T H A N K Y O U
I would like to thank you all on behalf of Hannah and my entire family for your reception of my sister’s TED Talk. Her presentation was a tough act to follow, but you did it in the comments. Your consideration and thoughtfulness proved it once again: We may not all agree, or understand, or know the answers, but around here, we listen to each other.
Thank you.
I didn’t mean to go dark for a few days after posting the video, but it happened. There were two reasons for it: For one thing, I wanted the most people to see the video before it got buried under more posts. I was also in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the annual advisory board meeting for the International Quilt Study Center & Museum (IQSCM) and y’all, they kept us busy. I was in meetings all day, then at functions that required me to wear certain attire. Then I was in a shuttle back to the hotel! And back! For days! I loved it.
Now I’m on a plane to Portland to make Issue 07 of Quiltfolk.
And so I’m on this plane. I’m pretty tired. I should answer emails. But I’ve been away from you and I don’t like that. I get hives if I’m away for too long. But I felt a little cashed an hour ago. I didn’t know what to tell you.
I don’t have “writer’s block” because … Well, I just don’t have that. Writing is an extension of my whole self, as automatic as breathing or blinking. If a “block” were to happen, it would be like an air block in my lungs or my blinking motor (?) and we would have bigger problems than missing a few blog posts.
However, I am committed to creating at least marginally meaningful content, so there are times that I scratch my chin and cock my head to the side and go, “hm,” and then I go, “HM!!” and I need to search for what to say that is worth your time, because this blog isn’t about me; it’s about you.
So when that happened just now, and didn’t know where to go with you, I used my trick. And the trick is the tip that perhaps you can use in your life.
A director told me once, “If I don’t know what to do with the play I’m directing, if I’m really in a quandary about how to fix a problem in rehearsal,” I walk to the back of the house.” (The “house” is where the audience sits; the back of the house is the very back seats, the nosebleed seats, if you will.)
“I go to the back of the house,” the director said, “and I say to myself, ‘I am going to walk to the stage, now. And by the time I get there, I will know what to do.’ And every single time, by the time I get there, I know what to do. Even if I walk almost the whole way up, my head just going in all these different directions; even if I panic, it always happens in those last few steps: I always come up with something. Something is all you need.”
What would I write for you tonight?
I didn’t know. So I got up from my seat. I walked to the front of the plane and hung back, waiting for the bathroom. And before I even got there, I knew what to do. I knew I’d write about that director, that I’d share what she told me in hopes it would help you.
Try it, sometime, when you have to solve something. Something small or big. Something awful or trivial or in between.
Set a distance.
Know that you’ll know what to do when you get there.
And marvel at how it works.
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