Okay. It’s getting to be slightly absurd the way I have been disclaimerizing all my posts this week.
So this one? Also not really a post. Whatever that means.
More of a … oh, let’s call it a summing up.
This week of teaching at Jen Louden’s life-changingly great Laughing Crying Writer’s Retreat in Taos has been so full of fantastic.
And there are all these bits and pieces I want to talk about with you! Will try to throw as much as possible into the Chicken tomorrow.
But maybe just a couple things for now. A smart thing, a happy thing, a ridiculous thing and a word.
A smart thing!
Remember in the Very Personal Ad Sunday when I decided to not work on the book but instead on my relationship to the book?
So. This turned out to accidentally be the most genius thing in the entire world.
So much freedom, so much permission, so much playful silliness! And no struggling, because there was always stuff I wanted to write about:
What I know about hanging out with Writer Me. Getting Metaphor Mouse to rewrite some problem concepts. Interacting with my monsters and my various stuckified patterns related to being someone who writes.
The results were huge. Not only did I destuckify like mad, I was able to thoroughly document everything I do when I work on my own stuff.
As I untangled my own patterns, a ton of the techniques that I use with my clients and in workshops got … written down. Which is what would have happened had I actually worked on the book, only it would have been way more tortured and agonizing.
So the choice to process the process instead of doing the process made room for all sorts of brilliant things to happen.
Sneakified mouse = me! Oh boy!
Also, the shivanautical moments of bing are coming so fast and with such intensity that it’s really all I can do document them before the next flood begins. So much for my fear of not knowing what I want to say.
A happy thing!
I spent a lot of time this week trying to discover (or remember) the word that describes the flavor of happy that I have been experiencing.
The word for that … teary welling-up. When you’re so ___________ to be alive and be here and be now that you could kiss every pebble and gaze adoringly at your own fingers and how wonderful they are.
It has gratitude in it, yes, but that’s not really the whole of it.
Bliss is close, but bliss has sadly gone in the direction of “I followed my bliss and became a therapist” or whatever, so it’s lost that essence.
That thing! That tingling, joyful thrum of anticipation and wonder.
I’ve decided to call it ELATION.
That is the closest. And it has been a very long time since I’ve felt this sensation for more than odd moments. Significant chunks of this week have been spent in a state of ELATION.
Grounded and centered and conscious. Not giddy. Not high. Not buzzing. Just a deep, rich I AM HERE AND I LOVE YOU, MOUNTAINS that I have not felt in so long.
Obviously a lot of this is from all the Shiva Nata and the hot buttered epiphanies and the Old Turkish Lady yoga and the writing writing writing writing. And some of it comes from the green chiles.
But this …. ELATION. Oh, it is a beautiful and hard-to-explain place to visit.
A ridiculous thing!
I couldn’t get much cell reception this week (and the writing was tugging at my hand), so I didn’t get to talk to my gentleman friend. We mostly communicated by Direct Message on Twitter in the form of a ridiculous game that made itself up for our amusement.
I don’t know if this could possibly be funny to anyone other than me (it’s based on his knowledge of my bordering-on-phobic dislike of the word “caulk”). But it ended up being a useful Retreat Survival Tactic.
My Gentleman Friend: So I won’t mention the upcoming caulking project.
Me: Ew. Gross. What’s WRONG with you? I baulk at your caulk.
MGF: Well, don’t just sit there and saulk! #jonas
Me: Don’t forget to deal with those celery staulks.
Also those seagull waves in your hair are just a bit flaukish. #80s
MGF: Now you’re just maulking me. In a sort of insincerely maudlin way! #mawkish
Me: Also, you’re INCREDIBLE. Like the Haulk. #hawkish
MGF: Wagnerian, even. #rideoftheVaulkeries
Me: You might have to take a short Waulkeries off a long pier if you keep that up. But if you paint, wear your Smaulkeries! #butnotdungarees
Me: Or are you thinking of the Thirteen Claulkeries #thurber
MGF: You’re close – I was actually thinking of the children’s rhyme. Hickery Dickery Daulkeries.
Me: And please no references to New Kids on the Blaulkeries. #shazam
MGF: In that case, how about references to Columbo, a disputed island near Argentina & a British holiday involving flames & fireworks? #shazoom
Me: Yooooooooouuuuuu! I should claulk you. Or maybe blaulk you — on Twitter.
MGF: I’m just going to waulk away, veeeery slowly now. Or perhaps we should taulk it over?
Me: Yes, you’d better give up completely. Laulk staulk and barrel!
MGF: Laulk. Now THAT is gross.
Me: You’re hilarious. But not really one to taulk. By the way … knaulk knaulk! …
MGF: Who’s there? (he asks trepidatiously)
Me: Doctor.
PAUSE.
PAUSE.
MGF: Ach Du scheisse! #doctorhulu
Me: No. You’re wrong. It’s Doctor Spaulk.
MGF: Ha! Hmm. I was always more of a Mr. Spaulk guy, myself. #ears
Me: What a craulk.
MGF: #craulkodiletears
Me: Well, chaulk it up to experience.
MGF: Don’t raulk the boat, I always say. #seewhatyouvedone
Me: Don’t knaulk it til you try it, I always say. Though I ALSO always say: avoid electric shaulk.
Anyway, it just deteriorated (or should I say: ran amaulk?) from there so I’ll stop. Yes.
The best word ever!
Yay.
The word is WACKOPANTS, courtesy of the lovely Christina, who lives it. I will now be saying this all the time.
Mainly because I over-identify with it, being a huge wackopants myself.
That’s it for now.
Tomorrow we will chicken it up and there will be more.
In the meantime, I wish you a day that includes elements of ridiculousness, contemplation, and at least a couple of thoroughly wackopants moments — maybe even some that lead you to a bing or a thrum or that elusive thing that I’m calling elation.
Waving to all the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers, everyone who reads. Back to “normal” posting (uh, talking to walls and mindfully biggifying) soon!
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This Elation thing – I have been feeling much of it myself recently. It appears to go hand in hand with the more permission I give to myself to be myself.
So now you randomly find me patting trees and grinning insanely and saying, “Good Morning Sun, hurrah for you.” I sit with my back to the trees and hear them whispering and hope to goodness that no one can see inside my head because then they’ll know that I am hearing the whispering!
It is good, it is very good.
Havi,
Yay for working on the cracks instead of the stuck. And YAY for the results…
And I laugh so much my wife asked me what it was about. I had to read the whole aulkward thing to her, and she laughed too. Permission to copy the Twitter exchange and send to Tantie Diana (she totally gets this kind of things)
Thanks!
I’m de-lurking to say that was THE BEST ridiculous thing I’ve read here. Totally made me smile. 🙂
P.S. I’ve been linking to your site this week…thanks for having a glossary! Tons of love and good kittyn wishes to you RE: Fun Brewing.
Oh, this was so good to read! I’ve been having a crazy week — not all bad by any means, just hectic — and I have some commenter-mouse catching up to do, but I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed this (not a?) post, and how grateful I am for all of your wishes for today. Ridiculously contemplative wackopants elation, here I come! Now, where did I leave that glaulkenspiel?
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … The trouble with “middle vision” =-.
I am having ELATION that you and your GF found each other. Because you are really perfectly suited. 🙂
And happy-happies that the writing retreat did the trick for you. I think that’s the Big Secret of writing retreat – you make progress, yes, but it’s more about bonding with your writing and your writing self. IMO.
.-= Amna´s last post … Where I’m from =-.
I love the ridiculous thing. Very funny and just what I needed today, just a good silly laugh. And of course all the other great stuff in this post is a lovely bonus. Hooray for your book process and thank you!
.-= Darcy´s last post … A day worth writing about =-.
Oh, elation-inducing, all of it. Twitter exchange with your lovely GF, process and writing about process, goofy word, mountain love…
I’m so happy you’re writing! 🙂
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Going Away =-.
Been lurking for weeks and shivanating too. Had to come out and play because I’m so happy to see that you and your GF are as ridiculous in the wordy way that my husband and I are. Many a long car trip has been tickled back into life with punnification and silly word stuff (although the teenage children might have called it “punnishment”). Anyway, wonderful to know there are other wackopants out there. Here’s to ELATION!
Judy
Elation. Yes, that’s what it is. That’s what I’ve been feeling non-stop right now.
Shaulked at how funny that Twitter exchange was.
.-= Julie Stuart´s last post … Miami Mojitos Architects And me =-.
This un-post. It makes me giggle. Fabulous.
Today is my “I am going to forget about the Giant Test of Doom” day. (oh so hard. oh so awful. oh so oh-no-I-wasn’t-as-prepared-as-I-thought. but if I failed, there’s nothing I can do about it, and I won’t find out for a month and a half so obsessing over it is not a good plan…) So today will involve things that make me happy. Because I could do with some elation right now. Elation. Delight. Joy. Chocolate…
Happy Thursday!
Uh-oh. My mind has grabbed wackopants and, instead of reading it as wacko-pants, has made it wack o’ pants, where a wack is defined as a very large amount.
So, when I read “at least a couple of thoroughly wackopants moments,” my mind came up with being attacked by large amount of pants falling from unlikely places.
I suppose that was a wackopants moment, wasn’t it?
WACKOPANTS!
I am SO IN! #thatisall
I’m wondering if proximity to mountains seriously helps generate periods of elation, because that’s exactly what I got out of my weekend-of-camping-and-drag-and-fire in the NC mountains recently. Like, in ridiculous amounts that I thought incompatible with the ridiculous amounts of Being Grown Up that I’ve been experiencing lately. (Except I call my elation sensucht – apologies to German-speakers if it’s wildly inappropriate – because according to C.S. Lewis, that’s the perfect word for it, and I’m too much of a Narnian to really be believed.)
I know that feeling. I feel it here a lot, often at the coast, but also in odd random moments like driving on 26. I thought it was because I loved it here so very much, but in reading @Wormy’s comment, I am wondering if I partly love it here (and feel it here) because this is where I am finally learning to be myself. Seems possible.
Still laughing at the Twitter exchange.
.-= Elizabeth´s last post … inspired by graffiti =-.
Wackopants! Oh yes, that totally sounds like something that would come out of Christina’s mouth! Gosh, do I miss you all…
I’m so glad you shared your smart, happy, and ridiculous things – they cheered me up a bit from that not-elated-at-all mood I’ve been in for the past few days. Really, I should have been in Taos: a serious dose of crazy Shiva Nata and a healthy helping of Old Turkish Lady yoga would have helped a lot with the hard.
Just want to say “hi” to all you spa ladies. Am missing not being there this year terribly. I’m thinking next year I’ll have to go back…Need to figure out if Mom wants to make the return trip too or not. : )
Havi, I’ve actually enjoyed your so-called “abnormal” posts a lot this week. Even when you’re not writing directly about destuckifying and biggification, I benefit. It all relates, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Thank you, always.
Love this post and especially love the use of “craulkodiletears”. No idea why that one made me giggle, but nonetheless. 🙂
So glad to hear the processing helped you write.
.-= Rose´s last post … Preparations for a Party- The Baby Shower =-.
please tell me you had some chaulkolate and Johnny Waulker to go with this zany exchange! Hee!
So glad you are Havi-ing your own dear self.
Oh my god the aulk is the best game ever! 😀
Random; you reminded me of a Best Vacation Moment Ever. While visiting the Gili Islands with my then-boss and friend, we stayed in the cheapest, most run-downest guest house ever. (Seriously, we had ONE towel between the two of us… and we had to request that one!) But I digress. When we first checked into our bungalow, my friend was looking for the switch to turn the fan on, saw a button by one of the beds, and pushed it.
And was immediately shaulked! (zot! eep!)
Moments later, the check-in guy walked in and motioned to the button my friend has JUST pushed, and said something along the lines of “don’t push this button” while taping it over.
So yeah. Don’t push the button… (zot! eep!) 😉
.-= Heidi´s last post … Would you invest in your business =-.
Oh my god i love you even more! I thought i was the only wakopants nutjob to use text to taulk in such a manner! Last week the FMG (funny mustache guy) and i stood back and watched while our phones (blackberry and iPhone) got into text slap fights like teenage girls from warring cliques, including “STUPID HAIR” and “FAT ASS” but eventually degenerated into binary code yelling (BITCH IISSON!!! 11100111000101011!!!!! 10001100011000!!!)
yeah. that.
🙂
elation is such a great word, and such a great description: simply joyful to be alive, to be exactly where you are in that moment, to be exactly who you are. it feels, for me, like my boundaries are gleefully melting out into the universe, and i am enlarged.
elation is kind of like running a marathon: once I experienced it, I can’t tell myself that I’m incapable of experiencing it ever again. it changes me.
This post made me all happy because it radiates your state of elation through every word. Yay!