Joy

Sometimes, I flip a bit.

This is what we say at my day job when our software doesn’t behave as expected. “It flipped a bit!” In the past year, I’ve flipped almost every bit I have – and came close to a full crash. There are so many details I want to share, but what I want to share encroaches on the privacy of others. In some cases, it would be hurtful. I considered starting an anonymous blog, but then I realized that if I have to do something in secrecy, I shouldn’t be doing it at all. What I can give you are moments, images.

A look of pure hatred from a person I wanted nothing more for than happiness and light. The choice of betrayal or jail. Sobbing in the bathroom at work when I received news that made me feel like my DNA was unraveling. The thought of stepping in front of a city bus. There was also the dry air in Las Cruces, the dust rising like ghosts down the long road on a Sunday morning. Funerals. Too many losses, one so sudden and shocking. A year spent with people desperate to save their own lives, only to end up realizing I was the one who needed to be saved.

I am the person that those things happened to, but I am not the same.

I’m better now. Stronger. Whole. I have become a prayerful person, awakened to an unending source of love. When I am walking the path meant for me, joy and kindness are what I bring. Truth is what I speak, even when it is uncomfortable. I understand that this life is an opportunity to give with complete abandon of self.

I am a happy woman, quick to laugh. I love to write. I love to read. I love to be helpful to my co-workers, to care for my husband, and to walk the dogs given into my custody. I even love Twitter, and the conversations I have with friends I may never hug because we are time zones and continents apart. I’m finding my way back to the joy. I’m planning a return to classes at the Writer’s Studio (NYC-based, but I take the online class), and would love to work and, someday, be admitted to the master class. I want to be the best writer I can be. I want to be able to move from my particular pains and into sharing the universal hope and promise. I know there are bad days (bad years!), but without all of that bad, I would never have reached the spiritual deficit I needed to experience before I could be open to another way of being. The intense experiences of 2014/early 2015 taught me that it is true: blessed are the poor in spirit.

As ever,

-aniko

Do you enjoy smart, surreal fiction? Become a member of the Odd Literati! Get instant access to free stories, plus a monthly update from me.

I’m heads-down on my revision. It is going well, and I am having fun again with my writing. There are several factors that contribute to the positive flow I’m experiencing. I believe they are all things that can apply equally well to any endeavor – including the all-important endeavor of living a good life.

In no particular order:

Witness Joy

Earlier this week, I got to sit in on a Geology for non-Geologists class. I’ll kick a rock down the road when I walk, but I don’t crouch down to check it out. The presenter at this class was a crouch-down-and-check-out-that-rock type of guy. He is passionate about geology. He is funny, knowledgeable, and a good presenter, but what shone brighter than all of those was his joy. It is a wonderful experience to witness someone talk about the things they love. It gives me hope that there is something warm at the core of what seems to be an inconsiderate and cruel existence. It makes me want to do things that matter to me. Witnessing joy enlivens my soul.

Give Back

At the beginning of the year, I decided I would write a GoodReads review for every book I finish in 2012. The reasoning was that not only would this help me be a better writer by learning from others, but it would also be a way to give back to the reading community. In July, I was struggling with my WIP and falling behind in my book reviews. When I counted up the number of books I needed to review, I was stressed. Epictetus says, “Everything has two handles, one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not.” I was grabbing my book review backlog by the wrong handle. I was looking at it as just another task, and not viewing it through the lens of my intentions. I am not just writing reviews: I am giving back to a community that I have belonged to for almost three decades. Sharing feels good. The simple fact is that feeling good is more beneficial to getting into a creative flow than feeling bad, so why not choose to frame situations in a way that make me feel good?

Fill Your Belly with KINDness

I am the Kind Bar evangelist! I love the sesame chocolate bar. I love the nutty crunch of the seeds enrobed in rich chocolate. It is a bit o’ rectangular heaven. It’s also healthy. I don’t live on Kind bars (mmm, to be so lucky!), but I do eat five small meals throughout the day, and include generous helpings of fresh veggies, seasonal fruit, yogurt – and yes, Kind bars. I have found that eating smaller meals more frequently has an amazing effect on my mood, concentration, and creativity. The sugar highs and subsequent crashes are bad memories. The late afternoon downslide of my mood due to hunger is a thing of the past. When I eat matters as much as what I eat. By sustaining my body thoughtfully, I can take on a lot more and still smile.

Be Intense

My time is fractured by demands that come in from all directions. Over the course of July, I realized that I was spending just as much time trying to switch between different tasks than I was spending actually doing the tasks. None of the tasks were things I was willing to drop, so I had to find a better way to manage my time. I tried blocking out sections of time within the day dedicated to different tasks, but the stress of working under constant mini-deadlines was stalling my productivity. What finally worked for me was to batch up similar tasks and pick a day in the future that would be dedicated to working through those tasks. The feeling of constantly struggling to keep up was replaced with a sense of control over how – and when – I get things done. I work, write, blog, love, laugh, read, and practice friendship in intense, single-minded bursts. When I go all in, the results are better than when I’m frazzled and fragmented. I hope this is a lesson I don’t forget.

Embrace Pandora

I was a write-in-silence kind of girl until I got stuck trying to figure out this WIP. All of my writer friends report great experiences writing while listening to music, and I bought some tracks from Amazon to play in the cloud (neat stuff). Those tracks came out of my book budget, so I can’t do that very often and still read. I ended up revisiting Pandora, the internet radio. I am not new to Pandora; I’ve listened to it for things like repainting my sunroom or scrubbing the house, but I’d never tried it while writing. It turns out that music does help me write. It pulls me through those dread blank pages, carrying me on the inspirations of other artists.

I’m working on learning to live a beautiful life. If I were one to believe in signs (and I am!), I’d believe I was on the right track. What else could seeing three shooting stars in one week mean?

May all your portents be good!

-aniko