Tag: blogging

Words in Sentences

Assuming the Whole

by ErinLeave a Comment on Assuming the Whole

Yesterday was kind of a breakthrough as I brought my project more into form – I knew it was going to be different, just have not been sure how. And, specifically, how to do it simply at first. I ended up working through a few ideas and actually got some recording done.

I think one of the parts of my breakthrough was simply desiring to no longer have breakthroughs and understanding a little bit more about what that looks like. Obviously, I can’t stop the tides of growth, but I do believe a big part of my self development right now is coming out from the analysis and just moving forward. “Assuming the Whole” is how I referred to it on my Instagram yesterday.

I think this is important because most people, I think, want to grow in some ways. I definitely have moments feeling a little jealous of people who don’t seem to have required as much therapy or mental assessment. People who just seem to know what they are meant to do in life. People who set out in a certain way at a young age. Mastered crafts and things like that. Even people who are like “accountants” and knew exactly how they wanted to remodel their kitchen are my heroes. My vision gets so caught up in inaction. Mainly because so much seems to go together. How should it all work? What is the best, right way?

Lately, thinking like this only makes the paralysis worse. Just like worrying about aging or whether or not you messed up your kid only focuses on the wrong thing. Assuming the whole flips the script. It’s different then faking it until you make it – it is more about taking everything you think you should have done, wish you would have known, feel is true about you and having it be the truth, what you know and what you do.

I texted with two gals in my writer’s saloon yesterday. One coming back from a sailing venture and one coming back from a writer’s retreat. I have had COVID (again, sigh, it was horrible) so I am eager to get back around a table with friends once we are all settled in town and safe to do so. Being bold in anchoring community is a big part of me assuming the whole.

I go back to watching my niece today, masked of course. She is about three months old and I am genuinely excited to see my little bud. Run some new material by her and work on getting this book 2 into form. I finally called it yesterday and ditched InDesign for the project. The printer and I kept having issues and I’m hopeful new software will play its part in the formation process.

Other than that, it’s been quiet at the house and is about to get quieter. We isolated with two of the five kids. Those two are going back to their mom’s over the course of tonight and tomorrow. Hoping to spend a little time this weekend recording and getting some things in the mail. We shall see… this creative process is kind of a crazy party girl to follow. Reminds me a lot of me in my twenties. Like. What are you doing, child?

:) Pretty sure she would have said, “figuring it out” <smile>

Words in Sentences

This Whole Writer Thing

by ErinLeave a Comment on This Whole Writer Thing

I have been going back and forth on a few things from my last post… The whole going back to corporate thing I mentioned? I guess, it’s really about this sincere desire to work that I have and this LOVE of thinking and drawing insights and the pleasure of when they make sense to people who need them to – I love that. I experienced that in my work at Enterprise, so I say “I’ll probably go back” meaning – I am sure my life will wind me to where this intuitive analysis creative thing is a part of my career. I also love to think about industry. Mainly – I like to complain about robots like le Google and Siri and how they fail me, but I do love thinking about how industries can literally and actually make things better for humans.

The other thing that I was kind of noodling from yesterday’s post was whether or not my point got across. This whole writer thing – it’s just really interesting, because it is both who I have always been and who I am becoming. But the becoming thing? That’s where I am surfing.

I talked with Marketia after my post. We were processing vocation and purpose and I found myself sharing with her how in my “wrestling” between marketing and operations, purpose and practical next steps, how I knew – deep down – this answer of “what am I supposed to be doing in my life” was going to be so obvious.

All answers to big questions seem to typically be obvious. “Square between the eyes”, type of answers. So when I looked for what was already obvious and saw notes across my desk on how my writing moved somebody or thanking me for creating something, it made me really reflect on genuine comments on “the flow” and genuine excitement my friends and family have with me on the future and its unfolding.

It feels real. This whole writer thing…

So. Frozen Spaghetti readers, here’s what I am now in: the removal of the saran wrap that believes I need that person, that mentor, that role, that opportunity, that one thing. I am in the part of shifting from ladder climbing culture to future is now thinking that requires me to know what I obviously know (writing) and let the rest surprise me (even if it is obvious when it does in fact come).

The sheer amount of people who are popping up in my life is actually indescribable. I described them towards the end of my post yesterday… it’s not just bullshit busy work. These people popping up – phone calls and knocks on the door, lunch plans and business – they are different than the endless meetings that kept me from getting to “just get my work done” or “go heads down”. Shifting this “pressure like” feeling (Erin, are you prioritizing your time correctly?) is also part of this layer of saran wrap removal. (PS: For new readers, I retired from corporate life in 2020 and have been actively removing 16 years of thinking as limiting beliefs pop up.)

Yeah. So – I am a writer. Responsible for showing up for the projects. And I am (in my mom’s words) personable and “out there with others” and willing to show up for the people. These two things are a yin and yang that make up the whole. This balance of effort and ease, this is where my devotional practice 3.0 is coming to form. Like. An actual emergence of dharma that I know (special thanks to watching The Kardashians on Hulu) that I have to pay attention to. I cannot feel like there is something right to do and not do it. I have to follow what is obvious.

There’s that word again…

I have been thinking a lot about my health and my routines. How am I caring for my physical body and keeping myself primed for everything involved in this pursuit / moving forward as well as the things involved in this root / staying grounded (for the fam, ya know… and the dogs). It’s causing me to consider my nidra and my yoga and my diet and my tumeric and my black seed and my actually amazing doctor and how I need to get back there for some B12 and prayer. (She actually factually prays – straight up – in my appointments. It’s just so good.)

For those of you who have been following along and so supportive, thank you so much. The guilt and the pressure of performance is eased by your grace and is helping me feel confident as I navigate the nooks of my new creative universe, how I work with myself, and the trust thing.

I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post that “We are the mirrors on the boxes we carry our hearts in and it is US that show back to the world what we would like to see” – I think this is why so many people are in popping up in my life in the same season I am actively putting in effort into these creative projects. In everything I do, I feel this nudge when the rhyme or the prose can be rounded or more open to let more people in. In all of the creative work, I feel this little jolt when there is insight there that if somebody read twice, went through – it might give. It might breathe.

If I did not know all of these people personally, would I be able to do that? I am not sure. The intro to the devotional has been through several test reads and the last comment somebody made was “It’s for everybody”…. it is… for everybody.

Which. Apparently lit agents don’t want to hear. :) so… back to figuring out this writing thing. BY WRITING. OK BYE HAPPY SATURDAY.

“We are the mirrors on the boxes we carry our hearts in and it is US that show back to the world what we would like to see.” Frozen Spaghetti

Words in Sentences

I am the Goose

by ErinLeave a Comment on I am the Goose

goose

Allow me to build on my sentiment,

“I legit expect my kids to follow me following the goose”…

In my earliest year as a mother (age: 23), I remember turning my infant’s life over to the greater connected protection of the universe, The Big Love.

I sat, uneasy in the rocking chair, playing back the previous night’s episode of Law and Order, special victims unit in a post 9/11, post Columbine afternoon.

The curtains hung in the dusk-dusted nursery where a summer nap was being kept at bay. I was restless, contemplating these evils in humanity and how to shield her outside of my arms.

In this glimpse of fear, I began to wake and consider something new. Sunlight broke through the curtains, striking the diamond on my left ring finger and curiosity on how to live differently started to dance around the room like a fairy. Both sets of our eyes watched the chase of light I directed about with turns of my wrist.

“No,” I said to fear.

I did not want to “mother afraid”.

I did not want to “worry all the time”.

I did not want the pressure of “best” or the perceived stain of “worst”.

I did not want the responsibility of her story or her decisions. Or – somehow seemingly worse – I did not want her carrying the weight of my own, personal regret.

In between that afternoon, where I “turned her over” to good, (understanding as death is possible, life is possible) and the first time I watched her crawl in accord with her own curiosity away from where I sat under a park tree, the seed of trust I allowed to grow within turned my motherhood journey into a continual invitation to Ellen (and eventually her sister, Lucy) to follow my lead.

This trust evolved and my heart began to tumble down the hill of change.

I did not want to be an obvious American mother, repeatedly getting her toddler out of a minivan for errands – adorned in college mascot or MLB bird alike.

I did not want to be continually sold cleverly colored shoebox size shoeboxes for my shoes.

This evolution of self began shifting my experiences as – if I was about to do something just because I thought I should: I questioned it.

I chose differently.

I leaned into what I feared.

I practiced media literacy.

I prayed. I changed. I planted. I grew.

Rhianna enforced afternoons in the Jeep, combing back the long way towards home from the zoo. Pizza adorned fingernails washed up in the historic tub of an ABQ lavender farm, watching sharks in Denver… trying Turkish delight in Park City…

I took on my life; them incorporated.

Our stories are plentiful, meaningful and thick. The meaning of being their leader, their goose, is never lost on me. In and out of the car, into museums and onto the plane: they have followed me.

Unlike the goose (though their personal notice is at least consistent in advertising inconsistency and temperament), I offer, give and set expectations to and of my daughters.

To live without fear seems to still require managing a certain civilian “pay attention” mindset, all while gauging the fine traumatic line of projecting one’s own experience // being careful to avoid infusing too much of the state of the world into predictions of the future. 

Indeed. This is the paradox of being more than a “goose goose” or a Mother Goose; pecking rhyme-based rhythm and order.

Aha! See, to be an actual goose, living both into her future and ushering her goslings into their own, ballet slippers are worn making spaghetti while adult lessons yield for the child’s.

With a Pinterest board as lively as her child’s friendships and a dress that fits as accurately as her child’s pants, the mother’s quest stays aware of the child’s. Forever seizing teachable moments to promote the child’s own understanding of motivations, experience and truth.

For in this way, I suppose, the child may equally become a goose.

 

(PS: the original, straight forward version: https://frozenspaghetti.com/2019/08/04/the-original/)