The Messy Middle

I had every intention of writing an essay for my memoir today.

AND THEN I DIDN’T.

(Spoiler alert.)

Because I didn't know what to write about and I convinced myself that other work was more important and then a friend stopped by with something called hard seltzer and, as it turns out, hard seltzer has alcohol.

Now it's almost 5 p.m. and I haven't started my essay and there's hard seltzer and eggnog and a Christmas tree that needs ornaments hung in an attractive yet unstudied manner.

I'm officially in the No Man's Land of this memoir. Until this week, I had a list of stories to write and rough drafts to edit and the process had some momentum.

Now I'm in the messy middle, where I don't know what's next. Where I have to dig around in my stories and my emotions and pull out something honest and vulnerable and true and entertaining to read.

No pressure.

Precisely why I started a Patreon page for this book writing process. Because now I have to write an essay for next Friday. I can't let fear take over. I can't decide that it isn't important or it's too hard or let myself wallow in the "I don't know what to do" phase. I have to keep showing up. Because the fifteen people who are subscribed and supporting me in this process mean I can't put this project down for a month or a year or a decade.

It’s a blessing to have support. This may be the first time I’ve used the word “blessing” without sarcasm or irony. But I’m sincerely grateful to have people on the other side of this process who are helping me stay accountable to myself.

Writing about the ghosts of my past is challenging - and then you get to the actual ghosts my life story somehow contains. (I admit, there are more than I would have expected.) Not to mention all the other multi-dimensional weird that I’m trying to put into words.

I’m like Ebeneezer Scrooge over here. Only with more ghosts and less money.

So this week it didn’t happen, and that’s okay. Being gentle with myself through the artistic and creative process is essential. Man, I can be a real jerk to myself sometimes and that helps not at all.

Next week it will. Because it has to. There’s a certain grace in the “well, it just has to.”

In lieu of a book essay, here’s a festive picture of our cat, Sera. Please note her adorable paws.

Forest Primeval

Sometimes I talk about magic the most when I’m feeling it the least. Not because I think, “Hey, today I want to be a liar,” but because sometimes when I call up magic, old fear and programming and external cultural bullshit comes up too.

Which is why I have to feel what I feel and do what I know to do to adjust: dance around the house, sit with my back against a tree, find a swing set, feel myself surrounded by white light, walk through a primeval forest.

If I’m not too mean to myself and don’t push, the magic comes back when it’s ready. 

Goats and Blazing Infernos

I don’t know if you’ve had any reason to look at the California fire maps recently, but if you have, you might notice that a large portion of Sonoma county is currently on fire.

Since we live right on the edge of the evacuation zone, our household has expanded from two humans and two felines to nine humans, four felines, and two canines. Which is two canines more than our cats find appropriate or acceptable.

The three evacuated equines are being housed elsewhere, luckily. But we did go visit with an entire bag of carrots.

Much happier, post-carrot.

It was my brother’s job to fight forest fires, about ten years before the California wildfires went biblical. His job description sounded like my literal definition of hell: Hike ten miles into the wilderness with all your equipment on your back, and then face a blazing inferno, knowing that it’s in your job description to deal with said inferno.

We’re now in the third year in a row of epic, once-in-a-lifetime wildfires. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated, more are without power, and the fires are still raging. I’m glad it’s not my brother’s job to deal with this any more, but the people who’s job it still is are battling hard.

All the guidance I’ve been getting lately says celebrate. Which seems a bit tricky under the circumstances, both logistically and ethically. But maybe that’s the very best time to celebrate - when all circumstances appear to point you in the other direction.

So Here’s Some Celebration. And a Picture of a Goat.

This morning, we learned that one of the houses we feared had burned down is still standing - an actual miracle, given that it’s smack in the middle of multiple fires. So all the people staying with us will probably have homes to return to. We still have power, when much of the region doesn’t. Other people made dinner last night, and when I woke up this morning, the dishes were already done. And I got to meet goats!

Who quickly lost interest in me when it was determined that I had given all the carrots to the horses.

Unimpressed.

Bread is the Answer

Last night I baked bread for the first time.

It was garlic rosemary pull-apart bread, and I’m quite smug about the way it turned out.

I kneaded the dough like I’ve watched every single episode of The Great British Bake-Off (which I have) and knew exactly what I was doing (which I don’t).

Bread baking is something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time but since I haven’t had an oven in five years, opportunities have been thin on the ground. After moving into a house equipped with more than a dorm fridge and a hot plate (garden cottages are magical but not if you want to engage in cooking anything more complex than soup), it took me precisely 25 days to get my first batch of bread in the oven.

Yes, I am terribly proud of myself. Doing things just because they’re fun, just because I want to, is something I’ve gotten noticeably bad at recently. Baking some bread turned out to be a solid way to shift that particular tide.

Bonus: kneading dough is quite satisfying.

Creative people are happiest when they’re making things, and I’m a big fan of having hobbies that you don’t have to be good at, that you can play with just because you want to, just because it’s fun. It alleviates the stress of being a wild perfectionist of doing a creative thing that you’re being paid for or building a business around. I really want to type “ugh” or “stupid bills” here, but I’m spending a reasonable portion of my time re-wiring myself around money and that seems like a step in the wrong direction.

If money is reading this, I love you! Let’s hang out! I have a very nice bank account for you to stay in.

My usual methods for cultivating the child-like wonder that soothes my soul are brightly colored converse, a weird obsession with giraffes, and a willingness to utilize empty swing sets to the best of my ability. But I have plenty of giraffes and hot pink shoes, and there aren’t any public playgrounds nearby.

(However, the new house could definitely support both a foster giraffe and a swing set. There are already plans for a goat train and a cat-copter so the kitties can better chase hummingbirds.) (Maybe lack of childlike shenanigans aren’t my problem.)

So, bread baking. Next on my list is singing lessons. Not because I’m good at singing, but because I want to sing. I want to take my Not Great Singing and make it Better Singing. I want to see what progress I can make, when I’m not already good at something. Like most people, I tend to gravitate toward the things I have some talent at, because the ego enjoys nothing better than being good at things.

But I know that creative endeavors fuel more creative endeavors (please note my first blog post in six weeks!) and so I am stating this here and now so I don’t forget again:

Making things is fun. You are happiest when you are making things. Make more things. If you can’t make the thing you were planning to make, make another thing, until the first thing shakes loose.

When all else fails, bake yourself garlic rosemary bread in a place where you can walk out into the garden and pluck rosemary straight from a bush in the ground, which is apparently where rosemary comes from.

Back to the World

I've been in a very galactic headspace for the past four years.

Talking to unicorns and dragons, archangels and ascended masters, playing in all sorts of dimensions - and then coming hope and napping a lot. I'd take people on dragon rides and ask Mother Mary for advice on their behalf. Chakras, crystals, sage, mystic otherworldly adventures - you name the California neo-hippie cliche and I was all over it.

Whether you want to call it channeling or divine guidance or just Amber Was All Up In Her Crazy Imagination and Holy Whoa Look What Came Out, it was a lot of fun.

But I'm finding myself returning to earth now. Wanting to ground all those divine downloads into my real ass life. Wanting to be a part of the world again, even as I observe what the world appears to be doing these days.

But it's like having inter-dimensional jet lag. I don't always know how to reconcile where I've been with where I am with where I'm going.

So I have to go back to all that stuff I downloaded from the ether and integrate it into practice - in a way I was always too exhausted to do when I was making a daily trip up the dimensions. I want to make the channeled wisdom more concrete, blend my human self in my divine self, and help others do the same.

I don't know what that looks like, but it seems I have to start with all the things I already know how to do and trust that to lead me where I want to go. Which means I guess I have to start a goddamn meditation practice? Which likely involves reframing discipline so it doesn't sound like a dirty word-slash-terrible idea and rather That Thing That Will Help Me Pull Possibilities Out Of The Ether And Into Reality.