I used the word "imperceptible" to describe myself.  During a writing workshop the instructor provided several prompts.  I chose When I'm imperfect...

What followed included a piece written about my discovery of a minuscule eggshell--or the piece of one.  The fragile shard lay hidden in a pile of mown grass debris left by the side of the road.  I saw its cracked edges peering from the yellowing mound, brushed it off and placed it on my palm so that I could get a better look.  It was delicate--faint crack marks etched inside the broken shell.  A bird must have struggled with some difficulty to break free.

As my piece was "workshopped," (a verb used to describe other writers providing gentle, productive feedback) one of the comments came from the instructor.  "I think there may be a certain assertiveness missing here.  Sometimes when there is a slightly tentative voice, the writer connotes some hesitation, some self doubt, and the reader picks up on that.  You may want to consider increasing your assertiveness."  This feedback rang true. I can be dangerously passive.  There is a part of me that desires to stay small, yet paradoxically wants to be heard, wants others to read my work. Yet I often believe my work is not worth reading. 

I wrote, "The shell is me too--imperfect, cracked, stained--almost imperceptible...and I don't know where the other half of this shell lies, either.  I think I keep searching for it, perhaps with the incongruous hope that I can crawl back in, patch things up a bit and stay safe.  Incubate."

I'm in that stuck place.  Metaphorically speaking, I've ridden my bike to the coast, the warmth and salty sea beckoning me, the pastel blue waves lapping, speaking.  Yet I can't pedal anymore.  I'm weak. I'm inadequate. I'm vulnerable. I'm staring ahead at a concrete block where I'm parked, another gray block at my back.  This stuck place offers no movement.

Life feels too hard--my job a wet blanket I can't shake off one more time.  I let the smotherng weight of it rest on my shoulders, clammy and uncomfortable. Heavy.

Daily life is expensive.  The car needs work. That much?  Really?

The gray already showing in my hair?   No, I can't have the gray.  There are children starving.  I am too vain.  But I go ahead and dish out the money--relieved that I look better--at least to me.

A notice in the mail.  Your mammogram is past due.  It's been a year?

And the roof.  Yes, that's in need of replacement.  Nineteen years already?

And the financial guy--"You really need to save more.  Retirement looms, and you're not near where you should be. Your will needs updating too." Attorney fees.  More money.

And the marriage.  We are quintessential ships passing in the night.  Different schedules.  Different energy levels.  Going through the motions.  Emotionally distant.  "What do you need at Walmart?" "Did you call Pete to get the estimate for the repair?"  A goodnight kiss, a thread of connection.  "I love you," we whisper.  A faint heartbeat.  We long for the weekends.

It can happen early--that drive to be perfect. Linear.  Following all the rules.  No mercy.  A good friend told me recently that when she was a young girl, she wore undies embroidered with the days of the week.  She said she felt guilty if she realized she wore Tuesday on Thursday or Monday on Friday--her mind and heart disturbed that she was somehow out of synch--not following the days of the week in perfect order.  

We live in a world that often chases the childlikeness out of us.  "Fit in.  Conform.  Stay in the box, please." Yet we know the beauty of a child's attempts at something difficult--when they use what they have--when they do what they can--no obsession with an outcome.  Last week my four-year-old granddaughter sent me a text.  It read: Dady and ie or having fun.  Momo brot sum library buks mabe we kan rede them. Lv lilly. My son-in-law wrote back:  "Lilly wanted to text you, and typed that all out for you with no help from me.  She took the phone and wrote that herself."

When childlikeness surfaces, those faint traces of "I could try that," or "that may be fun," we often turn away thinking, "Who am I kidding?  I don't have what it takes to...go on that trip, draw that image; create that recipe like Martha Stewart would."

I have been known to buy lipstick simply because I'm intrigued by its name--Barely Nude, Just So, Moxie Be Bold, Arm Candy, Persimmon Canyon or Dragon Fruit. Is there such fruit?  Yes.  And it's as bright as the pink shade of that tube of lipstick I bought at the CVS without knowing what color I was getting.  Lipstick is comforting.

Before work the last thing I do is apply lipstick. I select a shade and glide the creamy silkiness across my lips. The vibrancy of color brightens my face and buoys my mood.  Sometimes I write a note to my husband and kiss the paper, the lip print an authentic "sealed with a kiss."

Just this week I listened to a Ted Talk.  A brave woman spoke of helping other women in war zones.  When she asked the women living in those dangerous territories some of the supplies they wanted, she was surprised to hear that one of the requested items was lipstick. "If we're going to get shot, let those who would shoot us or bomb us know they are killing beautiful women." 

"God is the author of both love and creativity...it is your creative voice He waits to hear...no one can express the reality of your interior life; you are the only qualified author for this creative work."~Kari Kristina Reeves (from the book, Canyon Road).

I didn't want to write about my feelings of anger. That was the task Julia Cameron asked me to contemplate as I journey my way through her book, Walking In This World, The Practical Art of Creativity. She asked for fifty issues that brought out feelings of anger.  Did I have fifty items?  This assignment felt counterintuitive.  Wouldn't it be more productive to write fifty things that caused joy, brought delight? I hesitated, desiring retreat from the homework.  Yet Ms. Cameron coaxed, "When we think of our anger as something that should be excised or denied rather than alchemized, we risk neutering ourselves as artists."  I began.

At first I doubted I could name fifty. As I allowed myself to ponder, the list materialized--People who can't say "I don't know"; the insensitive man who told me my eyebrows reminded him of Mr. Spock; suffering children and animals; writers who glamorize depression; selfish people; ungracious, negative, critical people; complainers; worriers; feeling tired of upholding others; not getting paid for writing; judgmental attitudes and over-intellectualizing; porn; magazines that don't even bother to respond to submissions; people who think God is mean; loss of youth and bad TV.