“She Is Madly In Love With Her New Stripey Socks”
I think it happened when I painted the stripey socks. In that moment she became, like the Velveteen Rabbit, real to me. And she whispered her name to me. She is Anna. And she is meant to be the focus of a book (Series of books?) for women midlife and beyond. On September 23 this 365 Day Search For Happiness will come to a close. On September 24 the next 365 day project will begin. It will be “The Year Of Anna,” writing and illustrating her book, “The Year Anna Woke Up,” BUT THERE’S MORE! I am inviting all of you, dear readers, to join me with your own 365 Day Project. You have 3 weeks to decide what you want to do, start a blog if you don’t have one already (You can set one up for free, quick and easy, at blogger.com.) and you can come here each day and share, in the comments, a link to your blog post of the day. We can do this together! We will be a force to be reckoned with! We will GET THINGS DONE! We can change our lives. If not, why not? If not now, when? It’s time people, it’s time. It’s never too late to achieve your dreams, and it helps to have accountability partners. Will you be mine? Anna and I will be yours! [I would like to put a thousand smiley face emojis here!]
And here’s the thing. As you have seen, in the last year, my year of searching for happiness, it won’t all be days and days of a happy, sunshiney journey. I’m an artist, we have little fits and bad days and doubts when we’re sure we can’t do this thing, when we have no clue how to go on. And then we have exhilarating days when we get a lot done, when the work moves forward in a joyous way. We have days when we just want to sit with our coffee all day, wine all night, and a couple of pugs in our lap. But NO MATTER WHAT, WE WON’T GIVE UP, WE WILL NOT STOP. Listen, if I, a lifelong anxious, bipolar, depressive with PTSD for whom the Mobile Crisis Unit had to be called a little over a year ago can undertake a 365 day journey and carry it out, DO it, not miss a day, and be ready to launch into another one YOU CAN TOO. There simply are no excuses. This is your “one wild and precious life” as Mary Oliver wrote, and I’m asking you right now — DO YOU WANT TO DIE ONE DAY WITH THE DREAM IN YOUR HEART YOU NEVER WENT FOR? I don’t know about you but I’m not willing to die never having achieved my dreams, or having at least tried my level best to achieve them.
And I’m scared, oh Lord have mercy I am scared. I’ve only been drawing for 5 years but from the beginning what was in my heart of hearts was to do an illustrated story book for women, especially women midlife and beyond. (I’d say my “target audience” is women 50-100+ but I think Anna’s story can have appeal for women of all ages.) A book that would encourage and support women. It is also a way to tell my story without really telling anything I don’t want to tell, and having fun with the quirky things in my life, as well as embellishing, being whimsical, and making things up for fun along the way. That’s my journey. Everything has been pointing to this for the last few years but gracious me it’s just like Dr. Seuss wrote in one of my favorite of his books, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now. “The time has come, the time is now … Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now?” Well you and I are Marvin K. Mooneys and it’s time for us to go too!
And there are 2 ways you can help me, and I am asking from the bottom of my heart for your help. This is “I’m doing everything I can to help you, will you help me too?” This is requiring a lot of chutzpah for me to ask but you know what, I am 64, I don’t have the money to advertise anything, I am not charging for anything, I just want to create a community around this project, for you and for me, here on this blog and on my Instagram account where drawing Anna will be a huge project this year and I need cheerleaders! So can you do these two things:
- If you are not already on my mailing list will you please join it? And can you ask your friends and followers to join it? AND if you think joining along on my 365 day project so your friends, family, followers and list members can have a place that inspires them to do their own project will you post a link to this post and ask your list members to join my list. This would be positively HUGE for me and would mean the world.
- Will you follow me on Instagram? If you could be my cheering section there while I draw Anna and write her book it would help me so much. Visit, like the posts, say a few encouraging words. Click on the word Instagram to go to my page and follow me. Oh, I could just hug and kiss you real big for doing this. Perhaps, by building an audience for Anna over the next year, by the time I’m finished I will have found a publisher, built an audience, and been able to encourage thousands of people to go for their dreams right along with me. This is what I am hoping, and trying, to do. ALL THESE THINGS!
So here I go. I would like to hold your hand along the way. And it’s like this… remember that song we used to sing when we were little, or at least we did in Anna’s and my day… “Playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dolly three, climb up my apple tree, slide down my rain barrel, climb out my cellar door, and we’ll be jolly friends, forever more…” It’s that sort of thing. I’m asking you to be my playmate for the next year. Will you?
And please share this post anywhere you can. There are so many people with dreams stuck in their hearts. We could save and brighten people’s lives all over the world. It’s my BIG CRAZY DREAM and I’m not afraid to ask. Never be afraid to ask for what you need, and then get your rear in gear and act on it!
Let’s DO this thing!
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
Anna’s stripey socks just made my day, and those pugs are adorable! I love the rich vibrant colours. What a great picture. xxx
Thank you so much dear Jenny, that means so much to me. And yes! I want Anna’s stripey socks too! Cheers! 😀
Drat! Still no dream…
But I love your Anna Project and will follow along.
And perhaps one day my dream will let itself be seen, maybe the moment I stop searching?
Dream on, sister!
Love
Silke
Thank you so much dear Silke, I will love to have you along. And you know, if you just start keeping a wee notebook and jot down every single thing you can think of that makes your heart happy you will find your dream. And every little dream you ever had way back to when you were a child. And what are the things that make you feel wistful or fill you with a sense of longing? What do you want your legacy to be? What will you leave behind one day? What do you want to share with the world? Something that is yours and yours alone. There are a few places to begin to discover your dream project… 🙂
Love,
Maitri
Thank you for these prompts, I will move them in my heart (and in my notebook of course)!
Oh Silke honey you will find your dream, I feel it coming, I really do, and I will be right there celebrating it with you. I hope you will come here and share it with me… 🙂
MY LIFE AS A POET book is my version of a 365 day blog. an interesting way to weave the story together!
you are on fire my sister! you are a lamp? just don’t blow a fuse. one day at a time, one pair of striped socks at a time, one vase of flowers, one flowing gown, one wild hair-do!
breathe in power, breathe out peace
xo
ka
Dear Katya, yes, your book is an amazing project! I can’t wait to read it one day. And no, I won’t blow a fuse! One huge thing this current 365 day experiment has taught me is how to pace myself with this work. I am an extremely structure oriented person and it helps me get things done. Of course things wax and wane and you find your way to fit a new project into your life and it helps me to have a project to work on, it gives me a sense of purpose and meaning in my days.
And yes dearheart, breathe in, breathe out…. and let’s DO this thing (You yours, me mine!) 😀
M. xoxox
i meant to say you are a lamp! not questionmark!!!
🙂
How great, Maitri!
I already follow your posts, of course — wonderful inspiration for the year ahead in your new project. I’m not an Instagram person, but will follow along regardless.
I think my next 365 day project, as I’m a regular blogger anyway, probably needs to be about both traveling and being at home, whether in Asheville or Quebec. Both are special places, and even though I’ve been so, so fortunate to have visited so many other places, at this point in my life, I’m reconsidering what are the heartspring places, vs. wandering and experiencing. All those who wander are not lost, as Tolkien wrote.
Thank you so much dear Lisa for being such a faithful follower. It means so much to me. And your new plans for your blog sound absolutely wonderful, and it will be particularly interesting to me to read about how your traveling times hold up again what you call your “heartspring places.” I love that. And Tolkien was right. And the thing is I do an amazing amount of “traveling” without leaving the house. There are so many ways of traveling, even if one is an armchair traveler… 🙂
I had a blog (actually, a few) and abandoned it. Perhaps as you posted in SWW, it is time to renew myself and my blog.
Hello Lucinda,
Yes a blog can be a wonderful thing! Take it out, dust it off, set yourself a project and begin again! I’m excited for you. Let me know how it goes. 🙂
Hugs,
Maitri
“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind….”
Dusty Springfield wrote those lyrics and those words capture how I have felt for a couple of years. The windmills of my mind have been turning – not necessisarily in a negative way – but definitely in a chaotic and constant way. I am seriously considering joining you on this 365 day journey. I am already nervous about keeping such a commitment to myself….
Do I have something to write about very day? Thinking……..
Ah Dear Maggie, let me tell you something…
Last night I drew Anna and her pugs again, you will see it sometime today. I didn’t get a chance to paint much of it last night. And then I got up this morning, just sat down at my desk, haven’t even had my first sip of coffee yet, and my first thought was, “OH MY GOD!!! WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Spend the next year drawing Anna’s story and writing her book? Impossible!!!!”
I felt somewhat like that last year starting the current 365 day project but the stakes feel higher now, it is a goal with a purpose. And what happens if at the end of the year there is no book? Well, I’ll tell you what, if that’s what happens that’s what will happen, BUT, based on the outcome of this year’s experiment I think I can do it, and further I will BE here every day doing my level best. What this year has taught me, and oh Lordy there have been days I didn’t know how I would do a blog post at all, but I asked myself, “Maitri, if not this, then what? What else are you doing that is so all-fired important that you can’t write a simple little blog post. It can be short, a picture and a few words, but you will feel awful tomorrow if you didn’t do it…” One single blog post, that’s all I had to do on any given day. And today will be Day 342. And my whole life has been changed for the better in so many ways for having done it.
And Anna and her book, well, it’s more daunting because I am not an experienced artist, I have no training, and I am flying by the seat of my pants with every single little drawing, but I’m DOING IT. One day, one drawing, at a time. And at the end of the year maybe I won’t have a book ready yet but I’ll sure have a lot of it done and I’ll have a LOT more experience under my belt. And I’m really scared but I’m going to do it.
There is strength in numbers. Creating in community is awesome as you are experiencing on Sunday nights. And I would love to have you with me on the journey with your own project. Imagine how you will feel at the end. I’m telling you sister, you will be over the moon… 🙂
I’ve dusted off an old blog, updated it to my liking and I’m waiting for the 1st of september… (Just one more day!)
Not quite sure how it all will work out, but… Showing up each day will be key 🙂
Big hug!
Yay darling Mieke! Good for you! You can DO this. And if you haven’t started by the 24th you can start that day and blog along with me and any others that show up here to blog in community with us. I’d love to see you. In any event remember it’s just one blog post at a time, don’t look at the whole 365 days, just one day at a time gets the job done, and honey, I promise, it’s so doable, and it will change your life. Godspeed! YOU CAN DO THIS!!!! 😀
I had a blog in the past as a way to summarize all the personal development and self-help books I was reading but I have not posted on it for several years now. However, you are an inspiration Maitri and I am toying with joining you in blogging again. Since I focus so much of my life already on health and wellness it will probably be something related to that ongoing journey.
And, I commented on your FB page about Anna and her stripey socks being adorable. I have an Instagram account just for following others. I never post there myself. Now I just need to remember to look at it every day as I would love to follow your progress with your new book.
Oh Joan how exciting that you might be blogging along with us. I can promise you a 365 day blog challenge is life-changing. And it doesn’t matter what you blog about as long as it is something meaningful to you. More important is the act of showing up each day and doing it, developing a practice. This works magic in our lives. I can’t wait to finish this challenge and start the next but then again I’m in no rush. I’m about to write #342. There’s still time left, and heaven only knows what else might happen between now and then! 😀
I’m most active on Instagram at the moment, so I’ll most definitely be following along there.
As I mentioned there, definitely leaning towards dusting off ye olde blog in October and starting again, starting anew. 🙂
That sounds wonderful Victoria honey, good luck with whatever you decide… 🙂
Oh yes please! I feel on the cusp of something and I’d love some community cheering myself. <3 Hopefully this will keep me motivated. Time to MOVE.
Oh Beth how delightful! I will love to have you with us!
Keep your eye here on the blog for ideas about how to get started with your project, some thoughts and ideas for setting it up in the weeks ahead. We start 3 weeks from tomorrow which will help people get things together for their projects. I can’t wait!
Thanks so much and yes! It’s time for us all to move isn’t it? Up up and away we go! And I can promise you you will change your life by doing this. It will open up whole new worlds. It is an incredibly powerful thing to do. On we go!