Calm and clarity in chaotic times
Writing is a mirror, and the cloth that wipes the mirror clean
I caught my first whiff of early spring jasmine today on my morning walk. Jasmine is a belle époque whorehouse of a fragrance. Decadent. Voluptuous. Beckoning. Catch it on a breeze, you can’t help pausing to snuffle its powdery sweetness.
The abundant blooming jasmine in Beachwood Canyon is one of my favorite sensory pleasures of this place. That and eucalyptus, whose peppery musk I can never seem to untangle from the horse-piss tang of the park trails behind my house. Maybe it’s actually the horse piss that I like.
Usually, the scent of jasmine lifts me up. Today, it had a melancholy base note. Taking me back, maybe, to that fresh spring day eight years ago when I pulled into town in a U-Haul stuffed with hope and promises. Can you be nostalgic for something you haven’t yet lost? That you might or might not be in the process of losing?
I’ve been trying to write this newsletter for nearly three weeks now. My initial plan was to write some simple guidance for writing your way to calm and clarity, because everyone seems to be gripped by fear in this most cursed of timelines, and I thought maybe I could offer some helpful writing prompts and processes.
Not so fast, know-it-all. Ironically, I couldn’t maintain the clarity of mind to finish any of the drafts I started.
I had a go at various other topics with a more personal slant, but they ran into dead ends, too. Now I have a folder full of fragments that I don’t know what to do with. I like this one. But do I like it enough?
These questions are a big part of the writing life—where to invest more time and energy, when to cut your losses and move on.
Of course it’s frustrating when the writing stubbornly resists cohesion. But sometimes it has to be that way, especially when life itself feels fragmented. When it’s harder to weigh the current and potential future value of anything.
Whether or not it comes easy on a given day, writing remains the best way I know of to steady myself when I am in a spin. Spinning is motion without movement, and I am literally spinning, these days, around the rooms of my home. My eyes skip from one object to the next, drawing me into a searching twist from right to left, to left, to left, to left, until I’m right back where I started, staring out the window and wondering what to tackle next. That pile of blankets? That cluster of glass jars? The stacks of books I like to think I would’ve read again?
Some other smells from this week: Cardboard. Plastic tape. Storage-room must. Insect carapaces, termite poop.
I’m moving out of my apartment next Friday. Not because I am sick of it; I am not. I still love this place. But my gut is telling me it’s time to up sticks. And my gut is the boss.
Several years ago as I was chucking my shit into a bunch of boxes, our cleaning lady asked me where I was moving to, and when I couldn’t give a simple answer, her eyebrows shot up and she said, “Oh, you’re not moving, you’re getting out!”
This move is not like that one, but it’s not not like that one. There’s no new home on the other side of town waiting for me to shift my life and accoutrements into it; I’m downsizing to a pair of suitcases and setting out on an open-ended journey I haven’t quite defined. “I’m going to be a digital nomad for a while,” I said to the guy who bought my floor lamp off Facebook Marketplace. To the woman who bought my sofa I said, “I’m doing an Eat, Pray, Love year.” I will be pet-sitting, co-living, and visiting friends, in New York, Greece, the UK, France, and who knows where else? I have an itinerary mapped out to September. Beyond that, a big blank square.
I feel a lot of different things about this pending change. Part of me, the homebody part, cannot believe I’m doing this. I’m sad to leave this apartment and the neighborhood I love, nervous about leaping into the unknown, about not having a place of my own to return to. I am a Taurus, for god’s sake. About not knowing for sure when—or whether—I’ll be back in Los Angeles full-time.
I like it here… But do I like it enough?
Another part of me is exhilarated by the prospect of having adventures and meeting new people in new places. The absence of fixed plans is itself a form of traveling light.
Under it all, a deep, slow current of peaceful resolve is carrying me forward. I see the stark realities unfolding on the news. But I feel calm as I wrap my dishes in newspaper, a pragmatic animal operating on instinct.
Is this stoicism? Or am I just numb?
A lot of my friends are dusting off old conversations about setting up communal homes in warmer, cheaper locales: Thailand, Mexico, Portugal. Who has foreign-born parents? What passports and visas can we get? Was this just a pipe dream, or can we turn it into a plan?
I can’t imagine grappling with questions this big without writing about them. Writing is how I process my feelings, record my experiences, weigh up my options, and work out the practicalities of my plans.
It’s easy to forget this: Writing is primarily for yourself, even the writing intended for publication, because all the best writing is rooted in a personal, even private, bed of concerns.
The famed Victorian textile designer William Morris once said: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” I apply this to writing, too. Whether I am writing as an offering to be shared—like this newsletter—or just for my own satisfaction, every product of my efforts should have beauty or utility. If I’m lucky, it might have both.
But a “useful” piece of writing doesn’t necessarily need to have all the answers. It can be a way to arrive at them.
How to write your way to calm and clarity
If your mind feels like an understaffed air traffic control tower under a sky swarming with jumbo jets, writing can help you land those mental planes. Here are some tips.
Put purpose over form. Forget about “writing an essay” or “writing a poem”. Why are you writing, and what do you hope to get out of it? Are you trying to make a tough decision? Give voice to a feeling? Elucidate a point of view? Home in on what’s alive and true in you, the things that beg to be explored or expressed. This is how you find the pulse of your piece.
If you can’t identify anything that feels alive and true, stop trying to write and go for a walk or tidy a junk drawer. These kinds of activities settle the monkey mind and occupy the body, which allows the subconscious to rise to the surface. But don’t drown out your inner dialog with conversation, social media, or podcasts. Keep tilting a patient, listening ear to your creative intuition, ready to capture whatever comes up.
Make room for surprise. Let yourself be guided by themes and big-picture ideas, rather than locking yourself into a narrow topic. Free-associate, free-write, and keep following the pulse even if it leads you in unexpected directions. You might sit down to write about a present-day issue, then find yourself recalling a childhood memory in vivid detail, or describing a fictional character. If it feels right, run with it.
When in doubt, write lists. Pros and cons. Things you want to keep, things you want to let go of. Bright and dark moments in the past week. Reasons to be happy, things to be grateful for. Things that are wrong with the world. Mistakes you never need to make again. When you are feeling really stuck for words, lists are a clarifying and easy way to get the words moving. And before you dismiss them as not “real writing”, consider that lists can be a secret back door into poetry.
Don’t force it. Let your writing dictate its own rhythm. Do you think it’s taking too long to come together? Says who? Trust the process. Sometimes the process includes taking a lot of breaks. Sometimes you will make several bits of seemingly unrelated piecework before you can see how they want to be stitched together into a more richly nuanced whole that you could never have envisaged at the outset.
Follow through. No matter how slow or convoluted your writing process may be, I believe that satisfying resolution is always possible if you hang in there with a curious mind and determination to find your way out of the maze. When I’ve written something that is meaningful to me and feels well put, it’s like giving my brain an everything shower. Calm, clarity, resolve, a mind unburdened… This is what we’re after. Keep at it. Writing is the mirror, and also the cloth that wipes the mirror clean.
Before I go back to my packing, here’s a little story about making art for art’s sake.
A few months ago when I was feeling uninspired by my home, I got the impulse to make a big painting of a sleeping white bird and hang it above my sofa to give the place a glow-up.
It’s been a long time since I made a painting, and I’ve never painted a bird before, so I practiced on a small-scale version. It turned out pretty good!
I picked up some raw canvas and pillaged some stretcher bars from an old thrift-store painting. I enlisted my next door neighbors (who happen to be artists) into helping me stretch the canvas. I sized and primed it with gesso, and bought a bottle of stand oil, the painting medium I wanted to use.
When February brought a change of plans and I decided to give my notice on my flat, I wondered what to do with this project I’d got all excited about and put so much preparation into. What now? Surely this is a dumb time to make a huge oil painting.
Well, I finished it yesterday.
It is kind of crazy—the thing won’t even be dry by the time I have to move. Pete and Sarah next door are going to hang it on their wall for the next six months to let it cure. It will live there as an emblem of the home I made in my imagination, and at some point in the future, I will reclaim it and hang it on the wall of whatever home I move into next.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the making of it that matters.
Come meet me at Kripalu in April!
The first stop on my grand tour is the US east coast, where I’ll be co-presenting a publishing workshop with my friend, Ruby Warrington, the best-selling author of Sober Curious and Women Without Kids.
Words That Heal is an inspiring and informative publishing workshop expressly designed for those in the helping professions.
We’re hosting this in-person retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health (in Stockbridge, Mass.) from April 25-27.
If you’re a healer, therapist, or coach who wants to write a book, here’s why you should join us.
Get real-time feedback on your work-in-progress book project as you:
Uncover your book’s unique aspects to make it a best-seller.
Connect your life’s mission and passions to readers’ needs and interests.
Understand the fundamentals of book proposal development.
Navigate the three main publishing models and choose the right path for you.
Discover what publishers look for in an author and how you can leverage your strengths.
Learn ways to incorporate your personal story into a self-help book.
Build community with like-minded people who are on the same path.
It’s super affordable: Tuition is just $399 plus the cost of accommodation.
This heart-centered experience will accelerate your journey toward becoming a published author while serving your soul’s calling. Return home inspired and with an insider’s look into the publishing world.
Publish your book with Wonderwell Press
Do you have a finished manuscript or work-in-progress that you want to get published? Looking for editorial and marketing support from smart, experienced publishing professionals? Submit your project to Wonderwell Press below, and your book could be in stores early next year.
Free your inner writer through creativity coaching with me
Are you paralyzed by the fear of writing badly, so you never give yourself a chance to practice and improve your skills? Do you worry you have no ideas worth exploring, or simply find it impossible to sit still long enough to get the words out? If so, I would love to work with you.
This is the essence of my creativity coaching practice. It’s not traditional book coaching (although I do some of that, too). But I’m much more interested in the barriers to creativity: Where they came from, the true toll they take on our lives, and how we can dismantle them.
Think of it as life coaching with a writing focus, or writing coaching that may transform your life.
You do not need to have a manuscript or even a defined project to work with me. Your fears are welcome. Bring your meanest head gremlins, your chronic procrastination, your sensitivity to criticism, your shaky voice, your embarrassment about your lack of progress, your audacious ambition, and your back burner of abandoned projects.
Please know that I was once lost in the sauce like you are now. Recovering my creativity has transformed my entire life. As an ICF-certified Wayfinder Life Coach, what I want most is to share the gift of creative liberation with you.
Apply through the link below, and we’ll start with a quick call to make sure it’s a fit.