Danny Gregory’s “Shut Your Monkey” hit at just the right moment for me. The combination of a very challenging year at work and a post-marathon movement slump had me feeling drained. I needed a good kick in the pants, or else my holiday break might devolve into a slovenly mess of bon-bons, sweat pants, and movie marathons.
Okay, maybe I can have a little of that, but…
Oh no! That’s me, possibly missing all of the boats. This book invited me to doodle directly in it. Not really, but I don’t think Danny would mind.
This morning as I finished up this book, I’m feeling fired up. I’ve been drawing ever day since his talk, and the book pushed me even further to reflect on my purpose and what drives me. If you need a pep talk, this is a good one.
Big takeaway: don’t be so precious about it all. Just make art for you. Art with a little ‘a.’ pic.twitter.com/S7pDMsur7V
Gregory invites challenging the “monkey” that holds you back. Those inner voices, the ones who needle with nay-saying and destructive doubts, can be quelled.
In short, the book says:
Don’t let meaningless distractions get in the way. Don’t expect perfection. Don’t over-analyze or critique your process or the creative output.
Just show up.
Just do.
Just be.
Thanks to High Alpha, who hosted Danny Gregory for a talk about creativity. Free registration to the event included a copy of his latest book, Shut Your Monkey.
Walking our dogs, Louie and I talked about endings. What would the last lines of our story be?
Louie: Depends on my mood.
Isn’t it true that one day can shape your whole world or life view? Even if it holds court for just one day. The power of perspective.
Louie: On a lot of days, I think my last line would just be: “Life is good.”
Me: Yes, We’ve been lucky.
I’ve always liked Edward Abbey’s funeral requests: bagpipe music, dancing, laughter, hollering, a cheerful and raucous wake. If funerals are for the living, then let there be some joy in it.
How’s this for a last line?
After the sing-a-long, they cut into the sugar cream pie.
Sugar Cream Pie from Locally Grown Gardens. Also known as the best pie in the world. Period.
No matter where life takes me, this seems a fitting bookend. I believe in happy endings.
Prompt: “Last Line. We started with a first line, so let’s wrap up our month with the last. Give us the final sentence, paragraph, or chapter of your life story.”
Yesterday I had plans to go to an Owl Prowl event at Holliday Park. It promised meeting an owl up close and personal with park handlers, dissecting owl pellets, learning the call of the Eastern Screech Owl, and a night hike.
Owl seeking. I’ve done this before, and it is transporting. Like there’s some wisdom transfer. I have seen you, and I now know things.
My first Barred Owl sighting, at Eagle Creek.
The unexpected death of a friend of our family brought my parents in town for a funeral, so I canceled my Owl Prowl plans. This morning over coffee, my mom and I watched woodpeckers go after the suet I had just filled in our backyard feeder. We talked about my great aunt, who has just been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. A mash up of birds, loss, and legacy.
My parent’s friend was the principal who has been all over the news, the one who was killed by a bus. Thousands of guests at her visitation and funeral were a testament to her impact. A life dedicated to educating and inspiring others.
I wondered, if I were to go today, what would my legacy be? Even having been the architect of my own path, it’s hard to see clear lines. I haven’t gone all in on much. I’ve dabbled lightly, drinking life up. Trying this and trying that.
It occurred to me that if I had any capital built up in a legacy, it has been purely accidental. A rush of questions caused some panic. Shouldn’t legacy be more intentional? But what should I strive to be known for? What am I waiting for? Do I really need a legacy?
Maybe I should be one of those who makes a quiet impact on just a few, and that is enough. I started this blog post, then decided to wait and think about legacy during a five-mile run.
I procrastinated. Instead of heading straight out for my run, I opened the window and sat back down in my kitchen to read. It felt freeing to have the window flung open in January, the sun beaming in and the chatter of the chickadees calling back and forth. Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.
I stumbled onto an article about a teenage eagle huntress in Mongolia. This is not a thing I knew existed. She is the first female to train for this type of hunting, bucking 2,000 years of tradition.
A still image from the documentary The Eagle Huntress. Asher Svidensky/Kissaki Films
I took this story with me to the trail for my first run since a chest cold side-lined me Tuesday night. My probing and anxious questions fell away. I just ran with visions of Mongolia and soaring eagles.
My thoughts turned wild. Like this was some sign. To be more brave. To take some grand adventure. Just keep living and trying and giving and being. It will be enough. I never landed on a legacy.
Prompt: “Legacy. What do you want to be known for? Maybe you want to change the world. Maybe you just want to make the best cupcakes known to man. Go all in and give us the deep life-long goal, or share a smaller mission.”
Think Kit asks: What have you learned by facing the page?
1. If I stop writing, even for a short time, those muscles start to atrophy. Getting back into it after a hiatus is much harder than pushing through some bad writing.
2. Writing every day is do-able. It’s the daily publishing that is the harder part. I am ready for a write more, publish less phase.
3. There are a lot of reasons why I write. To make sense of the world. To reflect and remember. And, oh… because I must. Not in a “I will fall into despair!” sort of way… Read more
4. I should illustrate more of my blog posts. Like the cakes I made for the post I wrote for SmallBox today (linked above).
As I was cropping and editing photos for our holiday card, a strange thing went down. Photoshop started freaking out. Every time I tried to do anything within the app, the photo re-mixed into new psychedelic arrangements.
Sometimes it would be an extreme closeup of me. The next time, the dog. Back to me. Then Louie. Always with the bright colors, repeating boxes, wiggly lines.
Was an alien trying to transmit messages via my Photoshop? Had I stumbled onto a secret door to an unknown universe? Maybe this was a digital wormhole into a land with brand new planes of color.
No door ever opened, not all the way. No time travel or grand adventure. No decoded message leading to world peace or secrets from the beginning of time.
Just a peek into something unexpected, distant, unknown.
Every spring for several years, I have made tiny stakes to plant alongside seeds, little markers to help me make sense of new sprouts in the garden. And every year the marker bleeds or fades, and I’ve been flying blind. Weed or plant? What kind of pepper?
This year I tried something new. I drew a veggie map:
It may not have been to scale, but it was enough to help me keep tabs on what would be popping up.
I love moments like this. When recognition of repeating a pattern that no longer works leads to seeing a new way of doing things.
Prompt: “Doodle Up. Scour your notebooks and share some random doodles. Or, try a #doodleaday challenge for a week. How’d it go? Did a doode theme emerge? Share your drawings.”
As one does when in Seattle, we spent the better part of an afternoon roaming Pike Place Market.
Pike Place Market gets mail too.
We bought a lb. of hazelnuts, crammed into a restaurant and ate some hearty clam chowder (good, but not award-winning, truth be told), and eyed a lot of produce and fresh fish that we had no place to cook.
No grazing!Pike Place Peonies.Smelt pretty fishy.
Amidst the iced-over fish eyes and neat rows of flower bouquets, the aisles were tightly packed with locals, chefs, street musicians, tourists with cameras. It’s an experience in people watching as much as in food.
Because of my obsession with Lunch at the Shop, I knew I wanted to visit Peter Miller Books. It’s walking distance from the market, so once we’d had our fill there, we headed over.
Despite knowing better, we arrived near lunch time and had to mill about the neighborhood until the shop reopened. We could have gotten lost in the book stacks for hours – it’s like taking a design and architecture world tour within a couple hundred square feet. Not wanting to carry a lot of heavy books back (plus we had a Powell’s trip on the docket), we ended up with some Japanese award-winning pencils, smooth erasers that look almost like stone and heavy brass pencil sharpeners.
As we checked out, I was too shy to gush as I wanted: “OH MY GOSH. I LOVE YOUR BOOK!” so I said nothing. Peter was quite friendly and struck up a conversation anyway. He asked where we were from and to my relief didn’t talk RFRA (which was all over the news). We asked for a lunch recommendation, and he recommended a Middle Eastern place called Mamnoon, which sounded perfect.
Lunch at Mamnoon.
We had quite a feast, and doodled with our new pencils while we ate. Seattle International Film Festival was running, and over fattoush, we chose a french fashion documentary to see later that day.
Doodling on the SIFF cover.
Peter had made a second suggestion. “If you’re going that way, there’s a small church worth seeing…” After lunch, our friend Jenn met us, and we took the second half of our two-part directions and ventured together to find the church.
By this point we’d walked a lot, but we it seemed wise to listen to a fellow who owns and curates a shop specializing in architecture books when he suggests seeing a building. It was the Chapel of St. Ignatius, on the campus of Seattle University. It was well worth the extra jaunt to find it.
St. Ignatius by Steven Holl
Pops of colored light pierced through the white plaster, a strange play between serenity and joy. I hadn’t known then that architect Steven Holl’s guiding principle for the space was “a gathering of different lights.” Mission accomplished – you feel the color. (None of my images fully capture that magic, but you can see some that do here.)
We took a break on the benches outside, gazed into the reflection pool.
Somehow, it’s like he’d known we’d need this restorative stop, a peaceful oasis within the bustle of travel. You just can’t beat a good recommendation from a local.
The first time I volunteered, I was maybe eight years old. My sister and I “adopted” grandparents at a nursing home. The experience of reading the news, playing games, and providing human connection to someone who was alone planted a lifelong service bug in me.
Throughout my life (minus that really self-absorbed time in my twenties, post grad) I have volunteered somewhere. I hadn’t realized it then, but my idea of how one goes about service was set too. Doing good was a formal arrangement between citizen and nonprofit.
Walking with Louie one day years ago changed that. It had poured rain. We were glad to get out for a walk after being cooped up inside. Everything was still drippy and puddly. At a corner, blocks from our house, a small lake had formed. The sewer drain was gunked up with who knows what.
Without a thought, Louie reached down into the murky water, and pulled out hunks of leaves, debris, and dark matter unknown. He cast it aside, clearing the grate at the curb, then swished his hand in the rapidly draining water to rinse off. It was the work of a moment, then we were on our way.
While I beamed at him, “What a good thing you’ve done!” he seemed surprised. “Oh… not a big deal.”
I get it – this is a small thing. But before then it had not occurred to me that I should be the one to unclog the drain. Realization was one thing, re-wiring to notice those “not my problem” opportunities to serve others has been a bit harder. It’s something I work at still.
Our San Francisco flight had been delayed, which meant we’d be hard pressed to make it for the start of the Giants game. It was a frenzied dash, from landing to hotel check-in, then we rushed to AT&T Park to catch the game in progress.
Look at that blue sky. Hello, California.
Louie kept score as usual. I kind of tuned out, soaked up the sunshine and tried to recover from the hustle of traveling.
This hot dog and garlic fries helped the recovery situation tremendously.
The Embarcadero picks up near the park. We planned to walk off our ballpark lunch and get a feel for the city. Eventually, we’d end up at the Ferry Building to explore the market inside.
Cupid’s Span by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
After all of the sitting on the plane and at the ballpark, it felt good to get moving and listen to the water lapping up the shore.
One odd moment transported me from the place I’d just come – home. This sculpture along the waterfront so reminded me of our state flag, I couldn’t help but think of Indiana.
SOMA by Flaming Lotus Girls
We made it to the Ferry Building ready for coffee. Good thing we found Blue Bottle inside, and a wonderful place to get a sweet treat too.
The Port of San Francisco.Macaroon from Miette in the Ferry Building.
Good job on the strolling situation, San Francisco.
Since we would be in San Francisco for our last training run before the Eugene Marathon, we decided we should do it in grand fashion and run the Golden Gate Bridge. An article had pointed us to start in Crissy Field. To the bridge and back made for a seven-mile run.
Our SF run path.
I’m not often in the habit of stopping during runs, especially just a seven-miler – but this one was as much about exploration as getting in the miles.
Boats in San Francisco Marina.
This route included a nice steep hill (607 feet of elevation gain), which meant a breathtaking view of the sundrenched landscape, the city outlined in the distance.
Eye level with the sunshine.
Inching closer in run step increments, the world seemed wide and open, and we were on top of it. From this vantage, anything is possible.
Not to scale.
Running toward the bridge was a test of my sense of scale and time. From a distance, it was hard to guess at how far away we were from the abutment.
A stranger took our photo for us.
Running over the bridge is a whole other matter – the panoramic views are divided by suspensions, concrete, structural steel. 1.7 miles traversing 894,500 tons of bridge. Traffic zips by, high speed and in close quarters. Here the world tightened back up. We picked up our pace until we put the bridge behind us.
On the way back, we wandered from our path. Alcatraz gazing, run-ins with blue heron, a detour to explore the Palace of Fine Arts.
A palatial diversion in our activewear.
In those last two miles we “ran” 17:32 and 25:12 respectively, ending with an overall 11:09 pace over the seven miles. Not exactly a sprint, but enough to work up an appetite. Still in our running gear, we stopped at the donut place we’d been eyeing around the corner from our hotel.
Awesomefacing at Bakehouse.Before, during and after our gluttonous donut frenzy.
We don’t normally devour a box of donuts after a run, but, hey, we were on vacation. No regrets. Those pastries were amazing. And we had a marathon looming in our future…
