Morning pages. Coffee shop edition. Straight to publication. No edits.

Explanation: I’ve been doing my morning pages, as instructed by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for a couple/few months now. Oops. I turned my fifth sentence into a lie. The point of the Morning Pages is to get all the brain gradue from overnight out and onto paper. The purpose is to corral stray thoughts. The purpose is to rake the leaves of thought into tidy piles. The purpose is to make room for new creativity.

An additional purpose is to play hide-and-seek with thoughts later. To see what develops.

I followed Cameron’s advice to write by hand for the first month. I did so religiously (sans religion), and learned so much about my writing style. It slowed me down and forced me to think about each letter’s ink as it flowed through my pen. As I developed my confidence in writing the morning pages, I realized that I had learned enough lessons to try other media. I am a developing luddite, so I did not want to type on a computer keyboard, despite being talented at doing so. Instead I opted for a 90s-era electric typewriter, which was gifted to me by a 90s-era friend who has been kind and good enough to maintain contact with me through the decades.

But as I’ve been moved and motivated to develop this new website, I want to see what happens if I take the stream-of-thought consciousness dump that is my AM ritual and put it online without anything more than passing typo correction.

In The Artists Way (I like calling it THE WAY), we are instructed to keep our morning pages secret. To allow them to be a place where ideas foment until they are truly ready for public consumption.

I ain’t got time for that shit.

Since unblocking my inner creative voice, I cannot keep up with the ideas. I exhaust myself on the daily. That doesn’t mean I’m putting in 12 hour days. I may do only 12 minutes at a keyboard and spend the rest of the day following the flow that is set forth from those ideas. Or from the ideas that have been set forth in previous morning pages.

The coffee shop – my current third place – is called Second Best Coffee in South Kansas City. I recommend it, though I don’t want to use this space for reviews. Anyway, the coffee shop is playing Zelda and Chill music, which is something that I do during my painting projects at home. I haven’t requested the music. We just have a similar vibe, so I feel like home when I walk in here, order my nitro cold brew (nectar of my creativity) and bacon breakfast burrito with potatoes in it. I come here about twice a week to work for an hour on writing or genealogy projects.

I do my best typing here facing a rustic wood wall, the energy of the conversations and mass absorption of caffeine at my back, driving my introverted soul to delve deeper and deeper into my work. Ignore the voices, be them in my head or in my ear. Ignore the critics. Glean the compliments. Focus on the work as long as I can hold the flow.

At home, my brain may pause ten minutes between paragraphs. I tend to wander into the dawn silence of the Haus. My mind goes to unexpected places and forgets to remind my pen it is supposed to be following and recording the fantastical or mundane journeys without judgement.

At a coffee shop – or library – or park – or whatever third place I choose today, I’m less likely to look around and wander, so my productivity skyrockets – for as long as I can maintain the flow.

I consider this a personally brave act today. I intend to publish at the end of this free-flow exercise, consequences be damned. My fear is that I’ll wander into territory that is too personal for immediate publication. Maybe my mind will stray to an embarrassing and private story from childhood. My mind WANTS to do that to me, but something holds it back. Something other than common decency or self preservation. It’s just uninteresting to me in this moment.

So I should release that fear and just write.

Just sit down and write.

That was great advice from Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones,” which is a great companion to THE WAY. My great friend Brian recommended both of the books to me this year, and his reaching out to me on this topic has been life-changing in an affirming manner for both of us.

THE WAY isn’t for everyone, and it’s ability to shake up one’s identity to the core can make a person appear crazy to a long-time friend who never truly understood the creative’s vibe. I’m very fortunate that I have a friend willing to coddiwomple along with me while both of us look crazy to outside observers. I’m comfortable with that.

I feel like maybe this was three pages. I take another bite of my bacon burrito, realizing it has gotten a bit cool. That’s okay. That happens when I write while eating. I also note that I had thoughts around eating the burrito that did not make it to my fingertips. I suppose that’s okay, too. One cannot write out each. and. every. thought. It’s not possible. Let the logistics go. Let the mundane dissolve away unless there is interest to be found. If there is beauty in the feeling of warm egg sliding down my neck, I’d write about it. I suppose I just did, even though the written description – to me – is ucky.

Trying to close up, but I like to give myself marching orders for the day sometimes. Let’s do that now.

Today I will go to Ikea. I will visit with an old friend who has always deserved more attention from me than I’ve given. I will pick up my medicine. I’ll work on that disastrous logo on this site. It’ll get there with time. And finally, I’ll work on the art for the book I’m writing for a small run in a handful of private libraries. Maybe I’ll give more on that some other day. Or maybe I’ll keep that as a private, mysterious treasure.

…and publish …

This painting was inspired by a photograph I took from the hammock on my deck in the back yard. This is the view from my happy place. When I was still working in the corporate world, I would return home from the office and immediately go to the hammock under the bald cypress to release the cares of the day. I wouldn’t allow the worries of the world to be carried with me into my home.

During relaxation exercises, where the facilitator asks the listeners to go to their happy place? This is mine. My painting skills aren’t up to challenge of truly bringing the scene to life, but my hope is that the viewer can get a sliver of insight to the joy and relief I receive from the simple act of lying in a hammock and releasing all worry, fear and concern before allowing such darkness to contaminate my home.

This is my happy place, and I love it.

Indigo dawn

click

words pressed

clack

grace notes

expression of

thought

heart love

and story