Implicit Messages

Have you been to my website?  I think it’s a really great place.  I created the content (I’m especially proud of my icons) and my dad built it for me.  Dad also maintains it and solves problems any time they crop up.  My web site feels like a nice reflection of me and of my writing.  It tells you quite a bit about me.  Of course, there’s a section called About The Author and I’ve explicitly told you a bunch about me right there.  But there’s more than that.  There are plenty of implicit messages for those who look.  I’m not going to tell you what they all are, but I will tell you that they’re there.  Go look.  Look at any web site.  Any personal space, digital or RL (Real Life) and you can learn about the individuals who inhabit that space.  Today I’m going to blog about labyrinths.  What does that have to do with implicit messages and my web site?  I’ll let you do the detective work.  And, if you think that’s fun, just wait until you read my fantasy novel and try to figure out what all those implicit messages mean about me and my feisty brain!

There’s a difference between a labyrinth and a maze.  A maze is like a puzzle and has many wrong paths and dead ends.  A labyrinth is less of a puzzle and more of a meditation.  It has a single, winding path.  Sometimes that path draws you closer to your ultimate goal, the center of the labyrinth, and sometimes it draws you away and you wonder if you’re even on the right path.  You are.  There is only one path.  It surprises you with twists, turns and meanders but it is the right path.  Keep trucking along and you will reach your goal.

I was reminded of this by a wise Twitter pal Andrea, @PetSpeakArt, (If you’re on Twitter, follow her) who responded to my gleeful announcement that Head Buckets & Hashtags has garnered its first Amazon review.  Andrea wrote, “This is how it starts! I find the road to building a creative life + livelihood is often NOT linear…all truly creative enterprise has a more unpredictable path”.

In general, I tend to be a linear thinker.  I like life to be tidy.  I want to go from point A to point B, then to point C and on down the line.  You’ve been on this planet for a few years, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that life doesn’t work like that.  Oh sure, I get a few tidy days a year that go precisely the way I plan and expect them to, but the other 362 days are anything but predictable and linear.  I’ve learned, over the years, that getting to my goal is less painful when I don’t push the river, when I don’t try to force reality to adjust to my plans.  Ignoring the path and blasting through the walls in order to take the shortest route is destructive.  I have begun to learn to go with the flow, to notice where I am instead of where I want to be.  I have begun to learn that life is like a labyrinth and that I can trust the path.  The path will take me places I never meant to go; never expected; places I need to go.  If I keep trucking along, I learn something with each circuit and, eventually, I reach my goal.  Like the hero’s archetypal journey, following the labyrinth path is about honoring the journey at least as much as the destination.

In two weeks, I will publish my fantasy novel Magic All Around.  I’m excited and eager and scared spitless.  As the deadline inches closer and closer, my anxiety ramps up and up.  I need to keep my feet moving and my eyes on the path ahead of me.  Every time I try to look too far ahead, try to see the end, the goal, the center of the labyrinth, I want to turn tail and flee.  So, if you wonder what I’m up to, I’m over here breathing.  Taking one step.  Then, another step.  I don’t expect to share many blog posts in the next two weeks.  Maybe I won’t post any.  I don’t know because I’m not looking that far ahead right now.  I am still editing and polishing Magic All Around.  I will be putting most of my creative energy into that project.  Then, after Mother’s Day, after the Twitter party and after a day or two of recovery, I’ll be back to blogging again.  And, I’ll be ready to begin writing the sequel to Magic All Around!

In the meantime, I hope you collect some fantastic perfect moment gems.  I also hope you’ll sign up for my e-mail list (1^st 100 folks get an Alaskan postcard & entered into the yummy salmon drawing) and attend my Twitter launch party on 5/13/13!

• For information about my short memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets, please visit my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marcy-Peska/e/B00C632QOW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
• To learn about my debut novel, Magic All Around, please follow this link: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1
• To enter a drawing for FREE Alaskan salmon, sign up for my mailing list! Details here: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/04/e-mailing-list-drawing-for-free-ak.html

What Makes You Happy?

Perfect Moments:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about happiness.  What makes you happy?

I’ve been asking people in my personal life and people on-line.  Everyone who’s answered my question has touched my heart and every conversation I’ve had about this has given me a perfect moment.  I heard from one person that it’s “who not what” that makes her happy and she shared that she’s in love; her beloved makes her happy.  Okay, stop reading here and just smile for a minute.  Love is beautiful, isn’t it? 

One person talked about the challenges of being happy with limited resources; how it’s difficult to see her children go without and how socially isolating it can be to have a very small, fixed income.  Several people talked about being outdoors and the beauty of nature.  Likewise, several folks talked about spirituality or religion making them happy. People cited various activities that make them happy including writing, running, dancing, cooking and gardening.

I’ve asked if certain types of weather make people happy and heard a resounding, “YES”.  One person talked about having power kites (I’d never heard of this before but looked it up and it looks TREMENDOUSLY fun!), one about snow-shoeing, one about fall colors and several talked about sunshine.

I’m not asking with any hidden agenda.  I’m not asking because I have all the answers or because I want to base a character on what you say or because I have some magic wand to make everyone happy all the time.  I’m asking because I feel a gentle but deep curiosity about what makes you happy.    

I’ll tell you a bit about what makes me happy. 

Ø My relationships, both human and canine

Ø Seeing, reading about & listening to others who are happy

Ø Laughing and seeing/hearing others laugh

Ø Puppy zooms and canine shenanigans

Ø The sound of rain on the roof

Ø Curry (thai curry, curried brownies, Indian curry…)

Ø The smell of springtime

Ø My prisms making rainbows in the house

Ø Reading a great book

Ø Mastering a new skill

Ø Giving gifts

 

So tell me, what makes you happy?

 

• For information about my short memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets, please visit my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marcy-Peska/e/B00C632QOW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
• To learn about my debut novel, Magic All Around, please follow this link: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1
• To enter a drawing for FREE Alaskan salmon, sign up for my mailing list! Details here: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/04/e-mailing-list-drawing-for-free-ak.html

 

 

 Troll-caught Alaska Coho Salmon

Photo via Barbara Morgan

 

 

My Anti-Consumer Joys

Perfect Moments:

One of my favorite things is discovering that there’s something in my life that I no longer need to purchase.  Usually, these are things that, if I had only known the alternatives, I never needed to purchase in the first place.  I get such delight from eliminating these products or services from my life that utilizing an alternative solution produces a few of my perfect moments every week.  Here are my top three anti-consumer perfect moments from this week!

1-    I gave myself a haircut.  I like to wear my hair in a simple undercut bob.  Sometimes I like it ear-lobe length and sometimes I like it chin length but I always like it to curl under without having to use a blow dryer or product.  My hair is straight, but not always entirely cooperative and I’ve spent years explaining that I need that undercut to be deep.  The inner layer needs to be at least an inch shorter that the outer layer or my hair will get…flippy.  Really, I can’t stand it when my hair is flippy.  It’s not tidy.  It bothers me.  The trouble is, it’s rare for me to find someone to cut my hair who will really listen to what I want and follow my directions.  Last year, I grew weary of paying money to have someone cut my hair not-quite-right, and then try to gunk it up with product and blow it dry.  So I did something I haven’t done since I was a teenager; I cut my own hair.  Well, first I watched some YouTube videos.  Then, I cut my own hair.  I’ve cut my hair four more times since then and I figure that’s saved me at least $120 and a bucket of angst. 

2-    I’ve been on a popcorn kick.  For three days in a row, I’ve made popcorn.  In a glass bowl, with a lid.  In the microwave.  I’ve never mastered making popcorn on the stove so to avoid scorched pans and snack food, I used an air popper for years.  After my air popper went kaput, I switched to those bags of microwave popcorn.  Yuck.  Microwave popcorn always seems to have nasty stuff in it and it’s ridiculously expensive.  Then, someone told me that I could pop any kind of popcorn in the microwave.  Viola! It works wonders, saves money and tastes fantastic!

3-    Okay, another hair moment.  I've been bleaching my hair from a box since I was 17 or 18.  If I lived in a sunny climate, my hair would be blond, but I live in a rainforest. I’ve tried going natural for a year or so at a time, but I’ve never been pleased with my mousy brown color.  About the same time that I started cutting my own hair, I decided to explore alternative hair bleaches.  Have you noticed how expensive those boxes of hair color have become in the last couple decades?  The chemicals in that stuff aren’t very nice either.  Urg, the stink of it is the worst.  So, I tried chamomile tea.  Well, it smelled nice.  I tried lemon juice.  It smelled nice, too.  I tried hydrogen peroxide.  Nada.  Finally, I tried hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and found that it lightens my hair quite nicely.  I have to leave it on a lot longer than the boxed stuff but it doesn’t discolor my skin or make a nasty mess in the bathroom and it’s cheap!

Caution: play with chemicals at your own risk
Caution: bleach your hair at your own risk
Caution: I am not promising you that this method will work for anyone other than me and it may, in fact, wreak havoc on your hair, turn it some gawd-awful shade of orange and cause all your teeth to turn bright purple.  So, proceed with utmost caution, okay?


What anti-consumer methods do you use that bring you the most joy?  Please share, I’d truly love to know!

• For information about my short memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets, please visit my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marcy-Peska/e/B00C632QOW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
• To learn about my debut novel, Magic All Around, please follow this link: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1
• To enter a drawing for FREE Alaskan salmon, sign up for my mailing list! Details here: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/04/e-mailing-list-drawing-for-free-ak.html

Flipping The Switch

Perfect Moment:

This bench has a special purpose. 

When I prepare food, I often ask Jeb to help me in the kitchen.  He closes the fridge and various cupboards and drawers on command.  He also operates the salad spinner for me.  Between tasks, I tell Jeb to “go supervise” and he jumps onto this bench to oversee matters.

Yesterday, as I was preparing dinner, Jeb began to sniff the bottom of the smoke detector.  I grinned as he glanced over his shoulder at me and he returned to his investigations.  A few moments later I noticed that he’d moved from sniffing the fire extinguisher to the light switch.  Then, with a push of his curious nose…TaaDaaa! He turned the light on!
Meal preparation came to an abrupt halt as I gushed praise and quickly chopped a handful of cheese cubes.  I was thrilled! 
With cheese cubes in hand, I stood next to the bench and prompted Jeb to repeat the process by touching the switch myself and saying, “touch”.  If I am thrilled by the behavior of my brilliant dog, he is thrilled by cheese cubes and in less than five minutes he’d turned the switch on three more times and eaten several ounces of cheese!  Several hours later, right before bed, we repeated the exercise with good success and this morning we did so again! 
At first he seemed to be pushing the switch with his nose but I caught it on video several times and have been able to slow down the action.  Check it out! 

He’s actually grasping the switch with his lips to turn it on!

 

I'll continue to practice this new skill with Jeb until he's mastered it and then I'll select a new command word ("touch" is too general) that I'll add to the mix until he can run across the room, leap onto the bench and turn the light on at my prompt!

Then all we'll have to figure out is turning the light OFF.

 

What perfect moments have you experienced lately?  Do you have 4-legged companions that provide you with perfect moments?

 

 



• For information about my short memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets, please visit my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marcy-Peska/e/B00C632QOW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
• To learn about my debut novel, Magic All Around, please follow this link: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1
• To enter a drawing for FREE Alaskan salmon, sign up for my mailing list! Details here: http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/04/e-mailing-list-drawing-for-free-ak.html

E-mailing List: Drawing for FREE AK salmon!

All the sciences, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology; they all explain a multitude of things about the world that used to be called magic.  I find it funny that as soon as something is explained by science, it’s not called magic anymore.  Explanation doesn’t render these things less wondrous or potent.

—Penny Sweeney

I’m starting an e-mailing list!

Do you find it difficult to stay caught up on what your favorite authors are doing? Does it seem like you're inundated with social media updates but still missing important announcements?
Sign up for my e-mail list and you'll never have to worry about keeping track of what I'm up to; I'll send you a friendly e-mail whenever I have writing-related news!
I won't send you spam and I won't share your contact information with anyone else.  If you want to be removed from this list at any time, just send me a quick “unsubscribe” e-mail & I'll remove your name & contact info.

The first 100 people (or canines!) to sign up for my list between now & 2p.m. (AKST) on Monday, May 13, 2013 will receive a hand-written Alaska postcard from me (complete with my not-yet-famous autograph) and will be entered into a drawing for a professionally vac-packed piece of wild Alaska-caught salmon! 
Drawing winner will be announced via Twitter & my blog.  Additionally, I'll e-mail the drawing winner to notify and to verify physical address prior to mailing the salmon.

To sign up: e-mail marcylpeska@gmail.com with your name and your mailing and email addresses.
Subject Line: e-mail list

If you do not include your name and full snail-mail address, you will automatically opt out of the postcard & drawing!
Family members & personal friends will receive postcards but are not eligible for the drawing.
 

Perfect Moment:

I had a loooong moment of perfection yesterday while I began purchasing postcards and give-aways for the upcoming Twitter Launch Party for Magic All Around!  I’m continuing to plan various activities and I know we’re all going to have a blast!  For more information about the party => http://mpeska.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1

Post cards & Party Goodies!

 

Paranormal.  It rolls off the tongue with such poetry but it means something like,beyond normal.  There is nothing paranormal about magic.  Magic is the norm.

 —Penny Sweeney

 

 

Puppy Piles & Transformation

Perfect Moments:

Yesterday I saw a wonderful Twitter post from @PitbullSpooning (Cherokee & Charli) who are two of the cuddliest pibbles in the known universe!  If you’re on Twitter and you love dogs, I recommend following them; their photos are priceless!  This particular photo showed one of the pibbles cuddled up to their human mom’s foot and the caption pointed out that they will cuddle with any available body part.

That photo and caption transported me back to the summer of 1997.  I had just adopted my beloved Cavall and he was still training me.  The first item on his agenda was the silly business of sleeping on the floor.  Cavall had no intention of sleeping on the floor and, in fact, had no intention of sleeping on the bed or the couch, either.  Roughly five months old, he was still a puppy and so he demanded a puppy pile.  At the start of that summer, he probably weighed 60 lbs (ultimately he’d be 97lbs) and he insisted on sleeping on top of me.  Prior to that, I don’t recall ever having slept with a pet before and it didn’t seem like a great idea to me.  I was still experiencing PTSD-related nightmares almost nightly, and was a very light sleeper.  I expected having my legs pinned down by a snoring half-grown dog would be disturbing and painful.  It was, in fact, a bit uncomfortable until I fell asleep.  After that, it didn’t bother me all.  My sleep was deep and restful.  Not a single nightmare.  That summer I kept a dream journal and after Cavall started sleeping on my legs, it was four months before I had another nightmare.  As though a switch was flipped inside my brain, nightmares became a rarity instead of the norm.  That was the first gift of healing that Cavall gave me with his puppy pile ways. 

Cavall’s second puppy pile gift to me arrived about a month later.  I wore loose sweat pants for pajama bottoms and one morning I awoke to find that they’d crept up on one side, exposing my thigh.  Cavall was snoring with his nostrils pressed against the bare skin of my thigh.  In that moment, I realized that my dog loved me unconditionally and without reservation.  He did not care what I looked like or how I was shaped.  He was not disgusted by pressing his doggy snout against my naked thigh because there wasn’t anything inherently disgusting about my thigh…or any other part of my body.  Before that moment, I had an intellectual understanding that my body image issues were a result of surviving sexual abuse, but until then, I hadn’t been able to catch a personal glimpse of the reality that lay outside my bubble of self-disgust.  That was the second gift of healing that Cavall gave me with his puppy pile ways and was the beginning of a paradigm shift that transformed my relationship with my body.

These were perfect moments in 1997 and are perfect moments now, as sweet memories.

Today is a good time to think about how true love, whether given by a human or a four-legged, can be a catalyst for healing.  I hope you have an opportunity to both give, and receive, unconditional love today.

Marcy & Cavall

In Other News:

I had a fun time adding page tabs and fine-tuning this site yesterday.  Please take a look around and let me know what you think!

I will not post tomorrow, Friday 4/19/13 but I’ll be back on Saturday with some quotes from my upcoming novel!

I’m planning a Twitter Launch Party for Magic All Around!  Check out all the details on my Magic All Around: Book 1 page tab!

Musings On Trauma

Perfect Moment:

This is not the type of photo that I usually take.  I usually take dog photos!  Sometimes I take photos of people and scenery, but even those photos usually contain a dog.  Last night, however, as I was preparing for bed, I glanced at my magic mirror (yes, that’s how I refer to it in the privacy of my brain) and realized that it was getting quite dusty and that the rivulets of dust were wonderfully atmospheric!  It turns out that there are a bunch of  other things I really like about this photo, too, and it turned out to be a perfect moment.

1-    I love my periwinkle wall

2-    I love my books

3-    I really love the bookshelves that my husband built for me

4-    I also really love the molding that he stained and added in that room

5-    My husband really loves me.  He gave me the mirror, too. 

6-    I really love my husband!!!

 UPDATE: My delightful friend Mariah who also grew up in Edna Bay was inspired by this to take a photo of her own magic mirror! Do you have a magic mirror?  If so, please feel free to pop by my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003956200354 and share a photograph or written description!  :-)

Thoughts About Coping With Trauma:

How much trauma can a person cope with?

The answer changes from person to person.  It also changes within a single person based on a whole fleet of variable factors including the type of trauma, their current energy levels, what supports they have in place, etc.

Whether we’re experiencing trauma right this moment, processing past trauma or processing our response to trauma that other people experience; we do it best when we actively work to stay in balance.  Too much trauma and we find creative (and not always pleasant) ways to shut ourselves down with dissociation, compulsive and/or addictive behavior and other distancing activities.  Too little, and we live in the dangerous land of denial where we never learn to cope and where a flashflood could rip through and drown us at any moment.

Years ago, my very wise therapist suggested that I think of this state of balance as a titrating portal; contracting to slow the flow at times and expanding or dilating to increase the flow at other times.

You may think of it like the pupil of an eye, the shutter on a camera, the doorway of a spaceship or a fantasy portal between worlds.  However you visualize it, I hope you keep this portal in mind today and titrate according to your own needs and circumstances.

May you have a gentle day and one filled with perfect moments.