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I have been feeling stuck. And, it’s been getting worse.
How do I know? Because my library has grown at an exponential rate for the last few weeks.
It’s kinda of like getting a cold. First I feel a little out of sorts, then some body aches, a fever and then before I know it I can’t get out of bed in the morning.
I’ve had these systems before. I recognize them now, or thought I did.
Whenever I come to a crossroads and begin feeling stuck, confused or unsure, I begin looking for answers.
I feel a little out of sorts. I peruse my library and choose a few books to re-read.
My body begins to ache. The search expands and I need new books, more books, more ideas, more stories, more information.
My fever rages higher and my need for information and answers becomes all consuming.
In the final stages, I am so sick I can barely move and I can’t get out of bed. All around me is the evidence of the cold I have been fighting. There are books everywhere, on every surface, in every corner.
I know to watch for the symptoms. But, this time, just like getting a real cold, I ignored the signs and kept myself so busy I didn’t see it coming.
That is until I hit the submit button on Amazon.com last night for three new books. That makes seventeen new books in the last fourteen days!! I know for sure because I just counted them.
They are not quick and easy reads. Only one of them was a novel. All the rest are non-fiction titles. Creativity. Marketing. Writing. Spirituality. Web design and development. Diet and nutrition. Memoirs and biographies.
I will read them all eventually. I just can’t read at the same rate as I am buying them.
But, the real reason I went on this book binge was to find an answer. An answer that can’t be found in a book.
I know that the answers aren’t ‘out there’. They are inside of me. Books and the knowledge they contain can point me in the right direction and help me discover places I may not have found on my own.
But eventually I have to stop, get quiet and turn inward. And, I have to stay there for awhile. No matter how uncomfortable it gets. I’ve been here before and I know from experience it can get mighty uncomfortable. I just need to stay quiet and listen. I have to let go and eventually the outside noise, the chatter, the static, will move to the background and I will hear and see the answers I seek.
It is just like fighting a cold. There is no way to hurry the illness along. It’s uncomfortable, and painful, but eventually it passes.
The hardest part is not knowing how long it will last.
But, just like fighting a cold, the fever will finally break and then there is the recovery period which can last a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months.
It is in this recovery period where I will eventually find the answers I seek.
And, maybe, while I rest and recover, I’ll read a few books.
Yesterday, Sunday, I took a break and disconnected. Other than turning on my laptop for five-minutes to print something my husband absulutely needed yesterday, I did just what I said I would.
No computer, no email, no Twitter.
It was easier than I thought it would be.
Mainly because disconnecting doesn’t mean doing nothing.
I read a new book I will be reviewing on Thursday. I played with the ideas in the book, made a few notes and sketched out the review.
I bought a new notebook, one made from recycled fiber instead of new trees, 6×8 instead of 8×12, a cover with flowers instead of just plain and I wrote in it using a green ink pen instead of my standard purple. I wrote long hand all day. The changes felt good.
And, while writing I contemplated a lot of new ideas, ideas for me, for you and for The Dreaming Cafe. Most are still just thoughts and notes. But, we’ll see where they go.
Note to self:
Finish The Dreaming Cafe newsletter by Saturday night and send it before I go to bed.
Take Sunday’s off to rest and disconnect.
That means…
*No computer, no email, no Twitter
*Read
*Write longhand
*Cook
*Play
*Relax
*Watch a few episodes of Murder She Wrote
*Write longhand
*Read some more
*Go to bed early, sleep, Monday comes fast
I finally bought a digital camera. I’ve wanted one for a long time. I even wrote about feeling envious when a friend bought his new digital camera last month.
I fretted about this purchase for weeks and drove myself crazy reading reviews and comparing brands. I always do this to myself. I researched my last two cars for two years prior to buying them. It took me over six months of reading reviews before I finally bought my Amazon Kindle.
Standing in Best Buy, with one of the top-rated $600+ digital cameras in my hand, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money. I wasn’t an avid photographer. I just wanted a camera to play with, that was easy to use, one that the kids would stop walking away in disgust when they asked ‘let me see’ and realized I didn’t have a digital display and, finally, I just wanted something simple so I could put post pictures here, on my website.
I threw caution to the wind (well as best as I knew how) and for the next hour picked up, held, turned on and took pictures with just about every digital camera under $200 they had on display. (I deliberately avoided the really nice, expensive cameras.)
I settled on a silver Sony Cybershot DSC-S950 with 10.1 mega pixels, a 4x optical zoom and a 2.7″ LCD screen.
Here are some of my first attempts…
My office at ‘work’…
My office at ‘home’…
‘Work’ office is bigger, but ‘home’ office is more comfy.
Picture of a Picture…
This pictures hangs in my home office. It is a page torn from a coloring book of an ice cream cone I colored when I was 4-years and 5-months old. That’s a picture of me in the corner at the same age.
I colored ‘in the lines’, using almost every crayon in the box, with boundaries well defined for each patch of color.
This reminds me that who I am, is who I’ve always been. I am orderly, precise and neat, a left-brained trait that coexists easily with my right-brained traits of a love of bright colors, the ability to see the whole picture, as well as its parts, and a creative streak that needs to be expressed.
A work in progress…
Last fall, while sitting outside under the shade and tree’s, I decided I wanted to paint.
I went to the craft store to buy myself a gift. It took hours to decide. A beginners acrylic paint set, including black and white and a rainbow of bright colors, jumbo toothpicks to write with, an assorted pack of multi-sized brushes and a virgin wooden box just waiting for me to cover it.
I sat outside and painted all day, but still didn’t finish it…maybe someday.
Symbols of a dream, a mission, a journey…
A dream…a simple black frame decorated with symbols that remind me of a cafe, The Dreaming Cafe.
A mission…a quote, that when I first read it, thought, “that’s me”.
A journey…a golden globe that symolizes beauty, adventure and exploration of the unknown.
The quote:
“To grow, to learn, to experience, to contribute, to share, to be intensely in the moment in which you are living, to get the most out of everything that happens to you and to realize that we are all here to contribute and share.” Helen Nearing
Comment or reply below. (Be gentle, these are my first ever pictures with a my new digital camera.)
Sarah Susanka is a registered architect, a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and is a certified interior designer.
I discovered Sarah through her first book The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live (Susanka).
This book and her ‘not so big’ design theories began as a personal search for meaning and led to the writing and publication of her first book in 1998. It focuses on quality versus quantity when designing and building or remodeling a home. It helps provide a blueprint and the language needed to build a home that “emphasis comfort, beauty, and a high level of detail.”
Her personal evolution and series of books written around her ‘not so big’ philosophy’ has led to her to be described as a “cultural visionary“.
The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters
carries her design theories even further. Just as she emphasis quality over quantity and thoughtful design when building or remodeling a home, she applies these same theories to building a life around the important things.
Each chapter is written around a single design or architectural theory. She gives a brief description of how the theory is used in design and than expands on each topic detailing how it can be applied in your personal life. Each chapter is enhanced with stories from her own life. We follow along as her personal journey unfolds and she explores and applies these theories in her own life. She goes further by inviting the reader to explore these concepts by providing exercises at the end of each chapter and with ‘your turn’ boxes that ask questions to help you define these theories for yourself.
This book is part design, part memoir, part self-help.
It is one of my favorite books, but it is not one you can absorb in one sitting or even one reading. There is a lot packed into this small book. It is truly a physical manifestation of Sarah Susanka’s ‘not so big theory’.
Book layout
Principle: Composition
Chapter 1 Title: Blueprint for a New Way of Living
Exercise: Preparing Your Not So Big Life Notebook
Principle: The Process of Entering
Chapter 2 Title: Noticing What Inspires You
Exercise: Identifying the Significant Moments in Your Life
Principle: Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better
Chapter 3 Title: Identifying What Isn’t Working
Exercise: Understanding Your Relationship to Time
Principle: Openability
Chapter 4 Title: Removing the Clutter
Exercise: Revealing the Underpinnings of Your Personality
Principle: Interior Views
Chapter 5 Title: Listening to Your Dreams
Exercise: Exploring Your Dreamworld
Principle: Reflecting Surfaces
Chapter 6 Title: Learning to See Through The Obstacles
Exercise: Developing a Watcher
Principle: Light to Walk Toward
Chapter 7 Title: Improving the Quality of What You Have
Exercise: Experiencing presence
Principle: Point of Focus
Chapter 8 Title: Creating a Place and a Time of Your Own
Exercise: Making a Time and a Place for Solitude
Principle: Layering
Chapter 9 Title: Proceeding Through the Construction Process
Exercise: “I am not a thought”
Principle: Pattern and Geometry
Chapter 10 Title: Moving Into Your Not So Big Life
Exercise: Changing your Behavior
Principle: Alignments
Chapter 11 Title: Maintaining Your Newly Remodeled Life
Exercise: Year-end Ritual
Principle: Inside Outside
Chapter 12 Title: Being at Home in Your Life
Note: The only drawback to the paperback version is the font is very small.
It’s 4am. I’m wide awake. Get out of bed. Brush my teeth. Make coffee. Make tea. Meditate. Shower and eat.
Turn on my laptop. Turn on a lamp. Stare at the wall. Think a few thoughts. Smile. Relax. Write and write and write some more. Ideas fly freely. Words flow from my fingertips. I look at the clock. Wow, it’s late. Where’d the time go? It’s 715. It’s time to leave.
Shifting gears.
In the car. Sit in traffic. Stop and go. Blow the horn. Now I’m hungry. Exit the highway. Stop for a bagel. Now I’m late.
Sit in my office. Look at the clock. Stare at the wall. Look at the clock. Think a few thoughts. Look at the clock. Get back to work I tell myself. Look at the clock. Spreadsheets and numbers. Look at the clock. Problems to solve. Look at the clock. Stare at the wall. Look at the clock. Think a few thoughts. Look at the clock. Get back to work I tell myself. Look at the clock. Project schedules. Look at the clock. Cost projections. Look at the clock. Meetings and conference calls that go on forever. Look at the clock. Time moves slow. Finally, it’s 515 and time to go.
Pack my bag. Walk out the door. Daylight savings time. The sun still shines. In the car. Sit in traffic. Stop and go. Blow the horn. Now I’m hungry. I’ll wait ‘til I get home.
Pull in the driveway. It’s after six. Home at last. Change my clothes. Eat some dinner. Chat with my husband. Relax a bit.
Shifting gears.
Turn on my laptop. Turn on a lamp. Stare at the wall. Think a few thoughts. Smile. Relax. I am happy at last. Ideas fly freely. Words flow from my fingertips. I write and write and write some more. I look at the clock. Wow, it’s late. Ten o’clock? Where’d the time go?
Crawl into bed. Thoughts won’t leave me. Where’s my pen? Can I write in the dark? Can’t you sleep, my husband asks? I close my eyes and try again. I take a deep breath. Tomorrow’s a new day. Finally, exhausted I drift into dreams.
It’s 4am. I’m wide awake.
It’s harder today. This shifting gears.
I didn’t know it’d be like this.
I didn’t realize it’d be this hard.
Straddling two worlds and shifting gears.
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