Posts from — September 2008

Join me in March for a lovely week of quiet and focus on creativity, spiritual practice, and generally remembering that you’re a human being. Open to writers of all sorts. Way fun, I promise. Not new age-y or weird.

Everyone should watch this everyday.

Hardcover with CD / Shambhala Publications / 128 pages / 5 1/2 x 6 1/4

He read my comment on air like 5 minutes ago!

Click to read!

Alex Grey is a visionary artist who makes art that shows you who you are. He and his wife Allyson opened The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in 2004 to house his most extraordinary works and present them in a sacred environment. It’s an extraordinary place and it’s packing up and moving from NYC to Upstate in December, 2008. So go see it while you can! It’s at 530 W 27th (between 10th & 11th).

For my new book, “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart,” I’m compiling a list of things you could do when you think you’re about to lose it. Meant for those super acute moments when you basically can’t even remember your own name and you just need someone to give you a task.

It’s divided into three categories:

Distract it.

Indulge it.

Fight it.

What would you add?

Checklist: Thinks to Do When You’re About to Lose It
A semi-serious list of things you could do instead of drunk-dialing, head-shaving, burning things down, or devouring entire cakes at one sitting. I can personally attest to the vibility of each of these items to take my mind off of what ails me. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. Refer to this list when you are desperate for something, anything to do to distract, indulge, or fight against your sorrow.

Distract it
•    Dump every single item of clothing you own on the floor and divide into two piles: things that make you feel attractive and things that don’t. Take the latter pile to Goodwill.

•    Organize your Netflix Queue

•    Go to Amazon.com, Goodreads.com, or Shelfari.com and review all the relationship books you’ve ever read; begin dialogue with likeminded readers. Make your suggested reading list for others who are going through heartbreak.

•    Organize your iPod playlists

•    Identify 5-7 DVDs that do not make you cry. Could be funny movies or just absorbing ones. Keep this stack handy and when you feel yourself start to hyperventilate, pop one in the player.

My list:
40-Year Old Virgin
Anchorman
All About Eve
Flight of the Conchords (HBO; OK, this is the funniest thing I have EVER seen. You’ll even get a crush on them, which is great distraction from a broken heart.)
Intolerable Cruelty
Palm Beach Story
The Wire (HBO; Any season)
The Women (original version)

I queried friends and these were on their lists:
Big Lebowski
Bowfinger
Coming to America
Dodgeball
Love, Actually
Mulan
Office Space
Princess Bride
Raising Arizona

•    Popular lore (now debunked) has it that Eskimos have countless names for snow, perhaps because snow is what they live in. Heartbroken folks live in a world of tears. Make up names for different kinds of crying. To get you started, here are a few kinds of crying that should have their own names:

Dry Heave tears: Sobbing without tears
Frustrated tears: When you feel like crying, but you can’t—no tears come out
Geyser tears: Crying that overtakes you out of the blue
Night Tears: Crying in your sleep
Surprising tears: You don’t even know you’re crying
Talking tears: talking and crying at the same time

•    If you haven’t already, start following people on Twitter. I love Twitter. Someone coined a phrase to describe it: “ambient intimacy” and that is just right. Twitter is an online instant message service with the world. You find people and start “following” them. Millions of people are chatting with each other 24/7—but only in 140 character increments which is what Twitter limits you to, so no one can get overly verbose. It’s like a cocktail party that’s always going on and it enables you to get and give some human contact whenever you want. And disappear when you want. To get started, follow me: twitter.com/spiver.

Indulge it
•    Identify 5-7 DVDs that do make you cry. I’m not talking about those dark, gloomy movies that just make you depressed—I’m talking about the ones that make you bawl like a baby. Sometimes it’s a comedy and sometimes it’s be Bambi. For example, the television show “What Not to Wear” always makes me cry even though it’s a fashion reality show. (Something about seeing the swan revealed at the end…) Keep this stack handy and when you just need to let it all out, pop one in the player and sob with dignity.

My list:
A Beautiful Mind
Dark Victory
Field of Dreams
Gladiator
The Last Samurai
Stranger Than Fiction (when Will Ferrell sings “Whole Wide World)
Anything where a dog dies

I queried friends on Twitter and these were on their lists:
Bambi
Big Fish
Dead Poets Society
E.T.
Fiddler on the Roof
Grave of the Fireflies
The Green Mile
Hotel Rwanda
I Am Sam
Life is Beautiful
The Lion King
The Little Mermaid
Million Dollar Baby
The Notebook
Philadelphia
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Steel Magnolias
Sweet November
Titanic
Whale Rider

•    Make a sob-sister playlist and listen to it. Here are my top 10 songs for when I want to get all worked up:
Change Gonna Come (Sam Cooke)
Dark End of the Street (James Carr)
I Can’t Stand the Rain (Ann Peebles)
I Can’t Stop Loving You (Freddy Fender)
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (Otis Redding)
There is an End (The Greenhornes & Holly Golightly)
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (Jimmy Ruffin)
When I Get Like This (Five Royales)
Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric)
Your Precious Love (Jerry Butler)

Fight it
•    For god’s sake, go to the gym.

•    Take on an exercise regime you think you can’t do: If you’re a yogini, try a 45-minute walk/run instead. If you’re a runner, go to a yoga class. If you always take Spinning, try strength training. If you don’t do anything, do anything.

•    Walk. Walk. Walk. Drop everything and take a walk when you feel yourself about to collapse. You can walk in the morning or you can walk at night. (If you don’t live in a scary neighborhood.) You can take a break from your desk and walk around the block.  You can walk in the summer and you can walk in the winter. There’s something incredibly cozy and fun about piling on coats, scarves, and hats and taking yourself for a walk when normal people would stay inside (when it’s raining or snowing, for example). You are not a normal person right now. Go with it.

•    Help a stranger. This may be the most time-worn suggestion of all time, but who cares. The very second you help someone in need, something completely magical happens. All the energy that you had been devoting to propping yourself up turns from half-assed to raging, a force to be reckoned with—when it’s aimed at someone else. Self-hatred, depression, and insecurity disappear when you put yourself in the service of another. Everything you wish you could do for yourself—take your mind off of it, recover your dignity, feel good about yourself, become energized—just happens. You can help someone by:

Giving them money: do some research and donate to a charity. Go a little out of your comfort zone. If you could afford $10, give $15. If you could afford $500, give $750. And so on.

Volunteer: to read to people in the hospital, help out at an animal shelter, for a politician you admire (I think there may be one or two left), or at your church. One of the best tools I ever found for working with my depression was to volunteer at a crisis center. Talking to others in crisis balanced me out for some reason. The best kind is when you get right up in there with people (or animals) who are in actual pain, whether physical or emotional. Let their difficulty into your heart. You’ll know what to do
next. (And the volunteer agency will train you, too.)

Calling them: you can also help people you already know. Call a friend or family member who is going through some difficulty. Don’t talk about yourself. Keep the focus of the conversation on them.

I moved to Boston about 6 years ago, from Manhattan. Before that, I lived in Austin, TX. I grew up in D.C.

I would move back to Manhattan or Austin in a millisecond. I’d also relocate to D.C. because of my parents and other family. But I do not, repeat, do NOT want to live in Boston.

Everyone who knows me is sick of knowing how much I don’t like Boston. (Apologies to those who do. It’s just a matter of chemistry, I’m convinced.) I simply don’t fit in here and not fitting in is actually painful. It’s more than not liking the scenery or the food or the weather or the architecture—none of those things really matter all that much when you feel at home. I’m not at home.

I moved here to live with my husband. We lived apart for the first three years of our marriage, me in NYC, him in Boston but eventually I ran out of excuses to maintain two households. Very expensive. And I ran out of non-financial excuses as well; he had enough of hearing about my sensitive nervous system and unremitting introversion—he wanted a shared life, not two concurrent ones. And I thought, if I’ve always lived on some kind of experimental edge (within myself), then what could be more daring than to attempt a conventional lifestyle? What could be more avant garde than pushing myself beyond my comfort zone when it comes to love?

(Let me tell you, it’s been very difficult. I love Duncan way more than I ever though possible, in large part due to this nutty experiment of compromising on “my needs” which are bullshit anyway. Mostly just excuses to avoid the discomfort of love. But as the love has deepened, so has my neurosis about being too close to anyone. I do have a sensitive nervous system. I am wildly introverted. But I digress.)

It’s all been well and good, but I just don’t like Boston. It’s not a home for me. I’m sort of reaching my breaking point about tolerating it, in no small part because winter is approaching. So I’m putting out an APB to the world: Please help us move within the next 12 months. At this time next year, I want to have relocated to Manhattan, Austin, D.C., or somewhere currently unknown to me but just as perfect as a home. I want to go home.

If you’ve read this post to the end, please join me in wishing for home, for yourself, for me, for all beings everywhere.

I can write to the ambient noise of a coffee shop, but not to music.

I prefer to write when other people are sleeping.

I like to write on holidays like Christmas and the 4th of July. Something about feeling that the rest of the world is otherwise engaged helps me.

Hard as I try, I cannot, cannot, CANNOT write according to a routine. God, I wish it were that easy. Every day is different and after more than 7 years of trying, I have just come to accept this. Although it’s a giant pain in the buttinski.

My attention works on a push-pull basis. I have to pay attention to my writing in short spurts, toward and away, toward and away. Looks like this: 42 minutes writing, check e-mail, make tea, 37 minutes writing, watch What Not to Wear, read something inspiring, write 91 minutes, catch up with Twitter pals, write 9 minutes, etc, etc. I don’t write in discrete segments, it seems to mix in throughout the day instead.

No, I don’t have ADD.  My attention span circles its object, it doesn’t target it. It just doesn’t work in a straight line. That’s the way it is. I accept me the way I am. Finally.

Trying to write is like trying to get a virgin to sleep with you. “It’s okay baby. I love you now. I’ll love you tomorrow. It’s gonna be great. Don’t think about it so much. Now get over here.”

Even if I think I have nothing to say, if I just write one sentence, I can usually write one more. And then another. Can’t think too far ahead.

Every few hours, I do a handstand. (But not in Starbucks.)

Deadlines invite the muse, open-ended opportunity does not.

Sometimes I like to work at a desk, sometimes on the couch, sometimes in bed.

If I start writing the moment I wake up, things go well. If I do anything first (check email, kiss my husband good morning, tweet) it’s not so good.

When I’m around people too much, I can’t write. When I’m too isolated, I can’t write. Not too close, not too far. A magical dividing line that is constantly moving.

When I can’t think of anything to write, I read until the moment an inspiration hits and then I go straight to the page. Immediately. If I even stop to drink a sip of water, it disappears.

When I read what I’ve written and go, “Who wrote that? I don’t remember knowing that,” I know I’ve written something good.

How Can I Heal a Broken Heart?

For Beliefnet