Cursive

 Last week I returned to doing my morning pages, a practice I was committed to for years, and then abandoned, at least partially in the desire to get to the "meat" of my day just a little bit faster. Beginning them again has reminded me of the undeniable, if also intangible benefit, of doing them daily. A little introspection at the beginning of the day, before resistance has fully set in, can do wonders. In short, it's like "magic for the subconscious". With all that said, one could understandably be a bit skeptical, thinking "if it was so great, why stop in the first place after being committed to them for so long?" And all I can say to that is that sometimes, when you are feeling healthier and more productive and in the flow, it can be deceptively easy to forget the techniques that got you there, and as you are doing a metaphorical victory dance in the end zone of life, forget what techniques got you there, and dispense with them. I also happen to think that is ok! (No true knowledge without exploration, right?)

But the process does bring a lot of things up, and people. Today my pages had me remembering  my third grade Language Arts teacher from Deep Wood Elementary, Mrs. B. I feel weird bringing her up like this in any way publicly, because my feelings around her are largely unresolved and... complicated. So let me say only that these are my experiences, and I'm sure she had many students who benefitted from other sides of her. 

When I was growing up in Rochester, Minnesota our school administrators had an iron clad rule. No cursive in the second grade. Absolutely none. We were discouraged from learning anything about it as it would be covered the following year and if we had somehow already learned it and used it in a paper, we would find that paper returned upgraded. My best friend Dale and I found out just how serious they were about this, when, rebellious little assholes that we were, enhanced each letter with little curlycews on the ends, only to receive that paper back to be printed. Hamilton Elementary had a policy of zero tolerance before it was in vogue for more illicit practices. 

A life change came the summer following second grade when my parents moved the three of us to a little town in Texas. Imagine my confusion on the first day of the third grade in my new home  when we were assigned to write an essay to be written exclusively in cursive, having learned it the year before? Not wanting to admit my ignorance, and seeing a handy chart lining the edges of the walls which gave examples of each letter in cursive, I quietly got down to the business of learning cursive, and even felt pretty proud of myself when I turned the paper in, not realizing I had made a crucial error in judgement. I knew that in cursive each letter was connected, but I also assumed (incorrectly, as I would discover) that every word in a sentence was strung together as well. My paper was returned by Ms. B with an abysmal grade and a note in red ink and driven home by the inclusion of several exclamation points, stating that my handwriting was so cramped that she couldn't even see the spaces between words.

Looking back on it, I understand how that must have looked, but I also can't help but wonder what teacher wouldn't see this as a red flag, or think to look into the background of the student at all? I know my parents turned in some records from my former school, but it doesn't appear that anyone communicated those to my current teachers or even told them that I had transferred from a different state. The lesson that I should have taken from the experience was of course,  "say something kid! Explain your situation!" And yet I never did. I spent the third grade attempting to win that teachers approval, even defending her to my parents at times when they expressed a dislike for her after some of their own brief interactions. But no matter my efforts, I never broke through the pinched expression on her face whenever she spoke to me. 

Of course there could be more to the story, as I knew nothing of what she was going through in her life, her feelings about being a teacher, or her opinion of boys who were beginning to develop a reputation as a"comedian" in their homeroom. So maybe the only thing to do is have some empathy for her. Certainly she has taught me to be a little more open minded and to  remember when I am reacting against a person on instinct, certain of myself and my judgements, that there is more to them than what I can see on the surface, and to hope, when recalling moments I ignored that fact, that others might be able to do the same for me. 

Expectations And Realities In The New Year

 Whenever I'm asked what I think about New Year's as a holiday, my immediate reaction is to criticize it. I remember countless New Year's Eves in which I was without plans that lived up to the expectations I put upon the evening, as well as those in which I had exciting plans, but those plans devolved into chasing the next party, the next event, the next bash occurring in order to do justice to the year behind us, to prove ourselves the heroes of our own lives, and to have made a promising start on the year ahead simply by putting a fitting cap to the one passing. There's so much pressure on ourselves to "party", to "revel" to be "party people" like the people in movies, and I've never thought it worth the money, and effort. 

But there's another aspect to the holiday that I do genuinely love, take comfort in and look forward to. I love the quiet celebrations of New Year's, the one in which I am the only attendee. I love to think about the changes I'd like to make in the year ahead, how it will be different. Does it matter that by the end of the year I am looking at a year that seems, on the surface, very similar to the one before? No. Because truth is not on the surface. It's deeper. New Year's eve also happens to be my father's birthday, so it's usually a time to celebrate him and think fleetingly about what it means to have the two major times in a year that we "reset" our intentions (our birthdays and New Years) consolidated and doubly potent. 

New Year's has also been a time, traditionally during which I've participated in church ceremonies full of like minded people and  emptied myself onto a page, filling that page with all the fears and habits and petty evils I want to eradicate from my life. Then I burn that paper and witness others watching their worries and shames go up in literal flames before we get down the business of filling another piece of paper with our hopes and plans for the year ahead.  It's an incredibly potent and healing ritual, and I love it. 

So, when thought of in that context, I really love New Years. It's a fresh start, a second chance, a clean slate, a recharge. Is this "new year" an illusion? A construct? Yes. But it's an illusions millions of us invest in and give power to, and there is an undeniable power in that. And there's comfort in knowing that as we strive to be closer to our ideals in the next year, we are in the company of others we admire, who's lives seem perfectly wonderful from our perspective, but who, like us, want to be more fulfilled. 

I also find a lot of inspiration in New Years resolutions. I try to make them positive, so rather than "quit chewing my nails" I might resolve to take better care of my nails, which could involve getting more frequent manicures, moisturizing, etc. I also try to make them quantifiable so that I can stay accountable to myself, and I find I am more able to keep up with them if they are process oriented rather than product oriented. By the end of the year, even if I haven't "succeeded" by every metric, even if I wavered in execution, it's had to argue that the four, five or six months I took action toward positive change (excersising more, eating healthier, being organized, or writing every day) were poorly spent. 

Finding the right resolution though, and finding a way to make that quantifiable, can be a challenge. Last years goal was to finish the first draft of my novel. While I finished 2021 with the draft still in progress, I devoted countless hours to it over the past year and have written well over 100,000 words of it. I believe I am over half way through with the actual writing and have the second half of the story explored, outlined, and thought out. Am I a bit disappointed that this mountain has turned out to be larger than it first seemed? Yes. Am I defeated? No. Because I've determined that I will not be defeated by the imperfection of this novel as I have been in the past. The fact that it took me 100,000 words of writing (much of which will end up being discarded) in order to get to the heat and heart of the story? It's all part of my process. 

That said, I do feel secure in the belief that by 2023 this first draft will be complete. This dream is well underway, it's gained momentum. So rather than simply repeat last years resolution, I want a new one. I want to continue growing in a new way. Which way is that? It involves the desire to share more of my work and to put myself out there more often. It's another facet of "overcoming the belief that resultant perfection is the only way I can prove my worth to myself and the unknown world around me. 

So the meat of my resolution is to "build sharing into my routine". It's taken from one of my favorite authors on creativity, Austin Kleon. If I can achieve this, then it means I will, by year's end, expanded my idea of what my creative output is, will have begun building a portfolio of creative work, will have made countless ripples in the lake of life, and will have proved to myself that I can create more work and not sweat every endeavor. In short, I will be much braver, as the only way to gain courage around creativity is to start creating courageously. 

How will I do this? I will need to find a system that I can implement. I will need to make the daily steps of creating and sharing art my number one daily priority so they don't fall prey to procrastination. I will also need to realize that the feeling of having achieved these goals may not feel like I want it to in the end, as the reality of the achievement will always be different than the perfection of that achievement as I first birthed it in my mind's eye. Whichever way I end up feeling will be nine times better than the idea I'd had of that feeling, because "the idea of perfection" was destined to shatter, and the achievement of the imperfect is the best possible result, especially when I consider that the result is only imperfect in my own opinion, and only in relation to the fantasy version I dreamt up which helped fuel the eventual creation I made, and which may end up being the exact version that I needed to create and which needed to be read, seen, heard, witnessed, devoured. 

(More to come...)