This morning on my run, I turned on Lizzo’s new song “Tempo,” and had the strongest urge to start twerking that I can remember. Can I twerk? On a public street? That song requires twerking, and well, I’m not sure I can twerk, but once I was on a trail and not in sight of any living thing except for a few worms and maybe a judgmental deer, I gave one twerk a try. A single twerk.
Maybe, I thought, I should look up how to twerk on YouTube and come up to this trail and try again.
 If there was a presentation on twerking, this would be a lead slide.
Happy Fall, Lovely Readers. I come to you overflowing with joy. The past five weeks, since I’ve written last, have been some of the most joyful of my year. This year has been a lot of things for me—some of it very sad, a lot of it introspective (hello ancestral trauma/patterns that I’m not so excited to face, but facing nonetheless), a smattering of painful learnings about habits that I’m looking to break, and some grief sprinkled in.
Fun.
But lately I’ve been embracing joy. Pure joy. Joy, not in the absence of pain, but despite of it. Unapologetic joy that comes from trying to dance next to the negative voices in my head, which are always there but do calm the fuck down sometimes when I focus on joy vs. pain all the time.
August helped a lot. I started the month with pneumonia, and then hopped a plane to Miami to meet my family (pic above is us in Ecuador). I was nervous – would we all still love each other after 11 days together? – but those nerves turned into tears of genuine happiness when, upon taking the shuttle to an airport hotel to meet the crew, I looked out the window and saw my Mom and brother Erik standing outside in the scorching heat, waiting for me with huge smiles on their faces. They were standing in the parking lot of a crap airport hotel, waiting for me to emerge from a hotel shuttle. This is my family. The gratitude that I feel to be part of a group of humans this kind is something I cannot explain in words.
I jumped out of the shuttle and we started our vacation (my sister Kristy arrived later that evening). The trip was amazing beyond anything I could have expected. Yes, we all got along. Yes, many of us got sick thanks to water parasites in Ecuador and Peru. No, we didn’t fight. Yes, we cried tears of joy on several occasions. Yes, we laughed until we peed our pants a little (I can only speak for myself).
Half way through the trip, I texted Tyler a single line (we only spoke once during the trip thanks to the spotty wifi, the only way to connect) –
“This is one of the best experiences of my life.”
And I’m not going to add disclaimers or qualifiers to that. I find that when I tell people that line, they are immediately happy for me and then immediately skeptical of my genuine emotion. Wait, wasn’t there something bad that happened? They will ask me. I find this to be a common question in all conversations about joy. Like, we have to have disclaimers on our joy. We can’t just have the joy. Our smiles are labeled “cheesy” or we call them “shit eating grins.” We have to talk about the negativity that can always be found (if we look for it) our experiences. I’m of course guilty of this.
This trip taught me that I don’t have to look at the negative in every situation. That I can instead focus on the positives and amplify those. That I don’t have to take things so seriously all the time, something I’ve long struggled with. That when I let my head and heart and rational mind calm down a bit, beautiful things happen and connections with those I love the most become deeper.
So here I am, three weeks after my return, thinking about twerking and embracing more joy in my life. Inviting it in. And realizing that every situation may not make me feel like I’m levitating in the cosmos with rainbows coming out of my ass, but that there is joy to be found everywhere.
A good example is what happened yesterday when Lucy got bit by another dog.
Correction: our dog sitter's dog bit Lucy. Yeaaah. I’ll tell you right now that I didn’t find ANY joy in that situation. I found rage. She came home from her sitter’s house and 30 minutes later I noticed three puncture wounds on her face, all of them actively bleeding. I thought ticks might have attacked her or a pricker bush may have punched her in the face. Nope. Turns out, it was Rosie, the dog I’ve met many times.
After calling her dog sitter and talking with her with a mix of kindness and stern-please-don’t-ever-let-anything-happen-to-our-angel-fur-baby-again, I sat down on the couch and took some deep breaths. In that moment, Lucy jumped up, licked my face and sat down next to me.
Joy. Right there. Alongside rage.
But still, joy.
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Announcing the
BIG FAT CREATIVE
HOOTENANNY!
I have a BIG FAT announcement. My fabulous friend Jenni Heffernan Brown and I have been working on a super secret (not really, but sounds cooler) project for the past few months and we are ready to launch. The project is a 20-week immersive, in-person program to help creative people make more time for their creativity, celebrate their creativity and make friends with other creative peeps.
The name: The Big Fat Creative Hootenanny.
It is fun and funny and quirky and fabulous. It is only available for people who live in the Bay Area (or want to move here for 5 months – c’mon over!), and will consist of two monthly meetings: one where people will have the opportunity to work on their creative projects and another that will function as a social hour to get to know others in the cohort.
It will also involve in-person, fireside chats with working artists, a weekly newsletter with creative prompts and a MASSIVE party at the end with a stage and confetti canons and music and costumes.
The program will run from Nov. 7, 2019 – March 20, 2020.
Read all about it - and watch the two hilarious videos we filmed at my house - on our INCREDIBLE WEBSITE (that Jenni designed): https://www.bfcreativehoot.com/
We are having an info extravaganza (better than info session) from 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 18 at The Hivery in Mill Valley and ALL ARE INVITED!
Questions? Send us an email: bfcreativehoot@gmail.com and feel free to send this along to people who might be interested :)
Us on a high immediately after filming the videos.
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Those Damn Morning Routines
There is so much talk right now about morning routines and the best way to wake up and OMG if you don’t have warm water with lemon touching your lips within 30 seconds of opening your eyes and a plan to meditate and journal your gratitudes and goals before taking your first shit you are a failure at life.
Or maybe that’s just my interpretation.
To be fair, I do subscribe to some of this (not the failure part, at least when I’m in a good mental space). I do find that when I exercise in the morning and eat things other than cold pizza before 9 a.m., I do feel better. Meditating is a major bonus when I make time for it.
But, still, there is a lot of talk about what we SHOULD be doing in the morning. I didn’t recognize this barrage of advice until I opened a newsletter from the artist/performer/all-around-amazing human Marlee Grace recently. I found Marlee a few years ago on Instagram and was immediately taken by her incredible dance videos and bevy of tattoos (you can see her account here). She is also someone who used to live in the Bay Area and recently returned to Michigan, where she is from.
One of her recent newsletters spoke directly to this and as I read it, I felt a myself relax and feel a sense of relief I didn’t know I needed. This is the text, in part:
“Sometimes the rigidity of my morning routine keeps me trapped from what I actually need. SO, today I wanted to get to work with my dandy blend and that felt the most life giving.
WHEN YOU WAKE UP ASK YOURSELF: WHAT IS THE MOST LIFE GIVING THING I CAN DO FOR MYSELF RIGHT NOW? That might not look the same every day! But this question gives us pause - if "grab the phone and get the updates" fuels you - DO THAT FIRST! If it's going for a walk, kissing, playing with your kid or pet, reading - DO THAT. Let it be different each day. But let it be the sweet start that sets the tone for how you SEE THE WORLD TODAY! And remember - YOU CAN START YOUR DAY OVER AT ANY TIME!”
I’m so thankful for these words, and will go back to them often. If you want to check out Marlee’s newsletter (I don’t know her personally), click here.
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Saying no.
The other day I was communicating with a new client over email when all of a sudden I had the impulse to punch a hole into my wall. No, I didn’t punch anything. I went straight to my kitchen pantry and destroyed a bag of pita chips. I’m sad to say the carbs did little to waylay my anger.
Tyler came home that night and I explained that I think I may have to fire this new client. That I had a feeling that something wasn’t so great, and even though things sounded promising at first, shit was going off the rails.
The next day the rage was replaced by a brain/heart convo:
Brain: Ok, I get it, you want to walk, but you’ve already started on this project and you will put them up a creek if you walk away now, so why don’t you just do this one little task and then walk away?
Heart: You’re totally right. I can’t say no to these nice, well-meaning peeps.
Brain: Totally. Just do the one thing. Who cares that it will mean you have to communicate with this client for another two months? You can just walk away after that…wait, is that indigestion you're feeling?
Heart: OMG, I can’t wait two months! (stomach grumbles & tears ensue)
Tyler gets home on Tuesday. I tell him that walking away is definitely in my future, but that I’ll just do this one tiny thing that will probably deplete my soul but who cares. And this happens:
Tyler: I'm being devil’s advocate here, but what if you just walked away now? Like today?
Me: Oh, God, really? You think I should?
Tyler: Yes. I do. You can say no to anything whenever you want. Even if you are in the middle of a project.
Well, this was interesting. I went downstairs and thought for a minute. And then felt like I was flying. I can say NO! Holy shit, I can disappoint people! This is a thing! It felt like my heart was dancing.
I logged onto my email Wednesday morning, did the deed and levitated through the rest of my day.
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Reach out to your heroes.
While traveling through Peru, our tour group stopped for a few hours in a random town with a cute little market. My family was famished, so we ducked into a place called the Blue Llama Café. As we walked in, my heart rate started going up and I started smiling uncontrollably. Everywhere I looked there were paintings of a blue llama doing amazing things. Relaxing on the Great Wall of China. Drinking tea. Taking a selfie. Trying bullfighting in Spain.
These were all illustrations, but I could tell someone with a ton of skill—and a ton of quirk—had painted them. They made me SO happy. I read the menu, and learned that the idea for the café centered on the concept that this Peruvian llama decided it was sick of living in Peru and wanted to experience the world and here are the pics to prove it.
I couldn’t stop talking about these llama paintings for the entirety of lunch. My family was more interested in their food, but I didn’t care. I bought a shirt. I took no less than 30 pics, trying to capture every single painting.
And then when I got home, still on a high from the trip, I decided to look up the artist and, if I could find their email, tell them that they made my day. Turns out, the artist is Isabelle Decencière (check out her Instagram here). She lives in Lima. I reached out to her on her website before the well-trained Negative Nancies in my brain could tell me it was a stupid idea and no major artist would want to hear from a random person on the other side of the world.
I heard back from her in 24 hours:
My note:
Hi, Isabelle, My name is Katie Morell and I am a writer living in San Francisco, California. I visited the Blue Llama Cafe in Pisac last week on vacation and fell in LOVE with your work. Bravo!
Thank you for making the art that you do. It brightened my day, and is a huge inspiration to me.
Best regards, Katie
Her response:
Hi Katie! Thanks so much for taking the time of writing to me! I feel very flattered that my work can be an inspiration!
I painted the Blue Lama something like 10 years ago! It is the first time someone writes to me about it!
Thanks again! Best regards to you too!
Isabelle
It was a great reminder for me that everyone, no matter how talented or famous, is also a human that appreciates kindness and acknowledgement. And to say the thing when you feel it because it could help both you and the other person. That kindness is never wasted.
Me attempting to mime this llama, but coming off more like I have a facial tic.
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Cool stuff coming up (in the Bay Area)
If you live here - or find yourself here in the next few weeks - I thought I'd give you a head's up on some seriously cool shit coming up:
- Oct. 3 at The Hivery in Mill Valley
My friend Shannon is an amazing improv teacher (Tyler and I attended one of her workshops a few weeks ago; it was fabulous). She is doing an improv workshop at The Hivery from 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 3 - check it out with the link here.
- Oct. 13 at Marin Writer's Nest in Corte Madera
My friends Janine and Tarja are the genius brains behind Moxie Road Productions, and they are part of Litquake, a SF-wide literary festival happening in Oct that will include a ton of on-stage storytelling events. One of them will be held from 1 p.m. - 4 p.m on Sunday, Oct. 13 in Corte Madera. Get your ticket here.
- Oct. 19 at The Chapel in San Francisco
Gulp. This one involves me. As part of Litquake, I'll be giving an on-stage storytelling performance to the GENERAL PUBLIC (as I write this, my heart rate is skyrocketing with nervous energy) at The Chapel in the Mission District. The event is free - let me know if you want to join (and take a shot with me and Tyler before I go on stage) - you can find out more, and see my bio/pic here.
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What I'm Watching Right Now
My friend Jamie knew I was chilling at home alone one night a few weeks ago and recommended I turn on I’m Sorry, a show on Netflix. What a brilliant fucking recommendation – thanks Jamie! This show is comedy gold like I’ve never seen before. Each episode is around 26 minutes, which I love, and it follows the life of a woman and her daughter and husband. The writing is WHIP smart and so funny that I don’t want to give anything away here. But it is my favorite show. And Tyler loves it, too. So much so that we are rationing season two because we don’t want it to end.
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What I'm reading right now
This section is a little tough this month because I have mixed feelings on the last two books I’ve read. I read Educated, by Tara Westover, while in South America and it knocked my socks off, but also disturbed the crap out of me. I quickly followed that up with Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo. The writing in both is incredible, but the content is not for the faint of heart. The first one deals with Tara’s upbringing in a survivalist family in Idaho; she didn’t attend school until she was 17. The second chronicles the sex lives of three women, all of which are deeply disturbing (and include two court cases, one for statutory rape).
If you’re looking for serious reads with incredible writing, these books may be right for you. If you are instead looking for mindless reads that will uplift you, I’d recommend checking out the gardening section of your library. That is where I’ll be heading this weekend.
I've never been more excited to learn about how to grow me some tulips.
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