A few months ago, I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, at least according to the self-appointed blogging guardians of the serious business of photography. I gave away an image.
Patti Digh’s blog 37days had become one of my daily must-reads, and I was excited for her to hear that her essays would appear in a book. Born out of her stepfather’s 37 days between cancer diagnosis and death, her themes of “say yes, be generous, speak up, love more, trust yourself, slow down” resonated with my better wiser thoughts. I like my daily doses of “live with intention, live in today” to shut down my every-so-helpful internal critic. So when Patti suggested that her readers contribute images for her book, I had a profanity-laced conversation with my critic (Don’t Break the Rules, it squeaked) and I participated. My wiser self admired Patti for asking her readers and her publisher to help make her book the one she envisioned. Now she’s hosting a blog book tour, and today the Annalog hosts Life is a Verb.
Like Patti’s blog, the book is wonderfully full of color and lively conversation. The design is beautiful, the paper feels thick and silky, which surprised me because the publisher sprang for full color in all 226 pages. The imagery harmonizes but doesn’t overwhelm her sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant stories.
Deep in my lo-fi Hipster PDA is my permission slip for life. I wrote it myself on a 3×5 card and signed it for God, since I already had a pen handy. Stuffed between the grocery list, blank model releases and field notes I’ll need when I write up the Montana chapter, my permission slip reminds me to “say yes.”
I was raised in a maternal lineage whose motto was “Oh no, I couldn’t.” The constraints of Germanic heritage, Catholic Church dictums and social decorum bound as tightly as my great-great-grandmother Josephine’s corsets. So many rules: from the stuffed celery on the Thanksgiving relish tray to the proper shades for nail polish. And ladies certainly did not traipse about alone after dark.
Oddly, my tribe of women has a history of spectacular break-outs: before she married, my great-grandmother Amelia traveled alone from Pittsburgh to Pasadena where she saw one of the first Rose Bowl Parades. My widowed grandmother Rosemary packed her children and her mother Amelia into the family car and moved them all to California in the 1950s. After she raised her children, Rosemary went back to school and became an LA County Social Worker in the turbulent 1960s, when nice white ladies didn’t go to Watts. Her daughter, my mother, re-invented herself from housewife to Fortune 500 executive in the space of my 7-12 grade years.
We break out and then something snaps, as if we see ourselves in our Josephine’s fearful, disapproving eyes. We stand tall and straighten our imaginary tiaras, handed down like a treasured heirloom, the crown that says, “I am a good girl.”
What Life is a Verb reminds me is that the Good Girl Crown is about as valuable as the paper crowns handed out at Burger King. The best thing to do with a paper crown is to rip it up. Make confetti with it. Set it on fire. But do something. The best part of Life is a Verb is that each chapter suggests an activity to move from passive reading to life transformation. Patti knows that physical acts can teach our brains new thinking habits.
My husband R tells a story from his college days. His professor said, “if you come to class and take notes, you will get 30% on the test and you will fail. If you come to class, take notes and read them before the test, you will get 60% and fail. If you come to class, take notes and re-copy them before the test, you will get an A.” Move my body, my mind will follow. I don’t need to know why it works. It works when I use it, which is why I wrote out my permission slip.
My mother ripped up her own crown almost thirteen years ago, and discovered that life felt better without the thorns. She is such an inspiring example–she has reinvented her life beyond anything her mother could possibly have comprehended. Patti says she writes to pass on to her daughters what she thinks is really important. As she writes about her family adventures, what comes through is the ways she supports her children to learn to say “yes.” That Digh family tiara must be crusted in Mardi-Gras beads, day-glo paint and sparkly fake jewels.
Read Patti’s book. More importantly, allow yourself to actually try some of the simple and fun exercises she suggests. She offers plenty of suggestions for living with intention, if only we’ll give ourselves permission to try. And if you need one, I can give you a blank permission slip.
A haiku book review
Choose fear or regret
Strong wings come from wild flapping
Someday is today
(my first haiku since 4th grade!)
RSS feed
4 Comments
YES! The description of what you imagine “the Digh tiara” to look like brought to mind the last scene in “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” It delights me that those of us who are fervent 37 Days sisters and brothers can cheer each other on as we tear up our paper crowns…and give ourselves permission.
Hi I came over via 37 days and stayed to read your entry about being a woman photographer. Very interesting ! I only use old school film cameras lomos and holgas so I’m not sure I I’d fit into your category as a serious photographer. All I know is that making space for photography in my life is very important eg I’m off to spend the day in another city and another friend offered to meet me for lunch and actually my heart kind of sunk as I thought how this would cut into my time for photography. Something I find not possible to do with others breathing down my neck. I think believing that we are worthy of the time to develop our creativity says a lot about how much we value ourselves as people.
As for your comments about being afraid to be out in the open on your own as a woman – its makes me so hopping mad that this gender apartheide is created to keep women tiny small afraid and in their place. The amount of times I’ve been told that someone is afraid to out and do things at night. ARRGH! The truth is that the most dangerous statistically thing we can do as a woman is be in a relationship domestic violence is far more prevelent than random attacks.
It depresses me to think of all the curtailed and unlived lives that most women live under even in the West. The women who will not go an see a film on their own let alone travel alone or adventure or try something just for themselves.
Great post. Really great. Ditto on your mom. She is truly awesome. I’d love a permission slip, please?
i’m visiting here from 37days and i love your essay! it is so inspiring to read about how women are able to reinvent themselves at any point along the way. i come from a long line of women who just stayed stuck where they were, unable to stop saying ‘oh no i couldn’t’. in other words their motto appeared to be ‘just say no’. i hope that in my generation, and in my daughter’s and granddaughter’s, that we are able to break out of the mold!