Paulo Also Said
The Day
the day sparkles
hidden meanings and forgotten truths
reveal themselves
flashes of light
the day hums
energy and hope
turning everything
leaves of brightness that speak
infinite possibilities
the day sings
high, crisp notes
vaulting the sky
joining the stars
lifting souls
new arenas of thought
***
I’m in the coffee shop. I turned and looked out the window. There’s an indoor pool below. Sunshine rebounds off the pool’s waves, catching my attention. Wind rifles through the spring’s full, majestic trees. Sunshine flashes off the leaves as they twirl and bounces off car windshields, stinging my eyes.
I think and I write. Then I look again. Sunshine still lights the day, but its left the pool and the leaves, rendering me amused about looking out the window at just the right moment and angle to see.
Coupling
It’s been three joyous writing (and editing) days. Having one such day always energizes and intoxicates me. Returning to life’s normal routines and patterns afterward is deflating.
But then, coupling three days together feeds the highs, giving me a sensation of feeling invincible and omnipotent. It’s empowering but frightening because it must be kept in context for what it is.
That energy can’t help but spill over into other things. It stirs something that’s deeper and more primal in me. The short and long of it is that I’m accomplishing, creating something tangible from my mind’s energy and my physical exertion, and that is rewarding. I set a goal, and I’m working toward accomplishing that goal. When successful progress and its accompanying energy continues over three days, this sense parlays into a belief that I can do anything, because, hey, look how good the writing and editing is progressing. Woo-hoo.
Common sense helps ground me. Writing (and editing) and the rest of life aren’t the same. Thinking of this reminds me of some hotel chain’s commercials. They went along the lines of, “Let me operate.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“No, but I got a great night of rest.”
It’s all about how you feel, and the self-confidence that it stirs. I think the chain was Holiday Inn Express.
Meanwhile, however, some of my mind views all this with deep suspicion. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself,” at least one advisor whispers. “You’re probably not that good.”
It’s an amusing proposition because it demands that I hold two contrary ideas in mind, that I am that good, and that I’m not that good. Parts of my writing is probably amazing, and parts are probably crap. This is a draft, and I’m the writer, and I wrote it for me, so if I enjoy it as a reader, mission accomplished. It’s natural that others will dislike it, not get it, enjoy it or not, decide that it’s, “Okay,” (shudder), or love it. None of that’s within my control except that I wrote it for me, and I enjoy it.
Am I conning myself? You bet! But I think I’m also being realistic. I know, too, that I’ll probably encounter days when I feel sick about reading what I wrote because it needs a lot of work.
Accepting that I must stop now is a reluctant choice. I love the immersion of writing and editing my novels. I know myself, though, and my writing process, and its capricious nature. I know that going out on a high helps sustain progress because I feed off expectations created by past success. It at least makes it easier to get to the document the next day.
So, sadly, but joyously, time to stop writing editing like crazy, one more time.
The Lesson
His backpack seems light. Walking along, he thinks, what did he forget? In a flash, he concludes, OMG, I forgot the power brick. As he walks, he considers options and decides, just stay off the net, edit, and work as long as possible before the power is gone.
It’s a downer because he was looking forward to the work session. Now it was all changed.
But unpacking, everything is there. He’d forgotten nothing. It would be business as usual.
Sipping his coffee, he thinks, I put all that energy into worrying about a possibility that didn’t come to be, a possibility based on a false perception.
There must be a lesson there, he decides, and then goes to work.
A Scavenger Dream
I’d just begun new employment. I wasn’t the age I now am, but I was middle-aged and experienced in office environments.
The office building was one of those old San Mateo buildings used by start-ups. It was dark and cramped inside. I don’t know what the company was doing or what my position was. Those things were being explained but a haze covers that part of the dream. Then my boss, a director, said, “Here comes the CEO.” All present, except for me, started gravitating around the CEO and his words.
Beginning to sort the situation, I discovered a huge collection of parts. Looking at them, I realized it was a stockroom of one part. I don’t know what the part was. Taking one apart, I found batteries inside. Then I found and read paperwork, and spoke to others. The gist of what I understood about the company was that it was struggling and going through a re-organization. Resources were scarce. Investigating, I learned that the parts were old stock. They’d set it aside to get rid of it. I decided I’d remove the batteries, test them to see if they worked, or recycle them. Then I go find something to do with the parts.
The CEO came along while I was in the middle of doing this. “What are you doing?” he asked. I explained my plan.
My initiative impressed him. “This is the kind of thing we need to be doing until we get on our feet,” he told the others in a little speech.
I shrugged all of that off and kept going about my business. In another room, I discovered food being thrown away. I couldn’t understand that at all. Like the parts and batteries, I decided that wasn’t appropriate, so I began going through the food, checking the dates and packaging, and organizing it by its food group. Others entered while I was doing that. Many asked, “What are you doing?”
I explained myself each time. People most often replied, “That’s too much work.”
I didn’t argue with them or explain myself. I was settling in and had the time. It was a unique time and exercise; once it was done, it wouldn’t be needed to be done again.
I knew that, so I kept at it. As I worked, the food, battery and parts disappeared, as though I was seeing it through a time-lapsed recording. The office became brighter.
In the end, I paused. I was holding an armful of food containers. Looking around, I thought, I’m scavenging energy for re-use.
Understanding that, I went on, and the dream ended.
Nesting Dreams
I dreamed my mother was sitting at a table and telling me of her dream, in which I was telling her of my dream, in which I dreamed she was saying, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”
Don’t know what it means, but I dreamed it before. I recall thinking, what an unusual nesting dream. What are the Russian dolls called? Matryoshka dolls?
That stream triggered a search of old dreams, and there it was, December 7, 2016. I didn’t share the bit about Mom in the post, but posting about other dreams (which used the title “Matryoshka Dreams”) enabled me to do a search of my dream entries, where I found it.
I dreamed Mom and I were sitting at a table. She was telling me about her dream, which was a dream about me telling her about my dream. In my dream, she said, I told her, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”
I don’t know what she/I meant about ‘purging my disciplines’. That doesn’t make sense to me.
I don’t know what Mom was wearing in that first dream, but in this dream, she wore a light blue shirt and was thirty years younger. She was the only person seen or heard in the dream, but I knew she was talking to me.
After I meditated about the dream’s meaning while traveling, I decided this was about thinking deeper and drawing deeper energy. It’s an intuitive leap. I can’t explain the intuition, except that it’s because the dream is about layers, and about both male and female energy, and mother and son energy. Now, writing that, I think, it’s also about balancing deep thinking and drawing deeper energy. Purging disciplines is about re-shaping paradigms vis–à–vis effort and expectations.
Or maybe I’m just tired.
Flashes
You ever been doing something innocuous, like cleaning the cat box (and thinking, I would be rich if cat crap was worth anything) when writing flashes strike?
Happened to me today. Suddenly, scenes fill me. Gaps are bridged, with the story advancing on multiple fronts, like a creative offensive has been launched in my head.
Everything else is squeezed out for time to make room for dialogue, settings, and action scenes. It’s a struggle to keep up, like I’m in the center of several movies playing simultaneously. An impetus to rush off to write seizes me.
But the creative explosion wasn’t limited to writing and the current WIP. Writing is the largest beneficiary. While scenes for the current work in progress proliferate, so do a multitude of new ideas for other concepts in play, and fresh ideas. Catfinitions, those silly ideas involving cats and weak word play, pour in. Ideas for organizing and cleaning spring up like weeds after a rain. My overall energy levels surge. I feel powerful, confident, excited, and optimistic.
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Baby Steps
If she could just make it through this meeting, she could make it through the morning. Then she’d just need to make it through the afternoon and the drive home. Then, she just had to make it through the party tonight, and the family dinner tomorrow, and the celebrations the day after that. If she could just make it through all those things, she could make it to the end of the week, and get some time for herself.
But first, she had to make it through this meeting.
Another Frontier
I was thinking about my body, and your body, this morning, and the myriad energies that our bodies generate, use, store, emit, and absorb.
I think our current approach to our bodies’ energy is oversimplified and misunderstood. As I contemplated myself and my spectrums of behavior and being, I listed the kinds of energies manifesting and flourishing in us as humans:
- Physical
- Emotional
- Biological
- Intellectual
- Sleep
- Life
- Time
- Creative
- Psychic
- Dream
- Cellular
That’s a small beginning.
Most people probably treat these energies the same. They probably dismiss that all these energies, and more energies, co-exist in us, coming together as energy flows to help us function. Privately, though, many people know and understand on some level that these energies are different and unique.
People know when their energies are off. They’ve privately experienced the differences. They’ll tell you, “My physical energy is low, today.” Substitute emotional or intellectual energy for physical energy. Or they’ll paraphrase, and mention, “I can’t think straight, today.”
I think someday, we’ll have a much better understanding of these energy types, and their sources, and interactions. Meanwhile, we’ll make-do, struggling to cope with your physical energy, when it’s actually your sleep energy that’s mis-aligned.
Of course, I would think these, because I think life and reality is a series of overlays. As we learn and evolve, layers are peeled away, but we’ve barely begun to understand.
Sucking
Ever been in a room full of people, and feel like they’re just sucking the energy out of you?
Michael Seidel, writer 