five things on the art of imperfection

i just HAD to get one of these t-shirts (only a few left!) from authenticity guru jen lee. i did not have the pleasure of formally meeting her at squam (art workshops), but when we were standing next to each other chatting among friends in the dining hall, she aptly lay her head on my shoulder -- an authentic gesture if i ever did see one.

i also just received in the mail brené brown’s heart-opening book, the gifts of imperfection. yes. i have tried for too long to be perfect, leaving me tight and bound when all i really want is to shine.

perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will perfect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight. 

authenticity: yes, please.

perfection: just say no! 

i am *truely* inspired by these women, among many others, who are embracing their imperfect selves and lives:

karen of chookooloonks fame: encouraging self-love, and the comments took me to my knees.

joy tanksley: her dance video is adorable, not to be missed.

susannah conway: who is unashamedly gloriously imperfect.

merrilee d: with healing sign, she always plays great music on her blog.

stacy de la rosa: who is replacing perfect with love.

monday memories / RTW trip: the perfect safari

my aunt nancy (not to be confused with my birthmother nancy) left for south africa a few days ago, saying she she sure hoped her safari would NOT be anything like mine …

... my safari was twenty years ago, while travelling around the world for a year with my boyfriend. we stopped in kenya to visit with curt’s childhood friend ngugi who had since married, had two beautiful children, and was living in ngong outside nairobi. his wife and kids had never seen wild animals, so we decided to take them all on a two-day safari.

safari. just the word sent exotic images wafting through my head: karen blixen, born free, and architectural digest safari décor. 

the reality was, our pockets held 30-year-old’s-budget-travelers-wallets. still, i was going on safari …

we rented a jeep, two tents, and set out … along with ngugi’s baseball-bat-sized stick (tourists had recently been attacked, not by animals but by people) … intending to camp out. how naïve were we???

driving toward the masai mara, we encountered giraffes and ostrich. exciting! getting closer to a real safari! the first night we stayed in a masai campsite just outside the oloololo gate to the park. it was relatively similar to campsites at home … assigned spots, a bathroom/shower building, etc, but for the tall, lean men wearing red plaid sarongs milling about. (we heard the masai men typically did not wear underwear under their sarongs … so i, in my curious -- if juvenile -- way, wanted to see if it was true. it was.)

the next day we bumped down the dirt road south through the park. saw herd after herd of animals: antelope, wildebeest, kudu, leopard, even a lion feasting on a zebra, hyena and vultures lurking. the majesty of the land and the animals converged on one point: we humans -- not just in this game reserve but all over the world -- are on their land, the animals' land. we are trespassing on their land! so clearly and naturally, the earth belongs to the animals.

toward the end of the day, it was high time to find a campsite; we drove to the largest one we saw marked on the map in our area, only to find nothing resembling our experience the previous night.

this “campsite” consisted of an outhouse in the middle of a savannah, with trees in the distance on three sides and a dried riverbed behind us. spectacular african scenery, but still … nary a soul in sight! we decided to try one of the other two campsites nearby. each one was less impressive than the last, so we returned to the first place.

soon two masai men -- with spears -- showed up, said it was their campsite, and we needed to pay them the equivalent of $6 to stay. and for $2 more, they would sleep with us. not sleep WITH us! just sleep nearby. we promptly dug in our pockets for the additional cash. they turned and said they’d be back later, ambling away gracefully like giraffes.

after putting up the tents, curt and ngugi went scavenging for firewood, leaving me with ngugi’s wife mama-ciko (kenyan women take on the name of their first born, preceded by “mama”) and small children. traditional division of labor was seriously bugging me at this point in our travels. i was 30 and still needing to prove my i-am-woman independence. but i had to swallow my enormous pride and go with it; we had bigger things to worry about at that point. we began assembling camp, the sienna sun setting over our little piece of savannah. we were in the middle of wild africa, tiny in the grand scheme of nature. it was exhilarating! we had had the jeep between us all day. now i was feeling the nakedness of being one with nature.

unloading bags and pots and food, mama-ciko and i startled at the sight of a troupe of baboons, cackling and galloping across the far side of the field and disappearing into the trees. they seemed far enough away (about 100 yards), and i was thrilled with this brush with real safari life! mama-ciko, however, was fearful and kept the children nearby. we went about our business.

a few minutes later, however, these 12 or so waist-high baboons scampered up the riverbed and surrounded us in a circle around our little camp. mama-ciko scurried into one of the tents with the children and i deftly found our big stick. what else was there to do? one at a time, a baboon lumbered toward me, grunting. i held the stick up and, when it got closer, stabbed the air between me and it, sending the monkey to retreat to its former place in the circle. then another came at me. then another. i fended off four baboons before they all, suddenly, ran off across the field again and into the trees. the masai men had appeared on the hillcrest, thank god! i guess the baboons had “history” with the masai. regardless, we were saved (pride out the window)!

the guys returned with firewood, we ate with the masai men, and went to bed. but not to sleep. the dark night filled with ominous animal noises. ngugi got up to make another fire closer to the entrance to our two tents. he was afraid, mama ciko terrified. fortunately curt was pretty calm. my stomach was in knots. i was having my period, and was sure a lion would come bounding through our tent and devour me. the masai men did hear a lion's roar, and wanted to leave to check on their herd of cattle. no way, josé! ngugi talked them into staying … (i hope we paid them a bonus in the morning, and i hope their cattle were ok.)

morning. yes. then came morning. we had survived! spent the next day completely sobered and quiet, still driving and watching the animals. midday we came across one of those fancy tented camps (safari dream coming true??), but it was closed (sigh). desperate at that point -- and wanting nothing of a reenactment of the night before -- we found the caretaker who i pleaded with to allow us to stay in one of the enormous and luxurious walk-in canvas cabins, complete with two double beds and a private bathroom, for $50. a large sum for us, but i was primed to break the bank for some semblance of safety, and romantic safari experience! and we were able to finally relax.

sipping warm beer (better than no beer) on the stone veranda overlooking a bend in the river, all of us perched in comfy director’s chairs in the late afternoon glow. we marveled at the scenery: hippo in the river right before us. gazelle, waterbuck, oryx, fox, and even those pesky baboons at a distance on the opposite bank. we were safe. and having my ultimate safari experience, budget be damned! a spalding gray perfect moment. yes it was.

the monsoon rains poured down that night, but did we care? we were cuddled up in our grand tent. next morning the caretaker told us the hippo did some serious damage in the camp that night, while we were safe and soundly sleeping.

we made our way home to ngugi’s the following day. with stories to tell for a lifetime. and with dreams made real.

and i can’t wait for my aunt’s return to hear more safari stories. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

lesson learned: hold onto your dreams. they just may come true!

+++++

twenty years later and i still have romantic safari dreams. doesn’t everyone? the march 2008 issue of the late domino magazine featured kenya-based photographer liz gilbert (for some reason i’m enamoured by all liz gilberts) and her stylin' african nomad tent she uses travelling around the bush.

liz is now helping local kenyan women sell their stunning jewelry, and runs a straight-out-of-my-dreams lodge in kenya. dream on!

squam (this courageous life, con't)

morning squam light

squam lake. art camp. was it just a dream? rustic cabins, roaring fires, rocking chairs, making fun art, meeting inspiring new people, walking through forests. they say *magic* happens here ... sounds great, right? but it also was an opportunity to stretch myself, little challenges along the way. 

eileen wearing all her art fair finds

i found my inner lioness. found the courage to:

-       stand alone in the middle of the dining room the first night, looking around and around not knowing where to sit, all the tables wrapped in their own conversations. first night i sat with merrilee, eileen and sarah … with whom i spent my last morning as well, photographing on the dock. i stood in the middle of the dining room several more times, each time finding a place, mustering up courage to ask “can i sit with you?” and finding warmth every time with strangers who became friends.

the one and only ... elizabeth maccrellish

-       trust elizabeth’s encouragement to find my “YES!” all week long and follow that. i participated fully all day long, then in the evenings retreated to my room to rest (so little sleep prior, preparing to come to squam). on the third night i ventured out and found a rock to sit on by the edge of the lake. my yes was to forgo the nightly party in the main lounge of my cabin, of which i could hear every word and creak of the furniture and floorboards. instead i sat on that rock listening to the loons (sounds like coyotes) and the lapping water, watching the clouds float by the moon. following my yes was very different than my cabin-mates' yes, and that was ok.

jonatha brooke doing her thang

-       bop in my seat to performer extraordinaire jonatha brooke’s opening night gig in the playhouse, not caring if anyone thought i was weird, thoroughly enjoying her expressive soul. jonatha rocks!

i made my own journal!

-       tell christine mason miller all about my tendencies to want my book to be orderly, simple, straight,  perfect. “should i follow that tendency or try to break out, break free?” she was kind, gentle, listened with that sincere smile of hers. why not free it up a bit, if only on one page, she replied. gave me a bit of a pep talk. i pasted in photos askew! glued bits of pretty paper all around, working on pages willy nilly. for the grande finale, i pasted on the plain cover the little tag christine gave me at the start of class, in her fun handwriting, which had gotten water spilled on it making the ink run, ASKEW, which said, “you are loved”. and i felt it.

starting to turn

-       divulge to elizabeth, who called me about housing the week before i left, about my journey to see my aunt carol the morning of the first day of squam. she listened wholeheartedly, asked questions, was interested, on a day when she probably had a gazillion other details to wrap for the workshops. on the last morning she was crying in my arms in the dining hall, overwhelmed by the emotion of holding this space for all of us, and in the middle of all that asked me how my visit with carol went. we cried together, a perfect moment.

the lovely sarah ahearn

-       listen deep down, during the opening night meditation, such a nice way to start a week of creativity. helene asked us to take a minute of silence and ask ourselves what our intention was for the week. i waited and listened, didn’t hear anything inside for a long time, thinking nothing would surface in that room full of people. then it did, totally a surprise to me. to embrace my feminine sexual energy. WHAT?! at art camp?! had a great dream that night, the message was clear: allow yourself to receive fully.

my new friend helen from england takes a polaroid

-       ask if i could participate in the squam art fair held on the last night of camp. i had brought a little basket of my photo greeting cards to camp, just in case. i was welcomed to share a table with someone, if space allowed. caryn overheard the conversation and said she would squeeze me in if i couldn’t find another better spot. turned out she didn’t really have space because her gorgeous work overflowed on her table. but right next to her barb did have space and generously offered it to me. so i set myself up on a little piece of her table, selling my cards in public for the very first time.

fallen

-       opened to a man. toward the end of the art fair, a man stopped by the table to chat. he was not in art camp, had been driving across the country and just happened upon this magical place rockywold-deephaven. he was a photographer from california! i was attracted to him (a first in a long time). i remembered my intention for camp and found myself fondling my heart chakra pendant while we chatted. remembered my intention. stood open and receptive. he bought a card, took my business card and said he’d send me one of his photo cards. regardless of what happens with this man, i’m feeling my readiness for a new relationship. 

sittin on the dock of the lake

-       chose this inspiration card in thursday's yoga class: i am willing to change. YES!

  sarah ahearn's sketchbook class

reflecting

yes. magic. and freedom.

this courageous life

today is a special day. remember I said there was another part to my trip to new hampshire and the art workshops at squam? well, I’m also going to meet for the very first time my biological aunt.

i already have several aunts, aunt nancy and aunt jinny and aunt joan. these aunts have known me my whole life, been there throughout. I am so fortunate to have these women in my life.

but I have another aunt … aunt carol. I had first contact with her a little over a month ago, wrote her a letter. and she actually called me, leaving the sweetest message i have ever received.  she said she LOVED my letter and that she would LOVE to speak with me. 

you see, I was adopted. at birth. by my family. the only family I have ever known. mom. dad. brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. a truly most excellent life. i have six first cousins, and our grandparents and our aunts and uncles never treated my also adopted brother any differently than  “blood”.

but that’s just it. blood. something in the DNA, deep inside, a longing for connection to the blood line. 

i first started looking for my birthmother over 15 years ago, when i was a photojournalist in southern california. i was covering a women’s golf tournament, there to photograph the winner. i waited and waited at the clubhouse. then they announced her name, the woman I was to photograph: nancy brooks. i froze. that was HER name. the name of my birthmother. 

i was filled with sudden excitement and anxiety. what if it’s HER?  when i saw her, i wondered …. well, we kinda look alike. after photographing her, i mustered up the courage to ask: did you by any chance have a child on march 21, 1961? she did not. it turned out brooks was her husband's name.

but it was then that i realized i wanted to know my birthmother. it came from deep inside. a wanting. my lineage pre-birth was like a black hole of nothingness, and i wanted to find out where i came from, how i got here. life’s existential questions.

so i started the search. had help along the way. when i finally found nancy, she didn’t want to have contact, said it was too painful. once every few years, i’d muster up the courage to write her a letter, asking questions about her, my birth father, health history, any excuse really to have contact. she replied with brief answers, and eventually seemed to warm to the idea of having contact, said maybe she would see me if I ever was in town.

so i made a trip. but she decided she couldn’t go through with it. i, however, could not NOT go through with it. i just had to see her. had to find out what was in that black hole. so i showed up on her doorstep. 

when she answered the door, i didn’t even have to introduce myself. she knew it was me. i was mesmerized. we have the exact same eyes. and I saw where I came from. the black hole was now filled with life.

she had company. stepped outside. said it wasn’t a good time, that maybe we could talk on the phone. i left, completely satisfied.

it turns out her sister, my aunt carol, was the company she had over. and her sister, with whom she shared everything, did not know of my existence. i was the family secret.

a few months ago i found out that nancy had passed away over two years ago. after my shock, I read on. in the online obituary, it mentioned her sister and best friend carol. so again, i eventually mustered the courage to write to carol. and she made what for me was one of the most important calls i have ever received. when i heard her message of love, i burst out crying, both joyous and sorrowful tears, and my hands went straight to my heart. i sat and cried and listened to carol’s message over and over again, my hands on my chest, crying and laughing and allowing my heart to be healed.

carol and i have had many hours-long telephone conversations, full of love and surprise and laughter and tears and love. did i say love? she is so warm and welcoming and loving. She acknowledges how courageous I have been.

tomorrow I will spend half a day with my dear aunt carol.

The time I slept on linen sheets (Meg)

I heard Sir Elton John sing "Tiny Dancer" yesterday and the line, "lay me down in sheets of linen" has been on endless repeat in my head ever since.

I was living on the French island of Martinique, sharing a house with my friend Hillary, and a group of us had agreed to watch the latest Jacques Cousteau Special together. For young French people living surrounded by the sea (and maybe for all French people, I don't know), watching Jacques Cousteau was like watching the final World Cup soccer match, a speech by the Premier, and a rock concert all rolled into one. We went to Jean-Pierre's house to watch because he had the only decent TV. He lived with his tiny ancient mother (he must have been a menopause baby, or maybe his mother was really his grandmother, she was that old) in a beautiful but run down home up in the hills. On the way there, for a reason I don't remember, I ended up on the back of Thierry's motorcycle, screaming around the blind mountain corners in the pouring rain. It was dark, and so humid that it almost didn't matter that it was raining. I distinctly remember trying to enjoy the thrilling danger of that ride so that if I died, I'd at least die happy.
Then, wrapped in towels to keep from dripping on the thread-bare oriental rugs and worn silk upholstery, we watched the show. As we watched the fish swim, and listened to Jacques Cousteau's unmistakable voice (most of which I couldn't understand), the blue-green light of the television and moist air from the open windows made it seem as if we were underwater too. It was late when the program ended. So late that we all decided to spend the night at Jean-Pierre's house. His mother went to the closet and pulled out armfuls of linen sheets. We pulled the cushions off the sofas and chairs, wrapped them in the sheets, and fell asleep where we dropped, a crowd of about 10 of us, all over the living room floor. How lucky I was to be there, on linen sheets so old they were soft and smooth, dreaming of fish and water.

Shh. Don't tell. (Meg)

I grew up in a house with a secret. A big secret. Unfortunately, although the secret had an effect on me, it's not my secret so I can't tell you what it is. I can tell you what it did to me however; I can't keep a secret to save my life. Well, maybe I could keep a life-or-death secret, but other than that, really, don't trust me with your secrets. They spurt up out of me uncontrolled and unbidden, and usually un-welcomed! But somehow, after the initial guilt, confusion, and regret have passed, I feel better. That's because secrets are soul killers. And my soul doesn't like to keep them.

Secrets also carry power. If you know a secret and someone else doesn't, you have the power. Even if you aren't keeping the secret because of a devious plot to gain the upper hand, it still gives you the power. Even if the other person is completely oblivious to the secret's very existence, you still have the power. That's why the secret I grew up with stayed a secret so long--it gave the secret keeper power over the rest of us.

It's not a power I ever want--I remember the time a friend told me she was pregnant before she told her husband! I don't know why she did that, but it was very uncomfortable for me because suddenly, in some weird way, I was closer to her than she was to her mate. And it felt wrong. (I did manage to keep that one, until now.)

Now my family has a new secret, also not mine to share. And it's working its evil magic on us all. Although the thing itself could be quite joyful, having it be a secret means that bad feelings are rising up all over. Here and now, no matter what sacrifices I have to make (not attending events, not maintaining friendships, etc.), I promise never to participate in secret keeping again. Wish me luck!

spring forward (hill)

well we just launched our little greeting card store yesterday, and today is my birthday, and it is the beginning of spring. good time for un debut. we may be debutantes in the card arena, but we are no spring chickens!

anyway, wanted to give a loud shout out to tina and nina! tina is one of my oldest and dearest friends. nina is one of my newest and on the other coast friends. somehow real friends always stay in touch, and time passed in between matters not.

tina and nina performed true friend gestures: they offered support and encouragement by being the first two to make purchases of our greeting cards! my heart was deeply touched by their gestures, and reminded me of something i learned from my dad.

my father was not one to say i love you until much later in life. but he was ALWAYS THERE for me. supporting by showing up, being physically there, at my games, performances, races, visiting me where ever i was living no matter in the usa or europe, making weekly walking dates, etc.

in the cyberworld, being there takes different forms. one form is actually suppporting by making the time to look at a friend's blog, new online store, and in this case, actually making a purchase, a physical being there in a great way.

thank you tina and nina for being there! and anyone else who happens to purchase, or make time to look or read, or better yet COMMENT! we appreciate it all very much.

when you put your heart out in the world, even in cyberspace, it feels good to know that that world, too, is a safe place, filled with friends and loved ones.

thank you.

Why I swore I'd never blog (meg)

Why have I been so reluctant to add my name to the ranks of those engaged in this august genre?  Do you promise not to judge me if I tell you?  Okay, I'll tell you.  I'm afraid you'll judge me!  Also,  I suspect that the blog moment has passed.  I'm always late to the party: by the time I like a thing the cachet is gone, the glow is dimmed, the bloom is off the cosmo (or the mojito as the case may be).    In fact, one of my friends, when told about this project, indulgently smiled and told me not to worry because people weren't really blogging anymore.  And by that she meant the cool people.   In addition, the thought of putting my most personal and trivial (but hopefully catchy) thoughts out into the I-guess-it's-called-the-blogosphere clashed with the part of me that has always thought the folks who do that are attention whores.   Nature abhors a vacuum; I abhor an attention whore.  Also, who cares anyway?  What about my life could possibly be of interest to anyone else?  Or more disturbingly, do I actually have anything to say? What if I go to the well and find only one or two good ideas there?  Does that mean my life is less than the lives of those who manage to fill up page after page?   And last but not least, do I really want to be some pathetic old woman overusing emoticons and making a fool of myself?  I suppose all those really boil down to one thing:  I don't want to make a fool of myself.  However, because there's no guarantee that I won't become a passive, foolish and pathetic old woman anyway, I've decided it's better to perhaps be a foolish, pathetic old woman who tries new things than one who doesn't.  So thanks Hill for pushing me and fear be damned--here I come!