Thursday Thirteen - The Smaller But Important Things

Hopefully, I’ll be up to date with this post. Keeping a schedule of course, is another thing. Here goes:

I see the signs of modern life taking its toil everywhere: the fast and junk food, self-help groups, commercials for prescribed medications,.

Then there is the loneliness described by the faces of anxious and tired women: waiting on or for customers, talking at bus stops, some trying to make conversation. Or closed off from the (working) world, listening to itunes, ipods, whatever. I never knew how lonely it all could be – until now – and especially as a mom.

As adults, we get sucked in by our own thoughts. Almost like furnishing or designing a room – before the wallpaper, there’s the blue print – the rawness of emotion and love, not only with others but within yourself.

The small things in life are indeed free. I’m grateful to have come across most of these in my short lifetime.

Consider these options as useful practices in your daily creative life, as you create the residual yearning of mental, emotional, spiritual and social growth.

1. Write about it. Every so often, I’ll goad the pen (or computer) and dip into time. My characters provide me with the love. I just write about them. It all takes time since writing is also a process of maturity and maturation. Since fiction is lifting characters of my family and friends does not merely mean require writing about them , I wait until they give the love back to me. And they do; For this reason alone, I truly find the creative process therapeutic.

2. Finding the comfort in my husband and son. I spend many hours of the day alone. Writing. Sometimes I enter blank and dark and dusty and unfamiliar corners. I need to share. My husband and child are always there for me. A loving home provides a foundation. (can’t remember – must be from a quote??)

3. Looking through photo albums

4. Playing old videos and tapes. Recently I uncovered some of my mom’s old piano music. Since her Alzheimer’s, she hasn’t been able to play a single note, but the mazurkas remind me of those old ballerina dances when I twirled in front of a full length mirror.

5. Smiling at people – complete strangers. I’m not a smiley person. I keep everything hidden. Very well. However, I’m turning outward. Pittsburghians are a friendly bunch and it’s not hard to practice smiling. On them. NYC – forget it. Well, maybe not.

6. Call up an old friend or family member. Or send a beautiful Jacqui Lawson card. When I came back to the States after my 18 year hiatus from Israel (I visited Israel every few years or so), I immediately got back in touch with a few old friends I had not spoken to in years reminding me why I cared or respected them.

7. Visiting special places that have meaning of significance. For me two summers ago, this meant visiting my Dad’s old art studio atop one of the roofs where I grew up in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, USA. Out of eagerness and desperation to see what was still there after twenty years, I finally got the maintenance supervisor to open it only to find it full of shambles but the rusty ol’ chock-full-of nuts cans of bolts and screws were still there – as if they hadn’t left its twenty year positions.

8. Going through baby books. Reading the words of love. Finding the love and connection all over again. It’s a very meaningful experience.

9. Reading old books – especially children’s.

10. Say old jokes, songs, anecdotes, stories you remember as a child. The things I would do when I babysat years ago, I now do with my son. Coming full circle.

11. Listening to old albums (I still have an old 1970’s stereo system in my mom’s apartment)

12. Help an elderly or frail person – volunteering. (I plan to do this soon)

13. Love thy neighbor….write in your journal… exercise… whatever it takes to find the love again.

HAPPY TT EVERYONE!!