Tag: Julia Cameron

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Handwriting

The New York Times recently ran an article titled “We Could All Use a Little Snail Mail Right Now.” Naturally, I jumped on it! I have more than once said with chagrin that the greeting card business–my business–is dying. Self-fulfilling prophecy or a depressing realization?

According to the NY Times article, the average household receives only 10 pieces of personal mail per year. Aiyiyi!! If true, that is even worse than I thought.

My stash of card and letter writing supplies

But according to the article, choosing a card, picking out a stamp, and writing by hand is not only good for the person who receives the card, but can be good for you, too. It just feels good to do something nice for another person. Sending a card is one of those small, feel-good tasks. As Hallmark says, “It’s the biggest little thing you can do!” It shows the receiver that you’ve spent a little extra time and effort for them.

And writing by hand is beneficial, as well. Julia Cameron, in her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way, is adamant about the benefits of writing by hand. She suggests that we write at least three pages by hand every morning, a practice otherwise known as her Morning Pages. She claims that writing by hand does much more for us, internally, than does writing on a keyboard.

In another article, The Times cites research that finds that children who learn early to write by hand may learn better, retain what they read, and might even be more creative. “Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.”

Funnily enough, a friend just texted me about taking a walk today and I replied that I wanted to finish writing this letter first. She suggested, facetiously I’m sure, that I have AI write up a first draft for me. There’s yet another fly in the ointment, perhaps a subject for another day. Do we really need a tool that takes us even further from our own authenticity, our words, our thoughts, our interiority? I don’t think so. It’s a little heartbreaking for me to have one customer after another ask, “Does it say something inside? I never know what to say.” I always reply, “They are blank inside, ready for your loving words.”

Having said all of this, I will admit that I don’t send cards quite as often as I plan to. So there. But you know, one can always do better.

“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“. . . the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“Handwriting is the garden of the sciences.” ― Abu Dulaf

“Writing longhand opens up and exercises parts of the brain that keyboarding doesn’t. It does get more uncomfortable as we age; then again, it wasn’t all that comfortable when we were learning it – remember? Handwriting is a lovely thing, though, with practice.” – Julia Cameron

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Morning Pages

This year as I celebrate 25 years of my card business, Ampersand Cards, I’m marking 25 years of self-employment and my life as an artist. This is also my 25th year of writing daily Morning Pages, a la Julia Cameron and her book The Artist’s Way.

I always verge on saying that her wonderful book changed my life, but I think it’s more accurate to say that her book inspired me to change my life. With her words in my head, I left a soul-crushing job and struck out on my own, with writing and art. I have never looked back.

So I began the daily ritual of writing Morning Pages. This is one of the key components in Julia Cameron’s instructive course. First thing in the morning you write out, in longhand, three pages (give or take) of whatever comes to you. It is a kind of emptying out, letting loose all the big and little threads of thought/feeling that are roaming around in your brain. It can be a great way to work through all sorts of problems and issues, too. It has been the best part of her teaching, for me. Not a discipline, as many people seem to think, but for me a daily ritual that is one of the loveliest and most welcome parts of my day. And this year marks 25 years of doing it almost every single day, wherever I happen to be. Most days I want to have just a few more moments.

I always write sitting up in bed, a cup of tea by my side, one or two dogs lying by me, the tree-filled east view out my windows. Perfect. But now that I’m older, it hurts my low back to sit like that. Ugh. I’ve tried a few things to make it better ergonomically but the results are only minimally helpful. To think of doing it anywhere else is horrifying! And there is absolutely no room in my bedroom for any sort of chair. Anyway, a chair. Really? I don’t think so. I guess it’s a little silly to carry on like this when it hurts, but nothing I’ve come up with is as satisfying. No, I believe I’ll trudge along as I’ve been doing. I only have to hobble for a brief while after I stand up. It doesn’t take that long to unwind my back . . .

When you find a thing that is just so satisfying it seems ridiculous to stop, doesn’t it?

“For me starting the day without a pot of tea would be a day forever out of kilter.” ― Bill Drummond, $20,000: A Book

“Pages clarify our yearnings. They keep an eye on our goals. They may provoke us, coax us, comfort us, even cajole us, as well as prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. If we are drifting, the pages will point that out. They will point the way True North. Each morning, as we face the page, we meet ourselves. The pages give us a place to vent and a place to dream. They are intended for no eyes but our own.”― Julia Cameron, The Miracle of Morning Pages

“Think of your pages like a whisk broom. You stick the broom into all the corners of your consciousness. If you do this first thing in the morning, you are laying out your track for the day. Pages tell you of your priorities. With the pages in place first thing, you are much less likely to fall in with others’ agendas. Your day is your own to spend. You’ve claimed it.” ― Julia Cameron, The Miracle of Morning Pages

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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The Birth of Ampersand Cards

This year marks the 25th birthday of Ampersand Cards!! As I always used to say in the early days, I haven’t lost the house!

I can hardly believe all these years have gone by and I’m still at it, still have energy for it, and am planning some exciting changes this year. I started the business after reading Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, with my sister. The book broke me wide open! I was working then at an incredibly difficult job as a therapist with alcoholic and drug-addicted women. The good thing about the job was that it made me feel very grateful for the upbringing and life I’d had. The bad thing was that I was ill-prepared for the soul-crushing stories I heard every day from clients. And with almost no support on the job, it did not take long for me to realize that being a therapist was not my true calling.

My earliest handmade cards, using sponge prints

I left the job. My sister, who lived in Tucson at the time, suggested we start a card business. I thought that sounded good, so I got going. Pretty quickly we both realized that we couldn’t do it long distance. so I went ahead on my own. She remained my well-loved moral support.

Anyway, I sat in my yard one lovely day and wrote a bunch of verses. Then I played around with how to make the cards, settling on sponge prints like I’d taught my sons to make for their boxes of school Valentines. I cut shapes out of sponges, painted them with watercolors and pressed them onto cards, embellishing with glitter glue. Then I glued the words on. I spent an inordinate amount of time searching for glue that would not make the cards curl up, and in that search, befriended two wonderful local cardmakers.

Tired of all those sponge prints and glitter glue, especially for wholesale, I tried this for awhile.

I still have the notebook in which I tried out names and logos. 3 Boys & a Dog. Imagine Cards. Real Dog Cards. 2Trees Cards. Tea & Chocolate Cards. Us Girls Cards. In June of 1998 I registered the fictitious name (I thought this was a funny term) of Ampersand Cards. It turns out that, to sell handmade greeting cards, I had to undergo a criminal background check!

In August I obtained a business license and the rest, as they say, is history. Okay, it’s not a particularly well-known history. Neither I nor Ampersand Cards appears in Wikipedia, for example, or even, I would guess, any local history. I do have a friend here who calls me LAKF, which stands for Local Artist Kay Foley. I am grateful for that.

The first store to carry my cards was Poppy, right here in beautiful downtown Columbia MO. I stood nervously in front of Barbara McCormick, then owner, who very graciously looked at my cards and said, “So you’re a poet!” She agreed right then to try out my cards in her beautiful shop. To this day, my cards grace the shelves at Poppy.

I’ll be continuing the story of our 25th birthday throughout this year, a year of change for me and for Ampersand Cards. Stay tuned.

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.” ― Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

“I decided that the world of work is not conducive to JOY–and so I became a dreamer of dreams that come true. I’m much happier now.” – Kay Foley!

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.” ― Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Collecting Dust

My well-worn copy of The Artist’s Way

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I write each morning. Ever since 1998, when I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, I’ve been writing what she calls Morning Pages. It’s just a way of clearing your mind for the day, writing whatever comes up without trying to write well or be pithy or profound. I write on looseleaf paper and I guard this routine selfishly. The odd day when I miss might be because I have to leave the house super early to catch a plane (obviously not often)–but that’s about it. People tend to think this shows great discipline, but I do it because I love it. It’s a routine that I adore–in my bed in pajamas, sun rising out my window, cup of tea on one side of me, dogs on the other.

Some of my Morning Pages. Some!

So I’ve been doing this for 24 years. You can imagine the amount of paper. I usually write at least 3 pages, often more than a ream of paper each year. After my aunt died and we read every scrap of her handwritten notes, I was in a panic to clear mine out. Not just minutiae, there’s also a lot of petty grievances and complaints in those pages. What if I got hit by a bus and my family read all of that?

But the pages had piled up again. This winter, I suddenly developed an allergy to dust mites. Well, I had been saying that if I was allergic to dust, considering the state of my home, I’d already be dead. My bedroom and studio are filled with things. Far too many things. Books, papers, clothing, pillows, scarves, shoes, jewelry, art, art supplies, piano music, tchotchkes, heart-shaped rocks, etc. Thus, those two rooms, especially, are very difficult to dust. So I hardly ever do it.

The other day, sneezing like mad, too miserable for a planned road trip, I attacked my bedroom. There sat piles and piles of Morning Pages, some in binders, some just loose and stacked, going back to 2008, gathering loads of dust. Ugh.

But what to do with them? Paper. I had to recycle. But what if those workers who go through the recycling started reading? I could just imagine one saying to the other, “Listen to this!” Laughing, casting aspersions on my very personal ramblings. No, I could not bear it. So I sat for hours, mask on, tearing the pages in half before taking four garbage bags of torn pages to the recycling center.

I considered holding back 2020 and 2021, each of them much more than a ream of paper. But why? For historical reasons? Would I ever read them again? Would I want to read them? I often think I’ll go back and pull the best parts of them, the pages in which I really was writing something interesting, discovering something or other, recounting some important moments or days in my life. In the end, I tore up those, too, and off they went.

Marie Kondo would be proud, but only a little. I have miles to go before I stop sneezing.

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” Nathan W. Morris

“Tidying is the act of confronting yourself.” Marie Kondo

“Clutter is often the result of so many good intentions.” Becky Rogers

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”