Mulligan!

Long before my life exploded, and rained me down in fire and ash

Before my faith in Love eroded, before I walked on broken glass…

  -From “The One That Got Away” by Laura Lisbeth ©2012

When your life blows up it never feels like a good thing at the time. I would go so far as to suggest that everyone probably experiences these explosions in varying degrees at different times. And it’s hard to see your life rain down in pieces around you and feel good about it.

But take heart, oh Disenchanted Ones, because what is also happening is that Life is granting you a giant Mulligan. A Big Ol’ Do Over. That is the way I have decided to look at it. Suddenly I find myself back at the start of things instead of well underway. So what do I want to do? Do I want to just pick up where I left off? How? Why? Nope, I’ll take the Mulligan and get on with it, thank you.

Just so we’re all on the same page here – Mulligan  is a golf term. In golf, it’s a shot taken after a failed shot, which does not count against your strokes. In everything else, Mulligan means a “Do-over.”

All this opportunity awaits: a chance to reinvent yourself, a chance to do something differently, a chance to see your future with a fresh set of eyes.  The time is now.

Oh yeah, baby! I call Mulligan!

The Fire In Your Belly!

A couple of months ago I ran out of gas at a stoplight during the noon rush hour.   I was busy, you know, and while I noticed that the tank was getting low, I kind of ignored it -- I had a lot on my mind! 

So, at this stoplight, my car shuddered and died, and I was completely shocked and surprised and thinking the worst – then I looked at the gas gauge.  Ohhh no.

Every time the light turned green, people behind me were honking, and I kept waving them around. A police officer came up to my window and when I told him, “um, I think I’m out of gas,” he said, “you’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

Cars need gas to run.   A fire needs fuel – something to burn – to keep on burning. For me, inspiration works this way too. If your Car of Inspiration is sitting dead at a stoplight,  what are you gonna do? I don’t know what fills your tank, but here are some suggestions:

• Spend time in nature.  It reaches you at the soul level and reopens that dialogue you have with your innermost self. That’s where the good stuff comes from.
• Read a book.  Reading really gets my brain pistons firing. Sometimes I do this in place of working on writing. I don’t like to force it that much. If I don’t have anything happening in the writing department, I give my brain a little vacation.
• Go out and experience the creativity of others: go to a gallery, museum, or go out and hear live music. Relax. Soak it in. it will put the fire back in your belly.
• Grab inspiration as it flies by – it might not stop or come around again. Write down or record those little lines, words, etc that come into your head at any given moment. Store them up like a little treasure trove that is all yours. Then go back to it when you need some inspiration. You’ll be surprised at some of the things you came up with.  You will inspire yourself!
• Take on a side project that is creative, but not directly related to your main goal: co-write, collaborate, assist, support someone else’s dream. It keeps your creativity flowing until you’re ready to jump back into it again.
• Honor your creative side. Think of yourself as a creative soul, and give this part of yourself its due. This is who you are! This is the real you – the most important you. So give yourself permission to be that person.

Putting My Bears Out on the Table

Teddy bears seem to personify whimsy.  They are benevolent creatures who just exude vulnerability and fuzzy love. They stare out at the world through those glossy, black button eyes,  revealing nothing and everything all at once……… I’m pretty sure they have souls............

I kind of have a thing for teddy bears. I’ve been known to go through periods of teddy bear acquisition, in which I add unnecessary ones to my stable the way others acquire guitars or power tools.  Some of my bears  live freely, uncaged, in my house,  and they’re pretty quiet. They don’t really run amok or anything. But  I’m sad to say that not all of them are this lucky. I have some other teddy bears who have been packed away in a plastic bin marked “TEDDY BEARS” for years. Oh, the guilt I carry around with me.  I can only imagine the conversations that are going on inside that bin.

Perhaps this borders on teddy bear abuse, but what am I supposed to do – put them all out on display? I don’t have room in my life for all those bears – all at one time. I don’t want to deal with them all, so I keep some of them in that plastic bin. What does it mean when we pack our teddy bears away in a box -- when we put away our whimsy, our vulnerability, our fuzzy love?  If I don’t put all my bears out there, am I holding back something important?

 I don’t know but I think I’ve hit upon a new favorite idiom:

“Lay all your teddy bears on the table.”

“She decided it was best to come clean and lay all of her teddy bears out on the table.”

“All right, let’s lay all our teddy bears on the table and discuss this matter.” 

“He brought no teddy bears to the table.”

“But Mary treasured up all of these teddy bears in her bin, and pondered them in her heart…..”

Oops! Sorry, I got carried away for a second there.

Be brave.

Bring it.

Bring all your teddy bears to the table.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Some bears I know...........



Bear-on-stairs

 

Navy Bear

KU Bear - someone has taken his pants

Bear-in-car

Overloved bear

How Far Would You Go For Money?

How far would you go for money?

I used to work at this really crazy place, where the morale was subterranean. To offset this, we used to do things to try to lift us up out of the dark hole of our despair. Sometimes, we would have a contest to see who could do the least amount of work in a day. If you had to answer the phone, for example, you lost a point.  I once paid our first shift production manager $5 to eat a dead cricket – and he chewed it  up and swallowed it down without blinking an eye! But he was no amateur – he also claimed to have eaten a raw chicken leg for money.

Other times, we contemplated absurd scenarios: One day, we got into a discussion about what you would be willing to do for a million dollars. Would you walk down the street completely naked if someone paid you a million dollars? Would you walk all the way down Center Street, past the fairgrounds, for $1 million? The answers surprised me. Some said yes, no problem, are you kidding me I would do it in a heartbeat. Others, like me, said um, no, not on your life or for a million dollars would I do that. I’m way too shy for that.

In retrospect, I suppose there would be several minutes of an uncomfortable situation and the payoff would be huge. So why not? Because there are some things you can’t pay me to do. In general, you can’t pay me to be coerced into doing something I would not normally do. I don’t like to give someone that kind of power. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Mostly, the choice is not so extreme, and the question is couched in terms of Real Everyday Life and might not seem like a soul-killer at the time.

Would you lose sight of your true nature in order to keep a job that allows you to make your house payments? It could happen. Would you set aside what really matters to you in order to buy food and electricity? Probably.  Would you silence your heart every day in order to obtain financial security? Well, certainly not every day…………….. Would you put your soul on hold, say, through the end of the year, with plans to revisit it when you’re not quite so busy?  What? Can you repeat the question? I was busy over here….

We kind of need money sometimes. But when you are true to yourself,  you will find a way to make the other things work.  I’m trying to focus, focus, focus on heart and soul. Always always always. That is where the truth lies.  No matter how far you go for money, it won’t ever return the favor.

The Center of Everything

Warning: this is one of those soul-baring posts that can make you feel funny when you read it. (If I can make you uncomfortable, I know I've succeeded). However, if that you’re not in the mood for that, (PLEASE! Make it stop!!) go grab some chocolate and read my post about the Country Stampede. I won’t be offended!   

There’s a book I really like called “The Center of Everything” by Laura Moriarty. Coincidentally to this post, the book is set in Kansas, and the author – Moriarty – lives in Lawrence, Kansas. But I’m not going to talk about the book. I just want to use the title for today’s blog.

I recently moved back to Kansas. It’s Where I Come From.  It’s been a bittersweet homecoming. Last week, I got my Kansas license plate.  I don’t know why, but it seemed significant. As the clerk set the plate on the counter, I actually had to bite my lip to keep the tears out of my eyes. Maybe it felt like wiping out the final outward traces of a former life as the former me. So many changes. So many goodbyes. So many rites of passage, passing by unnoticed, uncelebrated or unlamented by anyone but me. Another shining moment in my life history, to be sure. If a moment shines in the forest and nobody sees it, does it really make enough light to cut through the darkness?

At the nucleus of who I am, there is a light – it is my creative soul. It is the part of me that is not changed by external events. It is the Center of Everything. In my case, there is music that can never be silenced.  It is the constant that drives me forward, over and over, again and again, through the muck and the mire, through the rain and the fire. It’s the lifeline that carries me over the angry sea to the safety of the shore. So I grab onto it and hold on for dear life when the situation calls for it.

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Say It Out Loud

Do you want some advice?  

All you have to do is ask. Or maybe don’t even ask. You’ll probably get it anyway.  There’s more advice out there than you can shake a stick at, these days.

The question, really, is whether to ask or not. Does sharing your dreams with someone run you the risk of short-circuiting the end result in some cosmic way? It can sometimes feel that way.

For the most part, I’m a firm believer in putting requests out there to the Universe. Saying things out loud seems to help make them happen. On the flip side, it feels risky to share dreams and aspirations with people and ask for help or advice.

Several years ago,  when I was just really starting to play my songs in public, people started asking if I had a CD for sale.  Well, of course I wanted to have one, but I didn’t know anything at all about it! I had no idea where to start. However, the idea was planted in my brain. A good friend told me, "Stop saying you want to make a CD and start saying you're doing it. You're going  to make a CD." So  I began to say it out loud as if it were going to happen.

It sounds like such a simple thing, but it was scary.  What if I didn't make it happen?  Even so, I took that one small step in the direction  of my goal.

Some time passed, and I was a fortunate enough to be a guest on a local radio program. A friend of mine heard the show, and mentioned it to me. Following my recent resolution, I bravely told him that I was planning to record a CD of my songs.  But, I explained, I had no idea where to start. He told me that he knew Ian Byrne – the endlessly charming Irish front man of the KC-based Irish rock band, the Elders -- quite well. He said, “A couple of the Elders have recording studios in their homes - I’ll talk to Ian and have him call you.”



The Elders



And sure enough, Ian did call me. What a sweetheart he was, with his lovely Irish accent, throwing around the words “Luv” and “Darlin” and “Lass” and what-have-you, as I was fairly swooning on the other end (I realize this has nothing to do with the overall point of this blog-story, but I felt it was worth mentioning). He talked to me a bit about my music, and then recommended that I work with Steve Phillips, who had recorded singer/songwriter types like me. He gave me Steve’s number, and told me to call him.

And I did call Steve, and set up a meeting. We talked about what I wanted to accomplish  and I could tell he was the right person to record my songs. He said, “Okay when you’re ready to get started let me know.” 

But I didn’t let him know. I’m not a fast mover when it comes to such things. I let months go by and I didn't move forward. Life, however, grew impatient with me. Once you set your toe and punt that great Kickball of Fate, you put things in motion. Out of the blue one day, Steve gave me a call and basically said, “are you ready to get started?” And so, I knew it was time. That's how my first CD, "Hit the Ground Running" - recorded at Steve Phillips' Big Time Music Productions  - became a reality.

Now, of course, I can look back on it and see how an entire chain of events unfolded that I could never have planned or predicted, all because I decided to talk about it. 

I only needed to say it out loud.

To find "Hit The Ground Running and other Laura Lisbeth music, go to www.lauralisbeth.com

Sleep Deprived and Waiting for the End of DST

I ask the universe this question and I do not get a direct answer:

Is sleep optional? Can sleep please be optional?

I really need it to be an option, not a requirement. For I have, as they say, many irons in the skillet. Many chickens in the fire.  I have much to do, and I am not finding many open slots for things. Where can I find the time?  Most of what I have is non-negotiable and so this is why I look to my tiny cache of sleep hours and contemplate the way  I could make it work to do without as much of it.

Complicating matters is some kind of trait I have (possibly hereditary) that predisposes me to have an extremely low tolerance for activity of any kind. Therefore, if I am not actually sleeping, I’m thinking about sleeping and making promises of sleep to myself to fool myself into getting out of bed in the morning. I say, “you can go to bed really early tonight if you want.” And because I’m groggy from sleeping, I buy this line every time.

Tomorrow night is the Big Opportunity for those who suffer as I do from a negative balance in their sleep account.  This wondrous event comes but once a year: Daylight Saving Time ends Sunday morning at 2 am. All clocks (except those in Arizona) will be set back 1 hour, and an extra hour of sleep will magically be injected into my sleeping time.

Don't forget to turn your clocks back 1 hour

 In this hour I will attempt to atone for a year's worth of stolen sleep.  

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