Debra Smouse – Page 4 – Modern Creative Life

August 28, 2016

Sunday Sanctuary: Tending My Instrument & the Advice of Virginia Woolf

When I look at my creative history, I realize that I’ve left behind many of the ways I’ve been creative in my life: dance (except the occasional wedding), singing (except in the car or the shower), and theatre (which was my minor in college). As we age, we leave behind many of our creative pursuits for seemingly right reasons: not enough time to devote to a craft thanks to real life demands and sometimes a loss of interest. Or, sadly, the belief that grown-ups don’t play act or dance en pointe.

But that may be a story for another day.

A few years ago, I fell back in love with food. Oh, well, maybe I always loved food as a way to soothe the soul and commune with other souls, but this time, I fell in love with the process of taking the best raw ingredients I could find and creating something with them.

It is a way to be creative in a way which is practical. It is a way to use my creativity in a way that enhances our daily life, providing not just nourishment for the bodies of those in my care, but also a setting for which to share the stories of our days.

Creating in the kitchen fuels my creativity, nourishes my body, and yes, also nourishes my soul as cooking for others is one of the ways I show love.

And I will confess that one of the necessary tasks of creating a meal – sourcing the ingredients (aka Grocery Shopping) – is a task that I love, too. It’s like a mini-artist date with myself, pawing through local summer tomatoes for the ripest ones, sniffing the cantaloupes to choose the sweetest, and discussing the possible ways to prepare a piece of wild caught salmon with my favorite fishmonger, Paul.

“The human frame being what it is, heart, body, and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

I’m sure you’ve seen the last line of this quote by Virginia Woolf many times. Recently, I re-read her book “A Room of One’s Own” and caught onto the deeper meaning of this: women colleges were feeding the students not-so-glorious foods while the men’s colleges, like Oxford, were feeding their students lovely, elaborate meals.

In addition to needing money and a private space to write, Woolf knew that in order to create, women must also be well fed.

Just as my house is not just a home, but my sanctuary from the world, my body is also my sanctuary. It houses my soul. It is my instrument. Yes, my mind is where the creative ideas are born, but it relies upon my body to birth the ideas into the world.

They need each other and, like it or not, my body is my instrument.

Earlier this year, I had moments where the act of holding a pen was excruciating. I’d be slicing strawberries and all the pincer action of holding a berry and a knife caused severe cramps in my hands. And sitting for hours meant stiffness in my hips that was unbearable at times.

No matter how unbreakable we believe we may be, sometimes we have to make peace with the fact that we have been hard on our bodies during our youth. Many of the creative pursuits of my youth, like dance, can be hard on a developing body. And how can I neglect to look at what all the years of typing and writing have done to my wrists and hands?

Though fifty is on the horizon, it’s not here yet, but facts being facts, I have the beginnings of arthritis.

While my doctor offered to treat my developing arthritis in a pharmaceutical way, we agreed to first try a holistic approach: an anti-inflammatory diet.

I am not a big fan of pills. Yes, I take my blood pressure medication and an aspirin for my heart. I take the supplements my doctor recommends. But the thought of relying upon medication to do the things I love to do was unimaginable.

I thought back to the wisdom of Woolf and while I believe the meals I have been creating are lovely, I had to admit that when my body – my instrument – is trying to communicate with me, I had to ask myself if I was fueling it in the best way possible.

There are a lot of foods considered anti-inflammatory: fish like salmon and halibut, good fats like olive oil and avocado, tomatoes, spinach, nuts, and other such delicious ingredients. Our daily diet is pretty heavy on these non-inflammatory foods.

But I also know that other foods that exacerbate inflammation: heavily processed foods, gluten, sugars, and dairy. We don’t really eat a lot of processed foods, but dear God, do I love good bread and cheese and the occasional piece of chocolate or carrot cake.

One of my all-time favorite ways to create in the kitchen is baking, that beautiful mix of science and art.

And I must be honest: I’m not a fan of demonizing any food group. Unless you are lactose intolerant and can’t handle dairy, it’s not “bad”. And gluten is such a hot no-no these days. Most science still points to the fact that the average, healthy person will thrive on a well-balanced diet including ALL of the food groups.

Yet, when your body is telling you that things aren’t running 100%, it’s time to take a step back and say, hey, I’m not a 16-year-old girl with a daily dance practice barely weighing 100 pounds.

All the research told me that experimenting by eliminating food groups known to add to inflammation for at least thirty days to see how your body feels is a worthwhile experiment. That meant: no gluten, no dairy, and no foods with added sugar.

I couldn’t imagine coffee without cream or eggs without crusty, sourdough toast slathered in butter. But just as my creative life deserves to be romanced with beautifully made notebooks, didn’t my creative life also deserve me fueling the instrument in a way that not only nourished, but supported?

In May, I began a (modified) Whole30 as an experiment, to see if eliminating potentially inflammatory foods helped. No gluten, no grains, no dairy, no added sugars except a tiny spoon of turbinado sugar in my coffee. Oh, and no pseudo foods, using cauliflower to make a pizza crust and such.

By June, I noticed that my hands didn’t ache or cramp up. My hips felt better.

Yes, I’ve experimented with a little cake here and a little cheese there, but my body has shown me that abstaining from these foods makes me function at my best.

Choosing to see food as both a creative outlet and a way to best fuel my creative instrument allows me to also fuel my ability to create.

Just as I must birth stories at a keyboard and share secrets by writing a letter to a friend, I need to create a meal from the ingredient up in a way that nourishes me spiritually and fuels my instrument to create.

We must tend all of our sanctuaries to fuel a creative life.

Even if that means taking a hard look at how we are choosing to fuel our minds, our souls, and our bodies.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not vacuuming her couch, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

August 19, 2016

Sundays by Debra Smouse

((Part Two of the Colleen Series – Follows The Bookcase))

Colleen arched her back in a luxurious stretch as she waited for the espresso machine to whir and hum, and drip, drip, drip the rich brown extraction into the pristine whiteness of a porcelain cup. The cup was as new to her as the machine itself, both indulgences that her now-ex-husband would have called a waste of money.

To Colleen, though, they weren’t extravagances. Rather, they were investments into what had become her savior: Sundays.

For the past sixteen years, her Sundays were spent tip-toeing around her home, in deference to the ex. He’d always wanted to sleep in. She, on the other hand, had merely wanted to avoid provoking his temper, and protect herself from the days of The Silent Treatment that would inevitably follow if she made too much noise.

Of course, there was the other reason for her early Sunday mornings: in order to have even five minutes of peace and quiet to herself, she had to arise before her children.

Colleen had always embraced motherhood. She loved her children desperately and never regretted a single moment with them, but the problem with being a mother was that no matter what happened, there was no break from it. She had finally accepted that privacy would never again exist in any aspect of her existence, because who can even pee in peace when there are little fingers under the door? And how many times had she slipped into the tub with a book and a glass of wine after putting the kids to bed to suddenly find a child sitting on the edge of the tub?

But now the divorce was final.

During those first weeks after their separation, especially the weekends when the girls were with their father, Sundays were lonesome, and the only peace she seemed to find was during late night solo cleaning binges. At some point the sweat and toil of cleaning had turned cathartic, and after that, the act of reclaiming the house had put her almost into a Zen state.

The real turning point had come when she’d ditched The Bookcase (in her head, the phrase was always highlighted by Capital Letters). Something had clicked within her, and she was able to see the possibility in the old house becoming a home again.

What used to feel lonely now felt like glorious solitude.

The Breville sputtered to a stop, but before she grabbed her cup, Colleen patiently rinsed the porta-filter in hot water.

Lifting the cup from the drip tray she inhaled the heady aroma. The doppio cup of espresso was perfection crowned by a rich layer of crema. Smiling in anticipation, Colleen scooped up a single demitasse spoon of turbinado sugar and let the grains fall into the cup, bursting through the caramel-colored foam with a series of satisfying plunks.

A tiny sip and her mouth exploded with happiness at the rich, slightly bitter, completely heavenly nectar.

Colleen carried her cup to the table where the Sunday New York Times awaited her.

Also waiting was Ingrid, who seemed to love their Sundays as much as Colleen did. The dog had done her business whilst they retrieved the paper. While the coffee was brewing she’d eaten her breakfast, and taken her position underneath the kitchen table.

“I guess you can call that frog-dog spread you do settled, huh, Ingrid?” she said as she raked her toes across the dog’s big, broad back.

Ingrid grunted happily in response.

It was funny, Colleen reflected, how her now ex-husband had done a 180 when it came to spending time with the kids. During their marriage, he had always been too busy to deal with ballet lessons or soccer practice. He’d never bothered to attend even a single Meet the Teacher night.

Yet, during the negotiations with the lawyers, he suddenly declared that since Colleen had “broken their little family,” the least she could do was agree to him having the children every weekend. So, written into the divorce decree wasn’t the standard “Dad” agreement, but the mandate that he was to have the children from noon on Saturdays until Mondays after school.

That meant he had to deal with the inevitable weekend boredom of nine- and thirteen-year-old girls. He had to adjust to the fact that Sunday evenings meant coaxing them into bed at a reasonable hour. Now that summer was drawing to a close, he would be getting a crash-course in the challenge of Monday morning school runs, especially since one child’s school began at eight AM, while the other’s didn’t start until nine.

Colleen wondered how long this new arrangement would last. Despite being part of the divorce decree, she saw the custody arrangements as an experiment. But no matter what the results of the experiment turned out to be, it meant that Saturday nights and the entire twenty-four hours that made up Sundays belonged to her.

And oh, did she relish the nourishment of these Sundays.

For the first time in her memory, she was able to focus on the one area of life she’d neglected in the hustle and bustle of being a wife and mother: tending herself.

Even more, Colleen saw this as an opportunity to begin reinventing herself. She’d colored her hair and was experimenting with wearing her natural curls. She was slowly shifting her wardrobe away from “contemporary soccer mom” and toward classic lines, and a lot less black. She’d even changed up her go-to nail routines of French-tipped fingers and I’m Not Really a Waitress red toes.

Her current choice: Bogotá Blackberry.

Colleen admired the reddish plum sheen of her freshly polished nails as she skimmed the book section of The Times.

As long as she was treating this as an experiment, she didn’t panic about her life not being planned down to the minute. Listmaker that she was, though, Colleen had begun a section in her journal where she collected “All The Ways Sundays Are Saving Me”.

She could stay home, order Chinese food, and catch up on Scandal or read an entire book in one sitting. She could go to bed ridiculously early.

She could go out with a girlfriend on Saturday night, stay out late dancing until the clubs closed and not returning home until 3 am. And on those mornings, she could sleep long past her typical six AM internal alarm clock.

She could go out on a date and invite a potential lover home. And, she could send him on his way after a little necking or after a quick romp between the sheets.

Usually, Colleen would send him on his way because the idea of actually sleeping with someone made her feel more vulnerable and naked than she ever did during sex.

Her belief that no many would be interested in an almost forty-year old woman with two kids had been proven false. And even the 100-pound Ingrid had not deterred most.

She had to admit to herself, though, that one particular beau had begun to worm his way into her heart and a few weeks before she’d broken her own unwritten rule of no sleep-overs and invited him to stay the night.

It had been glorious in a way she’d never imagined or experienced. She felt like she’d had a tiny glimpse into the kinds of love affairs shown in movies and romance novels with the dual passions of hot, after-dinner, I can’t-wait-to-have-you sex combined with the sweetness and tenderness of a slow, morning, repeat performance.

Now sex was an important component of her list.

That perfect Sunday morning coupling. That languid pull. Waking naked after an evening of fucking, with an arm around her waist or fingers on her breast, and the hardness of morning wood prodding her ass, just waiting to for an invitation to make love. Glorious morning sex – before coffee, before showers – with the sun streaming through the blinds.

Morning sex – and not just on Sundays – was new for her. Unlike most men, her ex had never been particularly physical, and after she’d become a mother all of their lovemaking had been furtive, taking place in the dark.

Colleen had read the articles. She knew she’d been pretty much living Madonna/Whore syndrome. And there was another thing for her list: being seen as neither Madonna nor Whore.

Coffee paraphernalia hadn’t been Colleen’s only new purchases.

She’d also invested in some exquisite Natori Loungewear. She loved to fold back the covers of her bed, climb out of it, and slip into a chemise or camisole and shorts and toss on a matching robe. There was something that made her feel elegant when she wore Italian jersey trimmed with Chantilly lace, so soft against her skin. And the matching robes made her feel pulled together.

Dressing up for herself – whether she woke alone or with a lover – added to the gloriousness of Sunday mornings.

That’s why she would practically float to the kitchen to start the coffee pot or turn on the espresso machine. That’s why she would often sing to herself as she and Ingrid went to collect the two – two! – Sunday papers from the driveway.

That second Sunday paper was another new indulgence, one she’d been without for too long because the ex had insisted it was a waste of money, when all she read were the lifestyle, travel, and book sections.

(Actually, Colleen thought, she now had three newspaper subscriptions, since adding the Friday delivery of the Wall Street Journal to the local daily and her Sunday Times.)

Coffee in hand, dog at her feet, Colleen spread the paper across the kitchen table, and let the scent of ink and the feel of the newsprint on her fingertips mingle with the taste of that first cup of coffee.

Maybe later, she’d make a pancake. Maybe the neighbor would notice her paper gone from the driveway and pop in for a visit.

Or maybe not.

These Sundays may not last forever, but for now, the day was hers. And it was saving her.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

July 24, 2016

Sunday Sanctuary: Hope, Perfection, and Learning to Let Go

There’s nothing like the feeling I get when I walk into my home and see polished floors, clutter free counters, dust free end tables, and those freshly vacuumed floors. The bathroom – oh the bathroom – is a thing of beauty: spotless glass showers and streak free mirrors and gleaming sinks.

I experience my home like this about once a month, when Hope comes.

Let me be frank: at heart, I’m a bit of a hot mess when it comes to natural tidiness. I am at my creative best when there are no cluttery distractions around, but the “during” process means a misplaced coffee cup, stacks of papers, and open cabinet doors.

I love food and cooking, but an observer arriving after I’ve cooked dinner will typically find spatters of olive oil on the back of the stove, flecks of spices like pepper, garlic, and oregano scattered across the cook-top, and a poor leaf of spinach (or two) plastered underneath the pot after failing to land in it.

Now, I’m pretty good about regular dusting. I never mind scrubbing toilets. I gain great pleasure from those odd jobs like cleaning the shower drain, dusting baseboards, and removing all the smudges on light switches.

But mops and brooms and I have never gotten along.

I’ve finally resorted to vacuuming my hardwood floors (which makes up most of my main floor) with a nifty “floor genie” attachment, and I praise that Shark Vacuum to be worth its weight in platinum. Still, the only way I’ve managed a sparkling kitchen floor isn’t a perfect mop, but to get down on my hands and knees with a bucket and a sponge.

That’s why I am so grateful for Hope: a woman reflective of her name. In a three-hour period of time, she manages to leave my bathroom sparkling, my kitchen without a stray crumb or smatter of olive oil, and every inch of wood floor gleaming.

The downside after the moment of elation at the vision of all that beauty comes at the next moment: I want everything to stay perfect.

I don’t want to cook and return the spatters and crumbs and errant spinach leaves to the kitchen. I even ponder showering in the guest bathroom, which has a shower curtain instead of a glass door.

In Hope’s wake, I am frozen like a bunny is when she senses a hawk nearby: paralyzed.

Then, there’s that wild moment when the perfection demands a witness: John arriving home to see our well-tended safe haven. A neighbor popping over unannounced, asking for a cup of sugar or an opinion on the latest HOA saga. A girlfriend stopping by for a visit and lingering over coffee and conversations.

I’ve accepted this wild moment as a natural part of being, just human nature. We all want those moments of being perfect housewife to be noticed, just as we all want our stories to be considered prize-worthy and our appearances to receive admiring glances from strangers.

I’ve also accepted that those perfect moments are so rarely seen because life is inherently messy.

I have long held perfectionistic tendencies, especially when it comes to my environment. A messy room was a source of scolding when I was a child and a deep sense of shame when my mother would throw up her hands and scour my room whilst I was at school. A messy house led to many an argument with my first husband, who never quite understood why I couldn’t prevent the girls from strewing their toys about, or keep up with the mountains of laundry a family of four produced.

When my house is perfect, that’s the moment when I believe my mother would nod at me in approval and my ex-husband would be wowed at my obvious new self-discipline.

Fortunately, John doesn’t see my natural messiness as a detriment to our relationship. That acceptance has allowed me to loosen up when it comes to believing that a perfect home would win me approval, acceptance, and love. I am loved for all of me: wild hair, stack of papers and books, and a spattered stove.

That love has translated into me finally finding my way as the caregiver to my home. I tidy up at the end of most days, or at least on Friday afternoons. I clean a toilet the moment I notice it needs a little attention. I run the vacuum when I see crumbs hiding under the cabinets and and swipe dusty coffee tables as I gab with girlfriends on the phone.

And once a month, Hope arrives and rescues me from anything I’ve overlooked.

Despite the moment of wanting the house to stay perfect, eventually, of course we must use those immaculate spaces. I shower. I cook. I sprawl on the couch and the coffee table become littered with journals and books and magazines and glue sticks.

The spell breaks. I release that momentary flashback of needing the house to be perfect in hopes that someone will approve of me.

The acceptance of who I am as a housekeeper and the balance of that one moment of gleaming floors giving way to the natural messiness of life has become a domino effect of my other spaces of perfection. I allow my hair to be curly and messy instead of maintaining standing appointments for bi-weekly blowouts. I run errands without make-up, and don’t cringe when I run into a neighbor or friend.

Most importantly, loosening my grip on my perfectionist tendencies has allowed my creative life to blossom.

As a child, if I couldn’t perform a task perfectly the first time, I was unlikely to try it again. This meant my dreams of rolling skating like the Olympic ice skaters was a one-time trip around the garage til I fell and painting without the paint-by-numbers made me give it up because my pictures on the canvas never resembled what I imagined in my head.

As an adult, I was less likely to attempt something I could fail at, even writing, because getting the words on paper as elegantly as I desired to convey them. I wanted a first draft to serve as a polished document.

Just as I’ve learned that an spotless house doesn’t prove my worthiness, I’m now learning that I don’t have to craft a flawless story in order to be a valued storyteller. Not having artistic skills as a painter doesn’t mean I can’t find pleasure in dragging a brush around a canvas or discover joy in creating a collage.

There are those times when we experience an impeccably perfect moment during the act of creation, but just as it takes Hope to help me obtain that moment of household perfection, I’ve learned that having other folks assist me with the editing and polishing allows me to have that moment of creative perfection.

It’s up to me to continue creating, though, because if I were to choose to live within that perfection of one story, I’d never unfold new ones.

And the rest of the creative process is just that: process. Just as life is inherently messy, so is creating.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

When she’s not vacuuming her couch, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

June 26, 2016

Sunday Sanctuary: Lush Summer Dreams

For as long as I can remember, I have loved flowers and plants. Dirt runs through the veins of most of my family members – my father grew up on a farm and my mother had a gift for growing lush potted plants. My granny’s backyard was a paradise, inviting my imagination to run wild as I played. There is a deep soul desire to create verdant outdoor spaces.

Traditionally, Southern Women Grow Things, even when we no longer live in the south. And life in suburbia, especially in the land of Home Owner Associations demands careful tutelage. The goal is to own the house that stands out enough to be a showplace yet blends into the rest of the neighborhood so it isn’t an eyesore.

Yes to sumptuous beds edging your home; no to painting the house magenta. Gardening is creative endeavor and I deeply admire those whose canvas is flowers and greenery.

As I have gotten older and grown in my own confidence as a creative, I have learned that sadly, having a green thumb is not one of my gifts. Yes, I can manage choosing plants that present a pleasing visage in the beds around my home, but I can equivocally say that it’s not really my gift, no matter how much I wish. And frankly, it’s a bitter pill to swallow…just like the realization that while I understand the basics of constructing a dress, I’ll never be a good seamstress.

Yet, I live in the land of HOAs and the thread of desiring to connect to the earth and growing things remains as a part of my life.

In the fall, I plant tulips and daffodils. They fit me and my personality: the careful planning of a pleasing design with attention to color, bloom time, and height. I order my bulbs online and when they arrive, I plant them over a series of days. It gives me the opportunity to dig in the dirt and connect with that portion of my heritage without overwhelming myself. Because bulbs come back year after year, I only have to supplement the bare spots.

Best of all, there is no need to do much tending once they’re planted. They just bloom.

As the tulips fade, I am in a space of dread.

Late spring plantings with an eye towards summer demands more. I love the planning part: choosing plants that will grow with a certain amount of sun or lack thereof, flowers with pleasing leaves and colors that will be just the right compliment to the permanent pieces of landscape like trees and bushes and the curve of the walk.

But, damn, I have a lot of blank space to fill, and this is where it gets complicated for me. It requires multiple trips to Lowes to purchase not just flowers but supplements for the soil and fertilizers to help them grow.

After my third trip to Lowes, I have amassed sixty-one plants. Five wax leaf begonias, all white. Sixteen French Marigolds, five rust and eleven yellow. Forty Vinca: seventeen pale pink and eleven cranberry pink for the back; seven white and five lavender for the front.

Want to know another trait of creative people? Sometimes we let our passions lead us into the territory of overwhelmed. On that last trip home in the back in the car crammed with foliage, I was beginning to question what I had committed myself to doing.

One of the ways I nourish my creativity is mornings on the deck with my coffee and journal. The flowers feed that sacred time. Despite my lack of having a green thumb, I’ve spent my years nourished by the presence of growing things. And now, to have that, I need to dig sixty-one holes.

Sixty. One. Holes.

I may have uttered words of prayer as I thought “Oh, I wish I had some help.” More than once. As I paid for the flowers, as I loaded them into the back of the car, and during the ten minute journey home.

I turn into our neighborhood and pass that house. The one with the most beautifully tended landscaping and see that the gardener is there. Impulsively, I pull over, roll down my window, and say “Do you have a card?”

She smiles. “I never had cards printed; my business keeps expanding by word of mouth. What is it that you need? Design? I’m a Master Gardner. Or…?”

“Honestly, I just need help getting all my summer plantings in the ground.”

“So, what do you got?”

I pop open the rear door and she says, “OH, that’s not that much. We’re almost done here and could be at your place and be gone in a couple of hours.”

As I’m driving home, I feel like the luckiest gal in the world. I see it as a sign from God that though my prayers had been silent, I was heard.

They arrive at noon, the lovely Julie, the Master Gardener along with her daughter, her assistant Lucas and his friend Chris. Julie and I walk and I show her what I had envisioned. Meanwhile, her daughter begins pulling back the mulch and the men begin breaking up the soil. Julie compliments my plant choices and with her Master Gardener’s eye, fine tunes placement. I work alongside them, trimming the remnants of tulip leaves as they dig.

An hour later, they leave.

All sixty-one flowers are lovingly nestled in the earth. All the plant debris is gone: weeds, spent leaves, and birch seeds. The backbreaking task I estimated would take me eight or nine hours, spread across two days (or more)? Completed.

Creative folks often look at any and all tasks and believe that asking for help dulls our magic or takes away from the approach we have to living. We believe in order to be successful at any endeavor – be it writing a book, constructing a dress, or planting a garden – we must do it alone.

What I’ve made peace with as I’ve gotten older is that sometimes, we just need help.

We have a vision, but need someone to talk it through with us. Or do the heavy lifting. We want to dabble in an area we aren’t good at, but there’s too much work in getting it set-up we don’t bother trying. We believe that spending money on something we could do our self is wasteful, not considering how that time is taking us away from other pursuits.

Being creative doesn’t mean that we have to excel at every creative endeavor that calls our name.

We can bemoan the lack of having a green thumb and torture ourselves over the absence of natural talent. Or we can get the help me need to overcome our natural shortcomings.

Pay to have your lawn mowed. Hire an editor to help polish your book. Let the cleaners hem those pants. Buy the painting you love instead of living with bare walls. Listen to your gut when it tells you to pull over on the side of the road. And yes, maybe you pray for help and hope for a divine sign.

This is how we choose creative living. We swallow our pride and admit that we need help so that we can spend our time in the kind of environment our soul needs to grow. Don’t deny inviting creativity and beauty into your world just because you can’t create it all by yourself.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

June 19, 2016

Dear Stranger: About That Last Statement

Dear Strange Man,

We don’t know each other, yet you feel entitled to interrupt my little zone of dual nourishment time. See, one of my guilty (not guilty) pleasures is to take myself to lunch and read a good book.

I am sitting there, thoroughly engrossed in a suspense novel, so it takes me a few moments to realize that you are talking to me. I hear a voice in the almost-empty restaurant and look up to see you staring at me. My silence is somehow encouraging, and you repeat the words I thought I’d heard:

“So, you’re reading, huh?”

“Yes.” I answer. I smile slightly, but not enough to encourage a conversation. I return to my book, but I feel your continued presence as you stand there, staring at me.

When I glance back up at you, you respond with a smirk. “A good lunch date, huh?”

“Yes,” I answer, this time favoring you with a real smile. “The perfect lunch companion.”

“Yeah, because a book won’t break your heart.”

Your words are spit out with such vehemence that I become more than a little uncomfortable, and I cannot help but wonder: why interrupt my quiet when you don’t seem to like women?

Though my plan was to linger over my book, and sip the last of my water as the lunch crowd waned, I am suddenly glad that I’ve already paid my waitress.

I am Southern and exceedingly polite to strangers as I recognize that overtures from people we meet in public usually come from a space of desiring connection. I’m intuitive, too, and deep down I know that the kind of statement you made means that, in the past, you were hurt by someone you loved.

And I am so sorry for your pain. Heartbreak and betrayal is devastating to the mind and soul.

However, your tone crosses the boundaries of polite society, so I break eye contact.

I am grateful when your companion joins you, an elderly woman whom I assume is your mother.

I mark my place in my book, leave a tip, and make my way out as quickly as possible.

There were so many things wrong with our encounter that weeks later, I am still thinking about it. I’m writing you this letter because I want to pass on a little advice.

Maybe you don’t realize this, but being alone in public doesn’t make me “fair game.” A woman alone in a restaurant is not out looking for a date, and most likely isn’t even seeking conversation. This wasn’t a smoky bar on a Saturday night; it was a family restaurant on a sunny Thursday afternoon.

You may have believed you were saving me from loneliness. I wasn’t lonely because, as you observed, I had companionship: the novel I was reading.

This was not a “missed connection” and you won’t find me seeking you out on Craigslist. Most of our encounter could be seem as misguided attempt at flirting. So let me tell you why I’m still thinking about our encounter: Your last statement to me.

I don’t like to tell folks their beliefs are right or wrong, but I can tell you that you were so wrong when you said that books can’t break your heart.

The first heartbreak I can recall happened in literary form. I was eight and read the story of a boy and two red bone coonhounds. Just writing about Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann makes me tear up forty years later.

That was my first heartbreak, and it sure wasn’t my last.

There was Little Beth and Alice and Leslie and a slew of others.

When we read, we care about the characters and they become our friends. Their lives are often as real to us – while we are reading their stories – as the people who inhabit the three-dimensional world in which we live.

The book I was reading that day was the fifteenth book in a series, so you interrupted my lunch with a longtime friend. I guess you could say Lindsay Boxer and I have a long-term relationship. Spoiler alert: Lindsay had just discovered that her husband and the father of her child had a secret life.

Her heart was breaking and mine was breaking right along with her.

Books take us to faraway places and invite us on adventure. Books ask us to come along on a journey of life, to share the ups and downs and highs and lows. The funny, the sacred, the sad. Books allow us to witness fear and bravery.

Books will break our hearts in a way that we need. Because books prepare us for life’s reality.

Through the lives of the characters we read about, we learn the different ways to navigate the kind of losses we all will face one day: the loss of a pet or a parent, a child, or best friend. Books prepare us for the betrayal of a friend or lover. Books show us how to fall in love without losing ourselves, and let us experience the inevitable joy of mothering children or animals.

Reading books is good for not just our mind, but our souls.

Books don’t just inform us about historical events or scientific theory. Books allow us to learn about other ways of living, other cultures, and other worlds. Books teach us how to be happy, and how to find our way in the world when we are different.

You were wrong when you said that books can’t break your heart, because they can. And I’m going to share a secret with you because I think you can use this information: if you have a broken heart, a book can be part of mending it.

If you find this letter, I have one more piece of advice: rather than interrupt the next woman you see reading in a restaurant, I want you to follow her lead and pick up a book.

Though I doubt our paths will cross again, if they do, I hope it will be because you’ve found this letter, taken advantage of some literary therapy, and have a smile on your face.

Sincerely,
The Woman at the Restaurant reading 15th Affair

About the Author: Debra Smouse

Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not waiting for the mailman, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

May 22, 2016

Sunday Sanctuary: The Wisdom of Little Girls

When I was a little girl, I pretended to be a grown up.

I gathered my beloved books and played library, carefully taping cut pieces of notebook paper in the backs of my Nancy Drews,their yellow spines lined up in perfect order. The Trixie Beldens were on the next shelf, soft-back cream covered tales that I knew I would suggest to any of my preteen visitors needing books to satisfy. And though I had outgrown them, the picture books were there, too.

I ran across one of my old picture books about ME and my pet giraffe a few months back as we were reorganizing our books, and yes, there was still a piece of notebook paper taped inside just waiting for library visitors to check out this.

I may have had some original books in my childhood library, too.

Riffs off of Nancy’s adventures, a horse loving heroine named Jamilyn, and a some cobbled together poetry inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses.

I believed being a librarian would be one of the most wonderful jobs in the world. Surrounding myself with books guide souls towards exciting stories and characters to fall in love with seemed rewarding.

While awaiting visitors to my library, I perused my Nancy Drew Cookbook and imagined the meals I would create. I marked my favorite recipes with little slips of paper, imagining how wonderful a meal – with candles (and wine) would be!

I played house, as many young girls do.

My blonde Baby Tender Love sat propped up in one of the chairs at my little table and the Newborn Baby Tender Love was sleeping in the cradle. And no, I wasn’t allowed to have the anatomically correct Baby Brother Tender Love, though my friend Angela did.

Yes, I was curious. Yes, I peeked. Yes, my mother freaked out when she found out.

I had tea parties, sneaking food from the kitchen into my bedroom and serving my babies elaborate pizzas, topping Bologna crusts with bits of sliced pickle and torn pieces of Kraft Cheese Slices.

My imaginary husband was at work, and while he was away, I made crocheted ropes and made sure our babies wore pretty clothes.

My Barbies played house, too.

Yes, I had Super Star Barbie. Want to know what she did? Hung out at her house and drove to the grocery store in her old Convertible so she could make dinner for Ken. Wearing, of course, a glamorous evening gown.

Sometimes she sang on her stage, but she mostly liked trying on pretty clothes, including a full trousseau of lingerie. And, of course, sitting on the couch (or going to bed) with Ken in their Three Story Town House with the elevator.

I turned forty-eight this past week, and when I look back at the pretend games I played forty years ago and the traces of desires around adulthood, it’s fascinating how smart she was. The desires of that uninhabited little girl centered on those books – reading them, writing them, cataloging. And she always found pleasure in the aspects of housekeeping and being a wife.

Things society was telling us that we shouldn’t settle for…

I grew up in the era of Women Being Able To Do It All. There was Helen Reddy singing I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar. And the old Enjoli commercial seductively serenading us about the woman who can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never EVER let you forget your a man…

Our task was to go out in the world and Making Our Mark.

I went to college and got a degree in journalism, spending several years working in broadcast TV, including a stint at ABC News.

I had babies and juggled their care with various administrative management jobs. I was a Career Woman, wearing suits with shoulder pads and serviceable bras and pantyhose (with control tops). I struggled for balance and was never romanced the way Ken wooed Barbie.

I left behind my imaginings of being a grown up in the big world, because never did I dream of playing office politics, dealing with PTA Moms and Daycare, or commuting to work by plane.

I made plans for perfect trips to Disney World, hoping it would fill the hole of longing I felt to be creative.

“When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families’ tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.”
— Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)

My children are now grown and creating their own lives. I am no longer wearing suits though I do wrestle with pantyhose on special occasions. Those serviceable bras are long gone, replaced with lacy renditions Barbie would be tickled pink to wear.

And instead of striving to be the Enjoli Woman, my life has become simpler, channeling the dreams of that little girl.

I surround myself with books and spend my days writing. I have my own book, written by me, on my library shelf. I am also surrounded by the words of others, here in this space, and that makes me immensely happy and satisfies me in ways TV News never did.

Though I haven’t eaten bologna in more than a decade, I continue to experiment with food and I even love grocery shopping. I feel loved, cherished, and romanced. Like my little girl self, many of my activities center on my role of keeper of my home, and that makes me joyful.

No, you never could have convinced that twenty-eight year old young mother that keeping house and creating a sanctuary would far out-satisfy her than those shoulder-padded suits. She thought she was so smart, but poor thing was trying too hard to find contentment in a role she never fantasized about.

Little girls don’t dream about traffic jams or failed marriages or careers that aren’t quite fulfilling.

They dream of using their creativity in satisfying ways. They dream of writing books and following their passions. And, yes, they dream of keeping house.

We may not always have our answers to what will allow us to follow our intuition towards a creative life, but I believe that deep down we know.

Some of us dream of big careers or being famous. And some of us dream of books and keeping house.

Though I’ve grown wiser through age and experience, I can’t help but see that I was pretty clear what I needed to live a happy and creative life when I was a little girl.

It just took me forty years to remember how wise she was.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

May 17, 2016

The Bookcase by Debra Smouse

Colleen caught her breath as she lay sprawled on the floor, her head resting against the iron leg of a futon. Why was she on the floor of her daughter’s room at 4:48 AM? ImNotReallyAWaitressToes She had managed to catch her big toe on the belt loop of a pair of jeans.

She shook her head. Only she could be such a klutz. Well, if she was lucky, the I’m Not Really a Waitress-red polish on her toenails had survived the tumble without even a slight chip.

She should have turned on the light, but she’d gotten in the habit of wandering through the dark house alone when she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t only that she was restless, either. After four weekends of being without the kids, she had stopped seeing her house as empty and lonesome, and was finding a sense of peace.

She laughed to herself, appreciating the irony: Alone, she was finally settling into the kind of feeling she’d always longed for from this house, the kind she’d never had when they’d all been pretending to be a happy family. The sweet sense of calm and peace that hadn’t seemed to exist when her soon-to-be ex-husband was living there, was surrounding her, now that he had gone.

Their separation and divorce had been anything but typical. Though they had filed the paperwork with the court before the shininess of the New Year had faded, they had continued living together until he found a place shortly before Easter. She kept the house; he moved into a high-rise condo closer to work.

The divorce would be final in just a few weeks, on May Day.

Since his official departure from the house – from her house – she’d been spending all her free time decluttering the sixteen years’ worth of crap that had accumulated. She’d recognized his insistence that the kids would be better “if their ‘primary living environment’ remain unchanged in any way” for the clever ploy that it was. He didn’t really care that every stick of furniture stay intact; rather, he wanted all new furniture for his sleek condo overlooking downtown.

The kid-and-dog-worn crap hadn’t matched his new décor.

She sighed from her position on the floor. “I’m not getting anything done just lying here.” But before she could gather the will to pick herself up, she felt the breath of her dog, Ingrid, on the back of her neck.

Suddenly, she wanted to cry, the first time in months that she’d felt the pinpricks of tears behind her eyes. She hadn’t cried when she’d discovered her husband’s affair, and she hadn’t cried when they’d agreed that divorce was their only ingrid_down option. But with the dog nuzzling her neck, breathing in her owner’s scent in much the same way a lover would, holding back the tears was so hard.

Besides, she thought, facts are facts: she’d never get laid again. What man would want to date an almost-forty-year-old single mother with two kids and a hundred-pound dog?

She tangled her fingers into the giant dog’s curly fur, assuring the animal that she was fine.

Then she shoved Ingrid aside, rolled over, and pushed herself to her feet.

Switching on her daughter’s desk lamp, she saw the note taped to the computer monitor:

“MOM, if you insist on cleaning, can we PLEASE ditch that old bookcase?”

The bookcase. One of the few pieces of furniture from her childhood.

The bookcase. The last factor in Colleen’s decision to divorce him.

She had gotten used to the way her husband spoke to her, making her feel as if nothing she ever did was good enough. She had gotten used to his stonewalling, refusing to talk to her for days and weeks on end because of some imagined infraction. She had gotten used to his unending criticism of what she wore and how messy the house was. She’d even gotten used to the not-so-subtle implication that the disarray meant she was a crappy mother.

Colleen had gotten used to the constant barrage of things she didn’t do/shouldn’t do/wasn’t doing right, but she’d hated it, and when he turned his critical eye toward their children, she’d taken steps to protect them. She had become an adept liar, covering for the girls if there were infractions at school or a less-than-perfect conduct grade on any given day. She’d scurried around, picking up after them, making sure he’d never found a stray shoe or misplaced book in view.

But kids will be kids, and as good as she was at covering for them most of the time, there were always things that slipped through the cracks: a messy room, a late homework assignment, a found note from a teacher bemoaning a child’s inability to sit still and be quiet. And she couldn’t get her oldest daughter to keep her mouth shut when things began to escalate.

Oh, did that girl have smart mouth on her, especially for a thirteen-year old! She was intelligent and more well-read than the average college student, and had strong opinions. The unfairness was that the same words uttered a decade later (or to a stranger) would be considered “standing up for herself. As a child, the expectation was to accept the verbal assaults her father volleyed across the bow as just more rules to follow.

And then, there was the day that he pushed her. Shoved their child so hard she fell against the open door to the stackofbooks bookcase and it pulled the hinges out of the wood.

He had insisted that he hadn’t touched her, that the girl was just backing away from him and tripped.

But Colleen knew that that deep anger of his, and believed her daughter’s version of the story.

That sticks and stones nursery rhyme was a lie. Words did hurt. But the shift from mere words to actual physicality crossed a line, and while he’d never struck her or the kids before, and she hoped it would never happen again, she wasn’t going to count on it.

That was the day that Colleen decided: no more. There would be no more walking on eggshells and no more dealing with the regular verbal assaults. She wasn’t going to allow her children to live like this every day. Always wondering if today, he would get physical.

She waited a few weeks, quietly getting her ducks in a row. She began documenting his affair with the aerobics instructor at their gym. Despite his denial when confronted months earlier, she’d stumbled across their text messages. She also combed through their finances to get a better picture of how things stood.

And three weeks later, the next time he began bitching about her inability to keep a tidy house, and then moved on to her total lack of culinary skills, he drove his own nail into the coffin of their relationship. “If I want a nice home, I’ll have to get divorced first,” he’d said. He always had been a master of the passive-aggressive statement.

Colleen had smiled a sad little smile at him and uttered the words she wouldn’t take back. “Then why don’t we just get a divorce so you can finally live in the kind of home you want?”

Yes, she had waited until things died down a bit because she never wanted her daughter to think she was at all responsible for the divorce. But she’d made her decision on the day of the bookcase.

Colleen brought herself back to the present and took a good look at the bookcase. It was a shame to part with something she’d had since she was a child. In all honesty, it wouldn’t be that difficult to repair it, but she totally understood why her daughter wanted the bookcase gone.

It was the constant reminder that sometimes the people who were supposed to love you and protect you were the ones you needed protection from.

As Ingrid settled in next to her daughter’s bed, Colleen decided: today, right now, she would deal with the bookcase. Looking around the room, she noticed the stacks of books on the floor – Dante, Terry Pratchett, Charles Darwin, Michael Moorcock, J.K. Rowling – and realized her daughter had already emptied the shelves.

A woman with a mission, Colleen ripped the top sheet off her daughter’s bed, laid it on the floor next to the case, and pulled and pushed until the bookcase rested on the sheet so it would be easier to slide across the floor.

More pushing, more pulling, and with Ingrid as a sort of honor guard, she dragged the bookcase down the hall, out the front door, and TheDoor (though she cringed at the skittering, scraping sounds) across the concrete of the driveway. Making sure the dog was clear, she gave a final heave letting the piece of furniture come to rest on its side, on the curb.

Sweating, she wiped her forward and told the big black dog “Thank goodness trash day is tomorrow!”

Colleen turned back towards the house, only to stop short. The edge of the rising sun was bathing the sky, and her home, in a pale pink glow. She stood watch as the pink shifted to orange shot with gold.

She made one last glance, over her shoulder, at that bookcase, its vacant shelves turned into depthless shadows in the light of morning.

Then she took a deep breath, called Ingrid to heel, walked back into the house – her house – and shut the door.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

debra_Smouse_mcl Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

April 24, 2016

Sunday Sanctuary: Laundry Day

Every Thursday, I strip the sheets off our bed. If possible, I open the bedroom windows and invite the fresh spring air to waft across the now naked bed. The sheets are tossed into the washer with warm water and a cap-full of Downy Unstoppables.

I gather the towels.

The chocolate bath towels from the master bath, damp after Thursday morning’s preparation to face the world. One from John’s towel bar and two from mine. I grab the matching chocolate hand towels, a toothpaste dotted one from the ring next to his sink and make-up smeared one from the ring by my sink. In the upstairs bathroom, I seize the maroon towel, usually tossed next to the sink. And in the downstairs bath, I find two blue towels, one plaid and one cornflower.

This assembly of towels is added to the collection of washcloths waiting in the laundry room. One last survey reveals the orange and yellow striped dishtowels in the kitchen.

Yes, Thursday is my Linen Day. By the time John returns home from work, there will be clean towels in each bath and fresh sheets on the bed. Linen Day makes me feel skilled as a housekeeper. More significant, it makes me feel nurtured and loved. Is there anything more delicious (and nurturing) than that first night of sleep on clean sheets?

It wasn’t long before I discovered the wisdom of designating Thursday not just as Linen Day, but as Laundry Day.

Thursday means hot water, bleach, and load of thick white undershirts and cotton handkerchiefs. Thursday results include clean workday wear – his polo shirts and my warm weather “uniform” of golf clothes – washed in cold water and Tide Ultra Stain Release (due to my propensity to spill). I round out Laundry Day with one last load. Warm water, Tide Plus Febreze Sport Active Fresh, and those colorful cloth stink magnets: gym shorts, boxer briefs, black socks, and sweatpants.

This litany of laundry may seem too boring, incredibly rigid, and have nothing to do with my creative pursuits. But I share this with you because it helps fuel my creative life. Having a household schedule provides the structure I need to care for my home and doubles as a way to squash the excuse that the pile of laundry is the proof (excuse) that I am “just too busy” to devote time to writing.

Back before the ease of modern washing machines, the traditional day for laundry was Monday. I’m sure the backbreaking task of tending the family’s clothes is why housewives called it “Blue Monday”. It also explains the traditional Monday meal in New Orleans: Red Beans & Rice. An easy dish to put on the stove in the morning for dinner when attention would otherwise diverted.

I know that it sounds easier to do a load of wash a day, thus spreading out the chore. It was the norm during the years I worked in an office, tossing a load in the washer as I left for work and finishing the drying / folding part before bedtime.

For the quality of my daily life, my work life, and yes, my creative life, only doing laundry once or twice a week has actually meant freedom.

Laundry Day has helped free my thoughts. No more trying to remember if there’s a load in the washer waiting or worse a Mount Washmore pile growing daily. And no more wondering if everyone has clean clothes for work. This means I focus my thoughts on what to write in a work blog or which direction I want to take a fictional character.

It’s freed up my time. I remember many sad discoveries of an almost dry wad of clothing in the washer complete with a slightly musty smell, which had to washed a second (or third) time. And rather than needing to make time to do a load each day, a rhythm emerges allowing me to focus on writing or coaching while a load spins and a load dries.

My Thursday Laundry Days have also been a part of freeing up my soul.

During those years of no household schedules, untidy rooms, and mountains of laundry, I felt ashamed of my inability to be a good housekeeper. And there was the guilt, too. Taking time to create rather than tend the mess and piles always was guilt ridden.

Talk about harming your creative soul, guilt and shame do numbers on them.

I’m no longer telling myself little white lies about schedules, either. That’s soul freeing because writing fictional tales is one thing but lying to yourself is another.

As a chronically messy person, I tell myself that clutter is a sign of my own creative genius. Research shows that while this is a common trait of creative genius, I’ve learned that a cluttered environment makes it harder to finish projects. To lie to myself and say that my mess is ok all the time actually harms my ability to focus and makes my thoughts feel cloudier.

We creatives often shy away from structure. We tell ourselves that it will inhibit our artistic expression. We tell ourselves that we want freedom and schedules will make us feel shackled. We tell ourselves that true creative people do not need systems as it will keep us from our ability to be original.

I’ve learned that structure, schedules, and systems are actually a way to protect my creative life.

Imagine (if you will) that I am a happy-go-lucky Golden Retriever with daily visits the local dog park. All those structures are like the fences, and within that safe space, I can let my imagination and creativity run free. My systems keep from running out into proverbial traffic. My routines allow me to play to my heart’s content within the boundaries of my work, and still tend the other important pieces of my life. My schedules open up space for work, play, and dedicated time to create.

I know that having a laundry day is a luxury thanks to my ability to work from home and control my schedule. What isn’t a luxury, though, is how laundry day (and the rest of my household schedule) has come to represent a sense of freedom for my creative life.

Because as wonderful as drifting off to sleep while nestled in fresh laundered sheets feels, it pales in comparison to the reward of guilt-free time for creation. So, yes, thanks to Laundry Day, I have the space to spend more time focused on creative living.

Like spending a random spring morning writing encouraging letters to a friend and love notes to myself in my journal. Freed from the shame of being a poor keeper of my home and released from the guilt of waiting chores. Bathing in pleasure, I dive into the luxurious opportunity to create.

What about YOU? How might a schedule for your household chores or other routine help give you more freedom to create?

About the Author: Debra Smouse

April 14, 2016

Studio Tour: Debra Smouse

First and foremost, I am a lover of words and the stories they create. I write because I must allow myself to unfold my own stories on the page. I do this as a way to teach and support my coaching practice. I create courses to help folks get from here to there. I wrote about about Creating a Life You Love and published my collection as a book.

Most of all, though, I write because it’s how I unearth my own truths.

My writing studio is set up in the lower level of our home. We have a “basement walk-out” and so each morning, I commute downstairs. While I can easily walk outside and watch the golfers or the geese, I work better down here than I did when I worked upstairs in a room that faced the street.

A peek into the door reveals this vintage desk. It was John’s father’s desk and before that it was his grandfather’s desk. I love it’s shape but most of all I love the energy.

I scatter favorite photos and sometimes candles here. That lamp is one I received for Christmas the year that I was 12 and it has illuminated many of my words over the last thirty-six years.

You’ll see my art, most of which consists of photographs I’ve taken. Photos that have special meanings. Like the Cherry Blossom photos I took the weekend I met John for the first time…subsequent peeks of DC and Central Park in the Fall.

And to the left of the door you’ll find the only recycled item in my office: an old TV stand serves as a space to store cards, stationary, and cuttings from magazines for future vision boards. I am in love with these document boxes and these soft bins.

And, of course, flowers. I love having fresh flowers in my office.

During holy seasons or pinnacle calendar days, this sometimes serves as an altar space (like for my “Spring Altar“)

Yes, I chose this room due to its lack of windows because like Mark Twain, I’m curious about the world outside and therefore prone to distraction. And like Twain, my desk faces the corner.

I love this desk, by the way. It’s the Bedford Corner desk from Pottery Barn and it’s the first time I’ve ever invested in this kind of piece for myself rather than buy the cheapest thing I could find or making do with a recycled item from elsewhere in the house. It was an investment in myself and my work in a writer that went beyond the actual dollar figure spent.

Purchasing this desk was a sign of commitment to this life here in Ohio. A commitment to writing. A reminder of love, belonging, and sanctuary.

I have everything at hand: My planner, my journal, and computer (with a new monitor on my wishlist). Favorite pens and of course space for the necessities of life (coffee) and favorite photos. Each item here has been purposely cultivated because everything has energy.

To the left of my desk is a matching bookshelf with a stock of Leuchtturm1917 Notebooks in a rainbow of colors…I like having extra journals on hand because you never know when you’ll need a new one. The letters I’ve received are stored here …. and on top, one of my favorite photos of John (taken on our 2015 Vacation) and a stack of files for various trips and projects.

Above my desk is my cork-board, where I have a variety of inspirational quotes and cards mixed in with calendars and little note cards outlining various deadlines for projects.

I wasn’t able to find a board that I loved, so I had this one made at a local craft store, choosing a light-weight frame that matched all the framed art in my office and having them wet-mount cork instead of art.

My Bookshelves are across my from desk. These bookshelves are the only furniture I brought with me from Texas to Ohio when I did that massive de-cluttering in 2010….Reference books and loved books abound. Old journals. More photos I’ve taken and framed. The final few copies of the 3rd printing of my book.

Scattered about are sacred talismans as well. Like on my desk, each item has been cultivated for my space. I quarterly look at each book and item to see what needs to go.

Because sacred connection is important to me, I had this custom rosary made by Lunaea Weatherstone . It’s a “Goddess Rosary”. I told Lunae that I wanted an image of the Blessed Mother and she created this lovely collage for the medallion

(email her for your own custom piece – or friend her on Facebook to get a peek at rosaries in progress waiting for homes)

Books for coaching and living stand alongside tokens and reminders. The lantern to remind me that my role is to serve as a light and guide for my coaching clients….and a Buddha candle holder and heart-shaped stone to remind me of my responsibility to tend my own soul.

Books by dear friends, prayer cards and crystals and candles…and some of my beloved Trixie Belden books.

A photo of John and I fooling around in a photo booth reminds me of the joy and laughter and love we share…and here, also, are tiny talismans: a rose quartz, a butterfly from the roses he sent me on our first Valentine’s…and these sit alongside my favorite books on love and intimate relationships.

Not pictured: the dozens of candles that make their way into my space. I light them as prayers for sick friends and when I begin a new project. I light ones for specific intentions, in honor of specific souls passed, and as a beacon of light.

Virginia Wolfe said that a woman needs a room of her own in order to write…and I am so grateful that I have this room to serve me as my writing studio.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not waiting for the mailman, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

April 3, 2016October 31, 2021

For the Love of Letters

Late in the summer of 2015, I began a letter writing project with a friend. We chose to focus our exchange (mostly) on our creative lives and how everything else affected our ability to become more devoted to our creative needs and desires.

Eight months later, we are still exchanging handwritten letters around the subject of our creative lives and creative living on the whole.

It’s been an incredibly nourishing project and process. I’ve long preferred paper over email and cannot imagine why we didn’t begin writing sooner, yet it also forced me to take a good hard look at my need for instant gratification.

What happens in that in between times as I wait for the next chapter to arrive in my mailbox? What will she think of my letter? Was I too honestly naked? How does waiting for an answer to a question make me feel? How does it nourish me creatively and spiritually?

I anxiously await the next letter. When it arrives, I savor it once and then again and maybe after a third (or fourth) reading, I pen a response. And then the process begins again.

My biggest take aways from this process (so far) has been:

The slower pace of letter writing is forcing me to slow down and is training my focus. In my inability to get an answer as quickly as my instant-gratification-trained brain would like, I am learning the virtues of patience in other areas of my creative life as well.
During the in-between times, I am anxious to not only receive the next letter, but more inspired to put my pen to paper and work on projects.
Writing letters has forced me to dig a little deeper, be more vulnerable, be more honest, and be a bit daring.
Since I began writing letters by hand (and writing in a paper journal), I more easily process my thoughts, emotions, and the world around me.

I’m not alone. Research shows that writing by hand helps us process information in a more conceptual way. While this study wasn’t about the process of letter writing, I can tell you that the process of laying open my dreams and fears on paper to a trusted soul via paper and ink has been a process that has helped me look at my creative life from a different lens.

The U.S. Postal Services has named April to be National Card and Letter-Writing Month. The USPS’s goal is to boost written — and mailed — communications to build relationships through cards and letters: “Touch them with a letter they can feel — and keep.”

Writing letters has been a loving way to tend my own creative life and my guess is that no matter who you are, taking a pen in hand and penning a missive to someone you trust would benefit your creative life as well.

If you aren’t sure who you would (or could) write to, might I suggest some options?

What if you were to write an open letter to a faceless, nameless stranger? Open letters can be good for the soul.
What if you took some advice from Chronicle Book and wrote one (or more) letters to the folks they suggest?
You know that apology you’ve wanted to make but can’t quite make yourself pick up the phone? How about you put it on paper and drop it in the mail?
How about writing little love notes to your significant other and tucking them into lunch boxes and underwear drawers?
What if you were to pen a missive to a younger version of yourself? Or a future version of yourself?
Write a letter to your muse or mentor (even if that mentor is long gone or fictional).
Write a series of love letters to yourself in your journal.
What if you were to write letters to various aspects of your life and yourself?

Susannah Conway is offering her “April Love” project with a month of love letters. She’s providing a prompt per day this month and in her words: “To practice love, kindness, honesty and probably a smidge of vulnerability, too. To find gratitude for what we have, where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

I’m not the only one here at Modern Creative Life that loves letters. In fact, we’ll be happy to take your letter for publication.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

Debra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not waiting for the mailman, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.