Buried Treasure

Last week I talked about how a short session of quieting transformed my mood and my day. It also led to a veritable avalanche of decluttering and quieting this week, which has resulted in such pleasure that it feels like it might be illegal.

There’s the removal of bags of items for donation or disposal, creating space and calm and saving some poor soul from the task at a later date. There’s the peace gained from focusing on a task while simultaneously giving myself the illusion of control. There’s my delight in increasing the beauty or efficiency of my environment. This time, I found something even more valuable.

Buried treasure. Evidence of who I was, what I thought, what my hopes and dreams were. Nowhere was this more apparent than in my Creatorium, the writing space I’d virtually abandoned since publication of Rising in October. After time away it was suddenly crystal clear: I no longer felt the need to write about the narcissistic abuse that has already overshadowed far too much of my life; I was no longer planning to write a children’s book “someday”; and it was not necessary (or advisable) to save every thought I’d ever scribbled down and printed out for posterity.

And I discovered an even more priceless gem: my renewed desire to write just for the sake of enjoyment. As I sorted through my idea file and various prompts, I felt a growing excitement and had the thought that maybe my feeling adrift lately has something to do with the fact that I stopped an activity that brought me joy and satisfaction and structure once I had no end goal in sight.

So, starting next week, I’ll once again be sitting down to write each day, this time with no plan, just my curiosity and an open heart. Who knows what might happen?

What might you unearth after a little quieting?

Ways I Found Joy This Week

Laughing through an early morning FaceTime with the CWP as she tried to corral her three insane poodle charges

Savoring dinner and a glass of wine at the bar of my neighborhood Italian restaurant

Finally decluttering and reorganizing the “extra” closet in my bedroom (a dangerous thing to have if you’re lazy or impulsive)

Listening to Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues

Connecting with my seventh-grade bestie on a long phone conversation

Running errands with the CWP

Things I Learned This Week

A bit about the life and art of David Hockney (whose crisp, vivid works also brought me joy)

Some background about Mel Robbins that confirmed my growing suspicion that this influencer I once thought was “real” is full of shit

Quotes That Resonated This Week

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Oscar Wilde

A woman whose mood improves with a book, a poem, a song or a cup of coffee is not defeated by anyone.

Kahlil Gibran

What I Watched This Week

Ru Paul’s Drag Race Season 17 (Paramount). Incredibly joyful, moving performances and a fabulous finale.

Legends (Netflix). Great dramatization of some courageous undercover operations. Lots of edge-of-the-seat twists.

The Vampire L’Estat (AMC). The name has changed (from Interview with a Vampire) but the story is a continuation of Ann Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. The focus is now on L’Estat, the vampire who  started it all: he’s now a rock star.

Anatomy of a Fall (Netflix). A traditional mystery layered over the metaphorical “fall” of a marriage. When a husband is discovered dead below his chalet in the French Alps, it’s unclear if it was an accident, suicide, or if his wife was involved, and the only “witness” is their blind son. The mild frustration of not definitively solving the mystery was more than compensated for by the nuanced examination of marriage, attitudes toward women and sexuality, and legal and moral questions.

Maternal Instinct (Netflix). Another true crime entry that I really wish I didn’t know about but couldn’t turn away from. A truly horrifying decision by a clearly disordered personality. Would have liked a bit of analysis of the pathology involved. Heartbreaking.

Sweet Magnolias (Netflix). I checked this out on the recommendation of a friend and instantly got the appeal. It feels like a comforting hug at the end of a long day. Likeable characters and relatable family and friendship story lines.

What I Read This Week

Lake Effect, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. This family drama that begins in the 1970s and spans twenty years brought me to tears. Themes of love and desire, secrets, motherhood, grief, and more.

The Girl I Was, by Jeneva Rose. After reading a couple of good thrillers by this author, I grabbed this book, then realized that it was a story of a floundering thirty-something inadvertently time traveling back to her college days and desperately trying to fix things. Well written but a bit too facile and formulaic for me.

The Phoebe Variations, by Jane Hamilton. Her Book of Ruth and Map of the World are two books that affected me deeply, so it was a major score for me to find this on the library shelf. Can’t wait to get further into this coming-of-age novel that starts with a pivotal (forced) meeting of Phoebe and her biological parents.

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Thanks for reading!