Lesson Never Learned

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The Stones warned you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you never find what you need.

By Elizabeth Cutright

During the first year of our new lives in a small town, my family and I participated in a local fundraiser for the construction of a community pool.  I don’t remember too many specifics…I’m sure there were bake sales and raffles and door-to-door subscription efforts.  I do have clear memories of the day my cousin and I participated in an effort commonly called, “Clean Up Cayucos.”

Resplendent in our work clothes (lots of corduroy and terry cloth…don’t judge, it was the late 70s!), hair in braids and sneakers laced up tight, we jumped in the back of a pickup truck and joined about 100 other townspeople as we drove up and down city streets collected trash and scraps.  I didn’t question how this effort was actually raising money for the new pool, and looking back I am still more than a little confused as to the connection between the two, but I can still clearly hear the chanting voices as we raced up and down those small-town streets.

“Clean up CayUcos…Clean up CayUcos,” over and over again we cried as the trash bags overflowed and we pocketed small treasures collected along the way.

Months later, the community pool was complete and ready for its debut.  As you can imagine, the whole town was caught up in opening day excitement.  Admission would be free!  The forecast called for sunny skies!  There would be free ice cream!

Now, I lived in a slightly remote location at the time.  An easy bike ride to all the action, but still too young to be allowed to venture out on my own and so I was depended upon my parents for transportation.  Starting a new business is never easy, especially when you have little experience.  And so that first summer in our new town, my parents sweated and slaved away at their new venture – a 12 unit motel a block from the ocean and across the highway from the cemetery.  There was little time for elaborate family dinners or long afternoons in the park, or even short car trips to the center of town.

But I wasn’t worried.  My cousins had promised to come pick me up.  At least…that’s how I remember it.

This was during those dark ages before cell phones (or even ubiquitous answering machines), and so, when they failed to show up at 10am, I had little recourse but to call their home.

No answer.

My mother assured me they’d arrive shortly to whisk me away to the “event of the summer.”

Ten minutes later I called again.  And ten minutes after that.  Then the whining began.  I begged my mother to drop me off, but she was so very sure that they were on their way (our family cultivates tardiness the way some people cultivate award-winning roses), she kept stalling….there was just too much work to be done to prepare for the evening guests.

I called some more.  I swallowed some tears and kept trying, watching desperately as the sun slid past the high noon mark and started its slow, heavy, ponderously inevitable descent.

1pm…still no-shows, and at this point I could see my mother was worried.  Lunch sat untouched (how could a settle for a tuna sandwich when soft-serve vanilla was calling my name?).  I gritted my teeth and willed myself to be patient.  To have faith.

They would come…they would come….they would come.

I kept repeating that mantra, to the point where it morphed into a command. An invocation. A desperate prayer.

They never came.

Long past despondency.  Long past the tears and the bitter dissapointment.  Long past the time the idea of going to the pool even seemed remotely possible, the phone rang.

On the other end, my cousin.  Without preamble, she recounted her blissful day, describing the glory of the free ice cream (she even managed seconds!), reveling in her new bathing suit (a Mickey Mouse one-piece that was heartily and unabashedly admired by all our little pre-teen friends), and happily recounting all the high jinks and tomfoolery.

A glorious time was had by all.

I don’t know how I choked out my response.  Can’t remember if I phrased it as a question or an accusation.  I know I asked why they’d failed to pick me up.

“We thought your mom was going to drop you off.  Why didn’t she?”

And there it was.  A miscommunication that left a little girl reeling with disappointment.  An honest mistake.

The fact that I’m recounting this tale demonstrates how deeply it is etched in my psyche.  I wish I could say I’d learned the lesson, though I’m still not quite sure what that lesson might be.  I understand the need to temper expectation.  I am painfully familiar with the rule of unintended consequences.  And I understand that sometimes, things just can’t be helped.

But I’ve never mastered patience in the face of something I really, really want. I can spend days gripped with anticipation.  I will while away hours daydreaming about what may come to pass.  I will plan and plot and contrive to make it all go my way.

And when…as is sometimes the case…things just can’t be helped, I’m thrown right back to childhood and that little pig-tailed girl who waited all day for a ride to the pool.

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Challenge Accepted!

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What will you do in the next hundred days?
By Elizabeth Cutright

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch a good friend complete another chapter in her latest adventure. I’ve mentioned my adventures with Spruced and Mindy Nelson before, and last night Mindy graduated from the Women’s Economic Ventures (WEV) core 14-week Self-Employment Training course.

The main hall of the Montecito Country Club was packed with friends and family, all eagerly awaiting to see the graduates deliver their “elevator pitches” and receive their completion certificates.  As the evening’s event began, applause and appreciation could be felt all around, cradled by the rooms high-beamed ceiling and thick walls of spanish adobe.  Lights twinkled from massively stout chandeliers, and I as I waited for my friend’s presentation, I idly wondered if the fireplace anchoring room’s south side was big enough to fit a VW bug (or a Mini Cooper).

Each of the participating groups elected a member to speak about their experiences, and Mindy was her section’s representative.  She gave a speech entitled “The Next Hundred Days,” and in it she talked about what she and her fellow participants had accomplished over the course of the program (“we talked…we listened…we masterminded”).  Taking the theme further, Mindy discussed what they’ve overcome, what they’d learned, and what they planned to do with their next hundred days.

One of Mindy’s comments resonated with me in particular….

“What didn’t we do?,” Mindy she asked, “we didn’t get too discouraged…we didn’t stop supporting each other…and we didn’t give up.”

The speaker for the other WEV sections provided equally inspiring insights and calls to action.

“Sometimes we don’t know how strong we are until we don’t have a choice,” one speaker explained as she detailed her fight against cancer and how that challenge informed and influenced her WEV experience.

“We are all living different chapters of our own lives,” she went on to say, before thanking her fellow students, teachers and mentors.

Another speaker began by detailing her experience with sky diving, saying “1800 feet is just a number on a piece of paper when you’re signing up, but when you’re standing at the open door of that plain you wonder, ‘what am I doing?’”

“This program felt a lot like skydiving,” she added, before advising the crowd, “you’re not too old and you’re not too young,” to being a new life.

Addresses everyone in the room, one of the WEV instructors spoke about entrepreneurship as an act of faith.  He counseled current and aspiring entrepreneurs to make a plan, set some goals, establish accountability and “share your vision.”

“Sharing your vision reiterates your enthusiasm,” he explained. By talking about your project, telling your story, explaining your plan, you can inspire others to feel excited about your project. They’ll have faith you can succeed and that faith “lifts you up in unexpected ways.”

There really is nothing better than watching a friend succeed.  As Mindy flawless delivered her elevator pitch and gave us all a high-five as walked away from the podium to join the other graduates, I couldn’t help but think my own endeavors and projects…the ones I’ve completed…the ones I’ve abandoned…and especially the few that are still floating around out there, just waiting for a little TLC.

Regular followers of The Daily Creative Writer know that a few unexpected events (including a torturous move) derailed my blogging efforts.  While I’ve remained faithful to my morning pages and my Artist Dates (though somewhat less so), finding the time and inspiration to get to these pages has been difficult.

So I’m going to hitch a ride on Mindy’s coattails and see if I can’t pump a little energy back into all my creative writing endeavors.

Mindy finished her speech asking, “what will you do over the next 100 days?”

I know where I’ll be…

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Of Film, Life and Elevation

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I guess the balcony’s finally closed for good.
By Elizabeth Cutright

I never made the connection until today…. I’ve always figured my varied educational background (film studies followed by law school) was just a reflection of my quirky (and decidedly undecided) personality.

But maybe there’s more to it.  Movies and arguing… Debate and debut…  Memos and Montages…

Could be, there’s a natural relationship between the two. After all, when I broke the news to the head of our film department that I’d chosen law school over grad school, he took it in stride, revealing that he’d once studied law as well – before ending up as a professor of film theory.

“I think you’ll do quite well,” I remember him saying with a smile, “film analysis has a lot more in common with the study of law than you’d think.”

And in terms of framing an argument, presenting a point of view, or persuading your audience, he was absolutely right.

(Sadly, there are few film screenings during law school, though I was “lucky” enough to find myself smack dab in the middle of a criminal law class when the OJ Simpson trial began…an event surrounded by an aura of melodrama and cheap film noir).

But today, upon hearing the news of Roger Ebert’s passing, I realized that growing up in the era of Siskel and Ebert’s At The Movies, may have connected film and debate in my subconscious at a much earlier age.

I remember eagerly awaiting each installment of At The Movies (the “best of” specials and Oscar pre-show programs were my favorite), and while it was fun when Gene and Roger’s agreement reflected my own opinion, it was always better when they gave in to passionate disagreement.

Once, while reviewing an Oliver Stone Film (Natural Born Killers perhaps?), the heat in their discussion came from an unlikely source: they both agreed that the film was powerful on an emotional level – they had both felt sickened, upset and more than a little disturbed during their viewing – but while one of them (Siskel I think) believed the unpleasantness justified a “thumbs down,” the other felt the exact opposite.

The argument: by triggering an emotion, the film was a success.  You didn’t have to like what you were feeling – you could be angry or sickened or saddened – it was the triggering of emotion in the viewer that designated a filmic home run.

In one of his last blogs, Ebert revisited the idea of film evoking feeling when discussing his picks for the 2012 Academy Awards.

As he explained, he would be judging the latest crop of contenders based on whether they could trigger a sense of “elevation.”

He wrote, “A few years ago, I came across an article about the newly identified psychological concept of Elevation. Scientists claim it is as real as love or fear. It describes a state in which we feel unreasonable joy; you know, like when you sit quiet and still and tingles run up and down your back, and you think things can never get any better.”

Ebert once famously said, “No good film is too long, no bad movie is short enough.”

In this case, I think it’s safe to say that Ebert is a film that was not long enough.

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From Buzzfeed: 13 Things Roger Ebert Said Better Than Anyone Else
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Driving Around With A Car Full Of Books

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When life’s messy, inspiration abounds…but getting it all down on paper can be challenging.
By Elizabeth Cutright

I moved two weeks ago.  It was a chaotic, speed-of-light sort of life change.  The decisions were made compulsively, impulsively and powered by a need to “get it all sorted” before the momentum flung me aside like a kid who loses his grip on the merry-go-round.

Those of you who regularly read The Daily Creative Writer have no doubt notice my writing has not been so “daily” as of late.  I tend to get thrown off course when “real life” steps up its demand, and considering that experts count moving as one of life’s most stress inducing events (second only to death and divorce I believe…I could look that up, but I’m just gonna take it on faith for now), I’m giving myself a little bit of break for not meeting my regularly scheduled blog posting responsibilities.

Whenever I find myself adrift in one of these “stress storms,” my days seem to collapse upon each other.  Life shifts into deep focus and every element, every action, every outcome is spread out before me, crystal clear and layered like some sort of lunatic’s gauntlet.  I haven’t had time for distractions, and any waking hours not already consumed by the 9-5 shuffle have been dominated by unpacked boxes, un-hung curtains, and the many (many) hopes you jump through in order to get the cable guy to get your high-def HBO working just right (I may have to forgo some happy hours and fancy cheese thanks to my pricy new pad, but I will not give up my Game of Thrones).

Needless to say…I haven’t had the time to write.
Which is unfortunate, because even as I wade through my un-shelved books stranded in random corners of the apartment, and hopscotch over discarded clothes to find my makeup every morning, a mountain of creative ideas has been building up in the background, untidy and unattended but not ignored.

Driving the U-Haul I’ll think upon a friend’s recent travails with her ailing father-in-law and I’ll think, “there’s a story there.”  I’ll catch a glimpse of a (new) neighbor’s red chair leaning against a white stucco wall, precariously perched under a turquoise trimmed window housing a curious cat and I’ll ponder the (unwritten) poem that image invokes.

I reminisce about the old house – catching a glimpse of doorway in a group photo, or accidently driving towards my former neighborhood on the way home – and I realize that the characters that came and went over the years (the crazy girl who stole her roommates Master’s thesis and passed it off as her own, the random guy who always wore a neck brace, the infamous “Stompy-McPhee” who used to smoke cigarettes on the back porch clad only in a bra, a ratty robe and a beat-up pair of combat boots, the recovering addict who liked to explore crawl spaces and roofs in search of possible “infrastructure issues”) can some day live again on the page – as protagonists or villains, love interests or side-kicks, as victims or victors.

For the moment, I’m still trying to reorganize my living space – cramming 9-years worth of living into a small apartment is no easy feat – but I’m looking forward to the time when the days take on their regular rhythm.  When I can really get back to my morning pages, start planning some Artists Dates, and once again embody the goals and ambitions of The Daily Creative Writer.

In the meantime, I’ll be driving around with a trunk full of books that I just can’t bring myself to get rid of but no longer have a place at my hearth…

It’s a long, delicate process…. the art of letting go.

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On The Move…

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There’s a bit of dust up ahead for the Daily Creative Writer…I’ll be spending the next few days amongst boxes and U-haul trucks, repeating Garrison Keillor‘s mantra that “nothing bad ever happens to a writer, it’s all material.”
In the meantime – here’s a poem based on some recent “material.”

Private Validations

Cowards hiding behind smiles,
cloaked in feigned ineptitude,
agenda strapped firmly to your back.

You immerse yourself in platitudes,
fortified by contrived excuses.
The golden ring held firmly in your sights.

A wall of words and worthless sound.
You do it “cos you can”
Shrugging at consequence.

Head aimed at the horizon,
Justice rolls off you
like water gliding down a fowl’s back.

Secure, as always, in private validations.

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Writing Into Wellbeing.

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Photo by Eduardo Amorim on Flickr

Photo by Eduardo Amorim on Flickr

“Despair has no wings
nor does love
no faces”  Nudite de la verite, Paul Eluard
 

“Sounds like you’re doing really good,” a friend said at lunch the other day, and I just had to laugh.

Fooled them again.

Those closest to me know that I have been quite a mess lately.  There’s no denying it’s been a rocky fortnight, and I wasn’t doing such a great job of obscuring my agitation and anxiety.

In fact, I wasn’t even trying.

But storms cannot sustain themselves forever.  The winds eventually die out, and once the clouds have cleared and you survey the landscape, you realize that no matter how hard you’ve been battered, there’s always something left standing…even if it’s just a sad, Charlie-Brown-Christmas-Tree, a few leaves, a bedraggled ornament, a half-lit string of lights….

…and perhaps a tiny little gift, plainly wrapped and waiting to reveal its unexpected bounty.

Because – as cliché as it sounds (and it is very, very cliché) there’s always a silver lining if you look hard enough.  Or, as Edmund Spenser wrote in The Fairie Queen (Book V, Canto II, Verse 39),

Nor is the earth the lesser, or loseth ought,
For whatsoever from one place doth fall,
Is with the tide unto another brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought

So what have you lost lately that’s just waiting to be found?  What’s irreplaceable that can be replaced?  What seems like the end, but is really just the beginning?

In Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach advocates daily journaling, similar to the morning pages championed by Julia Cameron. If you’re anything like me, when the heat is on and you’re worrying about almost everything, your mind can – in the words of Ban Breathnach – “ grab hold of a single thought like a pit bull terrier with a bone and not let it go until I’m exhausted or lost interest.”

I also suffer from an active imagination, which allows me to visualize all the possible worst-case-scenarios of any given event in vivid detail.  Writing daily helps me deal with life’s many clusterfucks.  If I can get it all out on paper (or in a ranting email – some of my friends have certainly paid their sounding-board dues this week), then it suddenly doesn’t seem so overwhelming.  Solutions start to emerge, real-life demons transform into paper monsters that I can simple disregard with one long, slow, sigh of release and surrender.

“It is what it is,” had been my favorite refrain as of late.  At some point, I realized the smart thing to do was to stop struggling and just give in (I’m not saying I actually acted on this realization immediately, but the awareness was the first step).  My morning pages helped guide towards acceptance. Giving a voice to my inner monologue – which, sadly, more often than not resembles the rhythm, speed and cadence of the chicken who warned the sky was falling – was therapeutic and calming.  Writing takes longer than thinking, and so the words slowed my thought processes and brought some relief to the wild merry-go-round that had taken over my subconscious.

Writing provided a framework for my apprehension…a safe, tidy little corral where my worries could run free.  And returning every morning to that pasture to feed  and water those troublesome little devils re-established a pattern and pulse to my days.  “Stressed souls need the reassuring rhythm of self-nurturing rituals,” writes Ban Breathnach.

Or as Nancy Mair said, “I will write myself into well-being.”

Whether you’re a regular follower of The Daily Creative Writer, or new to the scene, now’s the time to contemplate morning pages or any daily writing that’s not intended for other’s eyes.  We’re ankle deep into the new year now, so the pressure’s off – nobody expects any more resolutions.

So make a commitment instead – a commitment to daily writing.  There’s never going to be a perfect time, so you might as well start now.

As Ban Breathnach reiterates, “ we can stop waiting for life to become perfect and start working with what we’ve got to make it as satisfying as we can.”

PS – I first heard the Fairie Queene in the film Sense and Sensibility.  Alan Rickman will steal your soul, so watch this clip at your own risk!

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“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies…”

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“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

By Elizabeth Cutright

This week marks the 200-year anniversary of the publication of one of my most favorite novels, Pride and Prejudice. While most people are familiar with the basic story – either through various BBC/Hollywood incarnations, or the Bridget Jones homage – in truth the language Jane Austen uses to tell her story of proud, judgmental and class-cross lovers plays a close second to plot in reasons why the novel is so beloved.

For example, when Mr. D’Arcy first proposes to Elizabeth, her fiery rejection is glorious.

‘From the very beginning- from the first moment, I may almost say–of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.’

And haven’t we all, at some point or another, given someone a piece of our mind only to find that after the tumult and the firestorm subsides, we feel a bit baffled, a bit empty, and a bit unsure of what we so sure about moments ago? After Elizabeth puts D’Arcy in his place, she’s left alone to reflect on what’s she’s said, and her confusion and consternation feels just as timely today as when it was written.

” The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for so many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend’s marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case–was almost incredible!–it was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride–his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane–his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine’s carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte’s observation, and hurried her away to her room.”

Who wouldn’t love to be on the receiving end of this humbling speech from an ex-lover?

“What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

And then, of course, this lovely bit at the end when Elizabeth asks D’Arcy why he was silent about his feelings for so long…

“What made you so shy of me when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not care about me?’

‘Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement.’

‘But I was embarrassed.’

‘And so was I.’

‘You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner.’

‘A man who had felt less, might.’

Swoon!

Pride and Prejudice can fool you into thinking your reading a fairly predictable romance, but look a little closer and you’ll see the sly trick Austen is playing on the reader. Amongst the narrative twists and turns, you’ll find a world that’s not so different from the one we live in today.

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well,” confesses Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. “The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense,”; a timely sentiment, no matter what the era.

Elizabeth Bennett is one of my favorite literary heroines. She’s not perfect; she makes some silly assumptions and perhaps demands too much from her friends and family. She expects much from those she loves, and finds herself startled on more than one occasion when what she’s confronted with a truth that completely negates her assumption. She’s smart enough to understand the injustice of the society she inhabits, but can be blind to her own awareness of the realities that shape her world.

Last year, when I first started this blog, I used the opening section of Pride and Prejudice for a writing exercise, transforming Mrs. Bennett’s conversation with her long suffering husband over the marriageability of their brood of daughters and the eligible bachelor who’s just arrived in their neck of the woods, into a meditation on making tuna sandwiches. It was fun to play around with a piece of writing that’s so familiar, and trying out different genres or writing styles can sometimes help bring a fresh perspective to your own literary efforts.

So happy birthday Pride and Prejudice! If you ask me, you don’t look a day over 50…

Click here for Slate’s slideshow on the Pride and Prejudice book-cover evolution.

And for those Colin Firth fans, YouTube comes to the rescue with Mr. D’Arcy’s first proposal…

Also, see if you agree with Rachel Syme who writes in Slate, “You deserve better than Mr. Darcy.”

Finally, which Pride and Prejudice Character are you? A handy flowchart.
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