My Decision To Blog Regularly in 2021 Turned Into An Ode To Pixar

I just finished watching Pixar’s new movie Soul — amazing how quickly my fresh No-TV-Until-Dark resolution met its downfall — and one of the things I loved was how closely some of it mirrors my own other-dimensional journeys. Or visions, I suppose. Because I see this stuff without leaving the comfort of my bedroom — something I have a new appreciation for, after being apprised of the other options. [spoiler alert] 1) falling into a manhole, dying, trying to beat the Great Beyond, ending up in the body of a cat, and eventually proving so inspirational that you get a second chance or 2) being a sign-twirler at the peak of your craft with truly excellent facial hair.

Number 2 would actually be awesome, except I am firm enough in my own gender stereotypes that I don’t personally want facial hair.

I’ve never seen my own visions depicted in cartoon form is what I’m saying — and it was just as amazing as you’d expect. I wish a Pixar team could animate the other things in my head, especially the unicorn and peacock parade that shows up when I need some swagger. (Peacocks know how to swagger, if you ever need a boost.)

Here are those It Felt Like Pixar Was Animating The Inside of My Head visions, if you’re curious:

1. When I was young, I asked what god was and the answer I got was that all the people are sparks of light and we all merge back into one great light.

2. When I go in to deal with my fears as an adult, I often find myself in a black space, meeting what look like huge black monsters echoing my own internal negative talk until I deal with them in some manner and they dissolve into black dust.

It was fun to see what felt like the inside of my own head on the screen is what I’m saying.

I also had one of those moments where I thought that if I ever got a real job again, Pixar is the only employer I’d be interested, even though the storywriting and visioning is a job for the top of the totem pole and I don’t have any useful skills that would get me in the door. Having animated movies play in my mind on a regular basis isn’t something you can put on a resume. It’s kind of like saying, “I doodle, so put me in charge of animation. No really it’ll be fine.”

In between eating tacos for lunch and procrastinating sitting back down at my desk, I pondered what about the Pixar ethos resonates with me and how I can shoehorn that into my own life and work, rather than being annoyed that I can’t animate my own brain.

Here’s what I got: I love how the movies are always fun and funny, with an element of pure appreciation for life. But what I love most is what someone once told me is the Pixar devotion to the “fuck you in the heart” moment. Yes to that. I love that moment, in movies, in books, in the rare instances one appears in my actual life unaided by a screen.

As I’m writing this, I’m staring out my office window - the hills are cloaked in mist, grey clouds are moving through and two hawks are suspended over the valley of trees. Watching this with Trent Reznor’s Great Beyond music plays. (Just Us, to be precise.)

It was one of those: What an extraordinary world we live in, what a joy it is to just be alive moments. Since I’m in between fucked-in-the-heart moments, it will do nicely.

The 2020 Pantone Color for Fall is "Smoke"

Petaluma has been filled with smoke since August. I’ve gotten used to breathing it. I’ve also started waking up at 4 a.m. again, which is the time connected with the lungs in Chinese medicine. So I place my hands over my lungs and send them love, I feel them filling up with air I’ve purified through the strength of my not inconsiderable will, and I imagine them filling with gold light.

I also bought some herbal sleep drops that I’m taking three times a day, because there’s hippie and then there’s hippie. (Herbal sleep drops are hippie, filing your lungs with golden light is hippie. In case you were wondering.)

I don’t know how new parents do it. Two weeks of five or six hours of broken sleep a night and I can barely function. And it’s not like I’m also caring for an infant. I’m just … not sleeping. Not sleeping means watching Netflix or reading a book or lying in bed praying for sleep to take me, not feeding a tiny wailing human or praying for sleep to take it.

Despite the hazy, wildfire-filled air, I’m so happy it’s fall. I’m pulling out my sweaters and painting my nails autumnal shades and putting pie spice in my coffee. While my boyfriend yells at the maple leaves that fall on his head, I’m super excited to pull out my furry boots and put them on my feet.

Work feels like it’s shifting, I feel like I’m shifting, but I’m not yet sure what we’re shifting into. I’m doing my best to just exist happily in the mystery and do whatever feels right in the moment, rather than worry about it incessantly as per my usual. The thing I do know: Writing has been feeling like a big focus again, after years of putting all my energy into the channeling / healing / and other intuitive hippie pursuits. Now I just want to write atmospheric novels like Night Circus and Candy Queen and take naps. While this particular pendulum swings wildly back and forth (one month it’s on one side of the spectrum, the next month is the polar opposite), it feels like I’m supposed to be channeling healing and guidance just for me right now, and not so much for everyone else. It feels like I’m meant to be going through my video archives and receiving all the embedded channeling and healing for me, and maybe repurposing what I’ve already created to share with people in a new way. That feels really fun right now. Like my creation is supposed to be sharing stories and experiences rather than channeling.

It feels like I just need to choose what I want and follow it - subtracting worry and over-thinking and weird self-esteem nonsense from the equation. It feels like I’m supposed to fill my cup and let that spill over into the rest of the world, rather than me trying to fix anything for anyone else.

P.S. Out of sheer curiosity, I just checked the official Pantone color for 2020. It’s blue. This feels wildly appropriate psychologically and wildly hopeful politically.

Work To Do

Nothing like a global pandemic, human hooliganism, and rampant uncertainty to make you feel powerless. While also reminding us that all we can ever do is pay attention to this moment, and do our best to positively effect moments to come.

Questions I keep asking myself:

1. How can I take care of myself in this moment?

2. How can I help today?

This is what we can do now: Take some small action to either help ourselves or help others, while remembering that helping yourself helps others and helping others helps you. (Well-played, universe!)

Big change wants to happen. Big change in the world and big change for each of us individually.

I’ve been feeling the big change breathing down my neck for years - especially around the summer solstice. For some reason late June is always when I take a good hard look at my life - and occasionally blow something sky high.

Right now, it feels like everything in my life is up for grabs. Where I live, who I spend my time with, what my life will look like from here. It’s unsettling, but it also forces me to do my work. Spend time really checking in to see where my soul wants me to go from here, heal anything left unresolved so the same patterns don’t keep repeating, take care of my health - mental, physical, emotional, and energetic - so I have the ability and strength to do whatever needs to be done.

I have a lot of work to do. The world has a lot of work to do.

It can be hard to do that kind of work when we’re all so tired. So self-care has become more important than ever, just when it feels the least possible or the most selfish. But that is when devoted self-care becomes imperative. Resting, taking time for yourself, time to do whatever nurtures you and makes you happy. This is on longer optional. Because 2020 is not letting up and we need to meet it as best we can from a space of being filled to the brim, not depleted AF.

We need to trust ourselves and trust the course of our lives. Which, again, feels like one of the hardest things to do, especially now.

So this is my new mantra, one that I may need to tattoo on my forearm so I don’t keep forgetting:

Things To Remember:

Breakdowns are not to be feared. Today’s breakdown leads to tomorrow’s epic productivity and general satisfaction.

(Here’s looking at you, Wednesday morning.)

I’m allowed to do things that feel good and stop doing things that don’t.

(Like Facebook. Why am I still doing something that? My god, why?)

Read books on paper.

(It feels so much better. Like an actual, physical sensation of betterness. Kindle is great for $3 romance novels but the experience of reading on my phone is like the difference between reading Facebook and talking to a good friend in person.)

Eat some goddamn vegetables, Amber.

(You have energy when you do that, and energy is something you greatly enjoy.)

Don’t be lazy about exercise.

(I know it’s tempting but don’t.)

Water helps everything.

(When in doubt, drink some, shower in some, sit in some, go to the beach and listen to some.)

Pause and appreciate what you have as often as you can.

(Petting the cats, drinking the coffee, listening to the fountain, basking in the sun, staring at the oak trees, reading next to the man. Notice it, appreciate it, be in it.)

Taking Each Moment As It Comes

I’m sitting on our freshly-planted grass and hoping a bee doesn’t land on me. I like bees, I just don’t like them anywhere near my skin with their stingers.

Sonoma County just re-opened its beaches for properly social distant activities and this excites me even more than the buttermilk I bought for Saturday’s pancakes. Sand and sea keeps me sane and showers and rubbing salt all over my skin haven’t been sufficient.

I was off the internet for almost a full month to make some big life decisions. Getting off social media helped a whole lot more than expected. I love social media, but sometimes it’s like taking a cheese grater to my soul.

(If the internet drives you crazy too, here’s something that will help.)

In the midst of those big life decisions, I had to get very present. Sometimes that’s the only way to curb the anxiety spiral. Be fully in each moment as it’s happening, and trust the future to take care of itself.

Taking each moment as it comes is practically a requirement when the world is spinning enthusiastically off its axis. It soothes the nervous system to just notice what’s going on around you - the sound of the sprinkler hitting the grass, the smell of barbecue, the cat hiding in a flower pot to better stalk rodents. From that point of peace, we have a better connection to the small voice that knows what’s next, and can guide us there.

No mouse is safe.