Looking Up Instead of Through

You know I said I was taking a sabbatical, but you also know that when something is demanding to be written, there is nothing for a writer to do except sit down and write it. Bear with me because this is a long post.

I’ve been at war with my current WIP. The words are not coming as easy as I’d like, and I am acting like a spoiled child, stamping my foot to get my way. I’m demanding the characters do this or that, and the rebellious jerks are giving me the finger. Quite rightly, too. Because I’m not listening. Not to them and not to what’s happening in my life.

These past months since I moved to San Francisco, my world has been changing. Not the way I usually force change into my life with a flick of my fingers or a blink of my eyes. (A bad habit I picked up along the way so I don’t have to face my ghosts.) This change feels slow and whispery, something beyond my control. I don’t know where it’s taking me, but I can sense it in the air. My priorities are shifting in this immutable way, and it’s like water beating a rock to submission. At first, I kept trying to dodge change by staying in motion. Let me tell you – it doesn’t work. Something so inevitable can take its time coming. Like Rocky, it can wait for you to tire yourself and stop swinging away at the wind. You’d think I’d know this after years of trying to run my life like everything from birth to death can fit on a page in your planner, but obviously it’s a lesson that needs relearning.

So, I’ve been doing these things that I normally wouldn’t. Taking the long way to get places because I like the drive. Sitting in a park to stare at the clouds and dreaming up three absurd things they resemble. Visiting a farmer’s market to buy fresh flowers and taking time to admire them in the window. Growing herbs on my windowsill and being pleasantly surprised by their scent in my kitchen. Laying in the middle of my living room floor and listening to music while a breeze blows.

Stopping. Slowing. Breathing things in. Enjoying the stillness.

My perspective is changing. Rather, I’m doing what writers should do. I’m enjoying the different perspective I bring to life. As people and writers, we get so caught up in trends. The dos and don’ts. The next big werewolf/vampire/angel/dystopian craze. We forget that the writers we remember are the ones who broke the rules first. As writers, it is our job to notice the things most people don’t. We try to say it in a new way that feels familiar at the same time. We help people find the stillness in their busy lives.

Here are some things I’m noticing these days.

This tree looks completely different

when I stand under it and look up

This door is a boring closet door

Except it has this amazing keyhole

And this cool brass plate that reeks of history.

This framed poster and lamp are imperfect

But the scratched, glassless poster reminds me of my brother who drove me to SF to hang it (and break it in the process)

And the milk glass lamp was a gift from my sister who drove to SF to help me place it under this poster.

This cedar chest takes up my dining area so my guests have to eat sitting on my living floor

My brother bought it beat up at an estate sale during a time when he was heavily using drugs. When he showed me the ugly, beat up box, I wanted to cry at how far my brother was gone. A year later, he cleaned up and showed me the beauty he’d seen in this broken thing I’d had no use for. This is carved in the lid that he pieced back together.

And here is my messy refrigerator

With a note from my agent requesting my full, my asthma action plan, magnets from cities I’ve visited, and this note my mom wrote me on her waitressing order pad when I was 14 and nervous for my first day of cheerleading. (She has no idea I would value this, and there is a story in that, too.)

And what about these shelves of frames I’ve had up for nine months – without pictures in them?

And then there are the pictures that speak to me…like this empty chair at a table

or this whimsical, slightly sad girl

Or this whimsical,slightly sad girl (me at 20 with my mom)

The things we carry with us from place to place. The way we see things. They help us to tell our stories. They help us to find the stories in our lives and the lives of others. We forget that when we get caught up in forcing things into our boxes. Try changing your perspective. Be still and look around your life. Lay on your floor to see things in a new way. Hang upside down, if that’s what it takes.

Shh… Wait for it. Do you hear a story forming that’s all your own?