Leap into the Chaos

I'm writing again. Sigh. Yes, finally back at the book.

And I'm in a difficult spot. My editor wants order and outlines and some form of chronology, and while I agree with her in some ways and realize its purpose, I need to trust my gut and write the book I want to write. The challenge is how to keep what I know but be open to what she suggests. There are things I don't know about this book, but there are just as many things that I do. So the only way I know to do this comes from my improv training: just jump and listen to myself.

I'm not gonna lie to you. It ain't easy. I waited four months out of fear to do it at all! It is overwhelming to literally throw your book up in the air and see where the pages land. Is a new order preferable and cleaner? Was the old way, my instinctual way...better? Is there a way to combine both?

It is chaotic and I was/am scared to jump into the chaos. I mean...it might not work(!) but what choice is there? I haven't done all this work writing this book to just leave it on my hard drive gathering dust. No. I need to jump into the chaos and see what clarity I can find once the dust settles.

Where in your life do you need to jump into the chaos? Where in your life will it benefit you to throw it all up in the air and see what lands where? Is it easy? Um, no. But necessary? Maybe...

I'll let you know what I discover.

Share your thoughts below. Would love to interact with you. Love this quote from my man Deepak:

katerinaconfident

So one of the things I'm doing down in Mexico at this crazy residency I got myself director of is to host weekly salons. The idea (stolen really from my friend Cat...who in turn stole it from...um, France, I think) is to gather artists of all stripes (including art lovers) and share works in progress, talk about art, creative process, get feedback, ask questions, engage in dialogue and drink good wine. Everyone contributes in some way.

The community of Akumal has definitely been responding. We have been filled to capacity on almost every night. The attending members are asking questions and engaging in dialogue. It's really lovely.

Last Sunday, we had a 9 year old artist share work. Katerina came with her family the previous week and asked if she could share some of her artwork at the next salon. So I said yes, wanting to support budding artists...and she was astonishing -- articulate, brave and certain. She was so certain. She said she knew someday she would be a famous artist. It was said without a smile or any type of coyness. She was simply stating a fact. When I asked where her ideas for pictures came, she said she simply followed her intuition, followed the pen, drew what felt natural. Duh. I felt stupid asking! How else would she draw? When I asked her what she learned by sharing her art, she said nothing. The better question is what we learned by seeing it. Holy crap. When I told her she should perhaps only share one more picture (after about 30!) she looked at me like I was a ridiculous, sad sack of a human being and certainly 100% wrong to cut her off. (Needless to say, I let her show a few more) :)

She made me think. When do we adults start being fearful? When does fear, uncertainty, nervousness set in? How can we all be certain like Katerina? She taught us all a lesson, I think. Me especially. I have always considered myself brave. I moved to New York! I moved to Mexico! I make surprising, sometimes crazy choices! I'm brave!

But it was her quiet confidence that I coveted. It was her certainty. I want to know things with that certainty. Do you? I feel the older I get, the more I question things. Maybe it's about trust. Maybe it's about thinking less, certainly worrying less. But I don't know. All I know is maybe we all need to be more "Katerina-confident." After all, there is no right or wrong, right? There is only what we know.

Community (not the TV show)

As you may know, I recently moved to Chicago. I moved to be closer to my family. But a move is hard. When you are single and don't have a family of your own, you have to find another way of finding community. Often it's friends. They become family. They become your community.

I have an Iraqi refugee friend who recently got resettled here in Chicago. Alone. No family. No, I'm not on the path to fall for another Iraqi, but I am trying to make a point.

We need each other people. Without community we are lost. Dorothy Day said:  “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

Community can be one person or a full entourage. It's your people. Finding community is finding your people. If you're unhappy, maybe you haven't found your people!

When I first moved to New York ten years ago, there was a time when I a mess. I felt lost, alone and had no real community. I had two dear friends, who saved me, but I had no sense of belonging anywhere. And I suffered. I was lonely. I missed my family. I missed my home. Eventually, I found a neighborhood and school and church and yoga studio and neighbors. And all this contributed to my well-being and my sense of community. All this ultimately made me happy.

Have you found your community? Good for you! Is there someone around you who could use a helping hand. Can you help another find their community? Can you help them find a sense of home? Look around. Be proactive. Is there an organization in your community who works with recently resettled refugees? or homeless people? Or even easier, is there someone across from you on the train, or bank line or sidewalk that could maybe benefit from a genuine smile, greeting, offer of help? Can we try to be more human with each other? Turn off your smart phone. Facebook can wait. And observe. Look. Participate. Don't let life (or opportunity) pass you by.

In improv, this might be called: making someone else look good. We use the concept in scenework to remind ourselves that the better someone else looks, we look. Make them successful, we succeed. (this is also the essence of team!) Make them happy, it contributes to your happiness. Contribute to their life, it contributes to yours, enlarging your own sense of community, of family. It's a win win folks.

Take care of each other out there.

“Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.”

― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

Endings

I just heard some news recently. Something has now ended. Officially.

I mean, it's been over for a long time, but it's the real deal now. Yup. No going back. Finito. Sayanara. The end. Ends are hard. I'm not good with ends. I like middles and beginnings. I'm a middle and beginning type of girl. Endings? ...not so much.

I found this quote recently and like it:

“And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister's story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.”      ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

A good improv scene starts in the middle. A good book does the same. Something is already happening. The stakes are high. We are merely thrown into that world---simply or suddenly. And then there's the beginning. Never underestimate a good beginning! It sets the stage. It opens the door. It lures you in.

But endings? Don't like 'em. It's probably why I sort of live in 4 places right now. I don't like things to end. I like doors and possibilities to stay open (sometimes to my detriment.) But things do end, closing the door and any possibility of a new start. And ironically, the only thing left to do is start again. Fresh. Braver, stronger, smarter and older.

Where are you hanging on to things that are long over? Is it time to start a new scene?

Just say it

So here's a little something something.

Lately, I've been hanging on to thoughts that aren't necessarily the truth. I've been lingering in drama and difficulty. I haven't been declaring and living into what could be and maybe what already is. Aaaand it's been weighing me down.

So today, I was walking down the street from missing my yoga class for being two minutes late (2 minutes!! ---come on studio!) and so instead having just had a lovely, heart opening phone conversation with my dear friend Patrick, when I had an epiphany: DECLARE IT, and it will be! Say what you want to be.

In improv scenes, you declare your truth and the scene follows. You will live into what you say out loud. I know this. I teach this. I think I just forgot it or didn't recognize it missing in my own life. (Darned improv philosophy always sneaking up on me!) So I said it: out loud, right there on Carmen Avenue with the cold lakefront wind blowing straight onto my face. I declared a truth, the truth I wanted, the truth that very easily could be the actual truth. (Who's to say it's not!?) And then I smiled. I felt better. Those things are now true. I said them and now I will live them. It's that easy. I feel lighter.

Say what you need to say today. Declare your truth. Then your life and the universe will support it. For realz.

Overnight Train to Prague or The Manifestation of "Jump"

I awaken to my friend Dena hitting me on the arm and yelling.

“Wake up, Kim! Wake up! We’re here! We must have overslept! Hurry!” We are apparently already in Prague. I barely remember falling asleep last night. I was so tired, but afraid to sleep. It’s our first morning out of the U.S. and we are on an overnight train to Prague, Czech. (although at the time there was a "slovakia" at the end, but I digress.)

“Kim! C’mon! The train is stopping! Get your stuff.”

I’m still half asleep. I’m wearing jammies. (Don’t ask. It seemed like a good idea last night.) My backpack is unzipped, I unpacked half of it last night when we settled in. (Again, don’t ask. First time on a train.) I stand up, throw on my boots, grab my bra and try to fit thru the door with my over-packed pack. Dena is in the hall.

“Come on, Kim!” She pulls me through the small compartment door.

We are now standing in front of a closed train door. Crap. I’m still half asleep. My pack is unzipped, my boots are unlaced and I’m wearing my shorty jammies and holding my bra.

“I’m gonna open it” Dena says as she manhandles the door open. The train lurches. Under her force, the door opens. A miracle! Then the train starts to move.

“I’m gonna jump!” Now I’m starting to wake up. My pack is unzipped, my boots are unlaced. I’m wearing shorty jammies and holding my bra and the only person I know on this continent is about to jump off a moving train. Aaaand she does. Well, now I’m awake.

And alone! I move to her vacated spot in the doorway. The train is, of course, moving faster. I see Dena, laying on the platform, looking up at me, getting smaller and smaller in the distance. And almost in seemingly slow motion, she shouts: “JUMP, Kim!!!”

Jump, Kim…This feels like a moment. Could I do it? Was I a jumper?

We all have these moments in our life (maybe just not on the edge of a train car) -- moments that define us, that make us who we are, that seperate the jumpers from the non-jumpers.

Sometimes jumping means just standing up for yourself or speaking your truth to someone or even jumping into a new job or a new relationship because you just felt you had to. Maybe it means jumping in and doing the right thing, protecting someone. But it always involves bravery and going somewhere you’re not entirely sure you are capable of going. We all have these moments when the universe calls on us to make a choice: jump or don’t jump. Which action do you usually take?

Turns out, I am a jumper. Yup, I jumped. Bloodied, battered and bruised, but successfully reunited with Dena! We look across the platform at each other, laying limbs askew, smiling. Ah, success!

(And sure, then there was something, I guess-- if you must know--about the train stopping and then the train reversing and then hundreds of heads popping out the windows to watch as the conductor came out of the train, standing on the platform, shaking his head and wagging his finger at us to tell us in his best broken English that we had jumped off at the employee station and that Prague was still 10 km down the tracks where apparently the doors open on their own, and they wait for you to walk off the train, creating no need to jump off...but whatever. I jumped.)

I'm ready for my close-up, Ms. de Mille

"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how … we guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark." 
~ Agnes de Mille 

I love this quote from Ms. de Mille. 

"Life is a form of not being sure." There are so many things I'm unsure about. Worrying or fretting or trying to be sure, seems to do me no good. So what if I just accepted the uncertainty -- even embraced it?! What could happen then? What might be possible? I love the idea of taking "leap after leap in the dark". Easy? Not always. Fun? Mostly, yes. For me, that's just kind of a Tuesday. Just keep leaping and see what nets appear to catch me. A cool act of daily bravery.

So here's your shot of daily bravery: Where can you leap in the dark? What might be possible when you do?

3 Days of IMPROV!

Want to apply some of the skills of improv to your life? Here's a way to spend a day! Each of these "days" can be done independently or consecutively. Choose one that inspires you and commit to it for a full day. I recommend writing it down in multiple places, sending yourself periodic reminders with your smart phone throughout the day, putting a post-it on your computer screen -- anything to help you remember this game and change your old habits.

1. spend a day saying yes
Try for one day to say YES to everything offered you. Crazy, huh? Try it. Say yes to lunch, to the phone call, to the request for help, to time with your kids, to everything that is asked or offered. Think it's possible? What could happen? Pay attention when your "no" wants to come out? "No" is always a valid option, an important one sometimes -- but is it your "go to"? Does it always need to be? IS your answer always "There isn't enough time, money, fill-in-the-blank? Is this your pattern? Is their fear or another emotion surrounding it? What might saying "yes" lead to? Make any discoveries? Don't worry tomorrow you can start saying no again. If you want...
 
2. spend a day being brave; go outside your comfort zone
On this day, do things you would not normally do: Drive a different route to work, take a walk to nowhere particular at lunch, do something that scares you a little bit, speak in front of that group, walk up to a stranger and engage in meaningful conversation, wear something different, ask for that raise, tell your spouse the truth, sign up for that class. Today is the day to be brave and take a chance. How does it feel?
 
3. spend a day listening
Today, make it a goal to TRULY listen to what people are saying around you. Be present and LISTEN. Listen not just to the words, but to the actions, to the body language, to the tone, to the mood, to the emotion, to what's not being said, to what's underneath, but yes...also to the words. Don't worry, soon enough it will be your turn to talk again, but when it's your turn to listen: pause, breathe, make eye contact with speaker and hear them fully, and then respond, and not until then. Give them space to speak their truth and be heard. How does it change your day? How does it change your conversations? How does it change YOU?

After trying a "Day" or 3...comment below with your thoughts, discoveries, questions! Happy to discuss! Play!

But remember--- remind yourself all day of your goal---or you will easily forget and revert to how you always do things!! Ok! Go!
 

Power of Truth... or Karen and the Frog

I recently taught a writing retreat. It was called "Finding Your Voice, Writing Your Story". I had no idea what to expect. Would people have stories? Be willing to find them? Be open to share them? Who knew!

There involves a great deal of bravery in story telling. You're telling your story! Sometimes that ain't easy. When was the last time you bared your soul to a group of virtual strangers, let alone a loved one?  But I believe there is value in this because:

a. maybe it's a good story that needs to be shared widely
b. maybe it helps others if you speak your truth
c. maybe it helps you to heal/recover/start again

That's been my experience in storytelling. I have written 2 plays and 2 books all based on my life. Yup! I write allllll about my life: the good, the bad and the ugly. Why? Because I can't imagine processing some of the events in my life without it. And I think there's power in a story well-told.

Mexican poet and author Rosario Castellanos said, “Writing has been a way of explaining to myself the things I do not understand” Can I hear a what-what? Agreed, Rosario. Agreed!

A woman in my retreat lost her daughter, Karen, about thirty years ago and to this day has yet to truly speak about it with her family, including her other living daughter. It seems they have all buried it under the proverbial family rug --- too painful, even after all these years. So in she comes in to my retreat and drops this story bomb. She then followed it up by saying that said she had no intention of writing about it. Hint, hint. But less than 36 hours later, she wrote a story about a frog who hung out in a garden with a beautiful girl named Karen. Bingo. She opened the vault. She started to write about her daughter. Brought me and our whole group to tears. More stories came. She was on a roll. By the end of the session, she was considering sharing her writing with her other daughter in hopes of opening up a conversation about their shared loss all those years ago. She told me the retreat changed her life.

This is the power of brave storytelling --- the power of writing your story and speaking your truth.

Everyone has a story. What's your story?