On Getting Started
...and the joy of a brand new page.
Photo credit: Jane Looker Photography
Like many people, I love a new notebook. Clean and unsullied, brimming with the promise of ideas, inspiration, lists efficiently crossed through, dreams placed into words. Productivity.
While preparing for a forthcoming circle I’m hosting, I recently unearthed no less than twelve notebooks. Twelve! Some of them are unused, but for the most part they are partially used; chosen as the hallowed guardians of particular aspects of my life: a writing workshop, notes for a novel, planning for a series of retreats I’m giving, generic domestic tasks. I confess: I was mildly shocked at the number of unfinished notebooks I had amassed; each one clearly an attempt to organise my thoughts, my offerings or my life, but not all in one place - oh no, that would be wrong.
I’ve tried using a dated journal or a diary in the past but have found it irritating to find a piece of exacting prose or some particularly pleasing lines rudely interrupted by something as banal as ‘Dentist: 10:30’. It does not sit well with me to have my flow interrupted by the banality of the daily grind. I am reminded of a fabulous quote from the novelist Ann Patchett–whom I admire–as a riposte to the oft-cited advice to writers to ‘write every day’ in order to achieve success. ‘Don’t you think men are the ones that always say that?’ she asks. ‘I’m not sure I’ve heard a woman say you have to write every day. They’re too busy making dinner…How exhausting is it, as a woman, to always be the one who has to make the food and change the beds. No matter how enlightened, how much of a feminist I am, I am still doing all of it.’
As the daughter of a woman who lovingly took care of all domestic management and from whom I inherited the DNA that gave me the urge to create a home, people it with children and pets to take care of, clean, cook and generally serve as its axis, I can identify with these lines. But as I write them I am also hoping that my daughter will find space to fill with her own creativity and needs, and not just those of others. It has taken me a long time to unlearn that practice.
Looking at the pile of rejected notebooks in front of me causes me to wonder how they might reflect my own life. Here, an unlined one purchased on the allure of its beautiful cover and the hope that I will somehow become the woman who annotates her writing with beautiful line drawings. I am not that woman. The sober, bottle green leather jacketed one with the too close together lines that came home with me in the dead of winter when everything felt pale and constricted due to the cold. The one I received as a gift and began using despite knowing it wasn’t quite ‘me’. The beautiful, gilt hardback full of astrological symbols I long to understand but probably never will; too heavy to transport.
Here is what I know about my notebook preferences based on this pile:
It has to have a soft cover
It has to be able to lie flat without too much forcing or spine cracking
It cannot contain any other printed information, no matter how intriguing
The cover must be patterned, but not too bright: muted elegance is the order of the day
The lines cannot be too close together
It must be thick enough to quell the fear of a too-flimsy notebook which runs the risk of stopping me, mid-flow, when I have hardly begun
Margins are nice
It must be light enough to transport everywhere in my bag
Once these criteria are met, the struggle to open it and begin commences. What if I immediately use a ‘wrong’ word and have to cross it out? Start with a list when a journal entry is needed? Begin planning a workshop session and supercede it with an impromptu shopping list? Just lately, I’ve been experimenting with the phrase When you jump off the cliff, the mattress will appear beneath you. It’s something I associate with the tarot card of The Fool, as he begins the journey undertaken by the 78 cards in the deck. To me, this card holds the energy of a coiled spring: poised, waiting to jump into the abyss, to step off the high diving board. It is uncomfortable, as all new beginnings should be, because otherwise, how would we gain a sense of accomplishment from their completion?
When I work with mediumship, a huge amount of trust is required. First, I have to put my logical, ‘thinking’ mind to one side while I expand my consciousness and open up. Then, I have to pay attention to whatever comes. I’m predominantly clairvoyant, meaning that I tend to ‘see’ the information I’m given, but I do also experience the other two ‘clairs’: clairsentience and clairaudience, meaning that I can also sense and hear certain information. Here’s when it can get tricky. My brain will want to intercept the information and question it: can this really be the person I’m seeing for my client? Does this symbol mean I may have to impart an answer they don’t necessarily want to hear, or may not be ready for? Just like a new notebook, I have to practise just starting. And, just like writing, once the information starts coming it can really begin to flow. There may be one or two ‘wrong turns’ where I misinterpret something –just like having to scribble out a word or phrase that doesn’t quite work–but learning to work with your intuition is exactly this: just picking something, taking a breath and starting. See where it goes.
I am currently on the precipice of several new beginnings in my work. A germ of an idea for a new novel which I am excited about; a women’s circle with a focus on developing intuition, learning of a new skill and some online offerings connected to this Substack - watch this space.
And in the meantime, if you find yourself staring at your own blank space, just pick a point, and start. You won’t regret it.