The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder

Finding Your Tribe

If you are not being appreciated for who you are, you may be hanging out with the wrong tribe. We all have our audience and our group of believers.  Sometimes we find ourselves in a group of peeps that look at us with questioning expressions on their faces when we emit creative thoughts. Chances are if we were with our tribe we'd get all sorts of validation.

Of course, real validation comes from the inside, but it helps and feels good to be in a group of like-minded individuals. When you're in the wrong tribe there's a tendency for your self-perception of to warp. When you're around believers, your self perception is reinforced and liberated.

Ask yourself...

• Do the people I'm hanging around "get" me?
• Can I be my authentic self with them?
• Or am I hanging around them out of habit, laziness or because of the food group I was assigned to (that'll make sense in a minute).

You have the freedom to find your tribe. You may have to figure it out over a cup of hot chocolate, so take your time. But consider finding a group of people who "get" you.  That's what the Marshmallow Queen did.

The Reallocation of the Marshmallow Queen

For the past several years I, the Marshmallow Queen, have no longer been satisfied with where I am in the Food Kingdom's guiding pyramid of daily nutritional health.

The root of my very being has drastically been questioned. Marshmallows fall out of any esteemed food groups where once they were used for sore throats, as immune system boosters and wound healers.  They are now banished to the advised-against columns of the nutritional elite.   

 I appealed to the Congressional Hearing of Dietary Merit clarifying my unique contributions,  Someone called out "You lie."    Then at a townhall meeting someone stood up and said, "Sugar, Do what you are best at and adhere to your role as the stuff that holds Rice Krispy Treats together. Stick with them, at least THEY have 10 essential vitamins and minerals."  

I will not be made to feel like FLUFF!  I am maddened. I am insulted.  At this point it is I who is snapping, crackling and ultimately … popping.

 I might be losing touch with the confection of soft, powdery, gelatinous beauty that I  am but  I refuse to lose contact with my inner goop. I'm not just being bitter either, Marshmallows are never bitter..

I,  who have created a stir in your hot chocolate, smoothed the way on your rocky  roads of ice cream. I, who have always volunteered to stick it through the heat of a campfire roast. When people thought they had less, I gave them …  s'more. (clearing of throat)

There WILL be an uproar of controversy cooked up when people, for their campfires,  try to spear tofu and roast it on bonfire nights. 

 Marshmallows are important in decorum, in passion, important in bite size or regular.   I just will not stick by silently for I fear it will harden me. If I stay in your world of class discrimination I might become inflexible, inelastic or heavens forbid, stale. So I have redefined myself.  Instead of staying in a place where I'm not relished appropriately, I take myself out of the Food Kingdom.  So ladies and gentlemen, I AM NO LONGER A FOOD.  I, THE MARSHMALLOW QUEEN, DECLARE MYSELF and my kingdom HARDWARE!  And I can DO that.

Because of my preservative nature marshmallows can be hardware. The tools of the hardware kingdom have welcomed my elasticity.  I will hang with Velcro, epoxy and dry wall.  I will illustriously cover up nail blemishes when people remove pictures from their walls, block small holes where spiders try to intrude into unsuspecting households, catch flies when they are a nuisance in the kitchen. I will stop uneven tables from rocking. Enough marshmallows in peep-form placed on plywood and a box spring can serve as a nice jet-puffed mattress for guests.

If that doesn't work out, I plan on going into the jewelry business.

I redefine myself with refined bliss. Don't look for me on your grocer's shelves because you no longer have the marshmallow queen to spear, smear, float, tote or take lightly anymore.

First Ransom Question

 

How do I become better creatively?

First answer from my Kidnapped Muse. She quotes the Tao te Ching:

 

To hold you must first open your hand. Let go.  
 

Creativity is non-linear. It doesn't always cooperate when you come at it head on. Sometimes trying to grasp creative productivity with all your might chokes off the process and leaves you cranky. 

 

Let go of the pressure.

 

Relax, melt into the flow letting go of expectations for the outcome
The paradox of change is that first we need to accept ourselves just the way we are... then we can change.

Today let go of all that self improvement stuff and say to yourself, "I don't have to be a better person today."
You don't... you're already close enough...

Now with lightness and merriment go do your creative stuff.

Introduction to the Kidnapping

So, I opened my writing notebook to a blank page and started writing my next book.

Okay, no, that’s not right.  I did not do that.

I did do this: I opened a page to write my next book and then, as if free will was captive to some wickedly complusive robotic force, I  clicked on Facebook to post a status report that I thought might be rather clever.  

 And then since I was there, I clicked on a few of my “friends’” pages and “liked” oh... five their posts in compliance with unspoken herd policies, commented on three of them, flipped over to the page that asks a daily question requiring an exactly three-word response - thought about it for 2-4 minutes - wrote a sheepish response.

And then for some reason I spontaneously wondered how old Renee’ Russo was so clicked over to IMDB to see (56), then clicked back to FB to see if anyone liked my status report or my three-word response, flipped over to the Animal Rescue site to help feed the animals and while there ordered a paw print t-shirt, which reminded me that I should donate to Tori a dancer starting her own company in Philadelphia so clicked on Paypal, petted my cat who was pawing my leg, noticed my wind-up duck sitting there motionless - winded and watched, checked to see if anyone liked my three-word response… then felt the need to rest my eyes. So I flipped back to the page I opened to write my book because a blank sheet of paper is really, so soothing to the eyes.

By this time it was noon.

THIS IS MADNESS and unless I can see myself from an aerial view, I will repeat this insanity daily without questioning it. Writing about it helps create an aerial view.

Why aren’t I more disciplined? Why is creativity both so electrifyingly appealing and so difficult to comply with? Who knows these answers?

My Muse does.

WHERE’S MY MUSE? MUSE!?

My Muse. She helped me write my first two books, then she some took time off as Muses do but where is she NOW? When I set off to see what she was up to –I found her playing Spider Solitaire.

I told her I had a creative call and needed some help answering it.”
She answered, “So?”

So?  So…I kidnapped her. Which brings us to this series.

Here’s the deal: I told my Muse I would set her free if she answered the 25 demands that I hear over and over as a creativity coach from clients and students wanting so badly to answer their creative call but finding themselves a prisoner to distractions, overwhelm or fears.

But let’s get real. The Muse can really come and go as she pleases according to my mood, my motivation and the amount of caffeine I ingest, so she agreed to answer the questions ONLY if I answered them in a creative manner. “No writing on creativity should not look creative,” she said. So I agreed to answer the ransom questions with art, poetry, story, music and interpretive dance.

Okay, so the music and dance were difficult to translate to the page - you’ll have to trust me on those.