Jennifer Jeffrey, Writer & Editor

Bliss in Sweaty Socks

Have you ever found something that, once you found it, you suddenly realized how very much you’d missed it?

That happened to me this summer. It was a tremendous feeling.

First, a little history: though random people at the grocery store often reminded us that we had enough kids to make up a basketball team (har! har!), my family didn’t actually do organized sports. School was held at the kitchen table, and “p.e. class” consisted of chopping wood or fixing the fence so the sheep wouldn’t escape (again). Soccer? Swim team? When you sew your own clothes and make your own tofu, there’s no time for such nonsense. I occasionally entertained daydreams of spiking a volleyball or kicking the winning goal, but alas: it wasn't meant to be.

At some point during my teens – at 14, maybe 15 – it suddenly occurred to me that while I might never be in any starting lineup, I could put one foot in front of the other like a champ. I began getting up at dawn and running on a dirt track that ran along a ridge near our house. Being out there in the grey morning light, sucking down the cold Oregon air, had a magical effect: it cleared my head and cleansed my spirit, and when I finally tottered back to the house, sweat-slicked and red-faced, I always felt far better than before.

During college, I ran up S.E. Division Street to the reservoir next to Mt. Tabor, counting pine trees with each lap around its wrought-iron border. I still remember the shadows that dappled the surface of the water, the slapping sound of my heels against the ground. When I moved onto the campus at Oregon Health Sciences University, I ran the hills that looped behind and in front of the campus, up and down, over and around. Years later, in San Francisco, I ran through Pacific Heights, up Broadway and down Jackson. I discovered the Lyon Street Steps. I wore out multiple pairs of shoes. I saw many sunrises + sunsets.

I’ve written about my knee injuries here before, so I won’t bother you with them again, but when the first (non-running-related) injury happened in 2002, it scraped a sizable chunk of cartilage off of my kneecap; high-impact sports were officially out.

And so I stopped running. It was the sensible thing to do.

I delved deeper into yoga and took the occasional spin class, but whenever I saw someone’s feet flying by on the sidewalk, I felt a particular twinge. I had another knee injury in 2006, followed by another surgery, and I didn’t even think about running for a very long time.

Until this summer, when I suddenly had to. Had. To.

I pulled on an old pair of shoes and walked outside, and… whoa. Not running for a few years does a number on your pace. Keeping my injuries in mind, I cobbled together a program of power walking-jogging-running that seemed to work; a couple of weeks later, I discovered a formidable set of stairs and added those to the mix.

Re-discovering running was like unearthing a part of me that I had lost; it brought back memories that I thought I had forgotten, sensations I thought might be gone forever. Every time I went out, I thought: I missed this! Oh: how: I missed this.

One of my favorite moments is when, about 15 minutes into a run, I feel the pull of resistance, and the thought crosses my mind: This is hard; I'm tired; I shouldn’t have come out today, but I push through it, and by the end – feet flying, shins aching – it’s like pushing through ticker tape.

It’s not exactly pretty, this jog-walk-step-thang I have going on, but it works. My knees complained during the first few weeks, but now I'm feeling no pain. It clears my head and cleanses my spirit, and when I stumble back home, sweat-slicked and red-faced, I feel so, so, so much better than before.

What have you lost that you found again?

Staying Upright While the Teeter Totters

September has bled into October, and my blog is dangerously close to becoming the Random Photo Friday Blog, flecked with the occasional snapshot, the rare reflection.

Murky grey mist shrouds these San Francisco mornings like a cloak, and fear slides in with the fog. The Dow Jones Industrial Average wavers and plummets in jagged lines like those on seismograph; the planet gasps. The presidential election plays out around us in a Dali-esque circus, sound-bites layered with photo clips, speckled with talking heads chirping and chattering over one another, lips flapping, eyes darting, fingers wagging.

I see you talking, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.

These are the mad days, the last days, Rome crumbling, Babylon falling. Is that handwriting on the wall, or is my vision playing tricks on me? I’m trying to keep up, to stay open, to believe, but sometimes my head just spins. A friend pointed the way towards the song “Imagine” recently, and I nearly wept. Imagine there’s no countries / it isn’t hard to do / nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too…

Do we even dare imagining such a thing in these fraught times?

On my run this morning, I stopped to catch my breath at the top of a set of stairs and placed my hand on the steel rail. It was stone cold, wet with dew. I stood there, feeling the texture of the metal with its grooves and chips, listening to my breath rush in and out -- for one moment, completely still.

If only I would do that more often.

When I can't seem to find a quiet place, I pick up my battered copy of When Things Fall Apart : Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron, and read things like this:

How are we ever going to change anything? How is there going to be less aggression in the universe rather than more? We can then bring it down to a more personal level: how do I learn to communicate with somebody who is hurting me or someone who is hurting a lot of people? How do I speak to someone so that some change actually occurs? How do I communicate so that the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some kind of basic intelligence that we all share?

…

Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet.

…

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.

Is that too simple? Or might it be true?

Clarity. Fearlessness. Compassion. Most of what is happening in the world right now is beyond my grasp, but these are three things I can aim for, here + now. Somehow, just thinking about them makes me breathe easier.

Hello, you.

That Last Couple of Drops Makes All the Difference

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last post, and I’m not going to grovel, I’m just going to say: wow. Wish I could feed you stories about diving off an exotic reef, or at least dipping my toes into the Pacific, but no: I’ve had projects + deadlines + stacks of Things To Do. My fingers, lo, they have been flying.

But the air is beginning to clear, and I’ve taken a couple of days to replenish my sleep deficit, and I'm starting to feel human again. The air is turning crisp, and I'm greedy for the last few weeks of summer. I’ve taken to getting outside early in the morning, feeling the fog dissolve into mist against my skin as I measure the light with my eyes, pleading silently with it not to go. I’m not yet ready for dark mornings and murky afternoons. Light: please stay.

Coming up for air, I stumbled across this strand of inspiration:  perusing the New York Times online, I found  an intriguing piece on John Stewart, brilliant-witty-handsome news anchor with serious content beneath the snicker. Buried on page three was this gem by Stephen Colbert (speaking here about working with John):

“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” Mr. Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.

Score.

That paragraph stopped me for a moment, pulled me back to center as I wondered: what am I distilling?

Am I still digging for the pure stuff, staying the course through the last couple of drops?

Am I being patient, disciplined and focused? What’s coming through?

(It takes space + time to parse those questions. They get right to the heart of everything I hope + fear as it relates to writing + communication.)

More soon. Really and truly.

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I don’t often blog about the projects I’m working on, but one of my client sites launched recently, and I'm so excited about it, I had to share:  479° Popcorn is an artisan popcorn venture based here in San Francisco, the brainchild of a wonderful woman named Jean Arnold. It was a pleasure to work with Jean and the rockstar team at The Engine Room, who designed this gorgeous packaging that has been mentioned by everyone from The Dieline to Packaging  Digest.

Organic, local ingredients + sustainable business practices + meticulous attention to detail - 479° Popcorn is the real deal, and I feel fortunate that I got to be involved from the start – working on everything from the packaging copy to the website.

It's so much fun to see it out there in the world!

If you happen by BiRite or Blue Fog Market, or if you’re far away from San Francisco and get a jones for caramel popcorn dressed in fleur de sel – 479° Popcorn has the goods.

Sister on Line One

I’m sitting at my desk, seven different windows open on my monitor, Petra snoozing on the floor behind me, airplane jut-jut-jutting through the sky overhead.

The phone rings. It’s one of my sisters calling from Portland.

She: I was reading your last blog post, and I... have a question.
Me: Sure. What’s on your mind?

She: I’m not sure how to say this, but… I’ve noticed that the way you’ve been writing about the past - you know, on the farm and stuff - has been changing.
Me: Oh? How so?

She: Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but lately it sounds like you’re less… bitter.  Not that you were bitter before, exactly. But maybe you’re feeling softer about things? Or more nostalgic or something.
Me: Hmm.

She: Does that sound weird? I mean, somehow it just seems different lately, or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Me: Well. I haven’t been aware of a difference, but: sometimes I do feel bitter, absolutely. Other times I feel grateful. And sometimes I feel a sense of tenderness for all the good moments.

She: I see.
Me: Sometimes I feel like my spirit is like a kaleidoscope. Depending on which way the light is hitting it and how shaken up it is, it reflects back different feelings. But it’s all there, all the time. Warm fuzzy feelings and the opposite.

She: Yeah, I get that.
Me: I guess I’m becoming more comfortable with the idea that I can feel a lot of different ways about something. And that each of those feelings is equally valid.

She: We’ve all dealt with our childhoods in different ways, haven’t we? You work things through by writing about them. I like to talk things through out loud. We’re all trying to make sense of it as best we can.
Me: Yeah.

She: Like the more I talk through it, the more I tell my story, the more I feel like I understand it. I kind of have to talk about it. If I kept it inside, I wouldn’t be in a very good place. Maybe that’s how it is for you with the writing.
Me: Yeah. That’s exactly it.

She: Okay, that’s all I wanted to say. I have to go back to work now.
Me: Okay, me too. Bye.

(I love you, MJ. Hope we keep having these discussions for decades to come. XOX)

Photo Above: Sisters.

Late Night Snack

Hot. Crunchy. Drizzled with sweet cream butter + flakes of artisanal salt.

Is there anything better?

I think not.

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On nights like tonight (cold San Francisco nights, when a chill whips around the sharp edges of tall buildings + creeps beneath the chunky plaster that binds the windowsills), when I’ve got a to-do list that fills the limits of the page and spills over to the other side, a strange thing happens.

I feel content.

(Shh: don’t tell): I like to be busy. Too busy, even.

I like it when I have so much to do that it strains the limits of the Possible.

When I ask myself: how will it all get done? And in answer, I get a peculiar rush of adrenaline, a particular thrill.

Call me Type A, a workaholic, if you will, but there it is: I like the sensation of being pressed around the edges, of taking the hay of Too Much To Do and turning it into the gold of Done. Perhaps I’ve read Rumpelstiltskin too many times.

You might say that I’m running from the emptiness of unscheduled time, but I know that terrain well. The white noise of Nothing to Finish, the long, blank stretch of Everything Has Already Been Delivered, the beasties that emerge from these barren tundras to howl in my ears... these are landscapes in which I am a seasoned traveler.

But nights like these (cold, rushed, frantic): I like them best.

Shh.

Want some popcorn?

mysterious gifts of memory

It has happened countless times: in the middle of a yoga pose, chapped heels pressed against the bubbly surface of my mat, arm stretching towards the ceiling, I am suddenly assailed by a memory, a bright, stinging arrow from the distant past.

These memories are distinct from the normal chatter of my restless mind, that weary chorus I know so well: What will I… Why did he… When will it…

These vivid, emotional scenes unreel in rapid motion, short films projected on the screen of my skull. Where is memory stored, I wonder? In the dusty crease of a hip joint, to fly out when that joint is eased open? Or is it the angle of light against the studio wall that flashes against my brain and triggers a memory of the same light on a different day, millions of minutes and thousands of hours ago?

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Summer. 1996.

I'm still living in Oregon, driving a short distance to visit an elderly couple I dearly love. Silver-haired, bright-eyed, they both speak with faint Scottish brogues, rolling their r's, a gentle purr that prowls beneath their sentences.

He was the pastor of the church my family attended while I was a teenager; he and his wife singled me out from my brothers and sisters. “If you didn't already have such wonderful grandparents,” they said, “we'd want you to be our granddaughter.”

They were both dapper dressers; he, in trousers creased razor-sharp, shoes shined, shirt crisp; she, in tweed skirts and ruffle-necked blouses with pearl buttons. When he squeezed my hand in his, I could feel the bones of his knuckles. She would often wrap her arm around my waist, pressing her soft, wrinkled cheek against my shoulder. Unused to such affection, I stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do, not wanting to move an inch.

It was he who met me at the front of the church one Sunday morning when I walked down the aisle during the closing hymn, declaring my decision to be baptized. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, he said, his hand on my back as he guided me out of the water several weeks later.

Whenever I went to visit them, they sat close together, knees touching. They recalled the story of their courtship in exultant voices, stealing glimpses at each other, tears pooling in the corners of their eyes. She sent cards after every visit, covering the white space in her neat, looping script: Thank you for coming to see us. We love you. We pray for you and thank the Lord for you every day.

A Letter from the Editor

Today seems like a good day for a State of the Blog Address. After a week of dizzying heat that delivered summer on a sweat-soaked platter, San Francisco is cool and foggy once again. It’s Monday: time to get down to business.

I’m envisioning this post to be like a letter from the editor that prefaces so many of my favorite magazines - you know the type: in the top left corner is the editor’s photo, often in crisp black and white, eyes looking calmly at the camera, shoulders square. A cozy chat follows: “Here at Thus-and-Such Magazine, we’ve always believed that…”

I love those letters - that sense of purpose, that warm, reassuring tone. It makes me feel like I’m gathered with all of the other readers in a dark auditorium, or around a crackly fire, and someone is saying: Here's the inside story, people. We've got a plan, a map, a vision. Just follow along, and all will be revealed.

As editor-in-chief here at the Jennifer Jeffrey blog, I’m here to tell you – just as you suspected, we don't have a plan at all. I know – you're not surprised. But it feels good to say it just the same, to put it out there, to acknowledge that I have no idea from one day to the next what I'll post, or if I'll post, or even if I should bother posting at all.

And to admit that I'm truly amazed that anyone still checks this space out, because it's so inconsistent and haphazard. And to say that I'm really grateful for those of you who do, because you know what: I like you. I like you a lot. Those of you who comment, and those of you who don't; those I've met and those I haven't met yet - you're good people, all of you.

I know it's gotten a bit weedy and overgrown around here – I get it, I do – and it feels terrific to say so, even though I don't have a prescription for it.

Remember when this blog thought it might be a food blog? When I posted pictures of swiss chard + ice cream and wondered if feminism was compatible with eating SLOE? Ah. Then there was the introspective period, when “we” became “me,” and I drew the curtains while I grieved. Then there was the Little Bit of Everything phase.

Lately, this space has become more of a clipping site, a place where I post pictures and links to things that inspire me. Over the last few months, I’ve found myself craving beauty, seeking out light + bright, dark + quiet, beating down the door to every museum and gallery opening in town, soaking up color + texture, images + words. Art has been the balm for my soul, and I who love words have just wanted to look and listen, not write. Even the pages of my personal diary are largely blank.

The result, of course, is very untidy, and it certainly doesn't make for responsible blogging. Every day, I talk to my clients about Staying On Message, and Creating a Consistent, Authentic Voice, and Sticking To a Publishing Schedule, and on and on.

AND I DON'T DO ANY OF THAT.

But I want to, I do.

And eventually, I will. I'm feeling the itch to write again – slowly, you understand. I don't want you to start Expecting Things.

But I do want to say: thank you. Thank you for hanging in there through the twists + turns + dry patches. I know you have many marvelous reading choices, so the fact that you check back in now and then means a lot.

And fear not: here at this blog, we've always known that we’re going to find our way eventually. We aren't sure when that will be, exactly, but we hope you'll stick around while we meander towards that glorious day. As a token of our appreciation, we'd like to extend a special offer to you, our loyal readers – if you subscribe today, we'll give you 60% off the cover price for the next TWO YEARS! What can we say – we're feeling generous.

Who loves you, baby?

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(Oh, and while I'm in housekeeping mode: that black bar near the top of the page? Several of you have politely coughed and murmured: um, that bar thingy doesn’t work. When we click on those words? Nothing happens. Yep, I know. Those words should be clickable, and soon they will be. I’ve always believed that when you experience tremendous frustration on a website, you're that much happier when things finally start working… Wait. No. I don’t believe that at all.)

Drawing Umbrellas + Marveling at the Brain

I did everything I wanted to do over the luxuriously long weekend, and a little more besides.

Observations:

+ Plump, freshly-picked purply-red organic cherries are worth every penny, but at $8 bucks a pound, I'm tempted to have them set in platinum and wear them on my ring finger. Bing Bling.

+ Pan's Labyrinth was haunting + lovely + sad. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and clap my hands over my ears during a few of the scenes. I get kind of freaked out over sadistic military personnel who enjoy torturing the enemy. I know - it's just a movie - but I can't convince myself that nothing is wrong when someone is getting their face crushed on the screen in front of me.

+ Capsule SF in charming Hayes Valley was full of fabulously creative people selling quirky, beautiful, fantastic handmade stuff. As a friend of mine said: "We're so lucky. Do you think street fairs in Wisconsin have stuff that is anywhere near this quality?" Not to knock Wisconsin, but she's right: we're really lucky. Psst: there's another Capsule show in October.

+ It's nice to get out of the city and drive across the bridge and have dinner in a sleek new space with a gorgeous brick oven and a Chez Panisse alum behind the counter, even if they still have a bit of work to do on what comes out of the kitchen. Adore those chandeliers.

+ My ongoing love affair with the New York Times online was stoked further this weekend with this article about Jill Bolte Taylor's discoveries following her brain tumor. If you haven't seen her TED Talk, you simply must. It's about 18 minutes long, and TOTALLY AWESOME:

I love the way she uses the word "choose" towards the end. I can choose to engage the right side of my brain. I can choose peace + connectedness.

I can choose joy.

+ Speaking of joy: less than one week to the R.E.M. concert.

+ So we can choose, right? But. If - hypothetically - you should happen to slip on a narrow wooden stairway and your tailbone should happen to thump-thump-thump down several of those same stairs, you may find that this whole business of choosing your frame of mind is rather more difficult than it seems, especially when pain radiates up through your torso and down through your legs every time you sit or stand or move a single inch. Hypothetically.

There are only four working days this week. Huzzah!

Finding Truth in Contradiction

Kal Barteski is one of those people who make me eternally grateful that someone invented blogging. I likely would never have known about Kal without her blog, and yet now she is a constant source of inspiration to me. Artist, author, entrepreneur, mother, wife - she's brave, creative and refreshingly frank about life's ups and downs. In a word: Rockstar.

Back in March, she posted a painting of a woman struggling to feel beautiful and she wrote this message:

This piece was inspired by my real life body and the real life weight that bothers me... A lot. I know taking the weight off is a slow process - and I think that it's just another part of the missing ease and patience I need to find for this old soul. I drew an accurate version of my body - and I disliked it - I fought with some creative block and pushed through it. When it was done - I really, really loved it. It was beautiful. Maybe so am I...

The painting struck a nerve with so many of us who deal with body image issues, and Kal announced that she would take commissions for "Tiny Custom Ladies" for one season only, during the month of May. I couldn't type fast enough to put my order in.

Take a peek at some of the beautiful ladies in Kal's Gallery. They're tiny pieces of magic.

At the start of the year, I told my sisters that this was going to be the "year of art" and that any and all presents they got from me would be some kind of art. Since then, art in one form or another has indeed been flying out my door, but when I saw this, I decided that it would be my belated birthday present to me.

Unfold (ing)

I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded,
there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely through the wildest storm of all.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Robert Bly

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In the early 90's, tumbling into an exciting new romance, I spent the better part of two afternoons typing my favorite poems into the computer at the research lab where I worked at OHSU. I still remember some of them: Curiosity, by Alastair Reid; Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden. There must have been at least a dozen. I couldn't wait to share them with my hazel-eyed crush, for him to "get" them like I had, for us to form a deeper connection around those living, pulsing words.

I printed the poems out one by one, and presented them in a bundle, tied with a ribbon.

A few days later, fizzy with anticipation, I asked him what he had thought of them. "Oh, those," he said. "I haven't gotten around to them yet." He saw the flicker in my eyes. "I'll read them soon. I will. Really."

He didn't, and I swallowed my disappointment, but I couldn't fathom why he hadn't pounced on the poems and gobbled them up like candy. I gave similar gifts to others, later - a book of Rumi, a slender volume of Pablo Neruda - always hoping that the object of my affection would be struck by the same line, the same turn of phrase, that I had been.

It took years before I finally realized that the person I wanted to send poetry to was myself.

That the "you" in the poems I loved most was the "you" of the self I was in the process of discovering. That tiptoeing into the depths of such a poem was like stepping closer to meeting Me.

Kind of like a romance: Heart-pounding. Scary. Thrilling.

The poem above is just such a piece.

Where I am folded, there I am a lie.

Yes.

Exactly.

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