I’ve discovered that my friend Colleen Bradford Krantz and her colleague, Paul Kakert (who is from my hometown!) have had their documentary film, Train to Nowhere, nominated for a regional Emmy.

I’m so proud of them, but not really for the recognition from the awards people. More than that, I am proud of Colleen and Paul for all the hard work they did to to tell the story of these forgotten immigrants.

I think sometimes it is easy to imagine dead things as just that — things. As if somehow, the moment something dies, all its history and humanity goes with it.

Today, Isaiah asked me:

“Mom when we die, do our bodies explode?”

I said: “No, our bodies decompose. That’s like what happens to the food bits we put in the compost.”

“So, we rot?” he asked, not particularly freaked out.

“Yes, kind of. Our bodies break down and turn to back to dirt, like the food in the compost does,” I said. “But the important part of us, our soul, that’s the REAL us. It isn’t in our bodies. It leaves our body when we die.”

“What happens to that?”

I explained to him that we don’t really know. I gave him the short list of  possibilities: Heaven, reincarnation, and just stopping.

“I choose reincarnation. I’d like to be a bear or something,” he said. “Or a baby again.”

What was inside the railcar was just the explosion of those 11 lives. It was just the thing we see after death.

What was missing was all stories of the human lives that reminded us they were not just things, but people.

The soul is a string of memories, in some ways, a compilation of the thousand kindnesses we do, the funny things we say to our parents when we were 6. Our quirks and our passionate entanglements.

Decomposed immigrant skeletons in a rail car once knew mighty love too.

Colleen and Paul did good work — in the book and the film — reminding us that all the little tragedies that flash by us in the news and in life are their own kind of tragedy … because of the beautiful humanity they hold within them. Millions of stories heaving to be heard.

Each is a story holding all the dreams and heartbeats of someone.

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1. A Friend of Mine

It’s a question I ask myself everyday, really.

I wanna know what my superpowers are!

Mind Melding? No thanks! Too much going on up there as it is.

Invisibility? Could I deflect that power onto others at times?

Levitation would be super-cool though I am not sure how useful. What does one do once you get the people up there? Can you also tickle them from a distance?

Firestarter? I could see where this might work as a niche business plan. Maybe. In Canada.

FLYING! This could be fun. But wait. Is there a weight limit? How many kids can I take with me? I can hear the arguments already….

Super Strength sounds nice. Though I am not sure how practical the ability to pick up a cement mixer is. I can already carry 9 grocery bags at once.

Sonic Scream? Check.

I guess I’ll keep thinking on it.

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From my “For Writers, By Writers” Series

I bow deeply to pro-bloggers who keep the art of blogging closest to its journaling roots.

My favorite pro-blogger is the erasible “Pioneer Woman,” Ree Drummond.

Here are the five reasons why “Pioneer Woman” swallows entire mornings.

1. Personal. It’s the way that blogs are intended. Ree slathers her life all over the pages, including her otherwise quiet husband, her son’s inability to say “juice bag,” (think letter ‘d’) and her basset, Charlie. Why should we care about this woman and her family?

We shouldn’t except that she’s…

2. Funny. Remember “The Carol Burnett Show”? (No? If not, watch this sometime!)

Ree channels the smart humor that Carol brought to her own universe.

Nothing too rich, or too heavy.

Nothing rude (well, a belch here and there, ok?) Just the sort of ticklish joy that comes with everyday life.

It isn’t all chuckle-chuckle. Ree’s been known to douse readers in tears and share her heartbreaks too.

She lays it bare, showing the tippy balance of working life, one where Mom is teaching and taking a million photos and baking and posing for magazines and chasing dogs and keeping Dad happy and also just trying to be like “normal,” whatever that is.

3. Images. The best blog post I have read in a long time — anywhere — Ree showed how she put together her children’s book, featuring basset Charlie.

It got over 700 comments. Her average is in the 100+ comment range, FYI.

The key to this post was combining short burst of text with Ree’s images, both of Charlie, and of the book making process.

Her eye is sharp, and she does not skimp on the number of images in her posts. This kind of “writing” truly keys into the changing desires of her reading public.

4. “Organized”. When you hit Ree’s home page, your eyes dart from here to there. What to eat –er, read! — first?

Menu titles and features jump out at you, and when you follow, you find each rich in content, compelling with a single word.

This is done with fewer menus (seven only with straight-forward titles like “Confessions” and “Homeschooling” and “Cooking”) and lots-o submenus.

However, that’s not where the key organization comes in. Look at a recipe page and just look at the beautiful, organized clutter of this page! You immediately get a sense of what it must be like to live in Ree’s house and to search for cumin in her pantry.

I can’t find it, but who cares!  Let’s make brownies!

It is PACKED with color and choices: images and links and hooks to stories, to recent recipes at the top, an photo of her and link to about page, a box that links to ALL of the recipes.

As you scroll down the post, you are enticed by widgets featuring “16-Minute Meals,” “Cowboy Food,” “Cowgirl Food” and more.

“Pioneer Woman” is a vortex of compelling content.

5. Niche-plus. To launch themselves into the universe of “not just blogger,” bloggers hear all the time that we need to connect with a certain audience, using SEO optimization and keyword content.

All this is fancy way of saying: how do we use the blog to say the one or two things we are really good at saying?

I want to ask Ree sometime how she started… maybe with homeschooling and cooking?

Those do seem to be important niche areas that draw online audiences. But it’s clear to see she’s bounded into writing, photography, and style blogging too. Not to mention the meta-content of her blog that makes it so perfect: family.

But Ree’s blog is truly successful because it isn’t TOO niche. The blog seems to overflow with her creative life, and throb with all the things she has to share with the world.

Not the least of which are her son’s inability to say “juice bag”.

Who is your favorite blogger? I’d love to hear so I can check her or him out!

*****

Want to follow Ree on Twitter? She’s super.

How ’bout her adorable book about Charlie? Click the picture over there!!

*****

How does your audience read your blog? Wanna know? Check this out!

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Or, On the Research of Choosing You.

Neuroscientists have been doing a lot of good work for those of us who consider ourselves creative, artistic and “right-brained.”

Personally, I think we are all this way!

This is fantastic news. Yes, our scientist friends are discovering that the Right Brain– with its power to love, mourn, sigh, gaze in wonder at forsythia blooming, or to even retreat in the face of dire stress — is the “Master” of our experiences.

There are many good books on this at the moment, all apparently written by men (!) and scientists, taking varying different paths. I recommend you read one or all, to think about your mind in a different way.

Brain Food

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson, PhD with Richard Mendius, M.D. seems to be a sort of “super-uber-meta” guide to these brain studies, yet written in understandable, everyday English. Hanson and Mendius compile over 200 (yes I did count!) scholarly references and boil them down to create the argument that neuroscience and meditative practice together prove: you can use your mind to reshape your brain, and achieve more happiness.

Then there’s best-selling author Daniel H. Pink making the argument in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future for why artists and creatives will have the upper hand as those who rely on a linear frame work decline.

Artists, are you still not convinced that the holistic and generally non-linear way that you mind works is the key not only to YOUR success but also the salvation of all of us?

Then please allow Iain McGilchrist’s fascinating book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World arrive into your lexicon of thought.

McGilchrist is described by his Guardian reviewer Mary Midgley as a psychiatrist and philosopher who

“…points out that this “left-hemisphere chauvinism” cannot be correct because it is always Right’s business to envisage what is going on as a whole, while Left provides precision on particular issues.

“Moreover, it is Right that is responsible for surveying the whole scene and channelling incoming data, so it is more directly in touch with the world. This means that Right usually knows what Left is doing, but Left may know nothing about concerns outside its own enclave and may even refuse to admit their existence.”

The range of books on the science of the marriage of right and left hemispheres is too ample to ignore and too wonderful to not dive into.

Your To Do List and You

Since I have begun to process the meaning behind these brain studies, I can start to imagine a deeper meaning of “choice.” One that goes beyond mere “chocolate or vanilla?”

One that goes beyond “what will I wear today” or even beyond the more daily daunting “What will I achieve today?” that the left brain is so useful at assisting with (thanks!)

It goes to the core of identity — the fearful and wonderful possibility that I can CHOOSE the answer to: “Who will I be today?”

As a poet, mother, swimmer, recycler, and self-proclaimed world-shaper, it is wonderful news to know I have that choice.

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an amazing book!

There has been a small book on my bedside table for a couple months now. I opened it once, and after that I did not touch it.

The book actually doesn’t seem to sit or even lie on the table. It seems to hover– held aloft from the earth and all its possessions from the energy of its message.

Which, of course, I cannot speak of, because I have not yet really read it.

Tonight it fell open to  the middle, to page 55, the last page of the chapter “We Have What We Need.”
Here’s what I read, without intention.

“Then the next time you lose your heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in…. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves.

“This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering — yours, mine, and that of all living beings.” -- Pema Chödrön

When I received this book, Colin looked at the cover and said: “How appropriate!” and smiled.

I had only just started taking swimming lessons, to overcome my fear of deep waters.

I bought goggles, then, so when I finally was willing to open my eyes, under water, I could see.

I could see, but my mind would leap and my breath disappear at the sight of the deep end’s floor sloping away from me.

Fear is a well-worn path– one we often know so well, we don’t realize we are careening down its rutted spine simply by feel– eyes screwed shut.

Fear is a tentacled nightmare and it grows bigger, wilder heads in the black pit of abandoned sleep.

The way legs move below the surface is beautiful and erratic. We forget our legs in a swimming pool, like we forget our weight. Like we forget our weighty attachments.

Change the way you see it and lean in.

Note: “Taking the Leap” isn’t available on Audio, but you can download the Kindle version Here!

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I was thrilled that Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita selected one of my small stones to be published in their beautiful anthology… and here it is!

pay attention: a river of stones is available is three formats:

• a stunning collectible hardcover (of course, I willsign your copy for you!);
• lusciously affordable paperback;
• and easy-peasy, ultra-portable, great-for-the-subway and tube e-reader download.

What is a Small Stone, anyway?

According to writer Fiona Robyn, it’s “a polished moment of paying proper attention. Writing them helps people to engage with the world around them.”

And the book?

Every day throughout January 2011, hundreds of writers joined writer/editors Fiona and Kaspa in the challenge to write a daily piece, a very small piece – think haiku/tweet/small poem – each one an observation from their day, a moment in time.

More than 350 established and complete-beginner writers created thousands of stones. About 320 of them are included in this book, along with other wonderful pieces of writing on the practice of writing with attention.

You can read more about how to write a small stone here.

“Details create the big picture.”
– Sanford I. Weill

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Ours is an immigrant existence, here in America, whether we want to admit it or not. This morning I am thinking about Haiti, which of course we’ve most of us pushed to the back of our minds because we are thinking about Egypt.

This morning I am thinking about Haiti because I am listening to Edwidge Danticat’s short story “The Water Child”in which the protagonist is a Haitian immigrant working in a hospital in New York City, sending money home to her parents in her native island.

So many of us so-called “Americans” (by that, I mean white people whose “people” have been here awhile. We think we are the “originals”) pretend we are separeate from these people in distant lands and their suffering.

But the distance is a hair’s breadth.

They are our brother’s mother.

They are our sister’s cousins.

They are the family of our neighbors, the people who draw our blood, the people who rescue our spinning tires from the snow. Inside they are us, further flung.

They suffer sadness. They are tired of running on the wheel.

Home is immediate and home is nowhere.

They were born a child and will die old if they are lucky.

What else could be more American than that?

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A conversation about boredom at Scoutie Girl yesterday got me thinking again about the daily tasks that constitute part of the  “work” of my life.

Not the least of these is feeding a family of six. Not the worst of them is laundry. Some I despise for no particular reason, like emptying the dishwasher. Whenever my mom comes to visit, she gets up early and empties it for me. She says it is easy to put things away in my kitchen: I organize mine just the same way she organized hers.

The work of daily life is the work I often do on “autopilot”, as Tara notes. It can be quite mindless and tedious and runs in a never-ending cycle.

Taking Tedium to Heart

One of my favorite and most-thumbed books in my house (and that is saying something) is Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Daily Life. It’s filled with quotes and photos of joyful life.

But most of all it is a gentle redirection: away from autopilot and toward a more mindful experience of life, regardless of the task.

The chapter on “Work” defines then deconstructs the Protestant work ethic. This chapter alone will give so many of you the language to define your own angst and guilt related to your work experience. It reminds us that the Calvinstic theology that our founding fathers subscribed to “held that only a certain number of people in the world are destined to be saved or chosen by God.”

“Although there was no way to tell for sure whether you were part of the elect, you COULD tell if you were not. Any signs of sloth, lack of prudence and above all lack of worldly success were sure signs that you were not of the chosen.”

– from “Chop Wood, Carry Water”

It is easy to see how we fall into the trap of dissatisfaction with our lives and our work– whatever that may be — if our ultimate motivation is only to be driven by someone else’s definition of success.

Tara’s point about achieving “depth of work” aligns with the authors’ point here about “right livelihood”:  Finding work that ignites passion, allows us to constantly learn, attaches us meaningfully to a community, and is right for us will creates a space of mindfulness. Ironically, it will ultimately achieve what the Calvinists sought as well: a committed work ethic.

Regarding the Dishwasher

Within the scope of all work, of course, there seems there are tasks we all dislike. For me, this is when be able to achieve mindfulness is MOST useful. By seeing the bigger picture of my family — and the reasons for why I chose to be a mother — I can more easily fulfill the small duties related to that role.

Tip: To be more mindful, personally, I use ujjayi breathing, a technique I learned in yoga. It’s hard to spell, but not hard to learn. I also quickly adjust my posture to return to mountain pose alignment. Both are quick physical reminders for a more mindful moment, especially during those less meaningful tasks that fill our days.

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Cinnamon rolls have to be one of my favorite foods.

Over at Pioneer Woman this morning I was drooling at her recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Sweet Rolls. The recipe even starts from the yeast, and not from a blue can you tear paper off of and bang on the counter’s edge.

Man, I like Ree’s blog almost as much as I like the idea of making those rolls for myself and my family. I mean, look at the amount of effort it took to take the photos of that process. That is thoughtful attention to detail.

I reckon I can see why Ree gets hundreds of comments on her blog… she does good work and she makes it look so effortless. Usually that is the sort of person I want to have killed, but for some reason, Pioneer Woman speaks to my soul. I mean, have you seen the way she treats a toothpaste tube?

Anyway, we all have some skill like that. That something we twiddle away at mindlessly while other people stare helplessly, longingly. Playing the guitar, knitting a sweater, downshifting into third.

Just this morning, when I am craving a hot sweet roll, Ree has got one over on everybody.

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Only once do we have the chance to ACTUALLY be brand new.

We arrive on the earth, sticky and discombobulated, completely unprepared for all this light and noise.

From then on, we are experienced. We’ve seen it all. So we have to do all manner of contortions to reinvent ourselves.

The book I am reading right now is sort of a self-help for writers. It’s called “Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper,” by an author I really admire. She has many books out that are very successful yet totally unique. You’ll recognize them instantly by their bright colors and hand-written text. She goes by SARK.

In the book, she tells the story of one of her most famous published works. You’ve probably seen it. It’s a poster called “How To Be an Artist.” The story is set in her “magic cottage” where she started out, before she was ever published.

“It (the “How to Be an Artist” poster) was my colorfully written statement that we are all artists of Life. I took this crooked, color full page to a store in San Francisco. They also had a catalog, and agreed to publish a photo of the poster once to see if anybody liked it. The orders flooded in and I ended up making 11,000 by hand. There are now over one million Artist posters in print.” — SARK

Something about this story whispers in my ear, with reverb that travels into the deepest recesses. It’s where I hide my fears. The places I am certain I will fail, so I leave well enough alone. The place where I conjure up another witty or even snarky remark about Someone Else to distract myself and anyone from my calling which has not been satisfied.

Everyday, for any reason, it seems, we are offered the chance to reinvent ourselves. We can suddenly become parents, or pop idols, or in the case of SARK, an artist creating exactly the message she desires, whilst still being able to pay the rent. I am working on something like that, I guess, (though I only now managed to add this sentence, in a second edit).

You know that feeling you get, standing  in line for the tall fast roller coaster? Your legs melting from the core and your stomach rolling?

That’s exactly what I am feeling right now. Telling you.

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