Ground Yourself

It’s useful to ground yourself with an everyday practice in difficult times. This is how I’ve been starting a lot of my posts on Instagram and Twitter lately. On Instagram I’ve been using the unwieldy but loveable hashtag, #groundyourselfwithaneverydayproject. I’ve mentioned this before, but please feel free to join me in using it. You might think it’s just sweet advice I’m handing out, but this goddamned practice is saving my life. Mainly these are photos of light on my kitchen table, usually at breakfast. But I’m not limiting myself to even that in my mind. The object of the game is to take a photo every day. With luck the subject is really light. but I’m flexible with that, too. And for you, the sky’s the limit.

For those of you who have been reading my blog(s) for over 10 years, and I know you’re out there, you know that I intermittently quote this from Rilke:

"Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you. His life is filled with much hardship and sadness, and it remains far behind yours. But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words." 

– Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters on Life

I always qualify this by saying of course I’m perfectly fine. My problem is looking too far into an unknowable future. My problem is that of a writer and half time library worker who is married to an artist and none of those jobs are looking hopeful right now. Well, we all know about uncertainties. I’ve had a couple moments in the last 2 weeks where I’ve started uncontrollably shaking like a leaf. I’m generally all super fine until I crash and I’m not. But — I have coping mechanisms, because honestly, our life has always been filled with uncertainty. That’s the bonus of living as writer and artist for all these years. We have always felt like the rug was going to be pulled from us at any second.

So one of the things I do is take that one photo every day. (And then I usually go on and take a lot of other photos). I should say here that I am a huge creature of habit.

I take a brisk walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes every morning, often watching Bruce Springsteen videos.

I write in my journal. I write out the Prayer of St. Francis with my fountain pen. (As a non-religious person, this is probably a weird thing to have chosen, but it works for me — you could use a poem or a passage of a novel you love).

Every day I open my manuscript and write something or fiddle with a few words. At least that. I tell myself it keeps the clay supple, malleable. But it also keeps me from losing my nerve, helps me keep faith with the work I have planned. If I can’t write, at least I can edit. (And if you’re interested in working more on editing a piece you have going, I recommend Kimmy Beach, excellent editor, super decent human being).

Every day I attempt to tell my story — through photos, words, both.

And then weekly, obviously, I’ll blog a couple of times. Blogging can be a grounding activity because you’re reaching out as you are also looking inward. If you think you might enjoy blogging, I recommend Kerry Clare’s blog school.

I don’t want to be prescriptive here, because you have to choose what works for you. For me, though, doing certain things every day helps me to avoid those leaf-shaking episodes.

I know everyone who is a writer is having trouble settling into much right now. It’s not easy. I think it’s taking me 10 times as long as before to write a freaking simple sentence. But a book I keep returning to and quoting from is What’s the Story by Anne Bogart. (Sorry, I’m a broken record on that one, but I highly recommend it). I think it’s such an important book because now is when we get to figure out personally and collectively, what our story will be going forward. A lot of businesses are going to need to re-think what their new story is, how it will play out, and what place they want to position themselves in a new economy. I keep thinking about how libraries are going to need to re-tell their story. They’ve been all about community spaces, and reaching out into communities…and that’s going to have to be a bit of a different narrative, at least for a while. Artists are going to have to re-invent themselves, and learn to tell their stories in vibrant new ways. Our experiences matter, our stories are our stories and we all need to voice what is happening to us right now because it will alter how we move forward, and change how we think about ourselves and how we value ourselves.

It’s important to write about our unique and personal experiences because they will tell us things about this time in a way that no other kind of writing will. We’re going through this thing collectively but our own odd and weird circumstances are going to be revealing when we can step outside of this moment. Now is when we get to decide how we want to frame things, how we want our stance to be moving forward.

I’ll leave you with words by AB whose book seems to live permanently on my desk:

“I believe that how I describe my life matters not only to my own experience but also to the experiences of others. What is the story that I am telling? Do I choose to say, “My life sucks?” Do I choose to say, “Life is great?” Or do I swing jaggedly from one to another? The choice — if I am lucky, rigorous, and attentive enough — is mine. But in order to “wright” a good narrative, I first need to create the kind of ego that can create one.”

And:

“The practice of storytelling begins in the day-to-day minutiae of one’s own life. Because we are meaning-making machines, we translate our experiences into potent narratives. We tell stories to make sense of our experiences. Through this act of translation, we develop opinions and assumptions about how things are. The human impulse to tell one’s own story is one of the basic human rights and freedoms in democratic societies.”

“Speaking a story can be an act of letting in light.”

So: What is your story?