Soul Style: Breakthrough tip for the week of May 11, 2016

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style. -Fred Astaire, dancer, actor, singer, musician, and choreographer (10 May 1899-1987)imgres

We never learn by being perfect.  At the heart of great writing lies the willingness to learn. And at the heart of that willingness lies knowing that there is no such thing as a fatal writing mistake.

Set your timer for twenty minutes. Go to a mirror and look at the writer you see reflected there. Begin your conversation with your soul writer self with these words: I know that you have been waiting for me. Spend at least five minutes with your reflection. Go back, start the timer and write without stopping till it goes off. I can’t wait to hear what you discover. ms

Here’s what Vanessa Nirode discovered writing about invisibility:

If I disappear, I’ll end up running the whole fang dangled show, I just know it. I won’t want to, not really but someone, probably Jonsie with insist on it. I’ll tell him no and then no and then no absolutely not under any circumstances no. But he won’t listen and I’ll shuffle my feet and put on that top hat Aunt Elsa sent back when she was still kicking and trolling through vintage shops in tiny towns in rural Georgia

She sent the hat to me, a collapsible top hat with its mechanism still in perfect working order, with a note. She wrote the note on a yellow lined 3 x 5 card. It said, “For all your beautiful inner workings that no one can see. May you always be able to collapse and pop back up when needed.”

Have you ever looked at the inner metal frame of a collapsible top hat? They really are ingenious. Metal hinges and rods and springs joined by tiny pins all working together. Some collapsible top hats get rusty and don’t function so well anymore. But mine works perfectly, even after almost 100 years. I’m always impressed when things last long. So much doesn’t these days.

I didn’t mean to be the one who would become invisible. It just sort of happened. Everyone was talking about it. Some people wanted it desperately. Some couldn’t fathom not looking in a mirror and seeing their own face staring back. I was sort of indifferent and, honestly, a bit sick of this face. I would have asked for a new face but those were all spoken for – for at least the next 7 or 10 years so I thought having none at all, or at least the illusion of none at all for a while might be the way to go for me. Maybe I could get more done if people weren’t always trying to look in my eyes and convince me that their cause, their passion, their way, was superior to my own.

I always found avoiding other peoples’ eyes difficult. I lock on to them, become mesmerized, and forget everything I think is true. Silly, right?

Maybe when there are new faces available I might get one. I suppose I should sign up for one now. But it’s hard to know what kind. I mean, who will I want to be after my invisible years?  I guess I could just let them pick, the people down at the Face Replacement Center. That’s probably the best plan. I think I’ll go theretomorrow. I hope there won’t be a line. People spend hours sometimes at the service windows, pouring over the brochures. So many kinds of faces are possible.

Aunt Elsa went through a slew of faces in her lifetime. The one she died with was the one of a beautiful young Asian girl with coal black eyes. The face never seemed to quite fit and looked most often as if it were floating above her body rather than being attached to it. I would turn off the video part of chat whenever she called. I just wanted to hear her voice: low and cracked but with a slight lilt whenever she was excited or talking about a recent thrift store find.

I’m going to embrace being invisible. I suspect I’ll spend a few years just doing helpful things for people, running the Random Acts of Kindness Association. Then I’ll wander off into the mountains somewhere, somewhere where I can always see the ocean. I’ll watch the animals, the deer and the rabbits and the bears. I’ll sit with the flowers until they grow around me and I forget that I’m not a part of them. And maybe when they call to tell me my new face is ready, I might not answer.

—–Vanessa Nirode

 

 

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