What Inspires: Chicken Scratch

I walked away from a post-holidays “debate” with my sis-in-law, Joanne,  with chicken scratch on my mind.

Joanne, a Special-Ed teacher,  maintains that learning cursive isn’t important anymore, and furthermore, that future generations may not write at all. Not to say they won’t comunicate. They may well communicate faster, more easily,  and on more advanced levels. Instead of writing, they’ll dictate and a machine will respond accordingly and/or transcribe if needed;  non-verbal folks will type and the machine will speak. Wha-Lah: Communication!

This might well be the way of the future. But…but…but… BAWWWWWWK!

Recent arguments about how practicing and learning writing is as important t0 brain development as going through the “crawling stage” and learning to skip aside, I can’t stop thinking about what will be lost if people stop writing?

I keep a box of cards and letters; my mother has one; my grandfather did, too.  (I type, “did” because my grandmother burned my grandfather’s, along with his family photos, shortly after his funeral (will we ever know why???)

When my grandmother died, I found hers, too. I didn’t burn it; I was embarrassed by it, though, and delighted and saddened and mortified to discover “brilliant” Mini-me thought “Boston” was spelled “Boaston” and  my teacher, Mr. Tweet, may well have had legitimate cause for giving me a C- in 5th grade penmanship (which crushed me and kept me from making the Honor Roll)

I was touched and thrilled  to discover my grandmother kept those cards and letters–if for no other reason that that I get to read them, touch them, smell them. . . . An exchange of molecules takes place during the process of “penning a note” which adds a different twist to the term “give something of yourself.” During the process of writing the note we transfer piece of ourselves to the paper.  Unlike carbon dating, human residue on hand-written card, notes, letter—recipes—don’t lessen by halves,  it becomes more precious.  (Any historic, cultural, kitsch value of the card is another discussion entirely.)

This holiday season, just as I have other holidays, I pulled out my raggedy recipe accordion folder and riffled through recipes. One Christmas eons ago (when my mother had more time and imagination than funding) she created a recipe file for my grandmother and herself. She typed “favorite” recipes on index cards and decorated them with doodles and comments. I relish those recipe cards. They whisk me back to when Mom was younger, energetic, and willing to spend the time on handmade gifts. As cheesy as many of them are, I love looking at them. They always make me smile and remember, as does “Aunt Margie’s Sheet Cake,” Grandma Lee’s “Noodle Koogle” and my grandmother’s “Never-fail Pie Crust.” (And dang if those pre low-fat, low-butter, low-calorie, low-sugar, high-nutrition recipes aren’t dang tasty!)

This holiday season, I received a piddly pile of cards—which I saved to savor after the rush and beyond as they will be duly read, then stored in my memory box. The bulk of my holiday greetings and post-holiday thank you notes arrived via email. And though I read and enjoyed them, I didn’t—even when I could have—print them out to save. I may save an e-mail note or card in Outlook, I rarely print one with the purpose of saving it. Those I do print rest in a wicker basket which bears a striking resemblance to the recycle basket.  Even in my wildest imaginings, I can not make myself believe a time will come when scent, skin, bone, tears, smudges, molecules can travel through the Internet, to the satellite and fiber optic cable, squish out the printer. (At least old-fashioned “dittos” smelled good–Oooh! Ooohh! I’ll run  off the copies for you, Mrs. Hsang…can I? Please, oh pretty please?????)

In a lecture on non-fiction at Vermont College of Fine Art last year, Diane Stanley shared how she researched her books.c She shared that judging from the volume, frequency, and immediacy of correspondence, communication in London during Charles Dickens time was almost as fast as today. As a result, volumes of his thoughts, ideas, musings, menus, gripes—in his own words—are read, enjoyed, studied, perused, evaluated, analyzed, synthesized, idolized, etc. etc. by scholars today.  With e-mail notes, sms, cards, tweets, etc. stand the same test?

AAMOF, 404!

Scribble on…BAWWWWWWK!

Our housekeeper, Rusnati's, recipe book--a combination of chicken scratch & magazine finds pasted onto the pages of an outdated manual --now that's recycling!

Happy New Year! I’m starting 2011 with an “Unexcused Absence.”

I took the holidays off and gave myself a real holiday from all forms of non-personal communication. For the past month I tried to avoided my computer, phones, mail….and focus on here and now.

And dang if it didn’t feel just like it did when I used to play hooky from school: an intoxicating blend of guilt and pleasure.

It wasn’t easy. E-mail is especially hard for me to ignore. I really had to work at not check in often. Let’s say I sort of managed (only because for much of the holidays I did not have access to the internet.) In the end, I give myself a C-. (I flunked business e-mail). Now I’m getting those where- the-heck-are-you-and-why-haven’t-you-responded-and-did-you-fall-off-the-edge-of-the-world notes.

I ended the holidays at a Creativity Energizer Retreat with my writing bud, Marty. Each January, we sequester ourselves with piles of new books, favorite snacks and libations, and a few problem manuscripts. We set a schedule for the days and stick to it. It’s amazing how revitalizing it is. It was especially so this year as both of us began the retreat feeling as though we hadn’t a fresh idea in our heads and should quit writing all together. We ended refreshed and overflowing with creative promise. Wooooo!

Prior to the retreat, we met with a fellow writer, Kathy Duval to discuss New Year’s Goals (notice I didn’t say resolutions? I resolved not to resolve this year.) “Write It Down, Make it Happen” Kathy said, explaining how every year she and her family write down personal Dreams/Hopes/Desires they have for themselves and put them away. The following New Year’s they pull out the prior year’s notes and see how many they had achieved.

Kathy’s family is not alone in doing this. Google the phrase: “write it down, make it happen and you’ll find scads of stories. There’s even a book detailing the process. If you are so inclined to read it, here’s the Amazon link.

Today, the GGs, my creativity group, are holding our gathering of 2011. To kick off the New Year, we are going to Write it Down/Make it Happen! Why don’t you join us?

Write it Down, Make it Happen!

Supplies:

• 5 small pieces of paper
• colorful pens,
• your personal Dreams/Hopes/Desires (Note: personal—this is for you!,
• a small colorful box, envelope or sachel to use as a Dream Keeper.

Directions:

Close your eyes and take a few minutes to think about what you want, what you really really want to happen in your life. Do not censor yourself. Do not limit yourself. Be honest! Dream big!

Cull your Dreams/Hopes/Desires to a short list of 5.

Do not share them with anyone! Do not talk about them!

Write each of these 5 Dreams/Desires/Hopes on separate pieces of paper.

Reread each, fold it, and put it away in your Dream Keeper.

Secure your Dream Keeper in a safe place (remember where you put it so you can retrieve it next year.)

That’s how you do it! Now get busy

Watch out 2011! We Have Arrived!

Mondays, the GGs (my Girl Group)–a Sisterhood of Creative Explorers–gather. We are working through Walking Into the World by Julia Cameron. It is a follow-up to The Artist’s Way, her twelve-step guide to creative living. One component of Cameron’s creativity recovery program is the Weekly Walk.

“Most of us spend life on the run, too busy and too hurried to walk anywhere,” Cameron writes, maintaining the solution to many of our problems will arise if we make time to walk. “Native Americans pursue vision quests, Aborigines do walkabout. Both of these cultures know walking clears the head.” And so, for the duration of the course, she asks us to commit to weekly 20-minute walks. “You will find these walks focus your thinking and instigate your breakthroughs,” she concludes.

According to her instructions we are to put on comfy clothes and shoes and just go out walking-”go far enough and long enough that you feel both your body and your mind “unkink.” Jakarta is many things, but it is not walker-friendly. The streets are busy, loud, cloudy with fumes, often rutted and potholed. The sidewalks-where there are sidewalks- are riddled with holes and loose stones and catawampus paving, or are crowded with parked motorcycles and food carts. No matter how many kilometers I walked, my mind and body would never “unkink.” And so, I have taken Cameron’s proclamation: “Where you walk matters less than that you walk,” as permission to take my weekly walks on my backyard treadmill.

Giving due credit, the image “backyard” conjures is far from the truth. The area beyond my French doors is better described as oasis or resort-a delightful place to “unkink” even without the walk.

Oasis or not, it takes me longer than the proscribed 20-minutes to warm up my creative world. First I have to examining my garden, looking for weeks that need pulling, bushes that need pruning, twisted flags, untidy vines (Oasis are the bottle-blondes of gardens). The twisted flags can eat up 10 minutes easily as I imagine myself untangling-untangling-untangling them. I follow the yard survey with a run through of everything I could be doing if I were not walking on the treadmill and chase that with everything I plan to do when I finish. Eventually, after breaking the cycle with a 3-5 minute run which leaves me nauseous and too oxygen deprived to think, I drift into that mindless, floating place from wince solutions come.

I was there, totally there, last night -completely unkinked and free, drifting, bouncing, floating from thought to thought to…the solution. I had walked into the World, Julia’s World, so lost in my alpha that I forgot where I was-and stepped right off the edge.

Fortunately, the treadmill backs into the corner of the patio and the walls stopped my fall.

Julia Cameron should paste a warning label on the next edition:  Creative Recovery Can Be Dangerous.

See, the pink flag is tangled in the vine–and who didn’t roll up the hose?