Category Archives: Uncategorized

this ship is shipping on…

Looking back at the the prologue, the first entry I posted before starting to live out any chapters, I noticed that I wrote about the idea of “letting go”. I wanted to let go of control, and of planning my life in a detailed way. The goal was to learn to trust and to watch life roll out in an organic way. I was curious to find out if it was possible to be guided by instinct or inner direction, (or in my case my friends) while at the same time be able to continue to make distinct and direct decisions for myself. Through trusting my friends and trusting the process and also by addressing my resistance and fears, I do feel that I am just starting (after six months) to understand the balance that is needed for this to happen. Maybe with another six months practice, I will be able to utilize these lessons to help me move forward.

During the past nine months, I have been living on a boat upon Spa Creek in Annapolis, MD living as fluidly as I could taking each month as it came written for me, one day and challenge at a time. The Living Chapters guidelines that I set up for myself, pre-project, somehow made this floating lifestyle seem much more manageable. The rules and outline of the project gave me a distinct structure that I have been following as closely as I could. If I found myself doing something that seemed a little out of the ordinary or questionable (like jumping rope in the airport in Boston or hanging out in an isolation chamber) I could point directly at the project outline for an answer to why this was happening and it just didn’t seem that strange anymore. I was accomplishing a task rather than making an “odd choice”. And even though I have been asked by external sources to do all these tasks, the self-created guidelines reminded me that it was my choice to follow through with them whether I liked it or not. I sometimes even chose to elaborate on them.

Deciding to live on the boat before Living Chapters began, was in a sense creating a space and such a guideline to start out this adventure: giving myself a physical structural reason to live without excess belongings, a place to create new habits, to adjust to a more simple life style, and allow myself financially to continue working part-time only. Somehow diminishing my living space and eliminating the excess stuff, opened up new opportunities and new ideas. This choice brought me personal freedom and time to explore different ways of living. I feel that the process of living out these chapters openly is doing this as well.

Living on water, has been the closest that I have been thus far to the physical realization and feeling of “letting go”. I have enjoyed floating and respected the dwelling for its practical, simple, and independent living. The boat itself as a home base has kept me strangely grounded in these changing months. Like the rules of the project, it has given me a structure for being here, and it has held a place for me in Annapolis. But as the seasons shift and winter arrives, I have decided to depart, drift away from the dock for a bit and metaphorically sail south. It is time to practice letting go just a bit more and take on the spirit of “saying yes to what life throws at you”. I have been given the opportunity to try out a new living situation and have decided to take it. As of the end of November, I have abandoned ship and will be floating between staying at homes of friends and loved ones for this reflection month of December. And although sad to leave “Morning Star” and the marina in general, I am excited to see what the warm air of the new year will bring. In January, I am taking a hiatus from my job and will be setting up camp on a tropical island for a while. So in the first few months of 2014, you will find me living out new chapters on the island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Exactly what will manifest there and how long I will stay is still unknown. Only time and possibly the next few chapters will tell.

12/4

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November: wildcard

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After being a guest on the Baltimore radio show “The Signal” in September of this year, our protagonist invited radio producer and host Aaron Henkin to be a wild card for November. He submitted his wild card task through a recording this month. Listen below to hear his mid-month challenge.

November Wild Card

love, madness & “elemental passions”

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“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

So I am about half way through Luce Irigaray’s “Elemental Passions” and I am convinced that her words are mostly a long string of blubbering nonsense that sound in-genius and palpable for moments in time –perfect for a precise moment but then disappear again into nothing but distilled disillusion and disappointment. OH OF COURSE she is writing about the state of being in love! The elemental urges, ebb and flow of that electric emotion that makes the world go round. How could it or would it make sense? If we understood it – it just wouldn’t be interesting right? We would simply stop yearning, trying, challenging ourselves to obtain it.

Maybe I am having a hard time relating to her words right now because this text was originally written in French (maybe the translation is off?) or it could be because I have been thinking too clearly and directly these days (I am currently past my last bout of love/sickness that clouded my judgement). For better or for worse, I don’t happen to be swimming in the sea of love at the moment, but I may be floating upon it. Love, like water has this way of making you thirst again as soon as there is a draught or you find yourself landlocked.

I have been attempting to read Laura’s recommended book a bit each evening reading it out loud before going to bed on the sailboat– savoring each sentence as if it were poetry, I am letting the words, and waves of confusion rock me to sleep. I am finding myself getting lost in its layers and caught up in the repetitive cycle of expression from ecstasy to misery and then back again.

I resonated briefly with this moment from Irigaray’s philosophical ramblings and then in a flash lost its meaning again:

“What attracts me in you, what I love in you, is what remains of your own self that part you have left so far behind, covered up so much that I alone, without ever letting it appear, can sometimes catch a glimpse of it like a faint light shimmering in the night.

In that frail illumination. I love you, I love myself. I would like to go back to it as to a place, an environment, full of impulse and growth, still vibrant with life. The whole of the living, the whole to live for, is that not kept captive within the almost imperceptible enclosure of light?”

An intangible elixir that intoxicates in ways beyond any chemical substance could. Love drugs us into such oblivion that we find ourselves singing, painting, purging, whining, writing and running furiously. Of course we all return to love. Who wouldn’t want to do all those things again and again? Although I tend to believe that love afflictions are not chosen – you don’t find love – in the end true love finds you.

Here is some wisdom from another who has spent a lot of time in love and madness:

11/14

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self-interview: take one

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So I have talked to myself most of my life, many of us do. However, should I be worried about my sanity now that I am also answering myself AND recording it? This article says not to worry, talking to myself might actually make me smarter? With this in mind, plus the fact that I needed to practice my now rusty audio recording and editing skills, I decided just to dive in and do a self interview.

I figure, If I am going to ask the people I care about some heavy questions about interpersonal relationships, I should be ready to answer them myself. I also believe that being on the other side of the microphone and the questions is a valuable exercise in general if I want to become a better interviewer.

What I learned from this experiment is this: I actually prefer expressing myself through the written word or through visual images than through a formal interview experience. Although making recordings is not a new experience for me, I find that I am a bit nervous and long-winded when being recorded. And after the process was over, I felt as if I could have come up with a more articulate responses. Hmmm… can my “writing self” teach my “speaking self” a thing or two?

Each interview I do this month will most likely flow in an organic direction but I decided that for all interviews, I would like to focus on learning something about my relationship with the person I am interviewing. I will try to do so by posing the following questions:

1. From your perspective, what or how can I learn from you or our relationship?

2. What or how have you learned from me or our relationship?

I also would like to see if any interesting stories come to the surface by asking this question:

Tell me about a specific relationship that has made a major impact in your life, one that may have changed your path or direction.

Asking myself these questions was more than a bit awkward but I gave it a go. The recordings below are results from the one and only take and are only slightly edited to take ums and pauses out.

Learning from myself?

Teaching myself?

Relationship that changed my path.

11/8

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seeking our story

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I have been seeking stories for a while now both in my personal and professional life. It seems to be the one thing that I never tire of, listening to people share an opinion, a feeling, a perspective and observing the way in which they share them.

Even though I have been doing interviews for a long time and have had some success at collecting some incredible stories, I have never been taught officially how to do formal interviews. I just started doing them. I relied on doing my best to build a connection or relationship with the person that I was talking with to help the subject feel comfortable and open to sharing their thoughts. Out of the hundreds of interviews I’ve collected though, I really have done very few recorded interviews with those that I already share a connection with.

I began this new month last weekend spending time with two people who I hold strong connections to, Emily Wheat (October’s Chapter writer) and Cosmic Jim Naeseth (The Living Chapters Referee). As I did not have proper recording equipment with me, I simply tested the waters in my conversations with both of them to see how the interview process would go with people I knew well and cared about.

I didn’t technically interview Emily, although I spent hours hiking in the woods interrogating her and contemplating on why stories themselves are so important and why we are drawn to passing them on. By asking Emily these questions, I came closer to understanding what I, personally, want to get out of the process of collecting and interviewing. What do I want to learn? By the end of our visit, I came up with a list of questions in which I intend to explore with all who I interview this month.

Focusing on interpersonal relationships, I have decided that it makes sense to just dig in and ask directly about them. I would like to focus on interviewing individuals who have changed my path (either subtly or directly) through their engagement in my life.

What can I learn from my relationship with these important people?

What have they taught me? Or how have they impacted me?

What have I taught them? Or how have I impacted them?

Who has changed the path or direction in their lives? How?

How have relationships played a role in their lives?

These are questions that I would like to seek answers to through my interview process. I am interested in learning about the relationships that change the path of our lives. Who are the people who have helped you become who you are or land you where you are or helped you shape your values?

After leaving Emily in the mountains of North Carolina, I stopped in Hampton, Virginia to visit Cosmic Jim. He was there visiting his family’s first home where he grew up. It has been about a year now since his father passed away leaving him the only one alive in his immediate family. This visit may have been the last trip to this place where Jim’s story began. It seemed appropriate in this moment of closure to witness and capture the beginning of his next chapter. A good place and time to inquire about his feelings about his path and relationships. And a good place to question myself about why I decided to drive here to Hampton, VA to share the experience with him.

I tested out the questions with Jim, after we visited his old street and the sea-side spot that he and his parents use to vacation at. I realized that these questions about relationships are not easy questions to ask nor are they easy questions to answer (whether you know your interview subject or not). It was more complicated than I had originally thought.

Years ago, I actually taught interviewing and story collecting to middle school youth in the neighborhood I lived in. In Remington Youth Community radio class, students interviewed their fellow neighbors and business owners in the community collecting the story of a neighborhood from the youth’s perspective. In order to get them use to the process of recording and interviewing, the first assignment I gave them was to interview themselves.

How could my students ask questions of others when they had not gone through the process of sharing their own answers with themselves? I’m now realizing that I may have something to learn by revisiting this assignment and interviewing myself first.

Before expecting the people I care about to answer questions about our life stories or our personal relationships, I would have to be willing to answer these questions myself.

11/5

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chapter six

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Stories from Your Life (and meditations on romantic love…)

Dearest Beth,

I have been wondering for months what the hell I’ve gotten myself into and how to engage with something so intimate and something so not my business as your interpersonal relationships. But talking to you has helped me come to grips with this dilemma. Our conversations over the last month have been extraordinary. Because of these conversations, you have been floating around my daily life even more than usual. I hear something, or see something, or think of something and you immediately come to mind. But even though you wash over me as a presence, there are times when I wish that I had recorded our talks so that I could pull you to my side in a more physical way.

This month, for the chapter on interpersonal relationships, I’d like to see you blend your friendships with your love for collecting stories. I would like you to interview four people (feel free to interview more if you like the idea) who you love, care about, or are intrigued by. You may choose old friends or people you want to get to know better. It would be wonderful to interview and record people who you’ve talked to for ages just to see what it’s like when you move from spontaneous conversation to a slightly more purposeful format. And I think one of these interviews should be with your Mom.

There needn’t be specific rules as to how you go about your interviews. You could decide to be dead serious, dead silly, to talk about deeply personal things or to talk about your favorite foods or films. You could talk about the past, present or future. You could ask someone to read your favorite story to you or to sing a song. Whatever is important to you at the time is good. I do think you should decide on some key questions before you begin your interview. It would be nice to begin by asking that person something you’ve always wanted to ask them or something that you’d like to be able to replay in the future. If the conversation meanders and you get completely side tracked, that’s fine. There is no need to share these stories or interviews with anyone if you don’t want to.

I would aim for one interview a week.

Now you have much more experience than I do related to collecting stories and thinking about story telling. But I’ve come across a few beautiful stories or meditations on storytelling over the past few weeks and I’d like you to listen to them. (Can you feel the teacher in me coming out here?) Hopefully you will just enjoy these. And we can include these pieces in our future conversations. Maybe, maybe, maybe you could think about the idea of a “single story” and your family.

What Are The Dangers of a Single Story? By Chimamanda Adichie on the Framing the Story episode of the Ted Radio Hour

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/20/186303292/what-are-the-dangers-of-a-single-story

Hitchhiking as A Family from Dick Gordon’s The Story program

http://www.thestory.org/stories/2013-10/hitchhiking-family

Terry Gross interview with Maurice Sendak from September 2011. This link takes you to the last 5 minutes of the interview, illustrated by Christoph Neimann. There is a link to the entire interview on the page.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/03/terry-gross-maurice-sendak-christoph-niemann/

I am going to use this challenge to record some stories from my parents. I have thought about doing this for years and will now get off my butt and do it. At the very least I can immortalize the story of my Mom getting her mouth washed out with soap by her father.

In terms of romantic love, I would like us both to read Elemental Passions by the philosopher Luce Irigaray. I will be sending you a copy of this book soon! Now this book will in no way give you any kind of useful advice about creating, maintaining, or leaving romantic relationships. As a matter of fact, you may find this book way too oblique and even annoying. But I’ve found sections of this book strangely beautiful and I thought we could talk about love and try to untangle what Irigaray is saying together. It’ll be a slightly different interaction between us, but it would certainly make a car ride to western Maryland edifying as well as fun.

love,

Laura

11/1/13

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.

October Creations

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Before this month of making and creating is over, I would like to take the opportunity to share some amazing creations made by the Living Chapters players. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by incredibly talented and creative individuals my whole life. I am constantly inspired, motivated and supported by them. This post features work from the participants who have helped make Living Chapters what it is.

The featured drawing here is from chapter writer Amy Rothstein. For me this drawing embodies my own feelings about the act of making and creating. I feel it can be a vulnerable, scary, yet sometimes empowering experience. We give life to an idea, or seed – caring for it and seeing it through to its existence and then let it go. It is a process we all engage in, in some way. In this post I want to honor those around me who take on this challenge in their daily lives.

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Chapter 5 Wild Card: Doug Sadler

In addition to being a great writer and an award-winning film maker, this month’s Wild Card, Doug Sadler, is the creative director for The Pocket Media Group. PMG represents a uniquely flexible model for creative promotion through the development of original multi-media content. Take a peak here to see how PMG’s creative thinking can help promote and connect people to products and ideas.

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Chapter 4 Writer: Amy Rothstein

This October, Amy has been busy making new artistic works. Below are a few examples: Of her work she says “I make my art to make peace with what I cannot know or understand.”

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Chapter 4 Wild Cards: Agnes and Grace Lichtner

This October Agnes has been creating costumes and treats for the season. Check out her “Olive Oil” costume above and her creepy and gross party snacks of chocolate mice and turds! Her daughter Grace has been busy making new friends by making friendship bracelets.

Outside of Agnes’s festive and creepy creations, She has been developing EYE-C (Enhance Your Existence Center) A life nurturing network that offers information about educational and experiential opportunities for developing and enhancing your limitless potential for healthy living. If you are interested in learning about holistic and healing arts visit her emerging collaborative organization here.

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Chapter 3 Writer: Andy Cook

You may have learned a bit about Andy’s passions for environmental issues through the “Cap and Trade” challenges he posed in chapter 3 of Living Chapters this past summer. Please take a peak at his new web series “Greater Yield” to see how Andy is using his creative talents to educate and inform larger audiences about these issues.

Greater Yield is a web series for CoLab Radio aimed at exploring the myriad benefits of urban agriculture in cities throughout the U.S. Using video, photography, and writing, the series highlights urban agriculture projects that are tackling challenges as diverse as public education, neighborhood revitalization, green job growth, and public health. The series also includes perspectives from multiple experts in each subject, to give a holistic sense of how urban agriculture is changing life in our cities beyond simply how we eat.

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Living Chapters Project Manager: Moira Fratantuono

When Moira is not organizing or creating spaces for others to be creative and make connections, she is working on independent creative projects of her own. She recently started to work on a series of photos/essays that explores themes of identity for first and second-generation Americans.

The goals of her latest exploration “Dual Identities” are to move past sterilized political debates over immigration. The project focuses on the personal experiences of individuals whose citizenship redefines what it means to be “American”.

Moira is currently working on developing content for a blog that will feature a new story each week. She is now looking for participants to be interviewed as a part of this project. Are you someone who could represent the immigrant experience? If you would like to participate or know someone who would, please contact Moira through the Living Chapters Facebook page or Livingchapters@gmail.com!

You can view more of the here: Dual Identities.

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I thank all of the Living Chapters participants for sharing their works of creation this month. If you have any questions about any of these projects or want to get involved please do not hesitate to contact them through me here on the Living Chapters blog.

10/27/13

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.

October Writer Response: Emily Wheat

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After reading Beth’s response to my challenge for this month, I felt inspired by the image she posted of the ghost that has been living in her car. Eventually these guys will journey around the country, spreading Halloween joy, but for now they are strung across my room.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to an Adventure Time themed party. Not knowing what Adventure Time was I googled images and immediately knew I needed to make finger puppets of the characters. Hopefully the Birthday Boy likes his gift! I think that they turned out pretty cute.

As an art teacher I spend a lot of time creating projects and prepping materials. One of my current jobs is teaching art once a week at the local Montessori school. Last week we made gelatin prints, which turned out to be a joyful experience resulting in some beautiful prints. These images show the process I go through on a weekly basis to make examples of the project and collecting materials.

I decided to make some cards using Styrofoam printing plates and while I was searching for some materials I came across this plate of a skeleton that I created last fall. I made it just around this time last year in an attempt to create something to celebrate my grandfather who passed away a several years ago. I say attempt because like many projects that I start I didn’t ever do anything with the plate. I’m thrilled about the prints (which some people will receive in the form of cards) and want to share a little about why I was so inspired to create this imagery in the first place.

As Beth has pointed out we share a deep love for Halloween. Part of this love has to do with my fascination with skeletons and the depiction of them functioning as if still living. For this reason I was looking at a lot of art centered around Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, last year and wanted to create a piece of my own that would allow me to celebrate my grandfather, someone who has had a profound impact on my life.

My grandfather, Al Nolin, was a man who was always making something new or changing something that already existed. My childhood was spent visiting his ever-changing wooden deck that transformed the back yard into a terraced wonderland. When I was young he sculpted a life-size horse on the basement wall, later deciding to chisel it off due to a leg that wasn’t quite right. He was a man who did as he pleased, living his life the way he saw fit. He constantly challenged people to embrace who they were rather than allow someone else to define them. Not only with his words, but through his actions he inspired me to be a maker of things. His lifestyle and his attitude have influenced me in more ways than I can know. Honestly, sometimes this influence seems like a curse as he was a fairly stubborn man, but I am grateful to have shared part of my life with such a talented and passionate individual. This year has been spent celebrating the life of a loved one lost and remembering that Dia de los Muertos is not about mourning the passing of those folks but remembering the lives they lived.

Our protagonist has also been thinking about her grandfather this month. Here is something she made for him.

Here are a few other things she has been making this month – check out the Living Chapters Facebook page to see more of the making this month!

10/19

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.

October: Wild Card

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It’s a sunny October day in New York city – delightful, peaceful, remarkably warm … but Beth Barbush is in my brain! She’s filling the space with a swirl of ideas, an inspiring sense of possibility and idealism, frenetic, infectious creativity and a kooky sense of humor. But why is she in my head, what is her purpose, and by extension, what is mine? Man, October seemed so far away when I signed up for this!

Okay, purpose and meaning … big ideas, big questions … all Barbush. Seeking safety in words, I pull out the dictionary (an actual paper one):

Purpose –n.

1) an object to be attained; a thing intended

2) the intention to act

3) the reason for which something is done or made.

Ah, ‘the reason for which something is done or made’! I was struck by the elegance and simplicity of the chapter Emily Wheat wrote for Beth this month, including as it did contemplation (a walk in the woods), joy (treasure a day) and a core focus on creativity and giving (create something every day). But two weeks in, I think some deeper exploration of the ‘the reason for which something is done or made’ is in order. Not to justify or question the making or the giving, but to open a door to understanding the purpose behind making, giving and inspiring. And perhaps a touch of asking and receiving is in order too.

At the risk of annoying with a detour, let me share just a bit about what I’ve learned, first as an actor and later as a writer about the power that comes from distilling purpose to a sentence. (And yes, for those wishing I’d just get to the list of assignments already, this is one of them). In acting there is the objective (what I want now, moment to moment) and the super-objective (what I want in life / my purpose). In writing, these same ideas are applied to character creation and the purpose and meaning of the story as a whole, often as premise and theme. In story, the more active, idealistic and potentially unachievable the super-objective of a character, the more intensely the character will come alive and the more magnetic witnessing their seeking becomes – we love dreamers and strivers after all. And, Beth, since you are a dreamer and striver and have cast yourself – literally as The Protaganist – and ‘hired’ (well, you know) writers to write your life script, I want you to engage with the tools and techniques of character and drama to define your purpose. And I’m including an exercise to build asking and receiving to your repertoire in addition to giving. Without further adieu, here’s the wildcard:

1) Define your purpose (in the moment objective) in giving the gifts you make this month to the people you give them to. A sentence or better, a word or two. Include it with each gift. These can be fun, individual, whimsical.

2) Define your life purpose (life goal / super-objective). Start with a paragraph, get it down to a sentence and ultimately to a few words that ring true … once you’ve arrived consider sharing it to reinforce it, give it power, perhaps as a signature on gifts you give this month, perhaps in other ways …

3) Ask and receive – It’s easy for artists and creatives to avoid asking for or receiving the help and support they need, whether financial or otherwise. So, as you focus your life purpose, understand that to live up to that possibility you need and deserve support and to get it you must ask for it. So, this month step out of your comfort zone and ask at least one person or entity for assistance / a gift to forward your purpose. It can be in any life direction – career, personal, whatever, but think big – this should not be small and it should be scary.

So, there you have it Beth. I think I’m within the bounds of wild card to include all this, but if not, well, call the referee, fire me, cancel my check etc. Oh and when you do #3, I will buy you a beer so you can tell me how and where you’re reaching out and up …

Doug

10/16

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September Writer Response: Amy Rothstein

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As predicted, sticking to the meditation practice was really challenging at first. For the first two weeks, I was grouchy, my body resisted and my mind ran like a noisy wild bronco. I did stick with it, kicking and screaming inside. Around mid-month, my thoughts during meditation started to lose potency. They became quieter; and while they still arose, they were easier to let go of. As a result of the meditation, I’ve become slightly more aware of my thoughts at times when I wouldn’t normally be. Meditating has also made it easier for me to moderate my consumption of (legal) substances and to be slight more disciplined in general. I have still been only meditating for 15 minutes.

I have tried to make a frequent practice of listing persistent, reoccurring thoughts, which tend to be subtle fears. I have found that proactively surfacing these ghosts helps me to prevent them from snowballing and allow them to exist if necessary. I plan to keep doing this.

As far as the one-year, five-year and lifetime-goals go, I created a list like this in January of 2012 and I took this opportunity to revisit it. Beth and I discussed her (and my) resistance to this assignment. While she resists planning; I resist commitment. We agreed to only list what genuinely comes to mind.

I seem to be striking some sort of balance between being comfortable with where I am and also taking action about the future- perhaps that balance between what ET calls “Life” while working on my life situation. At this point it’s obvious that I tend to ask a lot of questions. Knowing which questions are best left unanswered is a skill I’m also honing these days.

So, where is my sense of humor? Do I take this stuff too seriously? This month hasn’t been any more serious than usual for me but I always do a fair amount of clowning around. Most importantly, having a disciplined routine to help address big questions (with or without answers) has actually made me feel a bit lighter this month.

So far we’ve covered “just being” and “doing” and for the last week I’d like us to cover “feeling”.

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Stories from Your Life (and meditations on romantic love…)

Chapter 5 Wild Card: Doug Sadler

Chapter 4 Writer: Amy Rothstein

Chapter 4 Wild Cards: Agnes and Grace Lichtner

Chapter 3 Writer: Andy Cook

Living Chapters Project Manager: Moira Fratantuono

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche