Experimental Living

This should be interesting.

I've made some decisions about how I want to move forward in my life - how I want to live, how to not be tight and scared and battened down, but instead be open and joyful and daring.

To that end, I've set myself some hard dates for all these changes to be put in motion, about a month from now.

But then I got to thinking. I know what will make me happy. I know what fulfills me in life. I've made lists and a plan to get me there.

So why am I waiting?

Why shouldn't I start doing all those important things, those personal rituals, NOW, in the less-than-perfect conditions? Isn't waiting for the rest of the changes to take effect the same old dysfunctional "when the time is right and everything else is done and Mercury is out of retrograde" thinking that got me into this mess in the first damn place?

So I'm going to try a little experiment, and I'd love it if you guys would try it with me. Then we can all compare notes when it's done.

For the next four weeks, let's live the way we believe, in our heart of hearts, that we are meant to.

Here's what that looks like for me:

Look, Ma, I made a graphic!

So that's it. What's on your list? It may not be quite so structured, but I tend to agree with Twyla Tharp - framework and routine are the best friends creative practice can have.

So let's do this now, when conditions aren't perfect and the stars have yet to align. It's only four weeks. You can do anything for a month, right?

I've Already Won the Lottery

As you may have heard if you've bought a cup of gas station coffee or worked in an office with other people in the last week, Powerball, the massive multi-state lottery, is sporting a jackpot somewhere north of $600 million.

I buy lottery tickets not-infrequently, and usually under one of two conditions. Either I'm feeling pretty great about my life ("My luck is relentlessly awesome lately -- I should play the lottery!") or I'm incredibly depressed ("Everything is shit, and I need this cheap fantasy, even though there's not a chance in hell I'll win!").

I don't want to be the girl who has to come into the office on Monday
after everyone else has quit and bought a yacht.

It's a common fantasy. Life will hand you not just a giant do-over, but insane riches and everything will be different. Everything will be better.

But here's the thing: what would it actually change? 

I mean in real, concrete day-to-day ways?

Sure, you'll pay off your debt, you'll buy a house, maybe buy your kids or your mom a house too. You'll get a new car. Or you'll get an old car and finally have the time and the money to restore it. You'll tell your boss to go to hell, or maybe you won't but you'll go in to work significantly smugger every day, because you won't need this job and can walk at any time.

Let's grant all of that. But I'm talking about now, this moment. How would it be different if you won the lottery?

We experience life as moments, not grand movements. So in this moment, I'm sitting in my living room in my pajamas, writing this blog. The Songwriter is asleep and the cats are being lazy. I'm drinking coffee and wondering what I'll have for lunch.

If I had $6 million or $600 million dollars, would this moment be any different?

• I'd still get up early-ish on Saturdays because I like the morning sun and stillness.
• I'd still be in my living room, because I love where I live. Ditto my pajamas.
• I'd still write, because, duh, that's what I want to do with my life. 
• I'd still enjoy the quiet contentment of my husband and cats sleeping.
• I'd still make coffee, because having good fresh coffee without having to put on a bra and shoes is frankly the definition of luxury.
• And given what a pain it is to get to Beverly Hills or Malibu or Paris, my lunch options wouldn't change if I had all the money in the world.

Okay, so maybe this would be my post-lottery living room.
But everything else, totally the same.

All this adds up to the understanding that I am as happy and content in this moment as it is possible to be. If a lottery windfall afforded me limitless choices, this is what I would choose.

And when I think abut it, most of my life is like that. I would still get my hair done at Stag. I would still drink in the upstairs bar at The Satellite. I would still go see Prima Donna play The Redwood. I would still walk to Aroma and get coffee and sit on their patio and write.

Sure, I would quit my day job. But I'd still be a working writer, and money wouldn't buy me success. And I would travel more, though missing my kitties and my general home-body-ness would naturally limit that.

But the vast majority of the moments that make up my life are already what I want them to be. And recognizing and remembering that fact doubles and deepens my happiness.

From that perspective, I'm pretty sure I've already won.

A Midsummer's Eve

Am I wrong for resenting the fact that the feminine "hygiene" industry has hijacked that term from Shakespeare? NO, I don't think I am.

What am I doing on this, the second-longest day of the year? I'm waiting. Waiting for a client, who is now a week late in getting me what I need to get started on their project. And if that doesn't sound like a big deal, reflect on the fact that the end date, the deadline, isn't moving out accordingly.

One of my old bosses at a book packaging firm used to say, "When I die, you know how I'll know I went to heaven? I'll be the client!" Yeah. Like that.

In a past life (by which I mean a month and a half ago), this situation would have me grinding my teeth, worrying over the time that was slipping away and the work that I wasn't doing. This, as the Songwriter is fond of pointing out, is massively unproductive. Not to mention just a teensy bit insane.

So, rather than let the things I can't do get me obsessively tangled in ulcer-inducing stress and rage, I am going to do the things I can do.

• stop trying to live in the future, when the work will be here
• be present - right here, right now
• take a shower
• send a (friendly) email to the client, reminding them I'm ready when they are
• head to my favorite coffee shop to work on my screenplay

This isn't a delay or a roadblock. It's a gift, a surprise package of time.

I'll sip my coffee and remember how lucky I am to be able to do this on a Monday. And I will try to stop grinding my teeth.