My New Manifesto

Sometimes you've got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out. ~ Tina Turner.

The other night I was watching Conan and they were doing a gag wherein Bruce Jenner, some crabs, and a hoarder (from the A&E show "Hoarders") welcome Conan O'Brien to basic cable. I just about died laughing when the hoarder came into the frame. Her squirrely expression was just priceless. Without saying a word, she managed to convey a kind of crazy covetousness. If I ever become a hoarder, I vow to adopt just such a paranoid expression. If you're going to be balls out weird, you might as well make people laugh, right?

In the present day, even though I am not too worried about anyone taking my crap, I can relate to how hard it can be to get rid of things. There are so many potential blocks – sentimentality, frugality, uncertainty, fear that we might throw something away and then need it later. If I am going to be honest, I definitely have some messy, packratty tendencies. At the same time, I don't like it. It makes me feel bogged down and eventually even tense and unproductive. Somehow an environment just feels less peaceful when there is too much stuff vying for space.

When my environment gets too cluttered, it starts to become distracting. I find it difficult to work or even think. So, I have decided that the best thing I can do to encourage the new period of productivity I hope to start is to let go of some of my clutter. I mean that both figuratively and literally, but since it's easier to clear my physical space, I am starting with that. So, I spent the greater part of the morning cleaning out my closet and developing my manifesto. Why? Because it was overflowing with things I neither wear nor need and everything is more fun when a manifesto is involved! Plus, if I don't give myself some rules, I will just end up getting stuff out and putting it away again without getting rid of anything.

So here is my decluttering manifesto:

• Be merciless. If it is ugly, has bad associations, makes me feel bad, or if I haven't used it in a year or don't plan to use it in the next, get rid of it.
  
• Be realistic. If it is doesn't fit, doesn't look good or doesn't fit my life- or personal style, it needs to be released.
  
• Be generous. Sometimes we outgrow things. If that's the case, let them go and don't be a hoarder. If I am done enjoying something, donate it and give someone else a turn.
  
• Be discriminating. I don't have to get rid of everything. It is ok to keep something simply because I like it or because its associations make me feel good. Just make sure it is something I really want and that it has a spot.
  

This approach has lightened my closet by three large trash bags full of clothes. Stacey and Clinton would be proud! I didn't quite get to shoes, but there is always tomorrow. This is just one piece of a multi-step decluttering process, and that is okay. Tonight I go to bed with my clothes arranged by color. Now I can actually see what I have, know what I need, and can feel confident when I pull something out that it fits right and is flattering. Funny how something as small as organizing the closet can even make you feel better about not just your environment, but yourself.

Change

No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning. ~ Native American Proverb.

Change feels like it is in the air these days. Everywhere I turn, the institutions in my life are on the precipice of something new. The Republicans tell me they won back the House, because people are hungry for change. Personally, I'm hungry for a cheeseburger, accessible healthcare, fewer lobbyists, and more liberal representatives with a spine. Guess the GOP and me, we both want changes, just not the same ones.

But it's not only the political landscape that is changing. In my workplace, the CEO has "decided to explore other options". People are afraid this might herald yet another reorg, even though it appears that for once they are making management changes instead of just kicking a few more worker bees out of the hive. Some coworkers were surprised, even though the writing has been on the wall since last summer, when our parent company installed two of its major players to create a new "office of the CEO" leadership team. Maybe I'm just weird, but I know I would be updating my resumé if my boss and her boss moved into my cubicle with me, so they could more quickly second guess all my decisions. Does the change carry with it a sense of instability? Sure. But surprise? No.

Even the church I belong to, but at this point rarely attend, is in the throes of preparing for some as yet to be determined new leadership structure. There too, something has felt off kilter to me for some time now (hence my diminishing attendance). Thoreau said that "Things do not change, we change." I am not sure if the community has changed or my perception of it has. Maybe it's what I need from it that has. I have always struggled a bit with that.

My beliefs are broader than the framework provided by the Christian church, but it worked out, because it was a progressive community and the path was more of a wide avenue than a narrow, one-way trail. While I am still very fond of many members, and even of the place itself, I no longer feel the connection I once did. I feel like a visitor and not part of the community. There is a part of me that desperately wants it to feel as it did in the beginning, but some of the sense of hominess is lacking. Perhaps it is because you only get as much out as you put in (and I haven't put much in lately) or perhaps I have just floated too far downstream to return and am on my way to another destination. I am not sure, but that that part of my life too feels unstable.

And that brings me to me. You had to know it was coming. It is, after all, all about me, right? Perhaps it is just my annual early holiday malaise rearing its ugly head, but I find myself craving change. I want it to swoop down on me like a giant, good-willed bird, carrying me away at an exhilarating pace to something wonderful and new. I feel like something is missing but can't quite put my finger on what it is. Over the past few months, I've made some big changes to my diet, I need to make more to my level of activity (in the physical, spiritual and creative senses), but I need something else too. I need to be fed by something more profound than going to work, coming home exhausted, watching a little t.v. and going to bed again in preparation for more of the same. I used to do things, create things, now I just watch and wish.

Maybe that's what this urge for change is, an invitation to figure out what it is that that is missing. I have been thinking that perhaps I needed to start writing again, maybe even resurrect my blog and play here a bit, in order to do just that. What changes do I want/need to make to my life? What is missing? Where do I want to go?

Then, in a moment of synchronicity this morning, I happened to check my yahoo email, which opened up with a funky sort, making the first email an undeleted two-year old notification about a comment on this blog at a time when I was doing a lot of writing. It was from a stranger, Aart Hilal, referring me to Paulo Coehlo's blog. At first, I didn't notice the date on the email, because I was too busy typing Coehlo's name into the search engine. And where did I end up? At the following quote:

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.

If that isn't the universe blessing my endeavor, I don't know what is!

Summer project

Dear Powellhurst,

I don't know how to tell you this, but I want to see other blogs. A few weeks ago I started quietly posting on a summer blog that I am calling The Peacock Project. It is my attempt to combat what I know will be an ugly summer and fall at work. It is my place to celebrate what it right, positive, beautiful and important in the world and makes my life happier even though I feel like a lone miniature pony carrying the load of two dozen pack mules at work. Last year, during the same period I spent more drives home than I'd like to count crying, my blood pressure went up, I developed a slight twitch in my eye (I wish I were joking!), and I lost 20 lbs (which have been subsequently gained back). Obviously, this is not a recipe for health and happiness, even if I was happy to lose some girth. So, in an attempt to, as his purple badness would say, "get through this thing called life" (or maybe just the tail end of 2010), I am forcibly channeling my inner Pollyana and accentuating the positive before the negative eats it away completely.

You have been here for years, and I will always come back to you, but I need something fresh, maybe even funky fresh. I don't know. What I do know is that I will still be posting here, but if you would like to come hang out with me and my new bird, I'd invite you to stop by.

xxoo
Martina

None for tea, but two for BBQ

It feels like summer is finally here. The birdhouses on the front porch are overflowing with tentants (sometimes literally - rip little unfledged baby) and yesterday we had our warmest day of the year thusfar. Despite my failed last minute BBQ scheme (the first few people I invited all had the temerity to have other engagements, so I lost interest and will plan better next time!), it turned out to be a lovely day. My little white dog woke me up early enough that I had my grocery list and shopping done by noon and was already making a mini-BBQ for my mom and me. On the menu: Black Bean and Mango Salad, Raspberry Shortcake, and Country Ribs.

This is probably something everyone but me already knew, but being relatively new to doing the barbequeing, I discovered my new favorite way to make ribs last summer. If you boil them ahead of time, they are so tender they fall off the bone AND they hardly require any grilling time at all. To sweeten the deal, boiling them renders the fat, which makes them slightly less artery clogging, which means you can put more whip cream on your dessert and without inflating your health risk. Silver lining with nary a cloud in sight!

I am still tweaking to find the perfect blend, but so far my recipe is to fill a large stock pot with water, a couple tablespoons of pickling spice, a quartered onion (yes, an onion - I still think they are the devil's condiment, but am willing to accept their utility for some recipes), a whole bunch of garlic (the more, the better - crush it a little before throwing it into the pot), a bay leaf or two (or whatever herbs you like), a bit of salt and boil the ribs in the for an hour and a half or so. Then all you need to do is baste them with your favorite sauce and throw them on the grill for a few minutes. After that, all that's left is to drink a mojito made with mint from the back yard and enjoy! Aaah summer!

Gentlewoman's Agreement

So I've been trying to think of something to talk about as part of the gentlewoman's agreement I struck with Jen back in April. Per the terms, we each agreed to post five times a week. We even renegotiated at the beginning of May declaring amnesty for all slackers (aka people like me), restarting the project and setting the blogging bar at four times a week. We are nothing if not flexible.

While I have thought about posting at least four times a week (sometimes even more, champion thinker that I am), the actual doing it has not happened. I'm telling you, when they finally invent the program that translates good intentions into organized writing, I am going to be SO freaking productive, you won't even believe it! There is probably a lesson here for optimistic, encouraging people like Jen: Never enter into any kind of accord with a known slacker. She can be happy that is was just blogging and not a suicide pact or something like that. It would really suck to be the one who follows through on that, while the other person is all "Oh, I don't know. I'm too tired to kill myself today. I think I'll go eat Cheetos and watch American Idol instead. Maybe tomorrow…"

The thing is that I am just not feeling like I have much to say lately. Sure, I think of things, but then when it comes to posting them, I think "Why the hell would anyone else be interested in this? Isn't it a little narcissistic to think that my navel gazing is so fascinating? Why don't I just keep a journal?" Then, yesterday I followed a link from Freewill Astrology to Jason Mraz's blog. And I read it and thought to myself "Except for being talented and famous, what is so special about him?" Don't get me wrong, I love Jason Mraz, but...

Why can people like him incite themselves to sit down and play, but I can't? One of my sometimes slightly pretentious writer friends (and sometimes judgmental shithead) is happy declare that some people are just serious about their art and some are not. Frankly, I think there is more to it than that. Creativity and self-expression shouldn't be vehicles for oneupsmanship. Sometimes we are just blocked. A vessel with a clogged spout is not necessarily an empty one.

I still don't know what I have to say or why or even if it will be of interest to anyone. Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it is just about the self-discipline to power through it and form a habit. Maybe it is about stopping to really look at the crazy, beautiful world around me and writing about it, because that will inspire me to play and create things that fill it with just a little more beauty. Sometimes maybe you don't have to understand. Sometimes maybe you just have to do and see where it takes you.

P.s. In totally unrelated news this made me laugh.

Terrible Tilly and some less terrible things

Does this not look like the best spot for a ghost story? Tillamook Lighthouse (aka Terrible Tilly) sits isolated and abandoned, perched upon a rock a mile offshore. The lighthouse dates back to 1887 and wasn't exactly built under the best working conditions (dangerous, crashing waves, flying debris, etc.). While it operated for 70 years, it was never open to the public. There are legends about a child's grave left by an early keeper, a grey lady, a former keeper who loved the lighthouse so much that his ghost roams the structure, and Native American stories about the haunting of nearby underwater tunnels. Even without ghosts, it wasn't always the safest workplace. Being closed and essentially inaccessible just makes the place all the more intriguing, which is always good for the imagination.

Seeing it last weekend made me want to dig out the beachy ghost story I started a few years ago as part of a failed NaNoWriMo attempt. These days I don't seem to make a lot of time for writing anymore. The truth is that it's only through a hastily made gentlewoman's agreement under the thrall of the road and sea air that I have recently even resurrected the idea of updating this blog more often. At this point, doing so still feels a little creaky and awkward, but having the deadline of five posts a week helps me in the same way that my past January blogstravaganza project did. It even has a bonus in that the agreed upon "five posts a week" sounds far less daunting than blogstravaganza's "every day" did. Even God took a day to rest and we all know that I am WAY lazier than God ever was!

Bug-eyed Azaleas

I found this poem by Dorothea Grossman today as I was tripping about the Internets, looking for spring poems to inspire me. I like it, don't you?

Spring

by Dorothea Grossman

The murderer, on his way to work, stops to admire the wisteria framing his doorway, and waves to the bug-eyed azaleas.

I've no plans to murder anyone, but I there is a particularly attractive purple azalea in my yard (and a half-dead wisteria, but we won't talk about that). The weather here in the NW has been gloriously springy these past couple weekends, prompting beach trips and garden center purchases. It's the perfect weather for sitting outside, listening to Pandora while my godson builds a tent city of boxes and old sheets on the lawn. One tent is apparently not enough for the child. He is intent on erecting a whole housing development. If you're going to dream, dream big, I guess.

P.s. The Pandora playlist you get when you put in "Thao & the Get Down Stay Down" has a lot of good stuff on it. I'm particularly fond of Miniature Tigers' Tell it to the Volcano.