13: You are the center of something

Parkinson's law is the official name for the idea that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." I wonder if it also contracts. Technically, I have less than an hour to compose this message before I have to board a plane to Wisconsin for the Thanksgiving holiday. Let's see if the writing that usually takes me all morning and well into the afternoon (when I have the luxury of time) can fill as little as 45 minutes. (By the way, this idea of racing to say what I want to say to you, the way I want to say it, makes me terribly nervous. I'm not a fast writer and I don't like to rush anything, except maybe grocery shopping.) Speaking of grocery shopping, let's see how a list works here:

1. A big hearty welcome to all of my new readers, who came by way of UPPERCASE's All About YOU newsletter this past weekend. I'm thrilled you're here and, should you feel called to hit 'reply' and tell me a bit about yourself, I would love to meet you.

2. The past 24 hours have found us in a couple of different cities, as we travel to be with family. Just last night, we sped toward the highway to return to our hotel and I spotted something extraordinary. Without even a question, my Love Interest turned the car around and got us back to the thing that had caught my attention. (Some of you might remember the last time he offered to do such a thing and I declined...only to regret never again spotting that falling barn.) It was just as extraordinary as I'd first suspected. Immediately, I thought of you and what I'd write to you today: "I have to tell them about this." I didn't know if you'd believe me, so I took a picture:

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Can you read it? It says, YOU ARE THE CENTER OF SOMETHING.

[11:20 a.m. We board in ten minutes! Gaah!]

I don't know about you, but that proclamation feels a little sticky to me. I'm almost as nervous about declaring myself the center of something as I am about speed-writing you a Monday missive! Does it make you uncomfortable, too, to think about declaring yourself the center of something? Why is that? Perhaps because we're trained to not see ourselves as the center of anything, ever. If pressed, what something would you say you're the center of? I still don't have my answer.

[11:30 a.m. Well, dagnabbit, we have to board right now. Told you I'm a slower writer. To be continued post-flight...]

[4:48 p.m. We've safely landed in Milwaukee and have just arrived at our hotel. I'll wrap this up, since I've inadvertently made you wait for it all day!]

3. I've been thinking lately about the idea of 'free' and what's free and what I can give away for free. Last night, I met someone who seemed to need to feel special. I sensed that he needed to be engaged in conversation, the kind where someone shows interest in his existence by asking a million questions. I was chattier than usual and definitely revealed some of my ignorance about certain subject matter, but I didn't really let the embarrassment seep in, because I was being real and present and human, and that's my only goal, ever. Later, when my Love Interest and I were back in the car, headed for the highway, after we stopped and regarded the YOU ARE THE CENTER OF SOMETHING and I took the picture, I put words to my thoughts about the person I'd just met. It was the sort of post-event philosophizing that you do with your favorite person. "He needed to feel special, like the focus of the evening. He needed everyone to be excited and curious about what he's been up to." My Love Interest agreed. I thought about it some more. "And you know what? It's completely free. My enthusiasm and attention are free and I was happy to give them to him." So, maybe the act of giving away something for free means holding up the sign, YOU ARE THE CENTER OF SOMETHING, for another person, letting it be all about him, not caring about being seen or known or heard. Maybe we all take turns playing both roles.

'Til soon,
Helen

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Notes from the week of November 15

EXCITEMENT SHARED

+ Janine Vangool, creator of UPPERCASE, featured my curiosity campaign, Year of Wonder, in her All About YOU newsletter this past weekend!

DISCOVERED

+ Katy Bowman, on movement over exercise (via Sarah Selecky)
+ Katy Says (Katy Bowman's podcast; I'm listening to it nonstop, usually while power-walking around the RV park)
+ we're more alike than we are different (via my mom, after last week's issue of WF)
+ Nick Bantock, interviewed on IndieBound (he wrote the magical Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence)
+ Vanessa Jean's TinyLetter (via Donna Hopkins)

ADMIRED

+ our impressive job winterizing the RV (think: heated hoses, pipe warmers, lots of electrical and tape, & an insulated sock that looks like a miniature sleeping bag for the water spigot)
+ a bird's eye view of Wisconsin, as we flew in earlier today (there's snow here!)

MEALS EATEN, DRINKS DRUNK

+ scrambled eggs for dinner
+ scrambled eggs for lunch (we're on a kick)
+ spicy guacamole
+ Rishi English Breakfast tea
+ oatmeal with raisins & brown sugar (the season has begun!)
+ a fried avocado taco
+ frozen margarita (my first time drinking one frozen!)
+ cheese curds
+ frozen custard

BOOKMARKED (HAVEN'T READ, WANT TO READ)

+ The Trickster's Hat: A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity by Nick Bantock
+ If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
+ The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits

LOCAL COLOR EXPERIENCED

+ sweet rental car attendant who sounded just like Frances McDormand in Fargo
+ driving tour of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
+ cheese curds and frozen custard at Culver's
+ a free "romance package" was just delivered to our hotel room (it includes a bottle of champagne, a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries, and a tiny vase of burgundy carnations)

12: First dates

Last week, my Love Interest dropped me off at a quirky Korean café. I thought I'd be sick, I was so nervous.

"So, you're really excited," my Love Interest said, while we ran errands before my date. It wasn't a question.

"Nervous," I said. "I'm really nervous. Really, really, really nervous. I might throw up."

"You're so excited. You feel so alive."

"I feel like I'm going to die." I made deep-breathing sounds through my nose. I needed him to know I was serious. "Why do I do this to myself? I know this kind of thing makes me nervous, so why do I do it?"

"Sooooo alive. You've never felt more alive before."

Fight or flight was kicking in. I was not in the mood for joking: "It's nerves, though. Not excitement."

That's when he made a face at me and shrugged. "Well, they're kind of the same. Isn't it how you look at it?"

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That fine line between anxiety and excitement has vexed me most of my life. It seems my enthusiasm is always tempered by my worry. Wearing my new running shoes promotes the feel-goods—because they're cute and I like how I look in them—but, with a generous helping of dread for the moment that I invariably slide on trail mud or scuff up the toes. And the things that cause me tremendous amounts of anxiety are often the very things that thrill me most. If I think about it too much, promising you this weekly newsletter terrifies me—what if I have nothing to say, or suddenly can't write to save my life?—but, then there's the euphoria I feel every Monday afternoon, once the newsletter is written and shared. It's hard to tell where one emotion ends and the other begins.

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Last week's café outing was with an artist I've long admired online, who happens to live here, where we're parked for the next while. Back in September, when I realized we were headed for the very city where she lives with her family, I wrote her an email, asking if she'd like to meet up for coffee. She kindly wrote back, we got a date on the books, and I went about my days until her name popped up on my calendar last Wednesday. And then, the very thing I'd initiated became the very last thing I wanted to do. What if I didn't seem cool? What if she didn't like me? I half-hoped she'd cancel.

While we drove to the Korean café, my Love Interest teased me, tried to help me shift from nervousness to excitement. He pulled up to the curb and wished me good luck on my first date. (Hardy har har.) I went inside, ordered something warm, scanned the room (ugh, just like a blind date), picked an empty table, and then emailed the artist to let her know what color I was wearing. Then, I waited. I waited and waited and waited.

Finally, a reply: "Helen! I never saw your email confirming tonight. I am so sorry!" She wrote that she was just back from a run and needed a shower, but could meet me later. Or we could pick another day. She said she wasn't sure she'd ever stood someone up. She was so sorry.

Long story short, she showed up maybe 45 minutes after our original meeting time and we hugged like old friends, settled in with some tea (she had the Korea blend, but recommended the goguma, which is sweet potato; I've bookmarked it for next time), and spoke about having children and making art, about changing hairstyles and combatting racism, about trying to plan everything out versus taking a leap and using your magic to create something on the spot. It was energizing. It was fun. It was definitely exciting. And I made a new friend who I think is very cool and whom I don't dislike for almost standing me up.

'Til soon,
Helen

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Notes from the week of November 8

ADMIRED

+ crafting supplies I don't need, but can't stop ogling
+ the blog of Katrina Rodabaugh
+ this episode of the podcast, Good Life Project, on the power of curiosity
+ tiny double-walled glass teacups without handles
+ One Awesome Thing

MEALS EATEN, DRINKS DRUNK

+ black royal chai
+ iced green tea latte
+ veggie bibimbop
+ fish tacos
+ Underwood pinot noir (comes in a can!)
+ Numi chocolate Earl Grey tea (with honey and plenty of cream)
+ toffee chip biscotti
+ SunBursts yellow cherry tomatoes
+ Talenti raspberries & cream gelato
+ queso and chips
+ whiskey sours (as always...)

LOCAL COLOR EXPERIENCED

+ trail-walking at Martin Park
+ learning new parts of the city, while hunting around for other Korean cafés
+ purchasing all manner of supplies to winterize our windows and pipes (the temperature here is about to drop...and RVs don't like the cold)

CURIOSITIES TO BE MADE

+ more postcards, from our iPhone photos
+ tiny postal notebooks for a special project

11: Incubation & impatience

I've been in a creation headspace for the past week or so. Ideas have come to me in fits and starts, and I've welcomed them no matter when they show up (because I'm all too familiar with their painful absence), listened to them and taken them seriously, and given over my warm unconscious for incubation. (I find that drinking lots of milky tea and wearing fuzzy sweaters helps warm my unconscious, too.)

In the creative process, I struggle most with patience. I have the beginnings of an idea and I want to execute my idea, all in one fell swoop (even though I know the process rarely works like that—it is, after all, a process). Though I love a good notebook as much as the next writer, all the mapping and webbing and associative thinking that goes in to the development of an idea is a bit of a buzzkill for me. Probably because it entails the translation of what I see in my mind, and translation isn't a clear-cut thing. I'm deathly afraid of losing the essence of the idea once it's spelled out on paper, and then, having to settle with something that's not quite the thing I'd originally conceived. But, how else to share something with the world? We have to take that risk.

So, to honor the golden egg that is my idea (and the pages of notes that I have yet to write), while tempering the part of me that wants to be on the other side of creation right now, I've reached a compromise with myself.

Still focused on service, I want to share with you the very beginnings of the bigger something that's still cooking in my mind. How to Use Curiosity to Send Correspondence that Delights is a petite (and free!) eGuide that touches on a couple of my favorite topics: curiosity, communication, and creative writing. Ever the faithful correspondent, I decided to share my top tips for writing the kinds of postcards, emails, and snail mail that will land you on someone's red-letter list.

'Til soon,
Helen

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Notes from the week of November 1

EXCITEMENT SHARED

+ created a new ABOUT page (it contains some fun facts you might not know about me)

ADMIRED

+ Ellabell Risbridger and her brave weekly column at The Pool, "Sometimes it's the Little Things"

MEALS EATEN, DRINKS DRUNK

+ slow-cooker vegetarian buffalo cauliflower chili (so good and not too hot—we nixed the blue cheese)
+ Luis Cañas Crianza 2010
+ Cubo Tempranillo 2011 (can't make myself finish it; tastes like cough-syrup!)

LOCAL COLOR EXPERIENCED

+ three police officers went knocking on the door to our neighbor's travel trailer (we haven't stopped speculating since!)

CURIOSITIES TO BE MADE

+ paper mâché tray for my succulents to sit upon (having a moment with paper mâché...)

10: Play as the antidote to perfectionism

This weekend, I surprised myself by finding evidence for something I didn't even know I believed.

We were at Topgolf again, this time with another couple. Hailing from India, neither of them had ever visited a driving range, and the woman (let's call her Shira) hadn't even held a club or an iron before. I was only one step ahead of them, having visited Topgolf several weeks back with a very patient and loving partner, who fielded many an "I suck" from me while I struggled with first-timer imperfection and awkwardness. A few things I observed about Shira from the get-go:

• Not once did she demean herself or draw attention to her beginner's ability (which, for most of us, often looks a lot like inability; Shira was no exception).
• When she swung the iron and missed the ball completely, she didn't laugh at herself or make self-deprecating jokes; instead, she seemed to concentrate a little harder on connecting the stick with the ball.
• Sometimes, she barely knocked the ball off the tee; when this was the case, Shira giggled, but that was all. She didn't say, "I'm bad at this" or "I can't," nor did she abandon herself by detaching from the game and half-assing it to give the false impression that she didn't really care. Each time, she went ahead and waved the iron over the sensor, got another ball, and tried again.

At this point in the story, it's important for me to let you know that Shira placed second in that round, her first ever time trying the sport. The second round, she came in third place. (And, in case you were wondering, yours truly claimed last place both rounds. Ahem.) From a technical standpoint, her form was terrible. When it came to exhibiting force, she wasn't ambitious. It seemed accidental that any of her balls traveled toward targets and sheer coincidence when they made bullseye. However, Shira was focused on playing—playing the game of Topgolf, yes, but also playing in the sense of having fun and trying something new without the expectation of mastery—and this allowed her to earn points steadily and consistently, using the 20 yard target closest to us. Meanwhile, her husband (let's call him Dev) wailed each ball, sometimes creating that magic thwack that signified a beautiful shot, but always aiming for one of the more impressive, far-off targets...and nearly always failing to reach them.

Both of them seemed to have a lot of fun, so the moral of this story isn't to lower the bar when it comes to trying something new. In fact, I don't think there's even a moral here. What I discovered this weekend, however, is that my embarrassment at being a beginner—and being a beginner in front of others who might or might not be beginners, too—is my choice. Shame isn't a valid default setting for first-timers at anything. It's a deliberate decision not to extend yourself the same courtesy you'd extend to a fellow beginner. It's like saying, 'Even though I've never once tried this in my life, I expect myself to be better than any other beginner, and as good as any seasoned player, right off the bat.' Unreasonable, right?

What are you trying that's new and unfamiliar and, maybe, uncomfortable? If you were to reframe your efforts as play, how might your experience of this new thing change? Hit 'reply' and share with me.

'Til soon,
Helen

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Notes from the week of October 25

EXCITEMENT SHARED

+ Laura, "vanquisher of soul-sucking jobs," interviewed me about my career change experience! [link is now defunct]

ADMIRED

+ Hillary Rain's new website (she calls herself a 'soul doula,' which just sounds so cool)
+ orangey sunsets, happening earlier in the evening
+ the paper art of Cybèle Young (you'll want to click on that link and scroll through all the breathtaking miniatures that she's created; found via Ann Wood's brilliant newsletter)

MEALS EATEN, DRINKS DRUNK

+ delicious, hipster pizza (though I wouldn't ever recommend ordering a slice of anything with the word 'evil' in its name; my lips and tongue hurt in the worst way for a good 20 minutes)
+ Mexican vanilla cold-brew coffee (I found it in the grocery store and have no opinion about cold-brew—is there supposed to be a difference in taste?)

LOCAL COLOR EXPERIENCED

+ Halloween at a sleepy RV resort (which is to say, the night was just as uneventful as any other night; we were prepared—porch light on, candy at the ready, The Addams Family playing on the television—but, not a single trick-or-treater materialized)

KINDNESSES CONSIDERED

+ guerilla art [link is now defunct]
+ love letters
+ Ministry of Encouragement (the brilliant creation of my dear friend) [first link is now defunct]
+ yarn bombing

FRIENDS MADE

+ Shira & Dev (names have been changed to protect the identities of the inexperienced golfers ;-)

09: Being a go-giver

I've been thinking a lot about gifts. You see, the past year has gifted me with answers to some of my biggest questions, as well as generous lessons in asking better questions. I began a career-change program, discovered my calling to coach the curious and brave, met the love of my life, quit the desk job that often felt like introvert torture, and traded in one tiny home for another as we hit the road in an RV, destination All The Places.

This time last year, I was open to transformation (I called it 'adventure' then and I talked about it nonstop, because it was all I thought of). Being in integrity meant matching up my thoughts with my words and my words with my actions. Once those were synced, the Universe came to my aid. Transformation showed up. Truly, I didn't know it worked like that.

In an effort to thank the Universe for allowing me many opportunities to transform (and, because I want to be of service in a big way), I've created a challenge for myself:

Before the end of October*, my goal is to book 13** powerful coaching conversations for the month of November, and another 13 for the month of December. A few things to know about these calls:

• They are entirely complimentary and have no strings attached to them.
• They can take place over the phone, on Skype, or through an internet conference line.
• They are not chats.
• They are for folks who desire personal transformation and/or a shift in perspective.
• They are for folks who will not let fear get in the way of taking action (frequently, fear shows up as resistance).
• They are 90 minutes each.

This is an offer that's yours for the taking and/or yours to pay forward. I do ask that you help me get the word out by telling even one person that this exists. Forward this note to a friend or family member, post about it on your Facebook page, tell your professional network if you feel comfortable doing so.

If you or someone you know is interested and would like to apply for this offer, please refer to the following link: weeklyfindings.com/13x13.

'Til soon,
Helen

*The period for scheduling these calls ends this Saturday, October 31. The calls can take place any time before the end of 2015, but need to be booked on my calendar by this date.

**13 is my lucky number. That's why. :-)

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Notes from the week of October 18

STARTED

+ thinking about autumnal potluck dishes to bring to our RV park's Halloween party (would love some great recs)
+ using Twitter (a little, sort of; feeling ambivalent about it)
+ writing content for my future website
+ swapping out my summer clothes for my winter clothes (this past weekend, I wore my trusty black moto boots for the first time since last year)

BOOKMARKED (HAVEN'T READ, WANT TO READ)

+ Living Color: Painting, Writing, & the Bones of Seeing by Natalie Goldberg
+ Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faithby Anne Lamott
+ Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength by Laurie A. Helgoe
+  The Right Questions: Ten Essential Questions to Guide You to An Extraordinary Life by Debbie Ford

LOCAL COLOR EXPERIENCED

+ WinStar World Casino & Resort, where I spent $5 & won $120 (and was promptly finished gambling)

CURIOSITIES COLLECTED

+ this teeny-tiny bottle of St. Germaine (I'm totally keeping the bottle after we use it up)
+ a $5 casino chip for next trip (though I'm not sure there will be a next time—too smoky!)