the writing life

My Morning Meditation Shift

/ nagneberg48 / 9 Comments

April 25, 2023

In a recent post https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/1883 I documented how I rearranged furniture on the first floor of our home. Just because I felt like making a change. The most major of the changes was to move a desk, which I always refer to as my Lady’s Writing Desk, from the entry way into the snug. I confess I have rarely used this desk with all of its cubbies since we moved back to St Paul. Instead, I have almost exclusively used my desk in the garret.

Well, in its new location in the snug I find myself drawn to using it once again–not so much for writing blog posts or working on the content for the writing group I lead or for other writing projects, but perhaps for the use this desk was first intended: correspondence. Thank you notes and birthday and sympathy cards. And letters. This little desk is now stocked with note paper and stationary and favorite pens and stamps.

I love having a window on the world of our block, watching the neighborhood kids racing up and down the sidewalk and the dog walkers and joggers. Bruce even checks in with me much more than when I was tucked away in the garret.

I don’t like how the desk looks from outside the house looking in, but oh well.

In the past year I have worked hard to end my writing work life by 4:00 in the afternoon. I turn off the laptop and the lamp light and retire to the snug to read for awhile before fixing dinner. That is a good thing for me, but at the same time I have noticed a decrease in writing letters and other correspondence; something I have always enjoyed. I like writing at a desk, but if I return to the garret desk, I often end up working on other projects.

Because this desk is in the snug, I feel called to return to a part of my life that has given me so much pleasure in the past.

Another Change

Most mornings I head straight up to the garret, even before I get dressed, for my morning meditation time. I sit in the comfortable Girlfriend Chair, to pray, to meditate, to write in my journal, and to read sacred texts. During COVID when I wasn’t meeting in person with spiritual direction clients, I moved the chair into the larger space in the garret where I meet with most of my clients.

But guess what? My designated meditation chair in the garret is close, very close to my desk, and meditation often becomes muddled with work. Hmmmm.

In warm weather what I often do is walk first thing in the morning and move my meditation time into our Paris garden. But, alas, we have had one day of warm weather so far this month. and while the snow has finally disappeared and walking is possible, sitting in Paris is not. And who knows when that is going to happen.

While writing letters at my Lady’s Writing Desk on Saturday, I had one of those ah-ha moments, Why not start my day in the snug, instead of going up to my garret office right away. Another comfortable chair. Plenty of space to keep my meditation materials, and writing in my journal at a desk is much easier. And there will not be the temptation to answer email or dive into the day’s To Do list.

And it is a change. A change of scene often brings a change of perspective. A change shows me I can be flexible. A change often inspires creativity and problem solving, too. And, if it doesn’t feel right, I can easily move back into the garret.

And when I do go up to the garret later in the morning I will be ready to focus on my work.

So far, so good, but it has only been a couple days. Stay tuned!

Making changes doesn’t mean you’re not content. It means you’re paying attention.

Myquillan Smith

An Invitation

What change have you made recently that has enhanced your life? I would love to know.

The In-Between Time: Moving Towards Spring

/ nagneberg48 / 10 Comments

March 28, 2023

Just because it is officially spring doesn’t mean it is actually spring. Not with snow still much in evidence, but still the air feels different, lighter, fresher, brighter. There is no sign of green yet, but I bought the first bunches of daffodils. And I rearranged furniture.

This is transition time, and I often feel a bit itchy, restless in the in-between times. Often I channel that need for some kind of change by changing what I see, by doing more than the usual weekly hometending.

The snug transformed from this arrangement. (The pictures were taken in the fall — the pumpkins have long been packed away!)

To this:

One thing leads to another. Because I moved the desk into the snug from where it had been located next to the front door since we moved into this house, that meant changing the entry area, too. I moved the center table (top picture) to the desk wall and that left all sorts of space for this:

Voila! Another reading area and a place for one of the tables from the snug! The chair had been in the bedroom, by the way, which was changed from a heavier to a lighter look, too.

Of course, along the way, I washed floors and rearranged tabletops, shopping the house. Now instead of feeling winter cozy, the house has more breathing space and seems fresher, lighter, brighter, just like these days.

Winter Reflections

As I’ve written before in this blog, hometending is one of my spiritual practices and is a form of creativity for me. Doing this kind of re-envisoning space and our surroundings, however, is not just about changing what is visible, but for me it is also a bridge, a way to transition. As I shuffled piles of books and tweaked pillows and pictures, I thought about what changes I have noticed or deliberately made in the previous season. And what that might mean for the season just ahead. These domestic surges give me a chance to evaluate, to consider directions in my own life.

This particular winter season has been a challenging one, weather-wise, but I have noticed in myself more ability and willingness to adjust, to let go and to be with whatever is happening outside. How grateful I have been for our cozy, pleasant home, for the safety and comfort, which I realize my privilege allows me. At the same time I feel more ready for spring than I do most years. I am eager to walk without fear of slipping on the ice.

This winter has been a time to adjust to the death of a dear friend. More and more I am aware of how this time of my life, as I approach my 75th birthday, includes losses. An ongoing challenge is to accept the loss and at the same time open to the gifts of each day.

This winter has been a time when I have been more aware of how I choose to use my time. I cleared space in my week to create Writing Wednesdays, and that has become precious to me. I am working on an essay about walking the labyrinth and have submitted a couple shorter essays to online publications. In the coming months I hope at least part of Writing Wednesdays will be spent writing in our “Paris” garden.

This winter has been blessed with activities I love; for example, facilitating the church writing group as well as monthly Third Chapter Conversations, meeting with my spiritual directees, and writing my twice a week posts on this blog. As I move into spring, I know I want to continue in these endeavors, but I pray I will know when it is time to let go of any of them and that I do that with grace.

This winter has included some strife in our congregation, but what I see is that the community is stronger than one person and that we will continue to grow in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

This winter has included good health for Bruce and myself. A couple colds, true, but no trips to the doctor. No broken bones or concerns about mental or physical well-being. How grateful I am.

This winter has included my usual morning meditation routine, beginning with a short devotion in Henri Nourwen’s You Are the Beloved. My word of the year “beloved” resonates throughout the day.

Spring–Almost

Sunday my husband and I drove along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River, one of our favorite routes. How good to see so much open water and bare ground. Along with seeing eight eagles and two hawks, we think we saw a flock of tundra swans. Although there was not yet any sign of greening, the earth seemed ready for change, for movement. Should we call these days “Sprinter” or perhaps “Wing”? These are the in-between days when we can begin to envision what is to come, but at the same time recognize what we bring with us into the new season.

An Invitation

How are you living these in-between days? I would love to know.

Book Report: Writing Books By Eric Maisel

/ nagneberg48 / 4 Comments

February 16, 2023

I love to read.

I love to write.

I love to read about writing.

One of my favorite writers about writing, as you can see in this stack of five books, is Eric Maisel. I have other favorites, of course. Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lamott, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, and more recently, I loved the book, Memoir as Medicine by Nancy Slonim Aronie. And you will see a collection of Julia Cameron books on my writing bookshelf, too.

There is something about Maisel’s books, however, that resonate with me, and I make it a point to re-read at least one of his books each year. Most often the EM book of choice is A Writer’s Paris, A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul. (2005). The book, small, easy to hold, the size of a small journal or travel guide, is a call to follow your fantasy image of yourself as a writer and where better to do that, but Paris?

What might it mean to your creative life if you included, as part of your education as a writer, a risky experience like running off to Paris to write? Something on that order may be needed to unlock the trunk and let out those thousand poems, those hundred short stories, that full shelf of novels or narrative nonfiction.

pp. 2-3

I have been to Paris just once and even sat in a cafe and wrote in my journal, but I don’t have plans to go to Paris for a writing retreat. If I did, I would take this book, which hovers between fantasy and reality, for it has practical hints for living in Paris, but also addresses ways each of us wannabe writers can live that life now. Here and now.

I write in a garret. Yes, it is in St Paul, Minnesota, USA, but somedays it is easy to think of it as a French garret in some centuries old building. I imagine walking down several flights of smooth stone stairs and crossing the street to a boulangerie, greeting the baker and buying the day’s ration of bread and then returning, walking back up those same smooth stone stairs, flight after flight, to my garret. My view today, however, is not of Parisian rooftops, but instead our garage roof and an occasional bird sitting on the electrical wire. My Paris. My here and now.

I begin to write.

And in the summer I write in a secluded small garden I call “Paris.” I sit at a bistro table and write. I can see neighbors walking by, but it is rare I am noticed. True, this little garden is not beyond the French doors of a Paris apartment, but I can pretend, and sometimes I do.

This little book reminds me to “access the Paris already inside of you. There is a Paris-of-the-mind that resides in each of us…It is available to you right now.” p. 191

I may not have gone to Paris to write, but many years ago I did go to Bainbridge Island, Washington to write, and I have given myself solo writing retreats in a cabin on one of Minnesota’s lakes, as well as writing retreats led by other writers. I have found ways to create Paris for myself, including in the garret.

Recently, I pulled Maisel’s A Writer’s Space, Make Room to Dream, to Work, to Write off my bookshelf, and the book opened to this:

The writing life is defined by the succession of choices you make, primary among them whether or not you will write.

p. 54

I have been lucky over the years, no matter where we lived, to have a room of my own, but that is only part of the issue. The other aspect is creating time to write and devoting energy to do that. I looked at my calendar recently and realized that with one small change I could create Writing Wednesdays. Yesterday was my third Writing Wednesday, and I devoted the day to working on an essay about walking labyrinths.

I write on other days of the week–my twice-weekly blog posts, for example, and most mornings I write in my journal as part of my daily devotion and meditation routine, but setting apart a day to work on something that has been percolating or been in process, but set aside honors myself as a writer. How good this decision feels.

An Invitation

What do you need to make room for in your life? I would love to know.

NOTE: Eric Maisel is a psychotherapist, teacher, coach who focuses on helping creative and performing artists meet their emotional and practical challenges, and his list of books is long. https://ericmaisel.com