In the past few months, I've been reading some nonfiction I want to highly recommend.
Creativity
Creative is a Verb, by Patti Digh, is a four-color book packed with ideas on how to think creatively, and how to look at the ordinary things of life from a different perspective. There are three parts to the book: Art Fear, The Six Creative Commitments (Be Ordinary, See More, Get Present, Catch Fire, Clear Ground, and Let Go), and Art Yearning. Art Fear addresses our inhibitions at the idea of doing something creative, if we don't usually think of ourselves as artists, musicians, or writers. The Six Creative Commitments cotain slice-of-life essays, examples from the author's life on how something or someone taught her to look at an experience through new eyes. At the end of each essay are exercises to do. Art Yearning, the shortest section, speaks to our need to wait until we have "perfect" conditions to create; Digh emphasizes that there is no such thing, and we must simply start, so as not to regret time lost while waiting for these conditions.
If you are a person who admires creativity in other people, but you don't think you have your own creative skills, this book will open your eyes. Digh shows us that there is creativity to be had in every aspect of living, every choice we make, if only we are open to it. In the essay "Stand on Your Rock" Digh tells of her shy daughter's trip to camp, and how, after a three-day hike, Emma came into her own self, "hands on hips looking squarely into the camera." Digh explains that sometimes we let people write our life stories, as she wrote her daughter's, but that we need to write our own stories: "What stories do we hear others tell about us, over and over and over again--until we start believing them?" That certainly had me thinking, as did "Sit Down and Write."
I love to write, when I can make myself do it. Mostly, I spend a lot of time thinking about it, afraid that if I actually put words to paper/screen, it will be a pale shadow of the vivid image in my mind. Digh's urging to "just do it" stayed with me, and when I was inspired to write my own essay about the freak winter storm we had, I actually did do it, and sent it off, and miracle of miracles, it was published by our local paper!
Whether you bake, knit, teach, write, draw, take photographs...whatever...reading this book will make those experiences even more alive. You can learn more about Patty Digh on her blog, 37 days.
I'm captivated by lighthouses, and the stories they can tell!
Happiness
I kept running into The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin in every bookstore I visited this fall. At first, I dismissed it as one of those gimmicky books that come and go, but then my curiosity got the best of me, and I discovered that it contains a lot of thoughtful ideas I wanted to practice in my own life.
Basically, Rubin was riding a bus when she wondered whether she could improve on her level of happiness. Doing an "Eat, Pray, Love" abandonment of her current life was not an option, and she was generally content with her marriage, job, and family. After reading tons of happiness books written by classic and modern authors, she worked out a monthly plan to address each area of her life where she felt she was not living up to her full happiness potential. Each month had a theme: January/Energy, February/Relationships, March/Work, April/Friends, etc. For each month, she lists four to five actions she took to try to increase happiness in that area. For example, in January, in order to increase her energy, she went to bed earlier, exercised more often, cleared her house of clutter that was dragging her down, and worked through a to-do list of outstanding chores. In April, she set out to increase friendships, and developed a children's lit book group. Each month, Rubin shares which actions did help her to feel happier, more peaceful, or more energetic, and which actions didn't work as well as she'd hoped, for example, keeping a food diary to increase mindfulness in October.
In some ways, I really relate to Rubin -- her perfectionist, "gold star" nature, intellectual curiosity, and need to research as a way to find answers -- but in others, she's much more left-brained than I am. While I wholeheartedly agree with her idea that we need an environment of challenge and progress in learning to be truly happy, her solution was to start her blog (conquer technology), while mine is about yoga and writing. I noticed also that she never mentions travel, which is a source of happiness and growth for most of us, and, living in the city, she didn't seem to need a connection to nature and being out of doors, which many of us crave. Beyond writing, she doesn't seem to find happiness in any creative pursuits like music, art, theater, crafts, or even cooking. But this is her point -- everyone's happiness project is different, and your goal is to identify those positive experiences where you don't spend enough time, and those negative experiences where you need to reframe your attitude or anger to make them happier.
In my case, I'm working on exercising more, cleaning the clutter out of my home office/studio, and trying to spend more time doing things I love like reading and knitting. I haven't written up a formal plan yet, but I just might. You can read more about happiness on Rubin's blog here.
Life
I started reading these books before I began to feel a subtle shift happening in my own life. While I'm still looking for a full-time job, I've been doing some freelance editing which I really enjoy. I'm attending my weekly yoga class regularly, and finding that it fills a self-nurturing I haven't had before (except for crow pose, which I can't do...). And, sadly, after volunteering for four years at my local animal shelter, I resigned a few weeks ago. There were some longstanding issues there that I was hoping would be resolved, but it doesn't look like they will be. It was heartbreaking for me to come to that decision, but I know that I will always need to work for animals, especially cats, somehow. So, after the holidays, I'm going to look into a couple of other organizations, and, in the meantime, perhaps write more articles for Examiner.com. I stopped doing that over the summer when I got busy, and discovered it wasn't paying anything for all of the effort I put in. Maybe it's time to revisit that, in terms of enjoying the writing for its own sake, and providing humane education which is a passion of mine. These two books have helped me to see that there are lots of possibilities, so much exploring to do, and I'm hoping that as we head into a new year, that I can create a new start for myself, one that is happier and filled with more creativity.
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