How to Get Your Mind in the Mood (Blog #788)

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Phew. After having breakfast with a friend this morning, I spent the entire day, about eight hours, wrapping up at my friends Todd and Bonnie’s house. For the last three days I’ve been cleaning antique hardware–removing paint (with chemicals and elbow grease), then either polishing or repainting what’s underneath. I’ve been to Lowe’s four times, Walmart twice, and Walgreen’s once. I’ve been up and down more steps than I can count, working feverishly because the painters are coming back tomorrow to rehang doors and need the hardware to do it. Thankfully, I think, everything is ready.

Here’s a picture of some of the polished brass. I’ll spare you photos of the rest, but in terms of volume, each door  (on average) has 2 large plates, 1 small plate, 2 knobs, 2 hinges, and one lock (small plates and hinges are shown in yesterday’s blog)–and there were seventeen doors (I think).

Here’s a video of in inner workings of one of the locks. I took it apart because the bolt was sticking out, tilted like a drunken sailor. I had to open up another lock to figure out how to fix it. As it turns out, a small piece of metal had popped out that was supposed to hold the bolt in place (I hammered it back in). I don’t narrate the video, but notice that a small, bent wire pushes the latch out. The bolt itself works via two levers–one that pushes the bolt in or out (and moves horizontally), and another that “locks” it in the lock position (and moves vertically). The small piece of broken metal I hold up at the end of the video is what I found when I took the lock apart. It’s the broken-off end of a skeleton key, which would have been used to 1) lift the vertical-moving lever and then 2) slide the horizontal-moving lever, thus locking or unlocking the door.

 

After a full day of manual labor, about nine, I sat down on Todd and Bonnie’s porch with a cup of coffee and intentions of resting. My thought was that I’d drink my Joe, take a shower, then hang around to blog. However, while scrolling on my phone I learned that two of the three bridges from Fort Smith to Van Buren were going to be closed at ten due to the recent flooding of the Arkansas River. (We’ve either already have or are about to break a record for this area. It’s not pretty.) So rather than be stranded in Fort Smith, I threw all my stuff in Tom Collins (my car), and booked it across the bridge.

When I got home (safe and sound) I was apparently still in “get shit done” mode. (It’s hard to turn it off once it’s on.) First I changed a florescent lightbulb in the laundry room (Dad’s been asking me to for weeks), then I repaired a shelf that fell down in my bathroom WELL OVER a year ago. The wall anchors had come loose and left big holes in the wall. And whereas I’d been thinking I’d have to patch the wall (and that wouldn’t work because I don’t think we have that paint anymore), I came up with another solution during one of my many trips to Lowe’s. (It’s tough to explain, and I didn’t take a picture of it.) Anyway, the shelf is up now. It didn’t hang flat against the wall initially (the top was farther out that the bottom), so I shoved a thin bar of cheap motel soap between the wall and the bottom of the shelf to fix it.

Glad to know that soap’s good for something.

After I hung the shelf, I felt compelled to decorate it. See the above photo. The tin next to the dinosaur–ironically–says Fossil. Anyway, because I used a lot of stuff from the shelf on the opposite wall to decorate the just-fixed shelf, I then felt compelled to decorate that one. Since I’m picky as shit, this took a while. Nonetheless, I settled on displaying a few of my favorite handwritten cards along with a small collection of tins I have. I use them to store jewelry, pins, and USB drives. Fun fact–the duck in the ABOVE photo is a USB drive. It’s from The Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

Don’t see a duck? Time to see your eye doctor.

Since I stole the cards in the above photo from a shelf in my bedroom, I then “had” to redecorate the shelf. (I’m sick, I know.) Thankfully, this was easy, since a fellow writing friend of mine recently sent me a couple post cards (thanks, friend!). I just needed to find a way to stand them up, since they don’t stand up on their own. Finally I thought of it–binder clips, turned upside down. The perfect thing!

Now I’m ready for a break. For real this time. I’ve already showered, and all my projects, except this blog, are completed for the day. If there’s a lesson for today, it’s that once you get going on something, it’s easy to keep going. This applies to cleaning antique hardware, decorating your home, writing, and even paying your bills. It also applies to creativity. That is, while working at Todd and Bonnie’s this week, I had to get into “creative problem solving” mode. How can I clean this brass? How can I fix this lock? Well, ask your mind to do something, and it will. What’s more, it will often go above and beyond simply because it’s in the mood. And we can fix this, and we can fix this. What’s the skeleton key for unlocking your mind’s creativity or getting it into problem solving mode? How do you get your mind in the mood? Curiosity. Wonder. I wonder if there’s a way to–I wonder what would happen if. In other words, you have to gently ask, and then your mind will go to work.

Ask (nicely) and it is given.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward.

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A Delightful Day (Blog #609)

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Things that happened today–

1. I felt better

After dragging ass for over a week and SERIOUSLY dragging ass yesterday, this morning I woke up feeling like a regular human being. And whereas I can’t say for certain what caused it, I’m attributing my increase in energy to the probiotic I occasionally swab inside my sinuses, which I did last night. Who knows? Life is a mystery. Regardless, I’m learning to be grateful for any and every “normal” day.

2. I got into the holiday spirit

This afternoon and evening I helped a friend decorate the outside of their house for Christmas. As this was their first time doing this, we started with a trip to Walmart for lights, cords, and fasteners. Then we put lights in the hedges and draped one of their trees. But before we could wrap the posts on their porch, I had to go back to Walmart to get lights with WHITE cords and NOT GREEN cords because–we realized–their posts are white, and they “couldn’t bare” for things not to match. Anyway, it was a small project, but it turned into an all day affair, since we both had to leave to attend previous engagements but decided to meet again later in the evening (after ten) to finish up.

Here’s a picture of the final product.

3. I saw a musical

During my break from decorating, I attended Alma High School’s production of The Addams Family, a musical. (A few of my friends that I worked with backstage when The Wizard of Oz was in town invited me, and last week I actually helped paint one of the set pieces.) Anyway, the show was fabulous. The school really does do such a phenomenal job with the sets, costume, and lighting. And the kids! You wouldn’t know that they were in high school.

Here’s a picture of the graveyard set. Talk about seriously creepy and cool.

Here’s a picture of the living room set, which includes the piece I worked on. (I painted the stairs and handrail.) It’s not much in the grand scheme of thing, but every little bit helps!

4. I thought about my ancestors

Otherwise, I worked on my photo organizing project earlier today. I’m so close to done I can almost taste it. Then I talked to my parents about some of our family history, which was in part prompted by my project, and in part prompted by a book I’m reading about families, trauma, and healing. I’ll say more about it later, but the book points out that–for better or for worse–your entire family structure is part of your story and plays a big part in your overall mental and physical health. Coincidentally, tonight’s musical featured The Addams’s dead ancestors, whom they said couldn’t rest until there was peace with the living. Anyway, I think it’s interesting, the way the universe can deliver up the same message in multiple ways. Get your past sorted out.

5. I gave myself a break

Now it’s almost two in the morning, and I’m doing laundry because I’m getting up early tomorrow and going out-of-town to rehearse and perform a swing dance routine with my friend Matt. And whereas I wish I could post this and pass out, I still have my nightly routine to go through. So in an effort to be kind to myself, I’m ending things abruptly.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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None of us is ever really lost. At least we're never really alone. For always there is someone to help point your ship in the right direction, someone who sees you when you can't see yourself.

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That Which Is Coming Together (Blog #402)

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Last night my friend Bonnie and I went to a swing dance with live rockabilly music in Fayetteville, and my friend Matt from Springfield drove in to meet us. Y’all, it was a screamin’ good time. We danced our butts off. Personally, I barely sat down. At the end of the band’s first set, I was so drenched in sweat that I could have easily won a wet t-shirt contest. That’s the only downside to a night of hard swing dancing–all the perspiration and consequent body odors. (It’s disgusting.) That being said, you sure do burn a lot of calories, so maybe it all evens out.

After the dance was over and there was room on the floor, Matt and I decided work on some aerials (dance stunts). This was all my idea, since I’ve recently realized what fun it is to be tossed is the air, and Matt’s one of the only leaders I know willing to toss me. (I’m not exactly petite.) I say “toss,” which makes it sound like the follower is a sack of potatoes that the leader simply heaves over his shoulder. But that’s not how aerials work. When done right, both the leader (base) and the follower (flyer) exert equal amounts of effort. Anyway, Matt and I worked until we were both worn out, mostly on a move called The Lamp Post, in which the follower goes up and around the leader’s head.

Here’s a video of our “work in progress.”

One thing I forgot to mention is that last night’s dance was held at a gymnastics studio. So get this shit. After all that jumping around on the dance floor, I got to jump around on some honest-to-god trampolines. Y’all, my sister and I used to have a trampoline when were growing up, and last night I felt like a kid again–flying high into the air, flipping forward, flipping back. I even got to jump into a foam pit! I can’t tell you how much fun it was. That being said, I was sucking air after only a few minutes of jumping, and I’m not quite sure how I used to bounce around like that for hours.

Also, I must have done something to my lower back, as I could barely walk out of the building. It’s better today, but my body has still been “talking to me” nonstop. At one point this afternoon I could have sworn I heard it say, “Who do you think you are jumping around like that–Tinker Bell?! Did you forget that we’re almost forty damn years old?”

“Um, yes–yes, I did,” I replied as I grabbed my hip with one hand and reached for the muscle relaxers with the other. “But thank you for so clearly reminding me of our age.”

Since Matt and Bonnie and I stayed late after the dance AND THEN went to dinner, I didn’t end up going to bed until four in the morning. And whereas I slept in today, I still haven’t quite recovered. Also, my body has been acting weird. This evening I helped my parents set up their television and other living room electronics, since they recently got a new TV stand. Y’all, I was up and down, up and down, just like on the trampoline last night, and I got light-headed. This sometimes happens when I eat a Paleo diet, so I ended up saying, Fuck it–I need more carbs, and eating two hard-shell tacos with cheese for dinner. (They were delicious.)

Here’s a picture of my parents’ new TV stand. Since we hid the electronics inside one of the cabinets, I had the hardest time filling up the shelves in the middle (intended for electronics) with appropriately sized knickknacks. I literally had to beg, borrow, and steal from the rest of the house in order for this to come together. But alas, it finally did.

Now it’s 3:30 in the morning, and my brain is shutting down. Also, my allergies are kicking in. My eyes won’t stop watering. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that cheese. Or maybe God shouldn’t have made the pollen count so high in Arkansas. Either way, I’m about to pop a couple antihistamines, maybe some Ibuprofen, and pass out. Last night when I was dancing I thought, I feel like myself again. But clearly I’m not over the hump. In addition to the allergies, my skin is doing all these crazy things, my energy level is still up and down like an aerial. And yet as frustrated as I am with my health, I’m also beyond thankful for these happy, childlike moments when I find myself dancing or jumping on a trampoline, even soaring over someone’s head. In these moments, I have no complaints. So maybe it all evens out. I fret about what will happen next, but I look at my parents’ TV stand and think, Don’t worry, Marcus. Everything else is coming together too.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"We all have inner wisdom. We all have true north."

The Way Life Progresses (Blog #134)

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Okay, I just paid my credit card bills for the month, and my blood pressure is still within normal limits. Phew. Glad that’s over. Now it’s 3:23 in the morning, and I’m in downtown Springfield. The television in the living room is still on. My friends Anne and Andy are asleep. Their three cats are God-knows-where. Most importantly, their books are organized.

I’ll explain.

My job today was to “feng shui” Anne and Andy’s bookshelf. Like me, they love books, and most of them have been piled-up in no particular order, along with several knick knacks and such, on the bookshelf in their hallway–and it’s been that way for years. Anne said, “Please help,” so I said, “Sure.” Here’s what we started with.

Okay, I thought, this might take a while. (I was right.)

The whole project took even longer than expected because I moved books and knick knacks from the living room to use in the hallway, which meant I had to redecorate the living room too. More than once I thought, I don’t know what to do, but I just took it one step at a time. First I found a bunch of colored glass bottles in the desk in the living room, pulled them out, and decided they needed to go on top of the desk so they could be seen. Then I added the glass bottles from the top of the bookshelf, and a theme became apparent–blues, greens, and browns. I didn’t take a before picture, but here’s the after. I just love it–it kind of makes me want to own things again just so I can arrange them.

The furniture in the living room is neutral–grays, wood, glass, and metal–so I kept the color on the shelves to a minimum. A little red, a little green. I placed the heavier objects (books) toward the bottom of the shelves and the “lighter” objects up top, since I didn’t want the shelves to feel like they were going to topple over. Also, I added some larger books to the coffee table because I think every coffee table needs large books. Again, no before picture, but here’s where we ended up. I didn’t put the cat on the couch, but I do think she complements everything quite nicely.

Finally I went back to the bookshelf–the original project. Shit, I thought, I just used up all the good books in the living room. What am I going to do now? So I started digging around in the guest room (my room when I’m here) and found some Raggedy Anne and Andy dolls, which I paired front and center with a Raggedy Anne book I found on the bookshelf. Then I grouped the non-fiction books together (yoga, martial arts, home decor), the fiction books together, and the vintage (old) books together. When it was all said and done, after four hours of work, here’s what happened (from a different angle because you can see better).

I don’t know if anyone else gets excited about this sort of thing, but I sure as shit do. It’s almost orgasmic to me to make everything pretty, get stuff “right where it belongs.” I mean, being anal-retentive and hyper-organized can really drive you crazy, but if there’s a benefit to being so fucking picky, this is it–you can have nice bookshelves!

This evening I helped Anne and Andy and their staff tear down from today’s wedding and set up for tomorrow’s. We swept and mopped the floor, rearranged tables and chairs, added tablecloths, and restocked the bar. (Can you imagine actually living above a fully stocked bar?) When we finished, we ate leftover cake from today’s wedding. Who knew you could get the best part of a wedding without having to attend one?

Just because it’s pretty, here’s what the cake looked like before.

Here’s what it looked like after. And no, I did not eat every piece of cake in the photo–but I did eat two of them.

This afternoon Anne said she thought it would take us four hours to tear down and set up the ballroom. Well, most everyone helping had worked plenty of times before, so I guess they had it down to a science. All the tables and chairs got moved to one side, then the floors were cleaned, then everything was moved back. One table at a time, two chairs at a time. All the while, Anne and Andy played music. I whistled. Then all of a sudden, we were done–in about two hours instead of four.

Tomorrow the couple getting married and their friends and family will take over. One by one they’ll pour into the ballroom and decorate it. One by one they’ll come back after the ceremony, eat food, drink beer, and celebrate. Before midnight, maybe two hundred people will leave the ballroom the same way they came in–one step at a time.

I suppose our entire lives are lived this way–one step at a time. We brush our teeth, we make the difficult phone call, we go the funeral, we eat two pieces of cake. (Well, some of us do.) So often I start projects like redecorating a bookshelf or writing a blog, and then I get overwhelmed and think, I don’t know what to do next. But without fail, something happens, I do something, even if it’s just scratch my head, move one blue book from here to there, or write one word. There, that’s one word that wasn’t there before.

Byron Katie teaches that most of our suffering or stress (but only all of it, she says) is caused by our believing thoughts that aren’t true. Something terrible happens–maybe someone dies–and we think, I don’t know what to do. (She asks, “Does this thought bring peace or stress to your life?” My answer: stress.) But then we cry, or eat a casserole, or get up and go to the bathroom. So the reason the thought “I don’t know what to do” is untrue is because, in the moment, you do know what to do–you’re doing it.

There’s a wisdom underneath everything that moves us and even the planets at its own infallible pace.

It seems that this is the way life progresses–moment by moment. Projects go undone for years, then one day they get finished. You live your whole life single, then one day you’re married and there’s leftover cake. We get so worked up, so stressed out about the little things, the big things in our lives. We think, I don’t know what to do. We think, I can’t wait. And yet there’s a wisdom underneath everything that moves us and even the planets at its own infallible pace. I suppose we forget that we too are like the planets, part of a larger universe that is always proceeding one step at time, never in the wrong place, everything always right where it belongs.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If you think only girls cry or that crying is inappropriate for some reason, fuck you. Some things are too damn heavy to hold on to forever.

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The Truth Is a Monster (Blog #42)

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This morning I helped my friend Madeline redecorate her home. For a while, I just kept walking around the house, going from room to room and thinking about what needed to go where, but I couldn’t decide. After a good bit of this, I finally sat down in a chair in the living room. Instead of thinking, I decided to feel. Call it intuition or Feng Shui, but there were areas of the room that felt crowded, and there were spaces on the walls that didn’t feel like they could breathe as well as others. There were pieces that didn’t feel like they got along with each other, like they needed to be separated.

Having checked in with my feelings, I could then explain them to Madeline. “See, all these pieces look hand-made, they don’t belong next to the ones that are mass-produced.” But it wasn’t something I could articulate before I sat down and checked in with my gut. Once I did, we were off and running.

Here’s a picture of three pieces we grouped together because of their complimentary colors.

This afternoon I watched a movie called A Monster Calls. It’s about a boy whose mom is terminally ill and his encounters with a tree outside his window that turns into a monster. The monster tells the boy three stories, for which the boy must tell the monster a story—his nightmare. I really wanted to love this movie, but I didn’t. (I’ve had this same experience with several people and more than one piece of chocolate cake.) Having said that, there was a pretty profound scene in the movie that I loved. (I’m about to tell you about it, so if you’re hell-bent on watching the movie and not knowing what happens, I suggest you put this blog down, go watch it, and come back to the next paragraph. If you’ve already seen it or don’t care, tally forth.)

Toward the end of the movie, the monster comes to collect the boy’s nightmare, and the boy kind of beats around the bush and says, I can’t tell you the truth, I can’t say it. But the monster is really big and really intimidating, so the boy finally comes out with and says that he wishes his mom would die—he loves her—but he wants the whole thing to be over—it’s too painful.

(Since we’ve come this far, I’ll go ahead and tell you that the monster tells the boy his feelings are normal, very human. More than anything else, he says, the boy is very brave for being honest.)

The movie made me think of a situation that came up in therapy once. I was having some difficulties with a friend who was crossing some boundaries, and although I knew I had a problem, I couldn’t articulate it. So kind of like the monster in the movie (and I mean that in the most endearing way possible), my therapist got a little aggressive and said, “Do you want to spend time with this person or not?” And I kind of sheepishly said, “No.”

And my therapist said, “Say it again.”

So a bit more forcefully, I said, “NO.”

And my therapist said, “Say it again.”

“NO!”

My therapist shot to the edge of her seat, clapped her hands together like a televangelist casting out demons, and said, “THAT’S your truth!”

In the movie, the boy thought that he would die or be punished when he spoke his truth, and he was surprised when he didn’t. My reaction to my truth that day in therapy wasn’t that dramatic, but I was surprised that I felt so strongly about the relationship with my friend. I mean, we’d spent a lot of time together. I cared about them.

Over the next few days, I was able to make sense of the truth I’d spoken in therapy. I’d been angry with my friend for quite a while but had been biting my tongue (my therapist says that hurts). I was sweeping problems under the rug.

The thing that I have slowly learned over the years is that my gut is trustworthy. Looking back, I can see so many times that it was telling me to slow down or back away or run like hell. But I almost always made excuses in favor of avoiding a confrontation. (Red flag? No problem—full speed ahead!) However, now I’m learning that relationships are like decorating a room. Sometimes things get crowded and you need space to breathe, and sometimes things don’t go together and they need to be separated. And maybe it takes a little work to make the necessary changes, but it always feels better when you do.

At least in my case, I’ve found that sometimes I have to get out of my head and stop thinking about things so much. I have to sit down and check in with my gut. When I do, the truth is always right there waiting for me. And I don’t blame anyone who runs from the truth because the truth isn’t always pretty, and the truth isn’t always easy. More often than not, the truth is a monster. It gets in your face and makes you get honest. And sometimes the truth even physically separates you from people you care about, if for no other reason than to bring you closer to yourself.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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For all of the things life takes away, it gives so much more in return. Whether we realize it or not, there’s always grace available.

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