Jenny's birthday

Today is my daughter's birthday.

Jim and I lived in a contemporary house with a red door in Tallahassee. Actually, it was a lot like the house Jane and I live in now in Sherwood Forest. I woke Jim about two in the morning and we went to the hospital. I don't remember much about after we got there. This was a few years before natural childbirth or anything close to it came back on the scene.

Mama Deer and Daddy Buck were staying somewhere on the west coast of Florida where he was working then. She had come down to stay with him and wait for the baby to arrive. Jim called them early in the morning and they got to the hospital a few hours after we did. So they were there with Daddy all day, waiting for you.

The next thing I remember, I woke up, back in my room, and it was late afternoon, the August Florida sun was coming through the window. Everybody was there, waiting for me to wake up. Jim and Mama and Daddy. When I woke up Jim said, Hey Sugar, we've got a little girl, she's so pretty. Mama went to get the nurse to bring you to me, and she and Daddy left for awhile so your Daddy and I could be alone with you.

When the nurse put you in my arms, I was surprised at how well developed you looked and felt. You didn't have that tiny squishy body and wrinkled red face that lots of new babies have. You looked beautiful and fresh, and when your eyes rested on my face they seemed intelligent and wise. Your little hands waved around in the air, and when your dad touched your hand with his finger, your tiny fingers wrapped around it, and you seemed to like that, which delighted him and made us laugh.

A little later, Mama and Daddy came back in, and they took turns holding you. You were their first grandchild, they could hardly contain themselves they were so happy. Then I held you again, I still couldn't believe you were actually here and in my arms, not my belly. In a way you still felt like part of me, like we were connected.

I guess every family has its stories about the birth of each child, and this is the way I remember yours. I wish I could remember more details, but I was still pretty foggy. But I remember the sheer delight of your grandparents, and your dad's bursting happiness and pride, and the way you felt warm and alive and beautiful in my arms, and those bright, knowing eyes.

When the nurse came and said it was time to take you back to the nursery, your dad said, I'll take her. He took you from me and stood at the door and waved your little baby hand bye bye to me. What a sight that was, he was so big, your tiny head under his chin. He held you like a delicate precious surprise.

Which you were, and are.

Happy Birthday my darling Jenny. My love and joy in you keeps growing all the time.
Mother

from Sara...

AUGUST 20, 2009 8:25 PM
----My relationship with sloth is oblique: I am tortured by saying I will do something and then not, usually because I get so oh busy doing something else. The consequence is feeling that I can't trust myself, a lack of integrity. Faithfulness feels like a way out, though it seems abstract at the moment.----

Sara, that's exactly my relationship with sloth too. But not from being busy with something else. Just from not feeling like it or wanting to. But it's the same consequence you say, feeling that I can't trust myself, that I or others can't count on me.

I am one big question mark as to how faithfulness could be a way out of that, but I too have an intuition that it may be. And I am interested in pursuing the question.

Here are three things I have a strong desire to do and have been unsuccessful with for the last three years or longer. That's a long time. The inability to move these three boulders keeps me in a relationship of weakness, failure and disappointment with myself.

Lose twenty pounds--less food/wine, some exercise
Embark on, pursue, and complete a new writing project.
Rejuvenate a regular morning meditation practice.

One thing I know doesn't work is making commitments. I make them to break them. I can't really see how faithfulness applies here, or could be a way out. This is not a case of "not knowing the good, but being steadfast in its pursuit," is it? So maybe I'm wrong about that. That would leave me still staring at these three desire/obstacles. Right back in our original discussion of "Sloth or Acedia.....to know the good and be lax in its pursuit. Could we seriously attempt to deconstruct this in a way that would make a difference?

Charles says I take myself out of the game right away and make an enemy of the thing I wanted.

The username for this blog is my e-mail, and the password is sherwood. Sara and anyone else reading here, see if that will allow you to post directly onto the blog instead of as a comment. If it works, please put your name in the title as I did Sara's here.

Faithfulness and shifts in human self-definition...

I want to paste here what I responded to Sara, because I think it connects with the idea of, "Changing and available..."

I said to Sara:
"I've been thinking of a rewrite for "acedia--to know the good and be lax in its pursuit." I'm not sure what quality would be the substitute for acedia/sloth. Maybe 'faithfulness.' In any case, I would like us to think about embracing a distinction such as,
Faithfulness....to not always know the good, but to be steadfast in its pursuit..... What do you think?"

She has not responded yet, but I hope she will. In the meantime, I want to add another quote that I think somehow pertains. This is from Julian James, but it was said to me by a friend who is interested I think in the question: Where are we headed, and do we have anything to say about it?"

----'major shifts in human self-definition' are noteworthy, by which I mean we may look back on them as a signpost or marker on our trail...----Julian James

Now I am going to ponder the question--and I invite anyone who is reading this to join in fully --What if anything do these two ideas--new distinction to replace acedia/sloth in our thinking; and major shifts in human self-definition--have to do with each other? What do we learn if we think about them together?

I'm going to see if I can find someone who can show me how whatever comments are posted here can go directly onto the blog in full text.

Changing and available.....

".....I would like my message here to be a changing one. And I would like it to be available. What do I mean by available? Not everyone has a blog or wants to have one. But everyone who reads, would at times like to write. Something. You could do that here. You could say what you want to say on my blog....."

That's what I said the last time I posted here. Rose and Sara wrote back, and that felt good. I like the idea of being changing and available. The changing part, we don't have much choice about. Available is more an attitude or way of being. It can change too. Sometimes I experience myself as available. It feels open and generous, fulsome, rich with possibility. Whether alone or with others. Sometimes I experience myself as not available. That feels not so good.

If we say that this blog is changing and available, would that mean anything to you? What?

Thurs. morning....

I said goodbye here last week on Aug. 1, because the month I had said I would experiment with writing here and writing myself thin had ended.

But this morning it occurs to me that maybe I would like to continue to write here. I am wondering why. It feels like a lifeline. Like a way to keep on writing and keep some possibility alive. Is it that I will get thin by doing it? I don't think so. It just feels like.........a way of staying in the world. I don't think anyone will be reading or listening. But I sit here in the quiet house early in the morning. I look out my window into the trees, and I don't want to be alone.

Yes, I don't want to be alone.

I need companions. And even if I think no one is reading this, at any time, they might be. Like a person stranded on an island sending out bottles with notes in them. Somewhere in the ocean or on a beach, someone might pick me up, my message. Someone may pick it up and write back.

So, what is my message? Charles's message is about the Rincon and about the vision he is crafting for himself. Jenny's message right now is about her renovation. She may have a different message later, but right now the one she is putting forth is about her her house project and her new neighborhood. I like it. I wish she would write more about it.

I would like my message here to be a changing one. And I would like it to be available. What do I mean by available? Not everyone has a blog or wants to have one. But everyone who reads, would at times like to write. Something. You could do that here. You could say what you want to say on my blog. Could that happen? Like a real conversation. I would like to change the name of my blog. I listened to most of the book about the young woman who decided to make all the dishes in Julia Child's cookbook and write a blog about it. Can't wait to see the movie. There developed a regular community around her blog. But there was a focus there, the recipes and the cooking. People responded to that.

Time to say goodbye.....

Well, it's August 1, 2009 today. The end of the one month I decided to try this blog and try writing myself thin. I am not thin. So I can't say that part has worked. But I have done a lot of writing, some of it good, real writing.

During the life of this blog:

Linda Metcalf and I have designed a course on Proprioceptive Converstion, and written a description to submit to Esalen and Kripaulo.

Charles Gohmann and I have embarked on an exciting new writing adventure.

I started and completed a four week online proprioceptive writing group with six terrific, dedicated writers, each doing a Write each week, to which I responded.

I explored and set aside a play idea called The Homestreach.

I have a germ of an idea for a new character voice for Brenda Bynum. I feel like she and I together have at least one more play in us, and this could be it.

I think that's a good month' s work for a not-so-thin, sloth-inclined person.

Thank you to the sweet friends who have read what I've written here. Especially Jennifer Deer and Sara Jenkins for making it a jolly conversation.

Until we meet again, write well, eat well, love well,

Sandra

One week to go....

I said I would do this until Aug. 1, and I will, though not with the frequency I promised. Aug. is one week from today. I have written a lot, a whole lot, since I started this blog. I am no thinner. In fact, I feel a little heavier. With just a week to go, I have as yet made no progress toward writing myself thin.

That's not what I wanted to be reporting, but there we are.

My Small Intimate Online Proprioceptive Writing Group also has one week to go. I started it as an experiment, not knowing how things would play out. Six writers with gorgeously rich lives, aspirations, talents and devotion and discipline signed up.

Yes, I said devotion and discipline, they do go together. They have proved to be undeniably necessary to, and supportive of, each other. Well, let me revise that. You can have discipline without devotion, though I don't, and I doubt it's much fun. But--and here's the big discovery for me--you can't really have devotion without discipline. If you do, it's a pretty limp rag and not likely to get you to the church on time. What I mean by discipline is not a harsh thing, but it may mean doing what I don't feel like at the moment. What I mean by discipline is Willingness. I could say more about that, but I'll let it stand there.

Anyway, we have had the best time, the seven of us. At least I have. And the six writers also seem to have flourished working in this blend of solitude and companionship, writing for themselves, but with the awareness of silent listeners. In this practice, we give and take so much from one another. It's a beautiful thing.

The other big thing I'm learning from my experience reading and responding to each Write as it arrives on the computer is this: I may think I don't know how to do it, or what to say. I may be completely drawing a blank. It may feel that way. But that doesn't have to be the stopping point, the final word. It happens when I step in. Then it starts to open up. I hope I can embrace and remember this piece of real empirical knowledge so at all the other times I am looking at a creative challenge and feel blank and empty and listless, I will hear a voice whisper---

"Go on, say something, do something, write something. It happens when you step in. Then it starts to open up. Remember?"

Two days in Asheville....

A big two days! Acupuncture for Jane and me all morning, the zipping over to Tunnel Rd. for the 12:50 showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Then at 5 :00 PM we have appointments with a woman in Asheville who does the Emotion Code energy work. We have two friends who had an amazing experience last week, so I made appointments for Jane and me. It's based on muscle testing, and she determines emotional blocks in the body, and attempts to clear them. My trapped emotions were: worry, anxiety, forlorn, discouragement, and despair. Our results were not dramatic like our friends' had been, but we are aware that we both feel different, better, lighter, happier. Stay tuned.

Then on to our friend John's house for dinner and to spend the night. John had another friend staying with him. The four of us had the most fabulous time talking and eating all evening. John has given up cable, so no tv. Jane couldn't watch The Closer, but she survived. John's frined has a new large-screen I Mac. It is a beautiful piece of machinery. Jane thinks she has to have one now.

Then, this morning a good appointment with Cissy, Jane's main acupuncturist. Then back to Brevard, dropped Jane off in town for Bridge at Silvermont Senior Center, did several errands, and came home to finish up some work.

All this sounds very mundane, I know, and nothing to do with Writing Yourself Thin. But it all feels .....nice, happy. Same for Jane. Feeling.....nice, happier. We'll work again with the Emotion Code woman, and may do a Fri. night, all day Sat. course in Hendersonville Aug. 7/8 with the man who created it. Maybe it sounds a little.........I don't know. But, well, nice and happy, you can't argue with that. Why would you want to?

Changing horses

I have decided to set aside The Home Stretch idea for now. As I thought about it, the idea of working for months on an intentionally dissolving marriage didn't have much excitement for me. I still think there's a good play there, but it's just not where I want to live in my imagination for the coming months.

And something that does have excitement, is really juicy, has popped onto the scene. I can't say much about it here. It's a secret. I like that about it, and that it is an open-ended writing project, not alone, but with a partner, that it picks up two characters we initiated twenty years ago, that it is full of mystery and possibility. It is a Sky's the limit kind of endeavor, and one with no pressure or rules to follow.

I think, if I refer to this new project here, I shall refer to it as Strangers. Short for Strangers in the Night. But I may not refer to it at all.

Today is Wednesday. I hope some Writes come in today.

Less like work.....

I just hit Send, and watched my completed response to the six Writes of the first week of the online PW course go sailing off across the country. It took me a long time. Hours on Saturday, more on Sunday, and then this whole morning.

I don't mind spending the time, but this is an experiment, and my felt sense right now is that the process--theirs and mine--wants to be lighter, quicker, more quick-footed. Less density. Definitely should not be laborious.

So this coming week, I am going to respond to the Writes as they come in, rather than all together at the end of the week. That already feels lighter. More like composing a haiku than a term paper. I think that will be more fun for the writers too. Less like work.

I love writers!

All six of the writers in my First Ever Small Intimate Online PW Course have e-mailed their first Writes. What can I say? I am embarrassed by riches.

I have read each of them. Now I will put them away. Our weekend guest is here. I will give her my attention today and Sunday morning. Then Sunday afternoon I will return to the six Writes and ask the gods to give me the understanding and a proprioceptive voice with which to address the Writes and think about the work we are doing together.

I like this sense of engagement in language real and immediate, in the service of useful understanding. It's exhilarating.

Lots done today, that's enough....

Busy busy.....

Since starting this blog, I have a lot more to do! The writing here is the least of it, it's the projects that this writing has stimulated that have me neglecting TV, novels, and cover to cover reading of The New Yorker.

Today and tomorrow the first week's Writes will be coming in from the six people in the new online PW course. Reading those and thinking about them and formulating a group response to post on Monday will be stimulating and fun, and it will require the time and concentration of serious imaginative work.

Also this morning, I am scheduled to create a first draft of a catalogue description for a course a colleague and I are developing and hope to teach together. Maybe more on that later. It's been a long time since I felt the need to make a work schedule to get everything done. Daunting and exhilarating.

One new thought for The Home Stretch: The couple may have thought they were fixed for life, only to be hit hard by the economic crisis. Maybe they lost all their investments and retirement, and have nothing left except their house and their social security. Maybe that's the shock that triggers their consideration of making a completely fresh start, striking out in a new direction. Which could include going it alone, ending the relationship.

Nothing tonight.....

the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--

8:45 AM

It's a refreshing thing to sit down here, open up Write Yourself Thin on my bookmarks, and write whatever I feel like writing. Of course I could do that, and have done that, anytime. In a journal, on the computer. But the semi-public quality of the blog raises the ante just enough to make it more interesting, more alive.

Only a few people know about this blog, and fewer still would be actually reading it. But that's enough to make me wake up a little. Take some responsibility for what I say here.

It's a different kind of self-editing. What I write here, it doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be inspiring or wise or funny or profound or publishable or even original. But it should be true. I should mean what I say here, and think, for myself anyway, that it is worth saying.

from "A Ritual to Read to Each Other," by William Stafford

And so I appeal to a voice, to something
shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should
consider---
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the
dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to
sleep;
the signals we give---yes or no, or maybe---

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

Inching up on the homestretch.....

8:30 PM

These two characters, Angel and George, both somehow want the same thing: to make something of the last couple of decades of their lives. To be who they were meant to be, and do what that calls for. But they are different. They both have ambivalence about leaving their life together, their old life, but they must be different . I must distinguish who is who. They are pointed in the same direction, but they are different. How?

And what are the events? Beckett could write whole plays of nothing but talk. I need events, deep conflicted actions. At what point does the big idea, the idea to divorce and go separately into the world for the rest of their lives, when does that idea descend onto the stage? When? How? What comes after?

It's time to change their names. They need their real names.

The Homestretch to where......

8:00 AM

I see from Jennifer's comment that homestretch is one word. But more importantly, I had thought it was a baseball metaphor, but I see from Jenny's definitions that no, it is not from baseball, but from horse racing. The homestretch, I guess is the last lap. Glad I found this out now, because I was thinking baseball should be in the play somehow to anchor the metaphor of the title. Now no need for baseball. Horse racing? I don't think I can get that in.

I also realized that I used that phrase in the first play I ever wrote, twenty-five years ago. In "So Long on Lonely Street" Ruth says to her brother, Raymond, "We're on the homestretch, brother. The homestretch to where?" Later Raymond says to Ruth, when he is trying to convince her that the two of them should move back to their old family home to live there together with their elderly aunt, he says, "Mortality is not a singularly southern condition, Sister. We all feel life slipping through our fingers day by day, and want it to mean more than it does. We can do this. We'll live here together. You and me and Annabel Lee. This is where the homestretch starts, Ruth. Right here at Honeysuckle Hill."

The Homestretch, it's really about the last part of something. The final lap. Your last chance. My last chance. To do whatever it is you really want to do. Have your life. On your terms. This is what Angel and George, the couple in the play, are looking at. I'm looking at it too.

More starting......

6:45 AM

This week we--I and five incredible writers-- begin a new online PW group. I've been thinking about doing something like this ever since we left Atlanta two and a half years ago. Not sure why I decided to embark on it now. Something to do with starting to write this blog. It moved me from thinking to acting. Stopped being an idea for the future and became what we're doing now. Writes from the group start coming in this week. I'm excited. Feel a part of me that's gone unused for a long time now, waking up, flexing, stretching, ready to get in there and start mixing it up.

I'm doing a lot more writing now than I was a week ago. Expect to start getting thinner any day now. I'll weigh in at the end of this week.

I'm thinking about having the married couple, Angel and George, in THE HOME STRETCH have met when she was a grad student and he was a young professor. That was the dynamic under which they fell in love forty years ago. Things change. Can somebody tell me if "home stretch" is one word or two?

Evening post.....

8:00 pm

I love writing here twice a day. I like playing Romeo instead of Julliet.

Clarity is arising. Opportunity piercing through.

Build from the inside out. As sculptors do. Organize in segments. As painters do. Stay faithful, as lovers do.

If you have a good idea, that's a good place to start, of course. But don't ever, ever just dive into the idea. First you have to build a support for the good idea. If you don't, you're going to break your back, break your pick, break your heart. The second good idea is to devide the task up into doable segments. Before you start working, or at least very early on. Then it's like following reliable instructions. One task follows another. Imagination flows through that channel. Each segment can also be broken up into segments.

A friend and I are working on a project like this. It's so enticing. We have all the good ideas. We've been spinning them around for months, years actually. We live in a gallexy of pursued ideas. But today she started talking in numbers. Five characteristics of.....Five things we can say about....

I got excited. My head started clearing, because I felt confident. We know what we're doing. Not everything about it, but the broad outlines. That we can do this. Inside out. Five pieces at a time.

A fresh life.....

7:45 AM

I've been trying to flesh out, in my mind, the woman who will be the wife in THE HOMESTRETCH. No structure yet, but I am pulling in bits and pieces about her, and him. They don't have permanent names yet. Right now I am thinking of them as ANGEL and GEORGE, but I don't think those are their true names. Here's something she says.

ANGEL: There was a time when every inch of his body was precious to me. When the sound of his voice, the way he moved, infinitely fascinating………But I’ve seen all that, heard it all. A thousand times. All his brilliant ideas, his philosophy of life, his politics, his personality. His body. There’s nothing new going to happen here. Forty years? Christ. I want surprises. A fresh life. I want my life now to be about me. Not him, not us. Me. In the world. I want to be the only one. I'm not afraid of loneliness.

Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou?

5:00 PM

My friend Charles wrote about momentum in his blog http://wellnessvillage.blogspot.com/ the other day, and that's on my mind as I sit down to write this entry for July 4, 2009.

Charles chose this definition of momentum: "the power to increase or develop at an ever-growing pace," as his favorite. I like this definition too. Here's what I have to report.

I left town for two days and missed writing several posts. I said when I began this blog that I intended to post morning and evening everyday until August 1, and Jennifer had this to say about my lapses:

"....as your blog follower, I have to say I am a little let down. Promises broken. Have we no laptops? have we no wireless?"

I detect the ironic tone of affectionate prodding here, so this entry won't be dedicated to guilt and mea culpa, though I will say that I didn't do what I said I would do, and I plan to do better.

What I do want to mark about this couple of days' absence, is what it did to my momentum. I was moving right along there while I was showing up here twice a day as promised, excited about the possibility of WRITING MYSELF THIN, ideas popping, confidence rising, momentum.

When I let it go, forgot about what I said I would do, busy with other things and other places, momentum deflated like an old balloon. Here's what MARY OLIVER says about showing up to write when you promised you would:

"If Romeo and Juliet had made appointments to met, in the moonlight-swept orchard, in all the peril and sweetness of conspiracy, and then more often than not failed to meet--one or the other lagging, or afraid or busy elsewhere--there would have been no romance, no passion, none of the drama for which we remember and celebrate them. Writing a poem is not so different--it is a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart (that courageous but also shy factory of emotion) and the learned skills of the conscious mind. They make appointments with each other, and keep them, and something begins to happen. Or, they make appointments with each other but are casual and often fail to keep them: count on it, nothing happens.

"The part of the psyche that works in concert with consciousness and supplies a necessary part of the poem--the heat of a star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say--exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone: not unconscious, not subconscious, but cautious. It learns quickly what sort of courtship it is going to be. Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself--soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly, or it will not appear at all.

"Why should it? It can wait. It can stay silent a lifetime. Who knows anyway what it is, that wild silky part of ourselves without which no poem can live? BUT WE DO KNOW THIS: if it is going to enter into a passionate relationship and speak what is in its own portion of your mind, the other responsible and purposeful part of you had better be a Romeo" (A Poetry Handbook, M. Oliver).

This is important advice if you are intending to WRITE YOURSELF THIN.

breaking ground.....

7:40 AM

I would like to write a play called THE HOMESTRETCH. And I would like for it to have baseball in it. Not necessarily the center, but out on the edge, the background, casting the shadow of the real onto the story. So the metaphor of the title is grounded in a connection to the literal.

It would be a story about a man and a woman who have been married almost forty years. They have no children. When the play begins they are discussing ways they might celebrate their fortieth anniversary. A cruise to the Greek islands, a big party.

George and Angel explore the idea of splitting up. Because they think they can have more interesting lives individually. They discuss different possibilities of how they might do this, with varying degrees of connection left between them. In the end, they decide they’d rather have none. No contact, no communication, no news of each other.

They contemplate the shocking idea:

G. Like we never existed? As a couple?

A. Like it was a long time ago. Like something in college. A long time ago.

G. Just forget each other.

A. We've both done it with affairs.

G. Something like that.

A. It will be as though you died.

G. Well I will, at some point. So will you.

A. I might as well be a widow. Like all the widows we know.

G. But Angel, without the awful grieving of loss. Think of it.

A. I would be a widow in every practical sense.

G. Except for the mourning.

A. Except for the life insurance.

G. You’ll have plenty.

A. How much?

the smoothie's good..

10:20 PM

That Smoothie is not bad. I'm not kidding, I'm looking forward to another one in the morning. I put lots of frozen strawberries and crushed ice and some almonds in mine. My blender's not great, so mine was a little chunky, but really tasty. I didn't need any extra sweetener. I'll post the recipe here again. My friend has been drinking it each morning for a months. She started doing it for health reasons and says it fills her up for the rest of the day and makes her feel terrific.

This morning I wrote that I was choosing two of my possible projects to embark on: The Intimate Online PW Class, and a new play, THE HOME STRETCH.

Nothing on THE HOME STRETCH today, but I wrote and sent out an e-mail offering the PW class.

HEALTHY FILLING SMOOTHIE

2/3 c organic low fat cottage cheese
4 Tbsp dark Barleans flaxseed oil

Mix these together until they become one substance

Add 2 Tbsp. freshly ground flax seeds.
fruit: pineapple, banana, frozen berries, whatever you like
add a handful of almonds, hickory nuts,or pecans

taste for sweetness and correct to pesonal taste

Add water (1/2 to 1 C.) for volume, and a glass full of ice.
Blend until completely smooth
Drink within 15-20 minutes for most efficacy

Choose one....

7:15 AM

Looking at the writing possibilities I listed a couple of days ago, I can see the need to CHOOSE ONE! Too many possibilities hanging out there can be paralyzing. At some point we have to stop thinking and start writing, and that doesn't happen as long as you're still letting your thoughts jump around from idea to idea like fleas on a carpet. Get a dog. Consolidate.

So I am choosing two. The online Proprioceptive Writing Group, and the two character play, THE HOME STRETCH.

Feel thinner already.

How to.....

7: 20 AM

This morning it occurred to me in a very clear way: Writing yourself thin doesn't have to mean writing "about" getting thin. I think that's what I have in mind. That I will write myself thin, but not necessarily by talking about weight or food or eating. The connection lives is in my intention. I will write. And I will get thin. Everything I write will be included in this intention.

Other things I may be writing about during this month until August first:

1. Writes and e-mails with friends I communicate regularly with

2. New idea for a play: THE HOME STRETCH, a play about a couple nearly seventy, married almost forty years who decide there's really no reason for them to continue to be married, or even know each other any longer and make their plans to quietly divorce and go their separate ways. They've had their "married life" together. They want to have interesting lives with the twenty or so years they have left, and they are convinced they can do that better as single, free agents than as a couple. Also, they like the idea of avoiding having to be the grieving widow or widower when the other dies. The plan is to dissolve all connection and information about each other. Not to know anything about the other any longer. They treat each other and their plans objectively, not emotionally. Mostly.

3. Possible online Focused Proprioceptive Writing Group of five or six people.

4. RUMI LORD MYSTERIES (stories or novels) where Rumi helps Harold solve crimes. Based in Atlanta, but Harold the artist and his friends Stefan and Chris travel other places and solve crimes there.

5. WHO IS RUMI LORD play. I have a new twist for that set up. The actress who is hired to "be" the novelist is hired as herself. She lives in NY, but is mainly a regional theater actress who has done a little tv and film work, but not at all famous. The idea they will put forward in the publicity for the book is that she has been writing the first book of this mystery series while doing plays out of town. Actress slash author. This can all be made clear in the scene when Oliver offers her the job of "becoming" the author.

6. Something about Rilke.

Today, June 30, I weigh 160 pounds. My friend drinks a health shake each morning that keeps her from being hungry all day. It has cottage cheese and flaxseed oil in it. Other things too, I presume. Sounds awful, but she swears by it and says it's not too bad. I will write to her for instructions on the other ingredients and how to make them. I am tempted to write, Yuk, here, but won't.

Starting now.....

For years I've had this title in my mind. Write Yourself Thin!

I believe in miraculous indirection, and that it could be possible to write and get thin. The question is, how. Because I am a writer and a writing teacher, I thought someday I'd figure it out and write a book with this title.

Now, ten years later and ten pounds heavier, I haven't figured out how, but I still think it's a great title and a great idea. So I'm going for it.

Here are some ways I know I'm NOT going to Write Myself Thin:

Affirmations, aspirations, inspirations, empowerments, the buddy system, the patch, goals, writing down everything I eat, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, OA, Nutrisystems, Oprah's Woo Long Tea, spas, gyms, spiritual counselors, personal trainers, reward systems, a new romance, or serious exercise.

When I say Write Yourself Thin, I mean that. Lose the weight by writing.

So here's what I'm going to do. Every morning and every night between now and August 1, 2009, I will post something on this blog. How it will be relevant to losing weight, I don't know. But my intention is to Write Myself Thin. Anyone who sees this and likes the idea, you're welcome to post along.