Amanda Palmer, Making Shit Up, and Interviewing Neil Gaiman

I love Amanda Palmer. I should say - I love what I know of her, which is her music, her public persona, and one of my favorite music videos of all time.

Every time I watch that video, I dance. I want my name in lights, too.

I also love her unabashed enthusiasm for wild creativity. This morning, she posted her commencement speech to the New England Institute of Art Class of 2011 -- she implores artists to both remember that we are dealing in the realms of life and death, and, simultaneously, to start making stuff up. Work. Say yes. Even if -- especially if -- you have no idea what the hell you're doing.

The best things in my life have come my way because I said YES when I had no clue what I was doing.

Co-write and produce a new play? Yes!

Co-write a screenplay for Francis Coppola? Yes! I have never even read a screenplay, but yes!

Fall in love and get married? Great!

Get pregnant, give birth, and raise a kid? I'm sure I'll be saying YES in the face of total ignorance for the rest of my life with this one.

I grinned when I read this part of AFP's speech:

and then figure it out. and you might fuck up. and you probably will fuck up. but you will learn stuff... my husband, neil gaiman, who's in the audience today, started as a journalist. and he loves telling the story of how he got his first jobs as a journalist when he was a young, starving writer with no work, by calling up magazines and lying to them about all the other magazines he had written for. and they didn't check. they just believed him. so they gave him jobs. but he proved he could write.

I grinned because I once totally fucked up while interviewing her husband, Neil Gaiman. I was 27 and brand-spanking-new to the world of freelance writing. My first-ever published piece had just run in Time Out New York. I was high on the thrill of seeing my name in print.

The editor called me one afternoon and asked if I could cover the audiobook awards ceremony that night at Tavern on the Green, hosted by Neil Gaiman. I looked down at my pajamas. I said YES.

However, I didn't have much time to research.

Which is why, when I got my two minutes of interview time with Neil Gaiman, I asked him a question about his award-winning book Caroline.

No, that's not a typo. I said CAROLINE.

Mr. Gaiman smiled kindly, answered my question, and the interview continued.

The next day, when I realized my mistake (for the record, his quite famous book is titled Coraline), my face turned crimson and I thought I'd dissipate in a cloud of embarrassment. CAROLINE! No wonder he smiled! I told no one about my mistake, turned in the story, and vowed to do better research next time.

Now, hearing AFP talk about her husband's own seat-of-his-pants beginnings, I wonder if he was smiling not at me, but with me, as he recognized a fellow bullshitter trying to get a chance to prove herself.

Amanda Palmer, thank you for sharing that story. And for your grand part in creating this "beautiful, crazy, lawless new world," as you say.

Neil Gaiman, you'll always be a class act in my book. Thank you for your generosity with that adorably green 27-year-old writer who was making it up as she went.

I'm still making it up.

I plan to for the rest of my life. There is no Plan B.

The Visual Life

"One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it."

--Dorothea Lange, who was born on this day in 1895.

Precious Wild

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

These are words I've read dozens of times. It's the last line of the poem "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver, a poet whose lines have cropped up in my life again and again. She writes such quotable lines, phrases and sentences that strike somewhere deep, like sudden fresh air.

These words returned to me yesterday unexpectedly, out of nowhere, a clarion call. The measure of a life is forefront in my mind lately, as I watch with awe as my new son grows and learns, at the very beginning of his wild and precious life. Here I am, at 32, in a new phase of my own life, wondering how it will unfold, how I will treasure and structure these new days. Oliver's imperative feels vital to me.

So here is the beginning of my answer to her question. This is the abstract version of my life list; these things will never be checked off as tasks completed. These are more like the hues and tones that I'm using to create my life.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

• Witness - See - Listen
• Pay attention
• Live simply - like a ripe strawberry is simple - naturally luxurious and beautiful
• Be authentic - imperfectly
• Love courageously - balls out for love, always
• Nurture my community, my tribe of friends and family
• Write. Write about my life, write letters, write books, write lists, write about not writing. Just write.
• Leave good notes
• Improve the square meter of this world entrusted to me
• Raise my son with rich love, respect, care, and inspiration
• Seek and see the Divine in every single human
• Weave the legendary love and partnership I've been blessed with
• Laugh. Dance. Sing.
• Inspire
• Look with awe

Usually, I don't like to list what I don't want, but I need reminders sometimes in the thick of a day, so here are the things I am NOT here to do with my wild and precious life:

• Worry about having a flat stomach
• Keep a perfectly neat and clean house at all times
• Seek power over anyone else
• Compare myself to others
• Judge anyone, least of all myself
• Control everything. Control anything.
• Behave well

Early Days

I wrote these words in late March, a few weeks after Felix was born. Tomorrow, he'll be two months old. It's still like this, but even better.

I'm a mother now. I grew this being inside my body, a part of my journey. Now Felix is outside, starting his own life, his own journey. I think of a Margaret Mead chapter read lifetimes ago, talking about a name given to a child -- He Who Has Made Me Mother.

I had no idea how intense these feelings would be. I know there's no way I could have known. The surprise is sweet and so worth it.

I look at this beautiful baby and my heart blows wide open -- I mean, huge, like the most sweeping view of a landscape you've ever imagined. Huge like the universe, huge like this sweet blue planet suspended in space. I literally ache with love for this small creature.

I knew I would grow to love our child eventually, but I secretly feared that it would take a while. Nope. This happened within 24 hours, and it gets stronger every day.

Feelings rush in like flash floods. I nurse him in the afternoon on day 12 and start to cry because I realize that he's going to leave home one day. I think those thoughts with absolute sincerity. No irony or sarcasm.

He falls asleep lying bare belly to belly with me after a midnight feeding. His arm is slung over my breast like he owns the place. I watch him breathe and feel useless in the face of such love.

When he stirs in his sleep, I place my hand quietly on his torso and he settles back down. My presence has the power to comfort, to bring ease. I pray that I am enough.

I go around all day with my soul cracked open, pouring out light and tears and joy.

I had no idea.

Love Thursday: Soon.

Taken by Chris, my beloved, my co-conspirator, the man with whom I'm heading into this wild unknown.

I shared some thoughts about my pregnancy so far with the incredible Kimmi yesterday, and she nudged me lovingly to write an essay about one of these threads. I love her for that. Since November, my words have exploded, gone flying in all directions, transformed mostly into images and photographs and quiet moments instead of cohesive blog posts or essays.

I know they'll return, better and more essential than before. For now, I turn inward, waiting.