Simplicity by Sunny

If you were to meet me in person, you’d quickly discover that I’m a chatty sort who adores conversation.  If you think I’m long-winded while writing, you ain’t seen (or heard) nuttin’.  I love to discuss everything!

I’m the kind of person you avoid at the water cooler because you’ve got better things to do than suffer my inability to shut-up, but I’m undeniably valuable at the corporate Christmas party because I prevent awkward silences.  When a new co-worker stops by my cubicle for the first time, I introduce myself as a verbal Venus Flytrap, but assure them that they’re allowed to escape me whenever they like.  (Since I sit alone at the end of the hall, my only company a cranky boss and a Philodendron, I get pretty lonely down there .  So, when a wonderful person visits me, I want to keep them prisoner for as long as possible.)

Such is the case with MM, one my favorite prisoners – I mean, co-workers.  Poor MM.  But she visits my cubicle even without a work related purpose, which makes me think she sorta likes me.  She and I talk about lots of things.  My colorful dating life, her children’s shenanigans, movies, and the meaning of life.  Work, after all, isn’t so much about work.  It’s about dissecting our life’s happenings in extreme detail thirty-five out of forty hours per week.  When I decided to enter the nursing program, then, she was one of the first people I told.   

I was taken aback when she got super excited on my behalf and said that she, too, had always wanted to be a nurse and had started the nursing program years earlier.

“What happened?” I asked.  “Why didn’t you finish?”

She shrugged.  “After I finished my prerequisites, we moved for my husband’s job.  The timing was awful, that’s all.”

Every day thereafter MM and I shared thoughts on the health care field – how vast it is, how interesting… how gross, but in the good way.  Sharing our thoughts was fun, especially for me.  MM’s eyes light up as she talks about nursing.  The only thing I love more than wine and chocolate is seeing my prisoners – I mean, my friends – happy.  

One day I said, “Why don’t you go back and finish?  Obviously nursing is something that still interests you, and I’d take you for my nurse any ol’ day.”

She pursed her lips and thought for a moment.  “I dunno.” 

Grabbing one of my purple Post-its, I scribbled down my academic advisor’s name.  “Give this guy a call to see what it’d take to finish.  What would it hurt?”

And she did.  As I write this, her credits are being transferred and she starts the nursing program this fall.  My enthusiasm for school rubbed off positively!  How exciting to know I can influence people in ways that don’t require bail money.  (Just kidding, that rarely happens anymore .)

Speaking of work, I recently dealt with a broken circuit breaker in our building and I hired an electrician to come save us.  Mr. Electric’s handsome smile, a welcome surprise, made me wish I’d prepared accordingly with fresh lip gloss.  

After showing him the electrical panel, I rushed into the bathroom armed with my toothbrush.  As I’d eaten Italian for lunch, I brushed with gusto, hoping to transform my breath from garlicky to minty.  In case Mr. Electric, once I’d dutifully signed his work order, decided to haul off and kiss me.  Stranger things have happened.  I’m sure of it.

A new co-worker of mine entered the bathroom in the middle of my scrubbing and joined me at the sink.  “Wow,” she said.  “Your dentist would be really proud of you.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” I answered, toothpaste mumbling my words.  “This is my vain attempt to scrub the garlic off my breath because there’s a good-looking electrician down the hall.” 

She raised a brow.  “Where down the hall exactly?”

I grinned with co-conspiracy.  “Accounting’s conference room, left of the projector.” 

Minutes later, after I’d returned to my desk and was fluffing my hair, she rushed to my cubicle, breathless and pink-cheeked.  “I think he’s related to Bradley Cooper.”

“I was leaning toward Wentworth Miller, but I can see it your way.”

As we continued chatting, utilizing the female talent of bouncing from one topic to another one that’s completely unrelated, we discovered a mutual love of coconut.  Before our conversation ended, we made a coconut coffee date for next week.  A new friend!  One I made because I’d shared a slice of girly behavior with a stranger.

Last week I had dinner with my friend Becky.  We were burning our tongues off with inferno-rated buffalo wings while swigging 90 Shilling Ale.  After our second beer, I told her about the stories I’m writing.  I shared my dilemma of Manuscript #1 versus Manuscript #2, mainly the troublesome plot issues of the former.   Normally, I don’t talk about writing.  Before a few months ago, I’d never told anyone about my dream of finishing a book.  Lately, though, I’ve been sharing this part of myself more easily.  It’s proven beneficial.

“I can’t describe how excited I am about finishing a novel,” I told her.  “And I really want to finish the first manuscript, but the problem with the plot is ruining everything.  Oh, Becky, I don’t know what to do!”

“How ’bout flag the waiter?”  She fanned her tongue.  “I need more sour cream before my mouth bursts into flames.” 

“I meant about my manuscript.”

“I know, but I can’t problem solve if my entire head is sweating!”

So, I did as instructed.  After licking sour cream from our forks, she knitted her brow and suddenly said, “How about if you …..”

And, within the space of one sentence, she solved my manuscript’s plot.  Thank goodness I shared my enthusiasm for Manuscript #1 with her, otherwise I’d still be wallowing

I can’t write about enthusiasm without mentioning my friend A.W., who’s having a baby.  A baby!  I’ve seen his little baby bottom in an ultrasound.  I’ve felt the flutter in her stomach as he kicked, my hand experiencing life at its very beginning.  I’ve been able to pick out baby clothes with her, an event that requires long-term smiling.  As I watch A.W. become even more beautiful in pregnancy, her belly growing daily, and hearing all of the prep work she and her husband are doing (and, boy, is there a lot of it), I’m infected by her enthusiasm.  I’m reminded of how awesome life is.   

The power of enthusiasm should never be underestimated.  Get excited and share your excitement.  Whether it’s about a project you’re working on, a dream you have, or a blue-eyed electrician.  Enthusiasm is contagious.  When you share it, you shine more brightly and the people around you shine, too.  

Speak up, dear shy friends!  And tell me – and everyone else – what you’re excited about.  Who knows what problems it’ll solve?  What friends it’ll bring?  What happiness it’ll give someone?  Or how simply sharing your enthusiasm will keep it alive.

As a minimalist, die-hard such as I am, I firmly believe in the beauty of focus.  A focus on one thing, squeezing every delicious moment from the experience.  Or if it’s a dreaded work task, focusing hard so that it’s over and done with as quickly as possible.

It was with great gusto, then, that I laser beamed all effort into the manuscript I intend to finish this summer.

I set my stage perfectly.

“Laptop?” Check.  “Lucky earrings?”  Check.  ”Booze?”  Of course!  Since it was before noon during this particular checklist, at my side was coffee… smothered in Bailey’s.

What more could an aspiring writer require?  Exactly!  So I rectified my lack of music by popping in ear buds.  How can you drink Bailey’s and not listen to Ella Fitzgerald?

I often write at a bohemian cafe downtown, a cozy little spot where everyone sports dreadlocks and calls you “dear sister” or “fellow brother”.  It’s really not as creepy as it sounds, but it does require an open mind .  The first 50 pages of my manuscript were constructed on its sidewalk patio.  And it was there, too, that my fingers stopped their ratta-tat-tatting on my keyboard.

“Uh oh,” I whispered to myself, leaning slowly away from my laptop.  “I’m stuck.”

The story’s details weren’t matching up, its plot becoming less and less plausible with each page.  Because I was in public during this revelation, I couldn’t cry about it.  Tears or not, my heart ached with overwhelm.  How could my manuscript be so disrespectful?

A week passed that I didn’t touch my story.  It had spurned me and I’m stubborn about such behavior.  Especially from stories and characters I’ve extended such excellent good will towards.  After being spurned, or feeling in any other way morose, I yearn for the mountains.  So last week Eddie (my car) and I drove ourselves into the Rockies.  During the drive, mind wandering, hair tangling up with the wind, a miraculous event occurred. 

The entire plot of my manuscript fell from the sky and dropped, like magic, into my brain. 

With a gasp, I yanked the wheel and pulled Eddie off the road.  His tires screeched.  Dust blew up.  “Pen! Pen!”  I chanted with excitement.  “Need pen!”  As the dust settled, my foot still heavy on the brake pedal, I scribbled words and names and places.  I drew arrows here and there.  I chewed my lower lip as it spread wide into a grin.  And when I was done, I shifted into park.  I twisted the stereo dial and sent Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” pouring out the windows.  I hopped out and danced around my car.  “Yippee!”  I shouted.  And when Steppenwolf was done, and my dance was over, I slumped against the bumper.

“Now,” I said to myself.  “If I could figure out the plot to the manuscript I’m actually writing, that’d be great.”

See, the plot that had dropped magically from the sky pertained to a story I’d started, but never finished, a year ago.  Though I should’ve been focusing on Manuscript #1, I became obsessed by Manuscript #2.  That afternoon, instead of heading further into the mountains, I swung around and raced to the nearest cafe.  I scribbled for hours, consuming enough cappuccino that I switched to Type C blood.  My scribbling produced the best outline of my entire life.  I still can’t believe how marvelous it is.  (This isn’t to say that it’ll wind up being marvelous once finished, but it’s marvelous in its present state.)

I’m guilty of cheating on Manuscript #1, having found solace in the arms of my new story.  I did miss my characters from M#1, though, and yearned for them as if they were flesh-and-blood.

An interesting thing has happened in the midst of rolling around with M#2.  Solutions for the plot of M#1 have started coming around.

As the theory goes, when you stop thinking so hard, or stop thinking altogether, answers will reveal themselves.  On their own timeline, unfortunately, which is never as fast as I’d like it.  I know this theory to be true, and I’ve also come to believe that working on two (or more) of the same kind of projects helps them both flow.  There’s less pressure with two related projects, but the same skills and thought patterns are being practiced and mastered.

Writing, for example, becomes less intimidating to me when I’m constantly crafting words in a variety of different ways.  Emails, blog posts, poetry, Manuscript #1, Manuscript #2.  My pen becomes my cohort and playmate.

Working on two pieces of music, almost simultaneously, has helped me while playing the flute.  I’ve played since the age of seven.  While mastering a solo piece, a challenge worthy of excitement and fear, I constantly switched from my seemingly impossible solo to silly show tunes that I’d known for years.  Listening to me play back then, I sounded like a crazy musician who couldn’t make up her mind between Bach or Webber.  Keeping the flute to my lips was all that mattered.  While forcing my fingers to squeeze and release the open-holed keys, switching from the familiar to the foreign every couple of minutes, I eased my hesitancy and awkwardness.

Rather than abandon a pursuit completely, halting mental and physical momentum, just switch pieces for a while.  Set up a new canvas.  Sing a different song.  Bake a tried-and-true cake.  Hike an easier trail.  Switch to something easier, finding confidence in the familiar.  Or start something new, allowing your brain to air out.

This isn’t an invitation to start projects and never finish them.  This is a way to circumvent an obstacle (usually a tired brain!) and move forward.  Even my two manuscripts will require a choice.  Which comes first?  The light-hearted adventure?  Or the heavy character-driven dramedy?  Whichever one I choose, and it’s proving to be a hard choice, they’ll both be part of my writing journey this summer.

Another way I’ve been multi-tasking, in a good way, is by visiting new cafes throughout Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs.  I drew up an extensive list of cafes and bistros to try over the next several months.  My purpose of cafe hopping is to have something to look forward to every week.  It also gets me out of my comfort zone, has saved me money (sitting in a cafe is remarkably cheap), and encourages my writing habit.  By securing one bistro table and an overflowing mug of caffeine, I’m accomplishing four things at once.  Now that’s multi-tasking at its finest.