I'VE MOVED!

Fridaville has been redesigned. Please find me at www.fridaville.com, and be sure to sign up to receive "Postcards from Fridaville" for creative prompts, fun finds and weekly inspirations, coming soon.

Thanks,

Nikki

Searchlight

I went to an amazing workshop led by the poet David Whyte this weekend, and when I came home after the last session today, I pulled out this print by Olivia Jeffries that I bought on Etsy a year or so ago and decided to use it again but in a totally different context this time. It was on my mind because I realized I've been asking myself for months now, "What am I looking for?" and trying to push my way through to an answer right now. And for months, I've come no closer to finding it, becoming more agitated and frustrated as time went by. But at some point during this retreat, my question changed to, "What is looking for me?" That is a huge shift for me, because it suggests that there is a calling waiting for me that I need to spend time preparing the ground for, but not trying to force into bloom like paperwhite bulbs in the dead of winter. I'm only two months into this Year of Change that I've declared for myself, but just making it an official pilgrimage, if only to myself, has made me attentive to all sorts of messages coming to me from seemingly random sources that I might have ignored a year ago. A year ago I wouldn't have signed up for, didn't sign up for, this transformative workshop when it was offered. A year ago the poems that were read might not have lighted up the darkness for me in the way they did this time. A year ago I might not have been ready. But looking back, I can see that all the while, the field was being prepared in the darkness, the seeds being planted. The search that I'm on, the big decisions and change that I'm aiming myself toward, seem a bit less arduous and maddening knowing that while I have work to do on my part, something is looking for me as intently as I am looking for it.

Doing my Homework

I'm slowly making my way back into keeping a regular journal, working at it from different directions. The gluebooky way above in which I slap on some gesso and glue down things that seem to want to go there. I'm also keeping a journal of my year of change, trying to figure out if synchronicity is working in my life, if what seems to be chance is really a harbinger or messenger of change. I'm thinking about what happens in my life every day to see if I can find instances of change at work or if I'm taking steps myself to prepare for change in this transitional phase of my life. The other journal I'm keeping is the one-sentence-a-day diary proposed by Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project. I'm writing that one in the little 5 Year Diary by Tamara Shopsin. Oops and I forgot...Fridaville is being redesigned with some fun things planned like weekly "Postcards from Fridaville" sent out to people who sign up for them, so I'm keeping a journal of ideas on that. All in addition to my day job, for which I have a Skirt! Magazine notebook to keep me focused on coming issues. Just writing all of that down makes me feel unfocused and crazy -- should I just have one notebook that all of this goes into? The separate ones seem to help me keep my different roles and goals separate, but I don't know...maybe I'm just spinning my wheels. And I don't want one of those 5-subject spiral notebooks from school because they make me think of warm cafeteria milk and math assignments I never finished. Big shiver down my spine just imagining it. How do you keep track of all your projects?

Nana Says...

I grew up clueless about so many things: how to use eyeshadow; how to eat an artichoke; how to pronounce "forte"; how to drive a stick shift. So I'm amusing myself by periodically adding to a list of advice for the little girls in my life. Most likely they will have figured all this and more out by the time I give it to them and laugh behind their backs at poor benighted Nana.

1. Learn how to apply lipstick without a mirror.

2. Put your napkin in your lap as soon as you sit down.

3. Don't date men who wear baseball caps indoors.

4. You may be the apple of someone's eye, but don't act like you're the center of the universe.

5. No one looks good chewing gum.

6. There's probably a time and place for blue eye shadow, but no one has discovered it so far.

7. Never talk on a cell phone when you're checking out in the supermarket.

8. Those no-parking fire lanes in front of Starbucks? They don't mean "no parking except for your car."

9. For god's sake, spell check your resume!

10. Your wedding shouldn't be the high point of your life.

11.There's no such thing as "settling down." Life happens.

12. Always wear red underwear in case you take a fall in your high heels.

10 Things to Do This Week

1. Have one fresh, green idea. Not just the dull, rusty I'm-in-hibernation green of my frostbitten jasmine vine or the I-might-be-dying green of the bamboo plant I'm nursing on my porch. I want sap-running green, neon green, spring-onion green...tender green shoots promising succulent, tasty projects.

2. Make a map of my day, inspired by Sara Fanelli's kids' book on maps.

3. Work my word for 2010: Change!

4. Make one drawing/watercolor a day no matter how amateurish it looks.

5. Pick something to work on from The Happiness Project.

6. Plan a winter party. Guest list, pinata, new dress, cases of Prosecco, candles candles candles, party cds, glitter.

7. Believe someone is going to rock my world in a good way this year. Please, no rocking my boat, only my world.

8. Love my wrinkles. Or at least be good friends with them. Okay, maybe shake hands with them and have a cup of coffee.

9. Think sexy thoughts. Absolutely necessary for creative mental juiciness.

10. Try writing in the new coffee shop near my office. New thoughts? New ideas? New sense of selfiness?

Styrofoam Heart

I found two odd objects on my desk on Friday: a pack of Fun-Dip candy powder from a sweet friend and a discontinued condom package we were thinking of using in the magazine. Sadly symbolic because there's going to be no fun-dip happening for me on this doily-edged, red- velvet day. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have a heart-shaped void where a relationship should be. Not that I haven't had more than my fair share of overnight hook-ups and years-too-long live-ins. But I lack the knack of day-to-day living together that grown-ups my age should have developed. I like the falling-in-love part better than the through-thick-and-thin part. Yes, I know that's incredibly immature, but my teenage marriage was a terrible love accident that I never really got treated for. Lots of casualties as a result, and over the years, I built up a protective carapace of scar tissue where the wound was. After I had lung surgery years ago, a deep scar formed along my ribs and under my breast that for a long time was numb to feeling. I think it sealed off the terror I felt through that time, and in the same way, my love scar sealed off the sadness I didn't want to feel. Unfortunately, it also sealed me off from the sweetness that can come with love. At some point, the scar on my ribs lost its numbness and became a badge of honor, but the one on my neglected, protected heart is more stubborn. I keep it mostly hidden because I feel to blame for it, but my word for 2010 is Change, so maybe there's still time for me to have a change of heart.

My Word for 2010

...is Change. I veer between thinking that change is inevitably bad or that I'm too old/comfortable/sensible to change. That the house of my life is framed in, dry-walled, insulated and picket fenced. As it should be after years of trying to get to just that state. All the years of not being able to pay the bills on time, of owing the IRS, of driving crap cars, of career ups and downs, of crazy self-drama and unbridled emotionalism, of cobbling together a living until I accidentally hit on something that became a sweet little success. Why would I court Change? Especially when I'm convinced it always means someone leaving, something ending, something falling apart. Early sorrow teaches you to lowball your expectations. So this is my year to sidle up to Change with a carrot in my hand and make peace with that wild unpredictable beast. What if Change means someone new comes into my life. What if Change means an unexpected new beginning or project or talent? What if Change means me letting go instead of hanging on? What if I start dismantling my old ideas about Change? I figure there's a 50/50 chance of Change being positive, so I'm going to work the odds and envision my 17 year old self getting on an outbound bus again without a clue to the destination. What's your word for 2010?