BREAK IT DOWN web: santafekitchenstudio.com e-mail: outofthearmchair @ gmail.com

“Nobody has an easy life. It is this face we put on, that we are not all getting rained on… My hope, always, is that it is going to wake me up. I’m only connected for seconds, minutes a day sometimes. And suddenly you go, Holy cow, I’ve been asleep for two days. I’ve been doing things, but I am just out. If I see someone who is out cold on their feet, I’m going to try to wake that person up. It is what I would want someone to do for me. Wake me the hell up and come back to the planet.” — Bill Murray

SELF CONTROL, the exertion of which…

“Ever wonder why certain people are able to resist temptation? A new study indicates their secret is not sheer willpower, but rather consciously avoiding situations that test their self control… studies have found that everyone has finite stores of willpower, which can be exhausted by repeated temptations. So researchers say the wisest way to pursue a goal — such as academic success or weight loss — is to structure your environment to minimize distraction and temptation.” — This Week

SAVE YOUR TREASURE, it is yours to keep still about…

“Above all, remember that no one needs to be privy to your personal treasure map but you. Our wishes for the future, our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations are our truest treasures. Guard yours in the sanctuary of your heart. Keep your personal treasure map in the back of your illustrated discovery journal and look at it often. When you do, give big thanks for the wonderful life you are leading. THE GREATEST SECRET TO LIVING A HAPPY AND FULFILLING LIFE IS THE REALIZATION THAT EVERYTHING IS CREATED IN OUR MINDS BEFORE IT MANIFESTS ITSELF IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD. We must believe it before we see it. You have to know what you are digging for before X can mark the spot.” — Simple Abundance

“THE ARTIST IS A COLLECTOR. Not a hoarder, mind you, there is a difference. Hoarders collect indiscriminately. Artists collect selectively. Artists only collect things they love… I’m a boring guy with a nine-to-five job who lives in a quiet neighborhood with his wife and his dog. That whole romantic image of the creative genius doing drugs and running around and sleeping with everyone is played out. It is for the superhuman and those who want to die young. The thing is, it takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don’t have that energy if you waste it on other stuff… choose what to leave out… Place some restraints on yourself.” — Austin Kleon, Steal Like and Artist

And, my own personal favorite, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO.

When beset by pain and problems, or even creative bliss and a swirl of great ideas, simmer down. Break it down, whatever is before you, into small, manageable actions. As Bill Murray says in What About Bob, “BABY STEPS. BABY STEPS”.

And for God’s sake, don’t tell anybody what you are creating in your creation zone, in your creationist world, on your lonely planet. Your planet is population of one for a reason. You need all the solitude and privacy you can get, to dream your dreams and then and then and then AND THEN bring them into reality. Your dreams are surely less likely to walk out in line if you blabber them all over the place.

Dreamer dreaming deep does not need an audience. People knowing your business, what you are working on, what you plan to manifest — tends to murder the art spirit that you need for doing your human work. “When you do your human work, beings seen and unseen will help you” — Natalie Goldberg But not if you release a bunch of hot air about what you are going to do.

The saddest words are “I am going to” and, “I used to”… Mother gave a talk at a Mayflower Society Gathering (proving our Mayflower pedigree for membership in the Mayflower Society was one of my mother’s favorite achievements of her whole life)… but she and daddy never went to the Netherlands to meet the queen — the putative trip was the subject of her talk — because they flew to Toronto instead to pick me up from a Toronto hospital where I was mad as a hattering cuckoo from taking all the colors of the acid rainbow at the Goose Lake Michigan music festival in August of 1970.

If you want to keep your stuff a secret, which increases the energy available to actualize whatever it is, for God’s sake, all you all, don’t broadcast your sweet intentions. Loose lips sink ships. If you haven’t told anybody, anybody at all, what you are up to to, you never have to find yourself snapping at your best friend, “Don’t talk about that!” and then having to apologize and beg for forgiveness.

How easy is this discipline of keeping your keeping your mouth shut? Pretty hard for one who was called “The Sieve” by my mean family — because I did feel, I did see and I did not keep home’s anxious secrets at all well. I like to be transparent, a what you see is what you get person. Boy, that takes a lifetime to achieve. Think new thoughts. Make new karma. Love is all there is. Enjoy your day. Doo dah dippety.

HURRICANE INSIDE web: santafekitchenstudio.com e-mail: outofthearmchair @ gmail.com

“When your habitual thinking becomes as unbearable as a burning house, you will immediately escape.” — Krishnamurti

“I couldn’t remember how to forget myself. I didn’t want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else. But, swerve as I might, I couldn’t avoid it. I was a boulder blocking my own path. I was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn’t hush.” — Annie Dillard

Being lied to warps you, as much as it warps the liar. Unless you know and accept that the person, for whatever personal reasons that drives one to it, is a liar.

“It suddenly struck me ‘out of the blue’… that those young women who did not fit my hypothesis were proletarian. All from the proletarian class… I saw at that instant that it is not rejection by the mother that is the original… source of anxiety. It is rather REJECTION THAT IS LIED ABOUT.

“The proletarian mothers rejected their children, but they never made any bones about it. The children went out on the streets and found other companions. There was never any subterfuge about their situation. They knew their world — bad or good — and they could orient themselves to it.

“But the middle class young women… were always lied to in their families. They were rejected by mothers who pretended to love them.

“This was really the source of their anxiety. Not the sheer rejection… Anxiety comes from not being able to know the world you are in, not being able to orient yourself in your own existence.” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create

“You can have anything you want, if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.” — Sheila Graham

Well, my BFF in Tucson, Barbara, passed her extreme cancer treatment with flying colors at the beginning of January. What a relief. There is a huge release of energy when these problems are resolved, I always say. But there is also the other C.J. in Toronto, Catherine Jane, another BFF in trouble with the big C. Shit oh dear, she is a young mother with two children, a busy career, a real artistic bent, and a mortgage she shares with her photographer husband. When I think of Barbara and the other C.J.’s three ring circus going on all day and all night, I feel kind of sheepish to say, there is a bit of a hurricane in my own life right now.

On the surface, all is well. I live in my lovely space of light and air. I paint. I play Springsteen’s The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-street Shuffle. Cook — I am making chicken stew right now in the crockpot — watch reality tv — I like “Quien de Mas?” and “Inquilinos Extremos” the most — translated, we have “Who is More?” — a variant on Storage Wars — and “Extreme Rent Collectors”… Go outside and read a book. Drink iced tea and the red stuff made of hibiscus blossoms that I resisted for the whole time I have lived in Mexico — Jamaica — huh-my-cuh…

Looks like a really quiet life, right? Quiet and simple is the set intention. As in SET IT AND FORGET IT… Establish my rituals and routines and just let my life trundle along like it is on rails.

In truth, here is the placid-looking duck on the placid-looking pond, swimming as fast as I can. “Just as the eagle / stirs her nest / so that her young ones / will have no rest” — Maria Muldaur — God is stirring me and spurring me on to completely get’r’done, despite fear and panic that occasionally arise as I go about the business of living my one wild and precious life.

Now I have Springsteen’s Devils and Dust album on. CD.

If I am not to have my “goddamned soul / filled with devils and dust”, I have to grow and change. It is the growth imperative: GROW OR DIE. The growth spurt I am in right now is not killing me, but it sure is making me anxious and edgy. Didn’t I always want to be edgy, at the edge, have an edge? Yes. Yes, I did. So, here I am. AGAIN. I am changing in the way I look at things. My attitude and whole way of living is going through a big shift. I remember in the 1970’s, when we attended consciousness raisings. It sounds stupid now. But it also is what I am experiencing. A consciousness raising.

Like, I mean, you know, people are the most important thing. People are special golden treasure. It doesn’t have to be a case of friends having life-threatening illnesses to cast a brilliant light on how deeply important your beloved people are. Most people know it. Are born knowing it.

I am one of those middle class girls whose mother said she loved me but didn’t especially seem to. It messed me up. Bless her pea picking heart. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have turned out to be a writer artist world traveler. World tourist, more like, but still.

And that brings me to my upcoming trip to New York with Sally. Her husband can’t come on this trip, so we are on our own. And that is what has been giving me panic attacks. I have never travelled with anyone. Except my California boyfriend, Jack, who didn’t want me to go to Hawaii. I said he could come with or stay home, but I was going. He said, “I thought we were saving for a house” — had we bought the house in Los Altos, it would be worth over a million now. Hell, in those days, I knew the Intel engineers who were inventing everything. I could have bought stock in Intel, as they urged me to do. One of the Intel engineers gave me a mahogany box with green velvet lining that the first quartz watch came in. Of all the stuff I have given away, lost, sold, that box is the one I regret letting go of. Anyway, we go on the trip, he drags his feet and hates everything — the heat, the sand, the rain, the boredom — Maui wasn’t built up then and there was pretty much nothing to do but drink. We climbed into the Treefrog bar — a bar in a tree, who the hell thought that was a good idea? And drank scorpions, blue drinks made of Curacao, vodka, God knows what, then found a woozy level of difficulty getting out of the tree. Anyway, Jack did wind up buying a house with a pool and having five kids.

Me? I am coming up on 37 years sober. Whew. It has been a long time coming, this getting my shit together. Which I really do.

Monkey Mind pipes up. If you have your shit together, what’s up with the panic attacks? Whazzzzup? It’s not having our plans completed. We need to book flights and the cheapest is Jet Blue. I feel apprehensive, because I always fly American Airlines. Can I climb out of my comfort zone, out of the armchair travelling for real this time? I always feel kind of fucked up before a trip. Last night I e-mailed Sally that no way was I going to Newark, it is dark, dangerous and dirty. This morning I woke up realizing I was going on old information — forty years old. That I could google Newark, ground transport into NYC if need be… I could open my mind, my heart, my wallet to the present moment. I hate to even imagine how much the Carey bus costs these days. Tickets to Aladdin are $201 each. Yikes. So, some simple research will probably take care of the anxiety. That, and praying to God to replace my fear with faith.

In 1975 or so, I was hired to do murals in the children’s ward of a mental hospital in Newark. I drew griffins and giraffes, zebras, monkeys, elephants on all four walls. Before I went back to paint the murals, I was de-hired, to put it nicely. The drawings scared the children. What did I know? We lived on Greene Street in Soho. I know from my armchair travelling that the whole area is gentrified now. Coulda woulda shoulda mighta bought the loft when we could for $10,000. Ahh, regrets, don’t nobody have time for that.

Think new thoughts. Make new karma.

“AND SO / BECOME YOURSELF / BECAUSE THE PAST / IS JUST A GOODBYE” web: santafekitchenstudio.com e-mail: outofthearmchair @ gmail.com

“In my 40’s, I found I was obsessively comparing my life with other peoples’: scoring and judging myself, and counting up the ways in which I had fallen behind in a race. Where was my bestseller? My literary masterpiece?… In my 50’s, I find myself more inclined to prize and enjoy people and relationships, which mercifully seem to be pushing the unwinnable status competition into the background. For me, the expectation of scaling ever greater heights has faded, and with it my sense of disappointment and failure. I wake up thinking about the day ahead rather than the five decades past. Gratitude has returned.” — Jonathan Rauch

“Things fall apart. The center cannot hold… Somewhere in sands of the desert, a shape with lion body and the head of a man. A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, is moving its slow thighs… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” — William Butler Yeats

“I don’t go to the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.” — Richard Diebenkorn

GROW INNER STRENGTHS… develop the ‘supplies’… resilience, positive mood or feeling cared about… common sense, integrity, inner peace, determination, a warm heart… self caring, inner sense of security… emotional intelligence, optimism. Learn to relax. Grow self esteem… positive feelings, useful perspectives and inclinations… Wise and effective action. Contribute to the well being of others and to yourself. Develop a sense of faith, self awareness, self-soothing for meeting your challenges and protecting your vulnerabilities. For positive emotions encourage the pursuit of opportunities, create positive cycles, and promote success. They also strengthen your immune system and foster a healthier and longer life.” — Rick Hanson

“THE SIMPLER WE MAKE OUR LIVES, THE MORE ABUNDANT THEY BECOME.” — Simple Abundance

Well, kiddoes, the point is, somewhere along the line I got the idea that I could and should and would be all things to all people. That I must meet expectations and never disappoint anybody. How disappointed was I to find that I was an alcoholic and could not manage my own life. Let alone meet anyone’s expectations. My life 37 years ago, when I stepped thought the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, was a portrait of a disappointment.

People who meet me today, who know me today, can hardly imagine a time in my life when I was such a loser. I had spent ten years becoming an art director at McCann Erickson Advertising, then I wasn’t. Right before I blew my whole career and life out of the water, I thought, “I have nothing to live for but my job. And I hate my job”… I checked out a book at the library called “How to Avoid a Nervous Breakdown”. Too late.

And then I embarked on the greatest, most enduring adventure of my life: being and becoming sober.

January 27th, 1979. My first sober day. I have been continuously sober ever since. It is the thing I am most proud of, the thing I care about more than painting, more than people, more than food, books, air, water, or sleep. Being sober has shaped my life in amazing, unforeseen ways. I always thought that if I stayed sober long enough, I would get to a place where everything worked out fine.

And sure enough, it has. Everything works out if you let it.

This weekend, I was writing with my high season writing partner, Gale, and discovered on the page that despite thinking I don’t have any secrets anymore, from my long life of working the steps, seeing an analyst for about ten years, doing writing practice and just in general cleaning house and trusting God, I do have one more secret.

That I am slowing down. That I just can’t do everything anymore. That I am not all that. Delusion, denial and blame tend to point a stink finger at  “them” — whoever they might be — how I am not showing up for stuff I used to do because “they” disappointed me or whatever, whoop-tee-do. Saturdays writes showed me that “they” had nothing to do with it.

Now, instead of doing a variety of activities all day long, I have to pick and choose. Gym, tan, laundry. Or, in my case, gym, painting, writing, meetings, getting with friends for coffee, going to the beach, doing chores… I just can’t do it do it all. not all at once, not all on the same day. There is nothing wrong with slowing down. It is quite enjoyable, actually.

What IS wrong is being ashamed of my new slowness. Hey, relax. Maybe I will see more, enjoy more, paint fewer paintings but really do a good job on the slow way I paint now. Blaming other people for the things I am not doing is just a foolish smokescreen over feel, see, and face the shame I feel on being old and slow.

Shame is stupid. A holdover from the time I believed I must be perfect. Last week. hee hee hee. Doo dah dippety.

Think new thoughts. Make new karma. Love is all there is.

BE FOR YOURSELF and HAPPY NEW YEAR web: santafekitchenstudio.com e-mail: outofthearmchair @ gmail.com

“You must learn one thing. The world is made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds, except the one to which you belong.” — David Whyte

“Writing. Growing up, it is all I wanted to do. Now I feel the way it pulls at me. Not like a dramatic allurement, but like I have been away from home and have returned to the quiet things I love.” — Ann Kidd Taylor, Traveling with Pomegranates

“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.” — Fred Schero

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own pace, like a clock in a thunderstorm.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“Maintaining self esteem ought to be your private passion. Protect the fuzzy thing that keeps an artist flying by day and sleeping at night.” — Robert Genn

MAKING MISTAKES

“I hope, in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things. Trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing your world. You are doing things you have never done before, and, more importantly, you are DOING SOMETHING. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough or it isn’t perfect. Whatever it is: art, love, work… life.

“Whatever it is you are scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes. Next year and forever.” — Neil Gaiman

Well, next year is now upon us. I will see my friend Connie in Phoenix and Barbara in Tucson and Bill and Sally in Santa Fe. My regular friends who come to Mexico for the winter, jumping out the window of ice and snow up north — “They’re freezing up in Buffalo / They are stuck in their cars / But I am lying here ‘neath the sun and the stars” — Jimmy Buffet — are now arriving. I will see them in a few days.

I, too, have arrived back home after a long journey in the octopus’s garden. The flu cut a swath through my usual energy and activity level. I woke up this morning feeling perfectly fine. What a New Year’s gift.

My New Year’s Eve was quiet. Just how I like it. I baked a key lemon pie with Oreo cookie crust. I watched a couple of movies. Listened to the explosions outside and smiled. What a long strange trip it has been. The fear of fireworks and gunfire on Christmas and New Year’s has been lifted. As have other fears.

The fear of being poor vanished in its last vestiges this year. Having the cheap rent I came here for is just a blast.

And so is having all the cable channels. Very very very very very excellent. Especially when you are sick and can barely make the bed, shower, do the laundry and feed yourself properly. I have never in my whole life been sick for 3 1/2 weeks. What a lucky woman am I. I have four friends who have life-threatening illnesses and talk about powerlessness!

My therapist used to say, “I know you wish I had a magic wand, that I could just wave over your pain and problems and make them go away — but I don’t.” And I don’t, either. Wish that I DID have a magic wand. Presto chango, problemos: DISAPPEAR. Because I deem it so. The only magic wand I do have is to pray that old basic prayer. God help us. Send us the love and magic and synchronicity, the health wealth and happiness that each of us needs to meet the rise up road of this blessed new year, with its as yet unknown fate and destinies.

Think new thoughts. Make new karma. Love is all there is.