Television Musings - Rants and Raves of a Romance Writer

By KATHY CARPENTER

New Season Survivor

I’m back. Had to take some time to move and even though we only moved a mile that’s a major event for us. The actual move took a month and we may have all the boxes in the house emptied by Christmas. We are getting there. Did you catch the new Survivor? I mean that Russell and if you saw the show you know who I’m talking about. (They do have two Russell’s this year.) But this guy has got to be the biggest jerk yet, and they’ve had some doozies. But who picks on there own team from the start, dumping there canteens and burning their socks?

Unfortunately the team will need his strength. Thus America will be forced to endure him for weeks. Great for the show gives people something to talk about.

This week we also saw the new season of Dancing with the Stars. Favorite guy, Donny Osmond of course I’ve been a Donny fan since “Go Away Little Girl.” Favorite gal, Kelly Osburn kind of won my heart. Both of these held there own this week but it’s a long season. I love all that dancing.

Which is a good thing because So You Think you can Dance is coming back with another season, which is in auditions this week but next week we can watch dance four nights a week. Yipee!

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Sculpting a Life: Susan Gallacher-Turner's turn in the Pacific Northwest.

Living, loving, creating and Maui

Last week, I was on Maui. The beautiful, lush, tropical island with soft, sandy beaches and warm surf is a fantasy land. And fantasy is just what I needed to recharge my depleted physical, emotional and creative batteries.

My life over the last 19 months has been a bumpy, sad, scary and difficult road with no end in sight. Yet. My husband’s been laid off, worked part time, laid off again. Three people we’ve known, worked with and raised children with have died. My daughter moved away from home. The life we had, that we thought was stable is gone. And we’re both searching for ways to use our talents, live our lives creatively and make a living.

Seeing people we know die too young was shocking. But it also helped us see life as a gift that doesn’t come with guarantees. What it does come with is choices, and the biggest one is to live in fear or live in love.

I spent many months in the fear zone. I wasn’t sleeping or eating very well. I lost weight. I cried a lot. I tried to get out of it by looking for reasons and causes of the difficulties, trying to figure it all out. So I could fix it all and everything would be back to normal again. It didn’t work. I had to realize that there are many things in this life, my life that I can’t control: cancer, economic recessions, industry changes and children growing up.

One day, tears streaming down my cheeks, again, I asked a friend what I could do. She said, “Let go and let God”. Now, she knows I’m not a religious person and I don’t like the word, God. But in that moment, I realized that she was right. And that God didn’t have to be the male, power figure that I grew up with but a name for the essential energy force that is in and around all of us.

Something shifted that day. I had been telling my self to let go. But I was like a child on the monkey bars, who weary of hanging on was still too afraid to let go and trust that I would land on my feet.

Maui. The trip to Hawaii was an act of trust, of letting go and loving my life instead of fearing for it. It seemed crazy at first to my ‘control’ mind to book a 5 day trip to Maui when so much is still up in the air. And yet, it felt completely right. Right after we booked the trip, I felt this incredible sense of relief. I didn’t know what the feeling was at first, then it hit me. That’s what ‘letting go’ feels like.

And I like the feeling. Oh, I still had my scary moments getting ready for the trip and getting on the plane. Even though my mind was having a hissy fit, there was a place inside me that was calm, clear and rock solid.

On Maui, I rose at dawn everyday. Watching the sunrise, hearing the birds call back and forth to each other, seeing the colors change on the distant island and the sea, I felt calmly present. My mind was silent. My body tired at first, began to rest even as I walked the beaches and floated on the waves. I picked up sweet scented flowers on the path and filled bowls with them. My creative vision became clear once again and I saw the ‘masks’ in the palm trees and the figurative forms in the tree trunks. I longed to paint the warm reds, oranges and pinks of the sunsets and the luscious greens of the distant sugar cane fields. The deep blue green waves and the light peach clouds made me want to take out my pastels and draw in a way I haven’t allowed myself to do in many years.

I wrote in my journal inspired by articles I read that told of other women’s life changes. I realized that my life isn’t bad, wrong or odd, just changed. And many of the changes, as my friends have pointed out, are good changes for me, my husband and grown-up children. But the lives that ended, have shown me the importance of living. Really living.

What does that mean for you or me? Everyone has their own ideas. Mine is to live a creative life that sustains me in physical, emotional and spiritual ways as well as inspiring and helping the world and the people around me. How can I do that? I don’t have the complete answer. Yet. Maybe I never will. But surrounded by the beauty on Maui, I opened up to life and love. I know that my choice is to live in love instead of fear, and finding ways I can share that through my life, art and writing is creating a life worth living. Read more!

Wild Woman of Queens: Notes on Urban Creativity from across the East River.

Taste and See by Sandra Lee Schubert 2009

End of Summer Prompts

Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom. Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

BONUS- TAKE ACTION PROMPT:

1. The Box - Fill a box with different small items that have different textures and weight to them. As example you can include a couple pieces of fabric such as burlap, silk or velvet. Put shells, rocks, marbles, keys, etc into the box. Explore it with eyes closed. Are you afraid of what you are touching? How do things feel with your eyes closed? Bring them to your face; sniff them. See if you can identify the items without looking at them.

2. Taste exercise - You can choose to do this with eyes closed or opened. Take some different fruit or food items preferably items that have different textures. Some examples would be an orange, avocado and piece of bread. Spend time looking at the items as if seeing them for the first time. Notice the shape of the avocado. Feel the texture of the orange. Sniff the bread. Take time with each one tasting, exploring and learning about these new things you have discovered.

3. Create some of your own sensory explorations. Listen to new music. Walk barefoot. Run one block really fast.

4. Write about the above as if you were an alien. What did you discover? How would you describe this new planet? How do you feel about the people you have met? How did if feel to be blindfolded in a new planet?

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Sandra's e-course leads people to be their creative best through telling their stories and talking to interesting people on her online radio show-Wild Woman Network: Radio for Creative Vagabonds, Thinkers and Innovators.

She is a creative vagabond, a poet, and a writer who co-facilitates the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own. Visit her blog: Email her sandraleeschubert(at)gmail.com or @writing4life via twitter.

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Wild Woman of Queens: Notes on Urban Creativity from across the East River.

Watch People by Sandra Lee Schubert 2009

End of Summer Prompts

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature. Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

WEEK FOUR- TAKE ACTION PROMPT:

Observe: Become a people watcher. Look at how people move. Notice the color of their hair. Imagine them as children. Do you think they were happy? Do they look sad now? Pay attention to how people interact with each other. Look for the small movements. The way a man touches a woman's face. How children talk to each other. Do they snuggle against each other? Are they competitive or shy? In your daily routine, notice one new thing. Maybe it is the color of the marble in your building lobby, or the way a street curves.

Listen: Eavesdrop on some conversations. Write down a sentence or two that appeals to you. Take copious notes. Write down all the sounds and smells you encounter. Make up new names for all the colors. Take in your environment in a new way. Sit down and begin to write based on your notes or discoveries. Make some simple observation or create a full-blown story. Try one page and then two. Discover one new thing each day.

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Sandra's e-course leads people to be their creative best through telling their stories and talking to interesting people on her online radio show-Wild Woman Network: Radio for Creative Vagabonds, Thinkers and Innovators..

She is a creative vagabond, a poet, and a writer who co-facilitates the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own. Visit her blog: Email her sandraleeschubert(at)gmail.com or @writing4life via twitter.

Read more!

Wild Woman of Queens: Notes on Urban Creativity from across the East River.

Hildegarde by Sandra Lee Schubert

End of Summer Prompts

You know criticism when you get into this business. You accept the bad with the good, the tabloids and the positive side of it. Carmen Electra (1972 - )

WEEK THREE- TAKE ACTION PROMPT:

In her essay Bad Writing, Julia Cameron gives us writers the task of going out and buying the tabloids we usually read secretively on the supermarket line. Julia suggests looking over some of favorite titles and creating your own "tabloid" story. "Alien baby is my love child", "8,000 year old man found buried alive in desert", "Writer's fear stepping out of the ordinary", you get the idea. Have fun with it. Create outrageous tales. If you do it with abandon and a sense of fun you should find you are energized and want to return to your work.

Look for ways to expand how you create. If you paint, try coloring with regular crayons or making collages out of found pictures. Create poetry by cutting words out of magazines. Create poetry with found pictures. Creating should be deep, fun, joyous, exciting, and enlivening. Create with your arms wide open and allow inspiration to meet you in all places.

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Sandra's e-course leads people to be their creative best through telling their stories and talking to interesting people on her online radio show-Wild Woman Network: Radio for Creative Vagabonds, Thinkers and Innovators.

She is a creative vagabond, a poet, and a writer who co-facilitates the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own. Visit her blog: Email her sandraleeschubert(at)gmail.com or @writing4life via twitter.

Read more!