fearless : so not part of it

“Fearless is so not part of it. If you’re fearless, there’s something wrong. The fear part is how you know you’re close to the truth. It’s how you know you’re close to something that matters. If you’re fearless, you’ve probably done it a thousand times.”

— Lynsey Dyer, professional freestyle skier, in Lucia Issue Two : Perfection

April 15, 2016 - Daily Notes

This week, I met Lucia's design advisor, Karly, for dinner on a sailboat. She swung through town and in exchange for her creative work had been offered a few nights' stay on a 32-foot floating beauty. She invited me to come for kale salad, wine and to talk Lucia.

It was Tuesday and it was raining. I was exhausted from waking up at 5:00 a.m. to help support one of my clients hosting Hillary Clinton for an Equal Pay Day event in New York. My job was to be a scribe; to watch the live broadcast, listen carefully, and quickly write a press release re-capping the event.

That work, my day job, is what enables me to continue going with Lucia right now. It also requires my full attention most weekdays. Pivoting from that headspace into the softer heart place from which I can write, speak, plan, manage, envision and create Lucia does not happen on a dime.

It stopped raining so we decided to go for a walk through Golden Gardens, the beach next door to the marina. Climbing out of the boat, Karly asked, "So, what's your plan for funding Lucia from here forward?"

Karly has a way of asking direct questions. I have a way of not being able to give succinct answers. Her question hit the center of my tired brain and I could feel the stem where fear lives rile up. The electrical charge moved out into my limbs and then back in again where it squeezed my gut enough to send my defenses straight up. I squirmed.

"Or, do you not want to talk about that? We can talk about something else," she said. 

The only thing I dislike more than fear is letting it have its way. For my 34th birthday my parents gave me a card with a photograph of a small kitten sitting in a giant food bowl labeled "DOG." The kitten's wide eyes revealed terror, determination and optimism all at once.

"We can talk about it, sure," I said solidly, as my big leather boot stepped off the boat onto the concrete dock. 

"I don't know yet and it scares me," I heard myself say. What ensued was an hour-long exploration the whole uncomfortable topic. No hard or fast answers appeared, but I did hear myself speak truth. I listened to Karly's ideas. I stayed in the bowl.

Good advisors, I think, are not people who have all of the answers. They do not always have more experience than you. Good advisors are the people who care enough to ask you the hard questions.

Karly fed me gourmet chocolate when we returned to the sailboat and gently steered our conversation back to design, editorial, and the only slightly less terrifying topic of my love life. 

That kitten in the dog bowl is not fearless and neither am I. But the idea of making friends with the dog--of figuring out this puzzle and succeeding--is more exciting than it is fearful. So I keep going.

I must. You must. We all must. Fearless is so not part of it.

xo
laura

heart of april

April 5, 2016 - Daily Notes

For five days now, I have been using the mind in my chest. I had forgotten, for awhile, how it feels. Then, like a funny April Fool's joke on Friday the sensation re-appeared, thrumming from the inside. It coaxed me to listen; to stop thinking so that I can know.

Listening with your heart is a return, a drop down into the space, the organ, as it beats. It is feeling the soft pressure of each pulse, the way it moves against the inside of your body. Thoughts here are wordless. Feeling, sensation, instinct rules.

Returning to the heart, I am that lioness again. I embody what is most wild about her as I realize lionesses do not have thoughts made of words like we do. They think with their entire bodies. They must. When resting on her rock in the savannah, a lioness can feel her heart beating. She can feel her entire world with it. She perceives what is true not by mental analysis, but pure sensation.

Thinking too much does not give me answers. Listening does. Heart feels strong and receptive to what is true.

It is April now, and the pace of life is quickening. I get nervous about growing Lucia, all of the ideas I have and how will I have time to bring them to life? Brain becomes busy and wants to drive the bus, organize the things, boss body around.

But every morning and every night I have been pausing to place my hand on my heart. I close my eyes. I breathe into those thoughts and coax them down, down, down into heart. Sometimes, if I stay still like this long enough, I can even feel my heart pulsing on two sides. Wow, is there tenderness. Maybe this is what it is like to know truth. Sometimes tears come. Brain gets excited and wants to explain them, cure them, make them into something that can be fixed.

"Hush," heart says, somehow. "Listen. You know."

Welcome, April.

xo
laura

faithfully doubtful

“There can’t be any true faith that isn’t susceptible to enormous sieges of doubt. ”

— Adam Gopnik on On Being - Practicing Doubt, Redrawing Faith

March 29, 2016 - Daily Notes

Last night before yoga, I was sitting next to a beautiful woman. I know her a little. We've spoken before, about art school. She's attending. She is not in her twenties.

It was a brave thing to do, leaving her job and going back to school to study art. One year ago I remember she was questioning whether she had made the right decision.

So last night I asked her, "How is art school going?" She told me the first term had been filled with self-doubt but this second term is different, better. I could see it it in her eyes and to me it looked like confidence.

I asked her, "What is your favorite part of the experience right now?" She thought about it, then told me it is the slow unfolding of making something that happens by simply showing up for it every day.

The hardest part, she told me, is really just getting there. Once she is at school it is like being on a slide and everything glides down into form. Day by day.

She said it feels like faith and doubt. As though her faith in her own ability to create is being formed by and could not exist without her uncertainty, her hesitation, her insecurity.

I thought about an interview I heard last autumn on OnBeing with the author, Adam Gopnik. Something he said struck the chord in my heart that often says, "write this down" and so I did. He said, "There can't be any true faith that isn't susceptible to enormous sieges of doubt." 

Sitting there on my mat, my mind instantly wound from this woman's story to my own. Yes, there are days I feel confident that starting Lucia was the right thing to do. I do have faith it will succeed. Sometimes. But there are also days when I have enormous sieges of doubt.

So I come back to my journals, my circle of women friends, my heart. I sit at my computer and write a small blog post before starting my "real" work day. I do my best to get to myself to my version of art school. I show up. This is my faith. It is in motion, in progress, fluid, and full of doubt. Faithfully doubtful.

Maybe the questioning of our own abilities is what causes us to look for something larger than ourselves. Maybe that "something larger" lies in the simple act of showing up for our work each day. Bit by bit, we make. We practice faith and we create.

xo
laura