The Trade-Off of Caution and Humility

The book I mention in this episode is Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis.

Informing and Inspiring

Unedited, cross-processed film. Taken with my Horizon Perfekt panoramic camera.I wish I could say it's as simple as telling your soul to wait until June, to hold off and sit quietly in the corner until this last project is made. This part of the making takes so much left-brain attentiveness to copy editing and making sure the sound edits are undetectable, so many calls to printers and attempts at clear communication and then when it's out of your hands and into someone else's--so many crossed fingers and prayers.

But I've been saying "just hold on" for so long now and "it won't be much longer", even as our timetable has stretched this long production phase from April now to June. And perhaps at the end of the day one doesn't have this much say in what kind of seasons draw us in or usher us out.

It makes me feel split between two worlds whenever I have deep, intuitive shifts happening under the surface. So much is always happening up at the surface, whether five pieces are going into production or I just need to remember Wednesday morning's check-up at the doctor and that tomorrow really IS the deadline for a little one's field trip money and she will be so disappointed if I forget.

I tell myself, Be present. But in the middle of the playground or the Friday night movie I have a montage all my own running behind my eyes as the part of my mind that weaves together and connects and takes all the patches and sees how they fit into the whole, spins with memories and emotion and the wise things others have said and all I'm missing is the popcorn.

While I'm shifting and swirling in the place where two worlds overlap, here are a few of the pieces simmering in my internal pot. Things that are informing or inspiring me, right here, right now.

The New Feminine Brain:

Developing Your Intuitive Genius

by Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D.

Maya Stein's Spoke-n-Word daily journal of her amazing Type Rider project

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Johnny Cash at San Quentin

(You may need to switch to full-screen mode to close the pop-up text windows.)

An Evening of Stories with Jolie Guillebeau

All photos by Bella Cirovic, whose generosity feels completely other-worldly to me.

Arriving early, waiting for dinner.

When you live far from people you work with and people you love, being together feels like waking up into a dream that keeps on dreaming you even after daylight hits its screen. Disbelief is your constant companion as you shake off the thoughts that this is all too good to be true.

It IS true, you tell yourself. You are here, right now, together. You found one another—in the great sea of the world, you recognized some kindred light in water or in sky and you found a way to meet. And this is your reward: these soothing souls who help you decide what to wear, who drop into your afternoon routine with the little girls, who help you carry the load and host and take pictures that make you look beautiful, who drive and ride for hours to share a table and a drink and receive your stories as a gift. 

I'm not sure there's any better medicine for the soul than stories and togetherness. Gatherings like these are physical manifestations of the truth that runs like a current, always, beneath our feet: no matter how alone we feel, no matter how particular and specific the details of our struggles and sorrows, the minute one person shares her story all the separateness falls away and we remember that our stories touch places in the stories of others. They run parallel, they ring out in the same key, they chart a way through the common frontier that is the human experience.

We are not alone, this we know whenever stories and togetherness are present. It all matters, we all count, and as someone I know would say, it's beautiful.

To hear some of the stories from the evening, check out this podcast interview with Jolie. (You can now subscribe in iTunes.) My deepest gratitude and thanks go out to all the dear ones who came from near and far to join us. The whole evening was a dream come true, and it wouldn't have been the same without you.

Jolie's book, Beauty Everywhere: A Portable Gallery, is available for a limited time.

Walking in the Snow

One winter night I was in line before a StorySLAM at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe with some friends. I really wanted a peppermint tea, and Ben wanted to find a restroom so we set off together to find a coffee shop. We wandered through the Lower East Side of Manhattan, past stoop steps and empty flower boxes and these snowflakes started falling--the big, quiet kind that make you feel like you've suddenly stepped into a movie. Snowflakes landed on our heads and our shoulders and I don't even remember what we talked about but I remember feeling this big, quiet kind of happiness that makes you feel that you are just where you need to be.

That walk through the snow is one of my favorite New York moments.

It was such a pleasure to sit down with Ben Lillie and hear about the journey that brought him to the Nuyorican that night. A former physicist at Stanford, now the director of Story Collider and a writer for TED.com, Ben is my most recent guest on Retrospective: The Podcast. Listen to our conversation here, or subscribe in iTunes.

Finding Your Voice: Forgiveness

Photo by Allison Downey, allisondowney.comEvery time I step onto a stage I have to forgive myself.

I forgive myself for breaking so many rules, like: 

• Be quiet.
• Stay small.
• Swallow your truth to spare other's feelings.
• Look good.
• Make us look good.
• Stay positive.

I forgive myself for not being able to control what others feel, whether they agree or not, whether or not I am understood.

I forgive myself for decades of jaw-clenching to hold my words inside. For the way my throat still tightens and catches, making my voice break when I wish it was pouring out uninterrupted and free.

I forgive myself for forgetting how to forget myself and be natural, for needing to practice, to remember.

I forgive myself for wanting to be good, to get it right, to have my words tight and dialed in.

And I forgive myself for fumbling and for stumbling as I try to let it all go. As I try to surrender.

Join us for an intimate night of stories (no stage) tomorrow night at Park Slope Ale House (7:30pm, no cover). I'll be with one of my favorite people in the world, Jolie Guillebeau, whose stories are better than mine. You'll get to see what we've been up to together, live and in person. Tell us you're coming and we'll save a spot for you.

More on Finding Your Voice here.

What Being A Beginner Looks Like

Our first attempt at a mailing like this.

Getting a lesson in perfectionism from the printer: (The good one.)

"Nothing is ever perfect." Brian the printer: "That's right, & the sooner you accept it the faster you can forgive yourself 4 the mistakes."

— Jen Lee (@jenleedotnet) April 24, 2012

Compiling all the addresses into a spreadsheet, but then not being able to figure the mail merge out. (Oh well--handwriting is better than labels anyway.)

Thinking removable mailing seals sound like a good idea.

Noticing a few popping off, and thinking, I must not have gotten them on good enough. Rubbing them back on with your fingernail because that will do it, right?

Watching the postal worker drop a huge stack of international-bound mailers in her giant cart and seeing a seal pop free right before the pile falls.

Knowing as you walk away that it will be a small-scale disaster. Imagining them all coming apart, getting returned to your tiny postal box which cannot hold them, or arriving postage due. Feeling your whole body tighten with dread.

Searching all over the neighborhood for "permanent" seals. Believing when you find them that this time it will work. 

Folding every domestic mailer, plastering them with little white circle seals. Bundling them all into your market bag.

Carrying them to the postabl box, only to find these labels popping off, too. Rubbing them back on with your fingernail. Dropping half of them in before realizing that it will be a small-scale disaster.

Imagining them all coming apart, getting returned to your tiny postal box which cannot hold them, or arriving postage due. Feeling your whole body tighten with dread.

Calling your mother, who has a much stronger relationship with objects and the physical world than you do. She suggests staples, or tape. Feeling foolish for ever trusting those damn white circle seals and their lofty claims.

Remembering last night's revelation about all you cannot control, the futility of trying to hold it all together, and the calm that followed. Acknowledging the way your peace and hoped-for enlightenment are brought to their knees in an instant by a rebel force of little white circle seals. Spiralling into crisis because you literally cannot hold them together.

Longing to pull it off exquisitely, with joy in your heart and ease stretching across the morning of your face, but knowing everything will conspire to remind you: you cannot be anything but what you are. A beginner.

Please send forgiveness and understanding my way if your white circle seals don't hold. I'm leaving the comments open because I could really use the good news if any of these catalogs arrives successfully. The third batch went out Saturday, with tape. And it's not too late to request some good mail.

Helpful Things People Have Said

a country retreat

Helpful things people have said to me in the last few days:

• You're expecting too much of yourself.
• It's enough.
• You need to get back on stage--that's why you're so tired.
• What would it be like to stop hiding, to come out and just be? (That's what you do on stage, isn't it?)
• What would it be like to forgive yourself for not being able to do the impossible?