The End of the Angry Quilt

A few months ago I wrote about the mystery of the quilt my mother wouldn’t make for me. She stopped and started the quilt for more than 20 years. The part of the story that confounded me was that for the years my mom was in dementia care and in the years since she died, no one has been able to complete the quilt. People want to take it, but once they have it, their energy wanes.

Double wedding ring quilt, from SarcasticBlogger

Something happens to each person who offers to work on the quilt. Months or years after I hand the quilt over, I get it back, stuffed into a black trash bag and handed back quickly, as if it were an illegal transaction. Or one of mourning.

After I wrote about the quilt, many readers made kind and thoughtful suggestions (you can read that blog post here) of what I should do with the quilt. Some offered to make me a new quilt, which was touching and amazing to me.

There were also a few mothers with difficult daughters who wondered if I might have been on the other end of the perspective. Maybe.  And at the end, I promised to tell you what I would do with the quilt.

I’ve thought about it for a long time. Here’s what we know: The colors (Williamsburg blue and milk chocolate brown with touches of ivory and burnt orange) are not a palette I’d choose. (Notice I’m not saying it wouldn’t match my walls or the couch–I don’t think art has to do that). The calico my mother used was not the cotton of today, and the fabric has degraded over the years.

I took the quilt to meditation and was struck by three shockingly clear facts:

1. The proof, rather than the quilt, was what I was after. I wanted my mother to love me, and prove it by making me a quilt. She made quilts for so many others, why not me? That idea set many years ago, and I never questioned it. When I did, the answer was–my mother did not finish the quilt. I need to accept that as I have accepted the other truths that didn’t taste great the more I chewed on them.

2. If the quilt were finished, what, exactly, did I want to do with it?  I did not want it to cover my bed. Don’t like the color, the design is incomplete, and it would be a reminder of the whole story of loss, every day.

3. The fate of the quilt would be to lie folded in a box in the garage, degrading some more until I pass it on to a relative whose history it doesn’t fit, and who does not need to continue the story.

It took a long time for me to mourn what I did not have and to decide on the next step. Part of my business is designing rituals for others. I join people in marriage or commitment; create and perform sacred ceremonies; end of life transitions; house selling, moving and new home blessings; even new job celebrations. What I needed was a ritual for letting go of the quilt. Vicky, one of my readers, has left the comment, “Burn it.” When I read it, I was shocked. And I knew she was right.

The quilt has served its purpose, and it is time to transition the quilt to another use. I am going to bundle it up, write a letter to my mother, releasing her go of the obligations to complete this quilt or  prove she loves me. I will then burn the quilt and letters and save the ashes. The ashes will be mixed with water-soluble varnish and distilled water and become ink. I’ll use the ink to record the history of the quilt in a journal. My mother was the quilter. I am the writer, and the quilt will find a purpose in the way I know how to use it. The lessons of the quilt can be passed on

• No one can be forced to love you.
• “If you loved me you would. . . .” is a sentence that is about control, not love.
• Loving yourself starts when you accept yourself and know you cannot change the past. Everything else comes after that.

When the day comes to burn the quilt, I will invite people to create their own ceremonies of letting go–of failed love, of regret, of a loss that won’t heal. Whether you burn old love letters or set your sorrows afloat, tied to a stick that you drop into a river, it will be a day to celebrate your own strength.

Take photos and write your stories, and we will create a blog chain of support and celebrate the power of letting go. I’m thinking that October is a good month to do this. I’ll remind you from time to time about your plan, so you will be ready. It will feel incredible light and right to let go.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and writer. Her word for this year is “let go.”

What’s Next?

My coaching clients know that question: What’s next for you?
So I thought I’d answer that for the blog–what’s coming up in the blog?

The cover of the new book.Yep, that’s a piece of my artwork on the front–as an extreme close up. © Quinn McDonald 2013.

First, some nice news: Amazon.com has the Inner Hero book cover up. And they are taking pre-orders–seven months before the book launch! I’m excited and shaking my head at the same time. OK, I’m more excited.

1. Announcing the winners of the coaching. Did not get to it tonight, will put it at the top of the to-do list for a Saturday announcement.

2. The poetry workshop. Still working on it. And alas, somewhere in Tucson, someone has found the book and the notes in the book for the class. The hand-written ones. The ones that were not yet in the computer.  I have no idea where I vanished it, but I did. Dropped it, left it, forgot it–it’s just as gone one way as another. So I’ve ordered the lost book and two more (I couldn’t resist) and will re-create the notes.

3. Book giveaways. I’m reading through two books for review and give-aways. One will be an art how-to, and the other a coaching book.

4. A few scattered quiet days. I’m re-designing the website and blog site to go with the book launch. It needs to be done, and when I’m doing that, I have set limits how many hours a day I work. Also on that to-do list is the e-book for creating a new habit (from a blog series on walking, meditating and journaling last year). Three big training projects are in the mix–in my life away from the blog. One is due in two weeks, and it’s a big book. The other two are in outline stage. Both need some intensive work.

5. An article about estivating in Phoenix. Estivating is the summer version of hibernating. I have a version of seasonal affective disorder that starts in summer, when being outside is brutal. But there are a few precious moments, and I’m sharing.

–Quinn McDonald is busy, but she’s smiling.

What Happens at a Writing Retreat?

The Madeline Island School of Arts

“What’s all this about deep writing?” asked a client. “Why do I need to go on a retreat to write?” Going on a writing (or art) retreat is one of the biggest gifts you can give your creative spirit. Here’s a peek at what will happen at the Madeline Island School of the Arts this July 22 to July 26:

You arrive at Duluth, Minnesota and catch a van to Madeline Island, next to the cluster of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The van takes you to the ferry in Bayfield, Wisconsin. (About 1 hour and 45 minutes). From Bayfield, you’ll take a ferry to Madeline Island (about 30 minutes).  The van takes you to the front door of the school.

The weather in July will be about 73 F in the daytime and 55 F at night. You get around the island by walking or bicycle, although you can also bring a car or rent a scooter or bicycle. By the time you arrive, you’ve already become used to the peace and quiet.

You’ll find your room and check out the classroom, and then explore the island. The next day, you’ll meet me in the classroom for Metaphor and Magic: Mixed Media Conversations with Your Inner Critic.  The first day, we will talk about why you came, what you hope to get out of deep writing and expressive art. We’ll talk about the project we are going to work on–the writing, the art, the free-form pages, how we will make, gather and carry them, how to use the pages in brainstorming, planning, choosing ideas to follow.

You don’t have to know how to draw or write to take this class, you just have to bring your self, your experiences, your questions about what it is you are meant to do.

You will have brought your Inner Critic, and you can expect him (or her) to show up and yap. This class is about confronting your Inner Critic, taking on the voice of “never good enough” with the Inner Heroes you will discover over the next five days.

On that first day we will learn to trust each other, to make those first tentative experiments in meeting kindred souls who are also seeking connection.

On that first day we will also make Monsoon Papers and talk about who we are, who we wish we were, what we need to leave behind. In the afternoon, we will do our first deep writing exercise–a kind of writing that lets you get to the heart of who you are and how you would like to be heard. You may suddenly cry, or laugh, or discover a part of you that’s been hiding at the edge of your vision. Expect to discover yourself as you discover the island.

In the evening, you will explore the island and the restaurants available.

For the fest of the time, we will spend mornings together, learning a new writing technique and a new art technique. We will experiment and explore and uncover our Inner Heroes.

In the afternoon, you can explore the island, find a place to write, or return to the classroom and try out what you learned that morning. I’ll also be available for private creativity coaching sessions. (There is no extra charge for using the classroom or the coaching).

On some days, we will share our ideas and our work, to learn from each other, to form the connections that deep writing and deep art encourage.

On the 25th of July, we will begin to gather our free-form pages and discover the many uses they offer. Sorting and creating spreads like you would Tarot cards, you will learn to use your newly discovered voice, your strength, your creativity.

Your time on the island can be a magical time of healing, of soul retrieval, of refreshment.

Please join me there for an unforgettable experience. The class tuition is $425, and you can register at MISA’s page with the class description. Most of your other questions will be answered on this page.

–Quinn McDonald is starting to plan for the metaphor and magic. She’s packing quite a bit of magic.

 

Designing a Poetry Class

This gallery contains 1 photos.

The research is done, and the poetry-writing class is taking shape. It’s going to be an online class, and it’s going to include information and exercises on traditional forms before we explore more free-form styles. As I was thinking of … Continue reading →

The Commonplace Journal

The instant Kaisa from Valkoinenponi mentioned it, I recognized the Commonplace Journal.  For me, it was a book I had seen before, with the words Vade Mecum printed on the cover, that my father used. It was a small notebook, and he took notes in it. About the weather, numbers and measurements he needed to remember, quotes on prices and on wisdom. Vade Mecum means “Come with Me” in Latin, and the book went most places with my father, the original life-long learner.

In the early days of printing, Vade Mecum became a name for books that published information–general or specific–in a variety of topics. They contained medical information, wieghts and measurements, and recipes for healing, cooking, even alchemy.

Vade Mecum had another name, starting in the 15th century: Commonplace books and Zibaldone. These notebooks were a combination of a scrapbook and a note-taking device. Students who were studying by apprenticeship would sketch or write information for their professional learning into the books. As the students became masters, they would allow the next generation to learn from these books. In the 1600s, most college students learned from the professors through keeping a Commonplace Book. Oxford University and Harvard taught via Commonplace Book well into the 20th century.

When I was in college, I created a Commonplace timeline in my room. Every time I learned something in one field, I’d mark it on the timeline–when it happened, who did the work. I’d add notes from other fields. By the middle of the year, I could tell you that while Bach was studying music, Peter the Great was building St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and that 9,000 people died in England in a huge windstorm with gusts that reached 120 mph. The timeline wrapped around the room. The arts, music, science, literature–all trailed around the room, helping me understand the relationship between politics, culture, and science.

I still keep a Commonplace Book. It holds quotes, book titles, ideas. I wish it looked more like Count Laszlo’s private diary in The English Patient (the 1996 movie made of Michael Ondaatje’s book). You can see a glimpse of it at the 4:00 mark in the trailer. But it is, well, commonplace. It is also the reason that I can’t keep an art journal without words as the origination source. I understand books without words, just colors or images when others do them, but for me, words create the book. And the image.

I love the idea of important pieces of learning and experience caught in one book. Paging through it, I can remember so much of where I was and what I was learning.  You can start your own, but if you already have one, please leave a comment about what you keep in it.

--Quinn McDonald is a romantic at heart. But don’t tell anyone; it’s hard to be a level-headed creativity coach if people think you are a wild romantic.

Creativity and the Sunday Sermon

Meg is a creative force in my life. We’re not the same religion, not even close, not

The Mender’s home on Sundays.

even on the same planet, religion-name-wise, but we are sisters of soul restoration. Meg is deeply creative and stitches her creativity into the lives of those who pass by. She catches a raveled edge of fear and smooths it back into the fabric of a life. She sees a button of calm about to unravel and fall into anger and stitches it back onto the soul to hold the garment of strength buttoned to the edge of calm. Meg is a creative mender of souls.

Meg is a Baptist minister and I  . . . am not. I had quick ideas about what “Baptist Minister” meant, just like people had quick ideas about looking at me and thinking “fat, her own fault.” So I put down fast judgment and took a deeper look at the mender’s heart.

This morning I visited, via the interwebs, Meg’s church. I read her sermon, called God’s Laundry. And there I met healing for the Boston Marathon, for Connecticut’s dead, for the mess of killing and anger and hatred we are stewing in. I watched her mending needle darn its way between unraveled hearts and love. Meg’s dream, told, is what deep writing is about.

I struggle with Hope, as I think it gives false security. And I struggle with Faith, because it is hard for me to accept without question. But I did not struggle with this loving dream, told at the right time. I thought you would enjoy it, too, no matter what religion you are. Interpret it in your own way, it still comes out to creative love.

—Quinn McDonald didn’t ask Meg about this before publishing it. Quinn is vaguely aware that if she is struck by lightning today, it will be for her lack of religion. She steadfastly believes however, that she is walking in creative love because, while not religious, she is a believer in doing spiritual laundry.

Learning and Selling by Seeing

In another part of my life, I’m a training developer. I create programs that teach business people how to write documents, presentations, even emails. Of all the topics I get asked to teach, the one I never would have guessed is at the top of the list: grammar. Grammar is rarely taught in elementary or middle school

Diagramming a sentence from Homework Help at About.com

anymore, so tomorrow’s leaders have to learn syntax and grammar quickly. And that’s what I do–invent creative ways to make grammar interesting.

When I call the Inner Hero book “my second book,” it’s with a touch of irony. In the last year, I’ve written half a dozen workbooks on technical writing, grammar, email communication and creative problem solving. But they aren’t sold in bookstores, so I rarely mention them.

Last week a client said something that made a lot of sense to me. “We offer a lot of classes, and we want people to take grammar, but they have to see the value in it. And grammar sounds boring.” Yes, yes, it does. She said, wistfully, “I wish you could do a cartoon instead of the outline of what’s in the class.” What a great idea my client had! So I sat down with the “boring” outline and made it visual.

We are visual people, and looking at something colorful and interesting makes grammar less threatening. Looking at a busy, colorful “map” of the course is a better way to sell it than an outline.

When I was done, I did one for Business Writing, too. I hope it helps the visual people see the benefit of the class.

Using visual creative tools to explain everyday topics shows the utility in a new, fresh, appealing way. The client knows her audience. And now I have a new tool in my training tool box, too.

-–Quinn McDonald loves blending the different parts of her life through creative problem solving.

Letters as Tools

Chefs have knives, carpenters have screwdrivers and saws, painters have canvas. Writers have letters and numbers. And so do journalers. I’ve long been fascinated by letterforms and shapes, by the rhythm of numbers and the flow of typefaces.

For a while, I had an ID bracelet that had the alphabet on it, along with the punctuation marks and the numbers from zero through nine. That, I realized, were the tools for everything I wrote. Twenty-six letters, 10 numbers, and six punctuation marks. It fit on a small bracelet, and all the speeches, letters, memos, bad news, good news and announcements in the English language were written with those. It was a humbling realization for a writer.

My art hinges on words and numbers, too. I’ve always expressed myself with writing, and letters and numbers have always been important in art, whether in found poetry or in collage.

Now I’m exploring writing as a background for collage. Part of this is an exercise in visual poetry, part of it is using writing as a collage element.

 

What I liked about the collage I did is that I wrote part of the background upside down, so it doesn’t make you want to read it, it’s just a pattern. The large words “Day” and “Night” complete the idea of “dream” and writing down your daydreams or your night dreams makes sense. But what is almost hidden is the small phrase “they are assembled and already in existence,” which completes the cross bars of the A, G, and H in the words Night and Day. It’s a reward for spending time looking closely at the collage. Another discovery.

This feels like a starting point. Again.

If you’d like to explore your journal’s content in a way that includes both art and writing, as well as confronting your inner critic, please join me on May 18 and 19 at the Minneapolis Center for Book Arts or July 22 through 26 in Madeline Island, Wisconsin.

-–Quinn McDonald teaches what she does. Sometimes she knows more than other times, but she is always curious about what’s out there.

Feeling the Pull of the Poetry Tide

“Human salvation lies in the hands of he creatively maladjusted.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A man who has no imagination has no wings.” –Muhammad Ali

“The poet’s task is to obscure the point, not to reveal it.” –Jon Mychal
http://www.jonmychal.com

Poetry is not given much value in today’s world. Tell someone you are a poet and they ask you what you do “in real life.” And yet, poetry is the literary equivalent of singl-malt scotch–the distillation of a vision into a dream.

“I listen so that I may decipher the mystery of myself and become more whole.” –Richard Moss

Poetry comes from a tumultuous life, followed by the stillness of the soul that allows sorting out and choosing the seeds of a story, a life, a moment that will blow away in the wind of the next breath.

“Images are the heart of poetry. Images come from the unconscious. . . .Your’re not a poet without imagery.” –Anne Sexton

I will be teaching the how-to of poetry in Minneapolis this May and at Madeline Island in July. Give yourself the gift of stillness and the transcendence of your own voice. Join me at one (or both) of those locations.

The Noise Inside

Yesterday’s responses to the blog about music in an art class were incredible. I blog about creativity because it’s not always easy to do the hard work that creativity demands. And it’s not always easy to ask for what you need to be creative or to keep working if you don’t get it.

Standing up for yourself, from Annie’s Ink.

Those of us who step up into our creativity every day get told “No” a lot. Sometimes we have to accept No, and sometimes we have to use No as a starting point and keep working through it. It’s hard to know when to accept and when to push on.

Your suggestions, support, ideas, and solutions floored me. They were wry, helpful, insightful, and smart. Some were even funny. I read a lot of blogs, and I rarely see the community and the deep wisdom that shows up in the comments on my blog. But most of all, I felt heard. I felt part of a bigger group that lives in different places and has had different lives and still shares experiences and emotions.

What caused me so much of a problem in the class was the feeling of being “other” and “different.” It’s a big issue in my life. As Pema Chodron reminds us, in her book, When Things Fall Apart:

. . .nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.

Writers and artists are always going to be the “others” and “different.” It’s part of our job. We won’t fit in smoothly. Creativity demands we see things from many perspectives, make meaning in new ways, and show those ways to a world that doesn’t want to change. Seth Godin, in his book Tribes,  calls creative leaders “The Heretics in the Boardroom.”

From Lady Employed, in a post about standing up for yourself, which includes this gem: “but I have a rule that when I am wondering whether nothing is something, it’s usually something.

Yes, I was raised not to make a fuss, to always think of myself as the least important person in the room, to never call attention to myself. And yes, that is hard to overcome.  For years,  I have been a warrior for social justice. And sometimes, I get to think of myself as someone who needs a slice of that justice. And asking for it in a calm way is my right.

One of the commentors, Katherine Colgan, said something that rang true to the bone. And then I remembered–it is what I discussed with a coaching client to resolve her problem just last week. What I can do for others, I struggle doing for myself. Here’s what Katherine said:

I would have talked to the instructor privately at the next break, explained my difficulty working with sound, that I was finding it difficult to concentrate, that I was losing the benefit of the class and feeling really bad about that, and that I was hoping she could help me. If she seemed nonplussed, I would offer whatever solutions I thought were appropriate and ask what she thought would be best and fairest to everyone.

See? No victimhood, no demands, just a steady working toward a solution. Thanks to everyone of you who left a comment. You make me smarter and stronger and I depend on your wisdom.

The best ending to the discussion is that I heard from the instructor. She offered an apology, which I thought was brave and kind. She also wished I’d talked to her directly. And next time (because I know Pema is right, and I will run into this again) I will put on my big girl panties and express what I need, instead of letting the Inner Critic tell me I need to suck it up. Again.

Thanks for all of you for showing up, for speaking out, for offering support. It’s an amazing experience to be in such excellent company.

--Quinn McDonald is filling up a gratitude journal with what she learned in the last 24 hours.