust, is a necessity. Regardless of how I feel about the nation’s politics, policies or military actions, even I need Israel — a living, breathing Jewish state — to exist.

I’ve always felt drawn to Israel, as I have been to many lands with ties to the ancient world. Unlike my travels to places like Egypt, Italy and Belize, I’ve not (yet) visited Israel. I’m frightened off by the violence and turbulence in the area. Even though plenty of non-Jewish tourists flock to Israel every year, I still feel rather like a “pretend Jew,” and worry that I’d feel out of place there.

I am admittedly not a strong Zionist, but then, in my lifetime, Israel has always been there. The tensions of three of the world’s most powerful faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – trying to share the single holy city of Jerusalem have always been in the news, and I’m frustrated and impatient that everyone can’t just get along. I don’t get it. I don’t carry the same baggage. Sure, I’ve seen and occasionally even experienced anti-semitism, but I’ve not lived through a pogrom or a Holocaust, even at a distance.

But I have shouldered the heavy burden of personal trials and tribulations and know what it feels like to struggle through the gray aftermath. From that standpoint, perhaps I can better understand the simultaneously hopeful and stubborn need to establish a defiant refuge. When someone strikes you down, you get back up on your feet again.

Maybe a Jewish homeland — rooted in real geography — gives us an anchor, something in addition to tradition to keep us grounded and centered. Living in the Diaspora is rather like living far away from your hometown. You know where you’ve come from, and where you can go back to if needed, even though you may never set eyes on the place again.

mezuzah

It finally happened. Last night, after a couple of months of watching me enter and exit my home, Mike finally asked what that thing is on the doorpost.

My mezuzah:


Truth be told, I’d been watching him watching me. I figured his curiosity would get the better of him eventually.

I gave a brief explanation of the traditional function of the mezuzah — which is adequately covered by Wikipedia — being that the case encloses a scroll on which is written the passage from Deuteronomy containing the Shema.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One.

I think that may have been too much religiosity for the atheist boyfriend to take, so we didn’t get too far into why I have such a thing and its personal meaning to me.

But that’s what blogs are for.

I affixed this mezuzah case to my doorpost at the end of last November. Yes, more than thirty days had elapsed since I’d moved into my home, but I wasn’t a “conscious Jew” at the time. No, my conversion to Judaism is not yet complete; there’s not even a firm timetable for that as I continue to work and explore with my rabbi. But this is part of my ramping up process — for lack of better terminology — and the mezuzah fits quite nicely with my own spirituality.

Even with my conversion into Judaism, I’m not a particularly religious person. I remain, however, very spiritual and am finding personal meaning and significance in traditional observance.

Stopping to acknowledge the mezuzah on my way in and out of the house is an easy way for me to remember Universality — particularly as I’m rushing about or am preoccupied with the various, mundane problems and emergencies that inevitably arise. When I reach for that mezuzah case on the doorpost, in a fraction of a second I am transported out of my head and into my heart and soul.

Call it a Biblical commandment if you want to, but for me the most important word of the Shema is “One.” As in, We Are All One. There is nothing that is not contained in and does not emanate from the Universal One. Separation — as well as conflict, lack and pain — is just an illusion.

That’s an invaluable reminder, today and everyday.