Something good :)

Writing poetry about hard things is easy in a way.

But, what about that whisper from inside that says good things are coming?

The things you've waited for, even silently, as they seemed too big to speak?

They are in motion.

They are nearly here.

All you must do is keeping going.

Keep crossing that bridge.

On the other side, it's still just life, but something sweet is there waiting.

My morning pages are usually a list of my mundane worries, to-do list, things I am mulling over for the 64th time. But today this came out! A strangely auspicious premonition...I guess we'll see!

Still, it reminded me of this from Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things:

"Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.”

I also made my TikTok debut this week with something very important! I look kind of serious--please! know this is concentration--not me thinking I'm a serious dancer.

https://www.tiktok.com/@michelledwhipple

A new direction

I've been mulling it over and I've decided to take a slightly new direction in this space. You can still expect essays but I'm going to put a little more emphasis on poetry and art and creativity in general. And joy in the midst of life that's always shifting and challenging and sometimes just shitty. Think smaller posts more often. Okay? Okay. I'm stoked. See you soon.

A Well-Tended Muse

Did you know I have not one muse, but several?!?

Okay, why are we talking about muses?

It’s because I get stressed about all the fun things I can do with my life. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, you know?

I'm writing poetry, learning to play the ukulele, cooking, baking, doing preschool science experiments, gardening, planning an epic, layered-rug configuration for my bedroom floor, and I love all of these things. But I’m also writing a book and I try to show up here on the blog with regularity and I work and I’m a mom and often it feels like there are not enough hours in the day.

This is how muses came on the scene. 

You see, I was talking to my therapist about how I get noise in my head that I’m not giving enough attention to each thing. It gets really heavy sometimes.

Barbara, in her brilliance, informed me that I have several muses. (Muses are the 9 goddesses of the arts and sciences, who are tasked with providing humans with inspiration for their given theme.)

“One for poetry, one for music, one for visual art, one for cooking, one for writing…” et cetera, et cetera! And they are like kids, where they get a little jealous when you spend more time with one of the siblings. “But you just have to learn how to talk to them, so they know you love them and will make time for them,” she said. 

At first this felt like relief. Okay, I’m not a bad parent to my muses, I just can’t dedicate myself to all of them simultaneously. But as I’ve thought about it more, it’s morphed into this really fun thing.  

Liz Gilbert writes about muses in Big Magic. She explains that often our muses are standing in the corner, waiting for us to sober up, wake up, clean up and get back to work. Inspiration isn’t being stingy with us, rather WE are the ones who are stingy with inspiration. And the basic premise of her book is that the healthiest life for you, is the life that will produce the most creative existence. So take care of yourself in all the ways and treat your muse like a hot date. Put on make up, wear something nice, eat a good meal and get busy with creativity. 

Ever since that little insight, I have been having so much fun with my sweetheart muses.  I would add that there is one for motherhood, one for work, one for housework—all of those kinds of things too, because those things, though they are less self-indulgent, still require inspiration and enthusiasm—or at least they are SOOOO much more fun that way. 

So, I have this little family of muses around me excited to engage with me! And I’ve been thinking about what they like. What they don’t like. What are their favorite foods, activities, times of day? What’s the best way to hang out? Where do they like to go? And here’s what I’ve got so far:

Poetry Muse: 

Likes nighttime, sometimes early morning too. She’s sexy and fun and laughs a lot. She can get into those intense brooding moods too. She likes nature, likes alcohol. And caffeine—I remembered this because one of my most prolific episodes as a poet occurred when I was camping with my family as a teenager. I drank a Coke with dinner and laid awake with my sleeping sisters in the tent until the middle of the night writing poem after poem. They were completely silly—but I remember that night all these years later—and that’s significant.

Music Muse: 

This muse is responsible for dancing and singing and playing musical instruments. She likes freedom. I think the best gift I gave her was the years I spent studying piano, not because I became a ridiculously mediocre pianist, but I gave her a way to express herself. Leaning into playing by chords came so naturally to her. And now if I can train my fingers to crimp around that tiny ukulele neck, she will have another medium to work in. Music muse works more for the joy of the experience than my others. She is less concerned about perfection. More about the experience. How does it FEEL to dance and play and sing? That’s much more important to her than the executed product. 

Work Muse: 

Likes caffeine. She does her best in the morning and everything kind of falls off after that. She lives for feeling competent and does not like being told what to do unless she asks.  She’s like a well-functioning assembly line. Yes to productivity and efficiency and effectiveness! She hates waste, likes big ideas. She hates getting bogged down with details unless she is moving through them like an assassin. 

Mother Muse: 

She loves home because it’s the best place to relax and putter. She likes the presence of child and little dog. She sounds like happy playing, dancing in the kitchen, food on the stove, clean laundry in the dryer. She likes to say yes and talking about important things, like first crushes and big feelings and airplanes. She wants kisses and cuddles and teeth brushed and toys picked up.

Visual Art Muse:

She’s got eyes! Inspired by faces, color, simple lines. Willing to experiment. She has taste. She lives for the flow state. Which seems to occur most often when seated at a table with some music, paper and color. She likes working alongside of friends. She likes challenge.

Cooking Muse:

Says, “I can do that.” She’s got a lot of confidence because she got used a lot in my last decade of life. So she’s in a kind of semi retirement. I’m happy to see her when she’s here. I’m equally happy to give her the night off and order take out. Same goes for my crafting, sewing, knitting muse.

Garden Muse:

Likes pretty flowers, soil, cool, shady vibes, power tools and big-idea thinking. Hates weeding (my neighbors are like…uh yeah—can you do something about that?). Hates getting poked by thorns. She reminds me of my mama (who just became jealous the other day when I told her about all the good weeding I have to do!).

Okay! so you get the idea and now you can go make your own list of muses. But not because it will make you more efficient or proficient. This is about fun! This is a tool for when hobbies feel heavy. Please don’t belabor them with things like efficiency. 

Once you know your muses, then you get to enjoy them. For some reason it’s easier to care for external creatures than it is for myself, so here’s how I look at it:

I get to hang out with these awesome muses. I take them shopping, we get food, we exercise, we watch TV in addition to all of the things I listed above. 

It’s completely lightened up the responsibility I take very seriously, to live an extraordinary life.

I have helpers.

I take care of them and they take care of me.

This is the beauty of a well-tended muse.

Be bad at ANYTHING

I’m a big advocate of journaling.  The habit of indulging myself on the page has become a life-changing, enriching, emboldening, expansive endeavor.  I write about stupid things.  I joke that if my posterity ever read my journal they’ll be like, “Who is [fill in the blank] for whoever is causing drama in my psyche?”

“It’s not important!” I’ll reply. 

“Yeah, but that name is mentioned like 7000 times in here!” And because it's in a word document they can ctrl+F and actually get an accurate count. *Sigh.*

Then I’ll reply with some sage wisdom about how what is going on in life is always more about you and less about the other people that step in to fill certain roles.

Because it’s been such a helpful tool for me, I have trouble not advising everyone to journal all the time.   But this isn’t fair—because some of us aren’t writers!  What if someone told me, Michelle, I really need you to sculpt this life experience—like pour it all into a sculpture.  Make me know what you are feeling and doing and being in this moment with clay…or worse—marble.

I would respond with a lot of fear and drama in my head because I know nothing about sculpture.  I could do it.  I’m confident of that.  If I applied myself, I could produce some piece of sculpture that would represent a piece of me.  It might take me 30 years but I could do it.  But WRITING is so much EASIER--for me!

So there is something to are said for picking a medium of expression that feels somewhat natural.  Maybe you have some skill with drawing or photography or singing or welding metal fragments.  There are so many ways to express oneself--the point is to pick one!

What holds us back from picking one is the inner critic.  It’s the voice that develops at some point between the time we are first introduced to crayons and the seventh grade.  It’s the voice that says, You aren’t any good at this.  This is stupid.  No one wants to read this.  That drawing doesn't even look like a person.  That critic becomes somewhat helpful as we navigate school, friends, college and career selection.  That voice can push us into areas where we have natural ability.  But eventually it becomes a crippling companion.  It’s the Tanya Harding brute force that takes us out at the knees.  It’s ugly.

So the first step is in identifying the voice of that critic.  When it pipes up, just take note, hear what it says.  Then realize that you are not bound to it.  You are free to be BAD at anything you put your mind to!  

There it is.

You can do anything as long as you’re willing to be bad at it.

You are hereby liberated!

So the choice in medium becomes less important—do what fills you in this moment!  I’ll admit, writing was a natural choice for me.  I chose it because I felt I was already a little good at it.  That’s okay!  And some days I draw and I’m really VERY mediocre at drawing but, when I’m most successful is when I’m willing to be bad at it!  I like drawing and maybe some day I’ll take some classes and figure out how to be better at it, but why should that stop me from expressing myself that way now!?!

There’s an unspoken rule, once you reach real adulthood (I’m not talking age 18—I mean the time in life when you can really do you) that you should only do things you are good at.  That rule is silly.  And it sucks.  Literally it sucks all the fun out of life.

Recently, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the piano.  I took lessons from age 8-15.  I *should* be quite proficient with that amount of lessons under my belt, but I’m just okay.  That just-okayness held me back from playing for years and years!  And I LOVE playing the piano.  Finally I decided that was silly.  When I got a piano in my home, I considered taking lessons to get myself up to a proficient state, but then I chucked that idea right out.  NO!  I’m going to allow myself to be bad at it. Taking lessons so I feel worthy to grace an instrument I love with my music was so silly.  I’m worthy right now.

I’m taking opportunities to challenge myself in this way.  I selected some challenging songs that I love.  One of them is from A Star Is Born and performed by Lady Gaga.  I do my best to play and sing like Lady Gaga, which is hilarious!  But I tell you what!  I get a lot closer to sounding like Gaga by shamelessly TRYING than I ever did by playing small.  You won’t see me on America’s Got Talent EVER, but if you want a private, amateur performance in my living room—then I’m your gal!  And all that’s changed is my willingness to be bad at it.

The same thing applies to surfing.  Every time I paddle out, I face some of the same old insecurity demons.  Then I just decide I’m totally fine being the worst surfer in the water and sometimes I am, and sometimes that mentality allows me to immerse myself so fully into surfing I completely forget about the ranking system and just surf!

I love how Mark Nepo describes this.  He says that when we are gifted with something, it’s tradition to be told that we should become that thing.  If I’m decent at writing, people will say, “You should be a writer.”

“But the power is in the DOING, not the in the BEING,” Mark says.  The power is in the verb, not the noun.  So forget about being a writer, and write!  Forget about being a singer, and sing!  Forget about being a surfer, and surf!  Focus on the verb!  Do the thing!  Pick the medium!  Be the YOU doing the things that bring you to life!

This is my commitment to myself—to continue to allow me to be bad at things—because that’s where all the power and all the life is!  Here’s your permission slip to do the same!  Namaste.

Kids are the best examples of immersion. R just spent 90 minutes outside tonight relocating muddy water in cupfuls to different locations in the yard...mud might be his preferred medium...