Tag: stream of consciousness

Discomfort Lasts About Thirty Seconds

PavowskiLeave a comment

Is Georgia officially in a drought?

It seems impossible that we wouldn’t be, given that we’ve basically been in a drought for every year I can remember, though I can’t specifically remember hearing about it this year. Given that this is a stream-of-consciousness post, I won’t be stopping to do research on that, but it seems fair to assume, especially since, prior to this week, it had been about six weeks since we glimpsed a raindrop.

Yup. Most of October and basically all of November slipped by without even a sprinkle here in the Greater Atlanta area, so the rains of the last two weeks have been welcome.

But as you know (maybe), I’m a runner, and one that won’t be confined to the indoors for a run even in the worst of conditions. (We do own a treadmill, but feh. That’s for if you’re 1000 steps short of your daily goal and you still have an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to watch. And yeah, there’s gym memberships, but paying money to go to a sweaty room and run indoors is sort of the antithesis of why I run to begin with, so, nope, no gyms for me.)

So of course it happened: the first rain in over a month, and to boot, some of the nastiest to come our way came about on a run day, in the wee hours of the morning last week.

And while running in the rain can be delightful in the summer, in the winter (inasmuch as winter actually exists in the Southeastern United States), it’s not so much. Damp shoes mean blisters. Sodden clothes mean chafing. To say nothing of the sheer demoralizing cold that can seep into your bones in the throes of a windy, whipping rain on a thirty-five degree morning.

It’s more than a runner should be asked to bear, in other words, and it inspired in me that rare notion: that I could, I really could, just take the day off. Nobody would know but me. I’ve been diligent of late, and at this point, I know that missing a day doesn’t mean I fall off the train for good — a fear I had in my early days as a runner and that I still occasionally have as a writer. And, apologies to any readers north of the Mason-Dixon line, being an Atlanta native for basically my entire life, thirty-five degrees is cold. Add rain and wind and it’s prohibitively cold. In other words, this was an excellent candidate for a sleep-in morning (although sleeping in, in my house, means you’re up at 5:40 instead of 4:40. God, my college-aged self is spinning in his sheltered little womb just thinking about it.)

And, come to think of it, that’s how a lot of my writing days have felt of late. It’s rainy out there, and dark, and cold. It feels like harder work than I want it to be. The blank page doesn’t offer you much in return, and man, it sure would feel good just to take the time that I would have spent writing and use it on something else. An extra thirty minutes in bed. Getting some lesson planning done (how am I always so far behind? Oh yeah, because in my free time, I run and write instead of planning lessons). Reading. Squeezing in a nap.

But, y’know, I’ve gotten to the point that it’s not so much about convincing myself to do the thing that looks uncomfortable from the outside. Nine mornings out of ten, I’m just going to go for the run. I don’t have to berate myself, call myself a fat slob, chide myself about how lazy I’m going to feel … those days are gone. I know now, intrinsically, that the day is always better if I run. So I run. And, likewise, I don’t have to talk myself into facing down the blank page anymore, either. I just do it, as naturally and automatically as kicking my shoes off when I get in from work. It just feels wrong if I don’t. Getting the daily word count in is just the thing I do now.

All of which is to say that, despite the fact that it was a great morning for not getting the run in, I got the run in. It was as miserable as advertised. Within two minutes I was soaked through two layers. Half-blind from rain in the eyes. Feet squishing in my shoes. Huffing and coughing and slogging it through the cold, grinning wanly and shaking my head at the lonely cars driving by in the dark, laughing at what they must have been thinking seeing me out there.

I finished with nasty blisters on both feet (I almost never get blisters — not even from my six-mile mud run), which are still ailing me a week later. I had sore, stinging nips that itched uncomfortably under my shirt for the rest of the day, despite the band-aids I covered them with (nobody ever said running was glamorous). My chest-rattling cough resurged … the one I’ve been tangling with since October.

But it reminded me of a thing I already know: no matter how daunting the run looks, or how intimidating the blank page may be? Once you get over the fear of the thing and get into the guts of the thing, all of a sudden, it becomes a lot easier. In fact, once I got over the initial shock of the cold and the rain (which took about thirty seconds), it became just another run like virtually any other. The discomfort doesn’t last. After it passes, you just put your head down and go to work.

In short? The first step, the first word, the first day, the first anything? That’s the hardest. But once you’re in the thing — the run, the writing, the new job, whatever the challenge is — it becomes easier. Shockingly quickly, in fact, it becomes bearable when just moments before it was unthinkable.

It’s always better to take that first step despite the fear. (Well, I guess, unless that first step happens to be out your front door during the zombie apocalypse. In that case, maybe do sleep in.)

 

This weekly remotivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every weekend, I use Linda G. Hill’s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.

The Weekly Re-Motivator: Shooting into the Dark

PavowskiLeave a comment

I wrote a few weeks back about how I’m teaching improv in my classes, and drew some comparisons between that practice and writing. Well, I’m teaching it again (different levels and all), so it’s front of mind again.

Writing — drafting, at least — is like improv. Virtually just like improv, as it turns out. The blank page is like the first moments stepping out onto the blank stage, not knowing what you’re going to do or how it’s going to go over.

Then, you just start shooting into the dark. I mean, you know there are targets out there: good ideas tucked in the rubbery folds of your brain, lines and ideas and expectations that might resonate with an audience. But from where you stand at the start, you can’t see sharknado. You just fire away and hope you hit something.

And maybe you hit something right away. If so, great, awesome, train on that spot and keep shooting. If not (which is almost laughably more likely), well, what? Give up? Slink off the stage and give up? Hell,no. You aim elsewhere in the dark, reload, and let loose again.

See, improv teaches us not just to allow mistakes — improv encourages mistakes. The mistakes are where the learning happens. And if you aren’t drawing a few sideways glances or jolting some uncomfortable hiccups of laughter from the crowd, well, you’re not doing it right. If you’re not drawing reactions, you’re playing it safe, and playing it safe in improv is the equivalent of skydiving from the second floor: it can be done, but really, what’s the point?

And so it is with writing. Sure, you can play it safe. But what’s the point? Much better to see if you can surprise your audience — which, in the drafting stage, is only yourself — than to sit there boring yourself to death, playing it safe and staying in your tiny little circle of torchlight.

Screw that.

When I teach improv, I tell my students to think of it like a flowchart. You try a thing. Does it work? Does it feel good? Does it excite you? If so, continue down that path. Does it bore you? Does it feel “dead”? Does your partner look lost? If so, abandon that path and try something totally different. Then do it again. Does this work, or does this suck? Readjust, and press on. Readjust, and press on.

Reload, and shoot into the dark again.

The blank page is no different. If anything, it’s easier: you have the infinite safety net of as many drafts as you need to get it right. The absolute worst thing you can do in an improv is to give up and stop trying, and so it is with writing. And yet, that’s exactly what too many would-be writers do. It’s what I did for the past decade: sat back thinking how much I’d like to be a writer, but lived in fear of actually doing it.

Again, screw that.

Load up your word-cannon and shoot into the dark.

Worst that can happen is you miss. (Actually the worst that can happen is you hit a bystander, but y’know — if that happens, just aim away from the screams and try again.)

But as long as you keep shooting, you can’t miss forever.

This weekly remotivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every weekend, I use Linda G. Hill’s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.

The Weekly Re-Motivator: Look Around

PavowskiLeave a comment

A short entry today:

Holy carp, it’s Saturday. The Thanksgiving holiday is basically over (teachers get a few perks). If you asked me — or, I’d imagine, any other teacher, even the ones that only got a few days off — I’d be just as likely to believe that we only got an extra day or two as opposed to the full week.

Not because I got a lot done over the break (I didn’t). Not because a lot was happening over the break (decidedly not). But just because when we’re sitting around with our families and spending time with the people we love, the time seems to pass a little faster. A watched clock at work can take an age to tick over, but the same clock when you’re enjoying time with the kids — watching them explore and paint and build with blocks and chase the cats and “read” books and “help” around the house — well, that clock runs at ludicrous speed.

It’s easy to lose track of that stuff. The tribulations of parenting a two- and a four-year-old seem to outweigh the joys on your average day-to-day. The good stuff is still there, of course, but it has to fight for its time, and when you’re working full-time, the stuff you have to do sort of ends up claiming its time first.

But holidays give us a chance to slow down and take a look at the whole picture, and you know what? This parenting thing? It’s not so bad. I gripe about it a ton, but all things considered, my kids are both pretty awesome. I mean, who cares if the house is a wreck, if my wife and I both have permanent raccoon-eyes, if the best moment of our day most days is the moment we’ve gotten them down to bed, the screaming has stopped, and we can sit on the couch and exhale. They amaze me every day, even if they do drive me nuts more often than not.

This week has reminded me of that. So even though I’m not going to give a pages-long things I’m thankful for account, I’ll just point out that I am, indeed, thankful for my kids, who, as I pointed out above, amaze me every day. And for my wife, who, truth be told, does most of the work with the kids and allows me to work a creatively fulfilling job and practice my creatively fulfilling hobbies. And for the rest of our family, who continually shower the kids and us with love. And … no, stop that. Keep it brief.

I started this post out planning to keep it short, and I’m creeping towards going long, so I’ll get to the point: the quote that inspired this post. Not a particularly poetic one, but a classic all the same, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off:

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

So. Here’s to the holidays that allow us to stop and look around once in a while.

This weekly remotivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every weekend, I use Linda G. Hill’s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.

The Weekly Re-Motivator: Say Yes

Pavowski4 Comments

The case could be made that “yes” is the most powerful word in the world.

This is a thing that took me too long to learn in my life. Shortly after college and deep in the places where having a skeptical (okay, fine, cynical) outlook can take you, I knew about this “yes” thing, but I wasn’t interested in it. “No” was a lot easier. Only two letters, after all. One consonant, one vowel; there’s a beautiful balance there. And it had the power to ward off all kinds of uncomfortable situations.

“Is today the day you start writing that novel?” No.

“How about going for a run?” No.

“Maybe call up an old friend, or think about enrolling in a class, or even just step out of the house and do something different today?” Nope. I’m good.

No keeps the world in check. Keeps things level, even, and easy.

But yes is inherently unbalanced. Two consonants and a vowel, none of no’s lovely symmetry. Not only is it unbalanced, it’s unbalancing. “Yes” shatters the status quo. “Yes” breaks the mold. “Yes” floods your comfort zone with pepper spray and forces you to get the hell out of there.

“Working on that novel today?” Yes.

“Gonna do some research on publishers, too?” Yes.

“How about exercising a little? Reading a book instead of watching TV all day? Try something new out at work?” Yes, yes, yes.

“Maybe elect an orange dude with tiny hands and a rampant narcissism to run the most important democracy in the free world?” Apparently, yes.

(Okay, I know I said I wouldn’t. Couldn’t help it. Just slipped out. But my point stands: we are shattering the status quo.)

Point is, “no” lets you stay where you are. It lets you grow roots into the floor and get comfortable. “Yes” keeps you moving. Not always forward — if only life were so obliging — but always onward.

I teach drama, and one of the things I spend a lot of time on is improv. For the uninitiated, improv is that crazy thing actors do where they go in without a script, take on suggestions from the audience, and attempt to roll with it. Sometimes the scenes crash and burn, sometimes they soar. But always, the scenes are interesting. Even a scene that crashes has interesting tidbits lurking in the rubble. Anyway, the cardinal rule of improv is: “say yes.” Your partner brings to you a strange suggestion. “Let’s go see what’s in that cave.” That’s an opportunity. For you, because you get to embark on an adventure that you didn’t even have to come up with. For the audience, because now they want to know what’s in the cave. If you say “yes,” we all get to go on the adventure. If you say “no,” not only do we not get to go on the adventure, but we have to come up with a new idea. Not to mention, you piss off your scene partner, which is never a good idea. Actors are jerks.

So, let this little spiel fall into the pile of things I would have said to a younger version of myself. Say yes. Go on the adventure. Try the thing that scares you.

You know. Except for the whole voting for the orange guy thing. It’s okay to say “no” every once in a while.

This weekly remotivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every weekend, I use Linda G. Hill’s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.

The Weekly Re-Motivator: Turning Away

Pavowski4 Comments

So this week has been … well, it’s been something, hasn’t it? One of the weirdest and perhaps most depressing weeks in recent memory.

But I can’t wallow in the pain, the uncertainty, the massive, all-consuming doubt that the imminent Trump presidency carries with it. Maybe it’s my unbridled optimism. Maybe it’s the fact that I have faith (how? where did this faith come from? I hate everything, after all) that, though it will certainly be bad, it won’t be that bad. Maybe it’s that I can’t stand being in a pain- and griping- and complaining-spiral.

Trump’s presidency will either be a total cock-up, or it won’t. And I know people are protesting in the streets, and I know the petitions are swirling and people are social-media-sharing that there are still things we can do to stop it, but … sorry, I don’t have that much faith. The electoral college is not going to negate itself just because the country has heartburn. Trump isn’t going to resign because he sees the protests and all the #notmypresident-ing. (By the way, you won’t catch me saying such ridiculousness. For better or worse, Trump is our president. That doesn’t mean I endorse him, but it does mean we get to hold his feet to the fire. We have to be good skeptics, as I said the morning after, and that means giving him a chance — even a short one — to not be a total scumbag as the leader of our great nation.)

We have to get on with our lives.

And yeah, I know, I speak this from a place of privilege. I know that I have the benefit of being allowed to get on with my life, as a middle-class white dude. And a part of me is more than frustrated with myself on that account. You can’t just move on like that, I hear myself insisting. Others can’t move on; that’s why this is so important.

But he’s only one man, and our country is bigger than one man.

I just … I can’t stay here, in this state of mind where the election of the orange nitwit is front of mind every day, for too many hours in the day. I’ve lost too much productivity and too much mental energy down that black hole (and a black hole it is; it sure as hell doesn’t give anything back for everything I’ve poured into it over the past several months).

He’s the president-elect, now, and in January, he’ll be the president proper. I think that sucks. I think it’s an embarrassment. I think we (and by “we” I mean basically the entire USA, even those of us who voted against him — because we couldn’t stop it) have made ourselves something of a joke on the world stage.

But I’ve got books to write. I’ve got students to teach. I’ve got kids to raise up into something resembling decent human beings. And miles and miles to run.

I’ll keep wearing my safety pin for solidarity, as long as that’s a thing. I’ll stay informed and vote in the 2018 elections, and I sure as hell urge everybody out there to do the same. And I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on our new president as he creeps toward office.

But — and I realize I’ve said this before, but now that the election is over, it feels more final — I’m not going to be posting about it as much around here. It’s tiresome to me, and I’m sure it’s tiresome to my readers. This is supposed to be a blarg about writing and running and parenting and other lighthearted sharknado like that, for fargo’s sake.

I’m not going to be thinking about it all the time. I’m not going to waste my mental energy worrying about a thing that’s out of my control.

I’m going to co-opt a bit of religious wisdom (without the religion) in the form of the Serenity prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

You don’t even have to believe in god to see the wisdom in that. Any good meditationalist (is that even a word?) will tell you that serenity comes from within.

For me, at least, it’s time to turn away from Trump and the noxious cloud that surrounds everything about him. It’s time to turn inward.

It’s time to get back to work.

This weekly remotivational post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Every weekend, I use Linda G. Hill’s prompt to refocus my efforts and evaluate my process, sometimes with productive results.