Go Big or Go Bust: Day 197 (Lesson from the garden - self-confidence from potatoes and courage from a dream)

August 04, 2015 in go big or go bust

A number of weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd been down in the basement and the poor potatoes looked like Rapunzel without the benefits of gravity. My gardening filmmaker friend Marian Evans (of Wellington, New Zealand) advised me to "Stick those spuds in the ground!" (something like that). And so I did, I went and dug six inch holes and stuck them in the ground with their 'eye stalks' pointing toward the sky. These poor potatoes are left over from our crop last Fall and, try as we might, we hadn't gotten around to eating them. By the summer, they were a little squishy and, as you can see, actively taking matters into their own hands.

I finally got around to planting them in early July and a week or so later, was thrilled to see what Marian must have know would happen. The little stalks had turned green and were even sprouting tiny leaves.

Look at what's happened in the past three weeks. One potato produces a whole bush.

Which brings me to the lesson I got from these potatoes: each one of us, potatoes included, has a yearning to do what we were brought to Earth to do. And I'm moved by the faith of those potatoes in the basement. They weren't getting what they needed even though they were giving all the signals that they were ready to get planted ... and still they kept on trying, growing, using up the energy of their potato selves to get to some sunlight. (There are two very small windows in our basement, just enough to give you hope.)

It reminds me of a night back in 1985 or 1986 when I sobbed myself to sleep after wailing to Mr. Green that I didn't know what to do anymore, if I was supposed to make a feature film, then okay! I'll make it but I need money from somewhere. (I'd been applying for and not-getting a lot of grants.) Or should I give up on this artist/filmmaker idea and try to get a job in advertising or something? Or should I devote myself to being a mother and have a whole bunch of kids? I felt willing, I felt open and I felt desperate to know what I was supposed to do..

That night, I had a dream. It was one of those dreams which feels important, like a message. I was in a 1950's type kitchen with a witch. She wasn't good or bad, but she was powerful and forceful. She commanded me to make the feature: "Don't stop now! You're almost there!"

That dream gave me a powerful confidence to keep on going. It wasn't easy and it wasn't finished til the Fall of 1989 but then the film, a feature starring Lea Floden as Louise, got into the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Festival and the Panorama of the Berlin Festival and forever changed my life.

I'd love to have that kind of dream again. The difficulty of this job of getting The Louise Log out to a larger audience has me doubting if I should be devoting any more time to it. On the other hand, it feels like that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And then I think of what those potatoes had been going through from January to June. I bet they had their doubts.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 164 (on going BIG ... and on limits)

July 02, 2015 in go big or go bust

I'm not sure if you caught the pictures of our large and over-crowded garden and the gentle suggestion by a friend of a friend on facebook : "All things in moderation." Who knew that the garden would be a training ground for the next phase of The Louise Log.

lettuce, the AFTER   (You can't see this but these plants are four times the size of those in the BEFORE picture.) — lettuce, the AFTER (You can't see this but these plants are four times the size of those in the BEFORE picture.)

Being new to gardening, I don't know how others deal with the good luck of having too many seeds grow into plants. Last year I just went with it. It's true the yellow squash got moldy from a lack of air, the dill and mustard greens went to seed before we could even get to them and the cucumbers ... forget about the cucumbers. They were so numerous that we couldn't cope. Even the local food pantries began closing their doors when they saw us coming, bags bursting.

So when it looked like a similar scenario might be unfolding, I broached the subject with Mr. Green of thinning out the seedlings. As usual, he was quick and decisive: "I’ll never do that. It’d feel like throwing out … babies!" I realized that I was going to have to take responsibility here.

And so I did. I faced off with that part of me that wants to do more than is possible, the part that's both overly thrifty and greedy, that wants to cram too much into a day, too much into a garden, and ultimately wants to delay looking squarely and decisively at what is possible. I surrendered and thinned out the lettuce.

The issue is limits. In the garden, it's the limits of physical space within the garden fence. With The Louise Log it's much more complicated, there are all kinds of limits.

I'm grateful to my friend and colleague Mhairi Morrison (star and creator) of the wonderful show Feathers and Toast for writing this beautiful description of a crisis of limits (falling behind schedule) I know too well.

"The temptation would be to go into next week as a chicken and flap around madly trying to do everything that I have been putting on hold for months but instead I shall focus on the eagle and soar above it and remember that the chips will fall where they will."

You might want to watch an episode of her wonderful madcap show. It's purportedly a cooking show but I'd call it more like I Love Lucy meets new age philosophy. There's even an episode on 'being the eagle'.

Mhairi Morrison in an episode of Feathers and Toast

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 143 (doing the artist dates ... at last)

June 11, 2015 in go big or go bust

Taking Julia Cameron's Artist's Way, I went hook line and sinker for one of her two key tools: the so-called Morning Pages. And I've stuck with them religiously for the past seven and a half years.

But a second key tool, the Artist Date (with which you 'fill the well') did not go so well. You're supposed to do an Artist Date alone and it's supposed to feed your soul. You can go to the beach or to a junk store. You can go to the movies or get a massage. You can't sleep. And you have to do it alone. As good as I was and am with the 'Morning Pages', I've been that bad or worse with the Artist Dates. There just never seems to be enough time! Yes, because I'm a living person, I've accidentally done things which would qualify as Artist Dates. But I never did them as a result of planning or deciding to give myself that time. The Artist's Way assignment is to do at least one a week. I've done so few that it isn't worth counting.

But the effect that this vacation has had is to make me realize that I actually can not afford to dismiss my need for these.

And so today, Day 1 of my new life since vacation, I scheduled an Artist Date. Okay. Guess what. I never got around to it. It was supposed to be watching an episode of The Comeback and spending at least thirty minutes looking through a fashion magazine. But I did feel compelled to do something else which totally qualifies - gardening! While listening to the birds. You may remember that picture of me 'crawling around in the dirt' as I planted the garden? Look at that garden now! Wall to wall green! Alas, it's mostly weeds but my OCD goes haywire with mad joy weeding and I had the time of my life. In fact, when my allotted hour of weeding was up, guess who didn't leave the garden.

Garden left unattended while we galavanted =  weeds/crabgrass/the 3rd Thing and a few struggling vegetables. — Garden left unattended while we galavanted = weeds/crabgrass/the 3rd Thing and a few struggling vegetables.

An interesting twist on the old 'weeds' problem was caused by the fact of our ignorance as first time gardeners last year. We didn't realize that it's a bad idea to let anything go to seed and let the dill and the mustard greens do just that. This year, we planted neither dill nor mustard greens but look what I pulled up out of the rows where the basil, garlic, sugar snap peas and zucchin are struggling to reach the sun.

L to R: Three plastic grocery bags (15 lbs) of dill and two paper bags (15 lbs) of mustard greens

Guess what we'll be having for dinner for the rest of June. And guess who is going to schedule that Artist Date for tomorrow.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 104 (AWOL again)

May 03, 2015 in go big or go bust

My husband and Co-Writer Mr. Green looked at this picture and noted: "You should have had a trowel or a packet of seeds so it doesn't look like you're just crawling around in the dirt. Or gardening gloves. Too bad you weren't wearing gardening gloves." I pointed out that he had been the one behind the camera. Our discussion drew to an abrupt close.