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“I am always posting pretty photos from my life and brain downloads on Instagram. ”
— @LAURABRADBURYWRITER
I’m writing a non-fiction piece right now (besides editing A Vineyard for Two and a million other things) about how moments of kindness were one of the things that got me to and through transplant. 💕 There was this guy on the IV team with disheveled gray hair who sat with me for an hour after successfully inserting an IV (after about 20 previous tries by the nurses - they did their best but it was like mining for diamonds). The day before I had passed out in the street from septic shock. I was hauled off to the hospital by ambulance, and was completely freaked out by all of a sudden being a hospitalized sick person with cholangitis & PSC. 💕 I was alone. I was scared. He saw it and took my hand. In a calm voice he told me about his quadruple bypass five years before. “I was shocked and terrified just like you are right now, but you know what? I made it through and back to normal life. You will too. It’s going to be hard work. It’s going to be scary. I know you can do it though. I can see it in your eyes. You’re tougher than you realize.” 💕 His kindness melted something that had iced over inside of me. I cried. I kept crying. He didn’t leave, even though I could hear the pages coming through for him. He sat with me and let me cry, all the while making sure I was not crying alone.” 💕 That moment of kindness will live like an eternity forever in my heart. There were more of them - from nurses, from friends, from complete strangers... 💕 That is one of the main points of this human journey, I believe. Recognizing we’re all in this together, and helping each other get through the difficult times. Each time someone did that for me, it remains forever etched in my heart.
I’m great at starting things. House builds, paintings, purging my bedroom, books, bullet list journals... 💫 Finishing? Doesn’t come so naturally for me. Somewhere around the middle of the process things start to get hard and, to be honest, kinda boring. 💫 I did this for TEN years with my writing. I started about seven different manuscripts and completed most of them to about 75%. I wanted to write. I wanted to see my books published. I just couldn’t finish. 💫 A wise writer friend of mine @elizboyle said, “you learn more in finishing the last 10% of a book than you do in the other 90%.” #truth 💫 So how did I suddenly go from being a started to a starter AND a finisher? Short answer is I got diagnosed with a terminal disease. Nothing lights a fire under one’s butt with quite the same panache. Trust me. 💫 But how can you become a finisher without the whole terminal disease part? Here are my tips: 1) pick ONE thing you want to finish. A creative project? A life project? An emotional project? If you put pressure on yourself to finish everything you’re going to fail. Just pick one thing. 2) once you have that thing, figure out a plan for finishing it - Break the work into reasonable increments and most importantly make a commitment to yourself to NOT jump to another project until you finish this thing. 3) Expect it to be hard and feel gross. Resistance is real folks, but it helps if we can anticipate it and fully expect the finishing part to feel unnatural and difficult and just YUCK. The key is to recognize you have to experience the yuck in order to get through it and reach The End. 4) Pick an enticing reward for yourself when you’re done. I do this with every book - usually it’s a pair of shoes I’ve been coveting, The key is the delayed satisfaction of something you truly want. 5) remember you’re gonna die. I know this sounds harsh but being alive is a terminal condition for all of us. Trust me, when you face the end of your life (I’ve been there) you’re going to feel unhappy you didn’t do those things you dreamed of. Bonne Chance! Let me know how it goes.
Yes it’s snowing and it’s gorgeous out there. Still, it’s also February and I know some of my friends are struggling right now. ❄️ With some, they’ve been blindsided by someone they loved and they’re heading into a bleak Valentine’s Day. With others, it’s health issues that just won’t give them a break. I know some living with depression that always lowers over them at this time of year, and some exhausted by helping other family members. We all go through seasons of struggle whether we care to admit it or not. ❄️ So today I’m speaking to those who are having a difficult time. You are not alone. I’ve been there and I got out. You will too. ❄️ In the meantime, let me just tell you one thing - sometimes all you need to do is survive. I always used to beat myself up about not coping better, not being happier, not doing enough... ❄️ It was only once the storm passed I realized that just surviving WAS enough. Just getting through one minute, then one minute more. Actually, in those moments, just surviving was plenty. ❄️ No need to be graceful, or pro-active, or controlled while surviving. You can be as messy as you need to be. It doesn’t matter. Just surviving is a lot of work and you are doing a great job of it. ❄️ Keep surviving and the flowers will come. Promise.
The wet snow today was pretty for a while until it got colder and Clem got nailed in the head by an ice ball. ❄️ Now I’m over it and dreaming about sunshine and beaches, like this summer in Greece. ❄️ So looking forward to going to Bali next month. In the meantime, everyone stay warm this weekend, and away from the trajectory of ice balls.
One of the things that made me the happiest about selling La Maison des Deux Clochers was being able to pass on a lot of the furniture to my brother and sister-in-law, Manu and Zoé. 🍇 This summer they bought an old stone house - basically what the French would term “une ruine” - the same as La Maison des Deux Clochers when we bought it - in a beautiful wild area of Burgundy called Le Morvan. To orient you, the nearest big town is Autun - known for its Roman ruins. 🍇 Some people thought they were crazy, just like some people thought Franck and I were deranged for buying La Maison des Deux Clochers. The tiny village is stunning though, and their house is going to be beautiful and quirky. 🍇 Remember in My Grape Paris when Jacinthe tells me that she refused to let me pay her for all the furniture she left us when we moved into their own apartment on the left bank? Instead she asked me to remember it, and pay it forward when I was able to do so. 🍇 It makes me so happy to know I did.
Three is an important number to me. I’m always drawn to it. 💗 I’m the middle of three sisters. I have three daughters. Franck is one of three siblings. 💗 I’ve always loved triptychs. I like the word “trinity”. I have a thing for trilogies - reading them and writing them (A Vineyard for Two is the first book of a trilogy). 💗 Three feels just right to me. Slightly off kilter, slightly off balance, a bit of chaos. Both long enough and short enough, with the added bonus of being varied enough. 💗 Do you have a magic number?
When people ask where I am with my writing and I tell them I just handed my A Vineyard for Two manuscript to my editor, they often exclaim “you write so fast!”. 📖 Um. NOPE. 📖 I think traditionally published authors can often afford to write at a leisurely pace, but many self-published authors I know publish four novels a year, if not more. 📖 I know...demented. Yes, I’m green with jealousy over here. I thought that post-transplant I would be able to put out two or maybe three books a year but, nope, I seem to still be a book-a-year writer. 📖 People often ask how I “do it” i.e. publish about a book a year. Truth? I let a LOT of things slide. 📖 I’m not the most domestic person to begin with, but when I’m trying to finish a book my lack of tidying, folding laundry, etc. becomes truly alarming. If we didn’t pay for a cleaner I’d be concerned for our health & safety. 📖 I don’t volunteer at my kids’ schools. I often don’t answer the phone. I don’t iron. I drop all my clothes on my “floordrobe” before climbing into bed. I don’t garden. I don’t do two hour long yoga classes. My “fuck-it radius” is extremely wide. This is how I make time to create. 📖 I’m a big believer that none of us can do it all, so we have to figure out our priorities. Writing and FINISHING books is one of mine, so that means a lot of other stuff has to NOT get done to make room for creation. 📖 What are your priorities, and what do you let slide for them? 📖 Thank you @designsponge for the gorgeous photo.
About eight months after my transplant we’d moved into a new house and there were major renovations happening at the house next door. I’d been around construction my whole life, but this was the most poorly run job I’d ever seen. 💫 I didn’t complain about the noise or the huge trucks coming and going, because I am sympathetic re: construction woes. However, the sub trades consistently blocked us in our driveway every day so we couldn’t drop off or pick up our kids from soccer, school, etc. Etc. This pissed me off big time. 💫 One plumber in particular was unrepentant. I’d asked him several times to move his van and not to park in front of our driveway, but he always did. 💫 One day I was running late to pick up Clem from school and I was hedged in by the plumber once again. I lost my shit. He was being an asshole, and I was done. 💫 He began yelling at me, saying I should park down the block, not him, calling me a bitch, etc.. I paused for a beat and then I felt like my incandescent rage made me grow three feet taller. 💫 “I’M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!” I leaned closer and shouted into his face. “I’M NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING!” It was a battle cry that came from deep within me, and I almost felt the air shake. 💫 The plumber stared at me, his eyes wide. He apologized, then scuttled into his van and parked it a block away. He never parked anywhere near our house again. 💫 It wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how much my transplant journey had transformed my relationship with fear and conflict. I had gone from being a person afraid of many things to a person afraid of barely anything. 💫 I’m still frightened of the idea of anything happening to my kids, and getting PSC again but besides that...not much scares me. 💫 A dear friend made me a necklace I wore often in my journey to transplant with the word “intrépide” engraved on it. It was my goal to be brave, to be fearless, to not back down in front of the threat. 💫 Low and behold, I realized going through hell allowed me to achieve it.