Heart Dreams

"From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop speaking to him. He asked that, when he wandered far from his dreams, his heart press him and sound the alarm. The boy swore that, every time he heard the alarm, he would heed its message."
----Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist"

Right Timing

crossposted at How She Does It.

This is me at 20 weeks pregnant. Halfway there. And celebrating with silver lamé pants from American Apparel. (They look fabulous, if I don't say so myself.)

If you could walk into my house right now, you'd gasp at how neat and organized it is, even though it is less than 12 hours after I returned from a week away. My nesting powers are supernatural and focused right now. (And I'm a typical first-born Virgo, so I already LOVE order.) I unpacked my bags within 30 minutes and even watered a few plants that needed love before bed.

Order, cleanliness, calm, tying off loose ends, extreme productivity -- these are what motivate me right now. Left brain stuff.

I still have the threads of a novel in my mind, and I know that I will write it someday. But most right brain activities do not turn me on right now. I haven't sat down to a writing practice in months. I am writing, but it's for clients and other projects. Even my Project 365 has lost its lustre for me; most days, it's a chore to remember to take a photo.

Perhaps I'm so lit up by order because my body is currently engaged in one of the most staggeringly incomprehensible acts of creativity known to mankind.

Creative people often use pregnancy and birth analogies to describe their processes of writing a book, launch a new business, complete a painting. I thought for sure that I'd write my novel while I was pregnant, finishing it cleanly before I turned my attentions to my new family member.

That ain't happenin'.

Which is why I got utterly vexed by this description in the usually-inspiring Writers' Almanac's bio of Tracy Chevalier:

She started writing historical novels, and her second book, Girl With a Pearl Earring (1999), was a huge best-seller... For the book, Chevalier was inspired one day when she was staring at a poster she had bought when she was 19, a copy of Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl With a Pearl Earring...She started the book right away, but she was pregnant and she didn't want the book to get lost in her life as a new mother, so she researched and wrote the whole novel in just eight months.

Well, shit.

SHE did it, so why aren't I?

I only have five months left to research and write this entire epic novel (or possibly novel series). Why didn't I start earlier? Who cares about a clean house if I'm a failure as a writer?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

You get the gist. We all have these crazy-making voices.

After I calmed down and stopped beating up on myself, I heard a deeper, truer level of voice in my head.

Maybe, for me, layering a huge creative act on top of another huge creative act would make my writing thin and stressed out. Maybe I will need an orderly, energetically-cleansed house after this baby arrives more than I will need to have locked down my best-selling novel.

Maybe there's a reason that I haven't written this book yet.

Maybe there is something about dancing through the transformative doors of birth that will unlock within me precisely what I need to make this book magic.

Maybe, just maybe, I am in exactly the right place at the right time.

Breathe.

Put on those lamé pants and take a dance break.



P.S. There is also something to be said about the enormous strides our company has taken in the last month, and the necessary creativity I am pouring into it to flow with the momentum we've been building for two years. And how writing a novel on top of that on top of being pregnant might just make my head explode. But that's another post.

1066 and the English Language

The year 1066 will forever stick in my mind because of Ms. Jill Aufill, my senior year English teacher in high school. It was on this day in 1066 when William the Conqueror of Normandy arrived on British soil, thus changing the English language forever.

My first reaction to Ms. Aufill's lesson plan was -- really? You want us to learn about Old English (not the alcohol), Middle English, Early Modern English? AND our modern English language?

But then my love of words expanded to include linguistics as she told us stories of how English has twisted and turned over the years, incorporating (sometimes cannibalizing) other languages and transforming itself what we speak today.

Here are some of the deliciously descriptive words that wouldn't even exist in English if not for 1066:
pleasure
flower
amorous
relinquish
rage
vocation
anniversary
elegant
imbibe
voyage
sacred

For more comparisons of Germanic vs. Latinate (via French) words (and a generally tasty feast of the wide range of synonyms we can use in English), check this Wikipedia chart.

So thank you, Ms. Aufill, for helping me understand the wild history that gives me such a rich cornucopia of words to choose from, as a writer and lover of language.

Letting Go

I discovered an incredible quote from Andrea Scher's blog last week: "Keep in your house only what you know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." (Upon rechecking it, I realized that I unconsciously inverted it to the positive, and I like my version better. The original version is, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” ) Chris and I have repeated these words over and over as we dig deeply into our possessions and pass them on to new homes (or the recycling bin).

While I have long been good at shedding unnecessary possessions, this guiding principle has sharpened my ability to release a lot of things I kept only because I *thought* they might someday be useful. Not surprisingly, I have never reached for any of them in the time I've kept them.



It feels so good to acknowledge their meaning in my life, and then let them go. We are clearing much space for this new life coming into our lives.

Life List #93: Take Chris to the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory

For my 32nd birthday, and my last one pre-motherhood, I chose to return to childhood for an afternoon (and fulfill #93 on my Life List): tour the Blue Bell Creamery with Chris.

My parents took me and my sister when we were kids, and it was a huge thrill for a little kid. You got to see how they make the ice cream, yes, but the best part was that you got a *free ice cream sample* at the end! Meaning: your parents couldn't say no because it was free.

Growing up, Blue Bell was the only ice cream we ever ate. We knew it was a special occasion if a gold-rimmed half-gallon was in our freezer. At birthday parties, each kid would get their own tiny yellow container that we didn't have to share. I'd scrape out the creamy cold treat with the accompanying flat wooden stick and smear it onto my tongue with glee.

Y'all, it really is the best ice cream in the country, like they've branded it. I've tried a lot of other ice creams. None of them taste this good. It's creamy but not too rich, sweet but not cloying, and their different flavors are incredible. Putting anything other than Homemade Vanilla on a warm piece of pie is just insulting, though sometimes a necessity, if you're not in Blue Bell territory.

Created in Brenham, Texas, Blue Bell is the third highest-selling ice cream in the country, despite the fact that it's only sold in 18 states. I remember hearing as a kid that they'd only sell their ice cream in a place if their delivery drivers could travel to and from the location in a workday, so they could be home with their families by night. (I don't know if that's still true.)

Needless to say, New York is not in their distribution zone. When Chris and I lived in Brooklyn, we missed Blue Bell so much that we'd literally dream at night about walking into our local Pathmark's frozen aisle and seeing a freezer full of Blue Bell Ice Cream.



We flipped out with excitement when we learned that Outback Steakhouse has a worldwide, exclusive contract with Blue Bell -- so no matter where you are in the world, if you're near an Outback Steakhouse, you can fill your craving for Homemade Vanilla.

One of my ingenious friends somehow finagled an entire industrial-sized container of Blue Bell from the restaurant for my bachelorette party.



It was a superb surprise.



You'd think I was upset from the looks of it, but no, I was just so thrilled that my face was out of my control.


Since we moved back to Texas, I've wanted to take Chris on the tour, since he missed it as a kid. For my birthday, we finally made it, with our friend, Gareth (who was born in the northeast but got to Texas as soon as she could. Har har har. I couldn't resist evoking the bumper sticker).



The tour was as much fun as I remembered. I love getting behind-the-scenes looks at places where things are made, especially when they're delicious things. I learned that not only does Blue Bell have a quaint "down home country" vibe, they also put their money where their cows are. The cream used during each day's production run is always less than 24 hours old, and the cream, milk, and eggs all come from local farms within a 200 mile radius of the creamery. All of the cookies, cakes, etc. in their ice creams are made in-house. (The "cookie" in Cookies and Cream isn't an Oreo -- it's a homemade cookie! Also, they were the first to create this now-classic flavor.)

The only thing I'd like to see them do is phase out high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup from their recipes. The dietary tide seems like it will turn fully away from these substances, since they're continually being proven to be so unhealthy. I trust that Blue Bell, a creamery known for its high quality, will (hopefully sooner than later) reinvent their recipe to omit these ingredients.

Near the end of the tour, the guide mentioned 55 flavors of Blue Bell Ice Cream in total, and Gareth got a devilish look in her eyes.

"If we tried one flavor a week, we could try them all in about a year," she said. "We could just buy the pint, or get a group of friends to finish off the half gallon."

Look. I'm pregnant and I love ice cream. You don't have to tell me twice. I'm in.

We kicked off our sampling by trying five new flavors after the tour. Our first flavors were Krazy Kookie Dough (Colorful chunks of sugar cookie dough in a cake batter ice cream) and Caramel Kettle Crunch (that's right; crunchy caramel-coated popcorn in vanilla ice cream):



Then we went back for three more flavors:


Mocha Madness, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Strawberry.



That is one happy, happy man.

A fantastic way to polish off #93!