blogging – Page 13 – Kristina Hamlett writes to connect, heal, and be a force for change.

All Done!

It’s here! I’m done!

These past 30 days have unveiled so much! I am certain I want to post twice a week: Tuesdays and Thursdays. My Tuesday posts will be health related–be it physical, spiritual, plant-based, mental or financial health. My Thursday posts will be writing related. I would like to devote that day to my work, featuring other writers and storytellers and general career and reading updates.

About halfway through this bloglikecrazy challenge, I felt the topics and the flow came easier than last year. I didn’t struggle the same way. There were only a couple of days where I felt like I had nothing to share but when I focused, the frustration disappeared.

If you ever feel like the writing process is stale, I encourage you to challenge yourself to bloglikecrazy or develop a plan of your own.

As for me, I can’t wait for next November!

Figuring It Out

Day 29. I was supposed to use this month to figure out how I want to move forward with the blog and website in general. There is no doubt there will be a forward.

I know I no longer want to feature new vegan recipes every week–just from time to time. I recently decided to sell my E-book (What I Love About You: A Guided Journal to Writing Your Proposal and Vows) on Etsy only. I also know I want to regularly feature other writers and storytellers. This past month has shown me I can write my way to clarity.

I am looking forward to what incorporating the body positive yoga class will do for the direction, too. If I hadn’t taken this challenge, I may not have found my way to taking this class. Tomorrow is Day 30 but it feels right to recognize what blogging like crazy has done for me today.

Into Space

At the James River Writer’s Conference in 2016, The Library of Virginia honored Nikki Giovanni. During her interview, she said something that has stuck with me. I don’t remember her exact words but the sentiment was if we were to take a team to explore a new planet, a writer should be aboard the ship to document everything, to tell the story.

She said it so matter-of-fact and passionately. Without a doubt, there needs to be a creative soul to give voice to the uncharted. It made me think of how important writers are, how important the art of storytelling will always be.

It is how we convey who we are, on Earth and maybe someday floating into space.

Healing

I don’t have much in me today. I am not sure if it’s because I am 26 days in and it feels a little like I have senioritis.

But there are 4 days left after today so something will be written each day until I have accomplished my goal. So here it goes:

In my post about being whole, I wrote about wanting to start a yoga or Pilates class in the new year. I was talking to a co-worker (and devoted Yogi) about self-care and all of a sudden, I couldn’t come up with a reason to wait. She told me about a studio close by. I found a class on the their site that embraces women of all shapes, sizes and levels. My first class starts Sunday. I haven’t been this excited in so long. When I read the description, it clicked and even if it doesn’t live up to my expectation, I will know I took steps.

I didn’t wait for my healing to begin.

Punches

I went to the movies today to see Creed II. As I enjoy movies about underdogs with exercise montages, I loved it. It made me think about how many punches can be taken before any one of us throws in the towel.

As I have mentioned before, Hubby and I are dealing with a serious health issue and therefore, we have been extra careful of anything that remotely resembles a cough or sneeze, etc. He came down with something Wednesday night so we were sidelined from travel. He is feeling much better now and for the most part, I am used to illness changing our plans.

But there is a part of me (I have shared with him already) that feels like a punching bag. Part of me is angry at lupus. Part of me is angry at immune systems and fallible body parts.

What I am really saying is I am angry about not being in control.

But none of us really are. We can only do the best with what we know and have and the rest is up to God.

So I will own those feelings now and acknowledge that even when I feel like a punching bag, more often than not I am the one throwing punches at the problems that spring up in my life.

Whole

There is something comforting about knowing I can be whole by myself. In addition to adding a dance class, I want to try to incorporate yoga or Pilates, too this upcoming year. I am not saying I am fractured or broken but just like anyone else, I have my moments. And those moments are a wake-up call to change my status quo. I heard about an exercise that asked you to write out a schedule in 15-minute increments of your ideal life and then asked you write out that same schedule with your actual life. Hearing about the exercise was sobering enough–holding up your ideal life next to your real one was absolutely jarring.

One way I know to ease those feelings is to commit to being a whole woman.

If I can’t be whole for me, how can I ever be the wife, daughter, sister, servant and writer I know I am supposed to be?

I am Becoming

I am currently reading “Becoming” by Michelle Obama. There is a passage in the book where she says she hates when adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up because it implies we all have to grow up to be one thing.

When I was asked that question, I remembered being nudged to say doctor or lawyer and I might have succumbed a couple of times. I only ever really wanted to be a writer. I just spent many years believing it could never be a reality.

I also spent many years believing if I didn’t make all of my money as a writer that I couldn’t call myself a writer, either. I am so grateful I adopted a new mindset. Even though I wish I didn’t live all of those years calling myself other things, it is OK.

I had to go through it all in order to claim what I know myself to be right now. If I become anything else, I will be content with this journey.

Because I am living, breathing and becoming it, too.

Support not Appropriate

Yesterday, I read an article about ways to support, not appropriate Native Americans. One of the ways was to support writers. I realized I have never sought out to read work by Native writers and I had no excuse not to start now. I wanted to share “Haiku Journey” by Kimberly Blaeser, a critic, poet laureate, essayist and member of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. I hope her poem inspires you to read her work and others by Native writers.

i. Spring

the tips of each pine

the spikes of telephone poles

hold gathering crows

may’s errant mustard

spreads wild across paved road

look both ways

roadside treble cleft

feeding gopher, paws to mouth

cheeks puffed with music

yesterday’s spring wind

ruffling the grey tips of fur

rabbit dandelion

ii. Summer

turkey vulture feeds

mechanical as a red oil rig

head rocks down up down

stiff-legged dog rises

goes grumbling after squirrel

old ears still flap

snowy egret—curves,

lines, sculpted against pond blue;

white clouds against sky

banded headed bird

this ballerina killdeer

dance on point my heart

iii. Fall

leaf wind cold through coat

wails over hills, through barren trees

empty garbage cans dance

damp September night

lone farmer, lighted tractor

drive memory’s worn path

sky black with migration

flocks settle on barren trees

leaf birds, travel songs

october moon cast

over corn, lighted fields

crinkled sheaves of white

iv. Winter

ground painted in frost

thirsty morning sun drinks white

leaves rust golds return

winter bare branches

hold tattered cups of summer

empty nests trail twigs

lace edges of ice

manna against darkened sky

words turn with weather

now one to seven

deer or haiku syllables

weave through winter trees

Northern follows jig

body flashes with strike, dive:

broken line floats up.

No Greener Grass

I charged up my old phone last night, an LG Razor Edge. It was the phone I used when Hubby and I were dating and when we were first married. I retrieved the text messages and looked at the photos. I still have the first text and photo we took together. Like many new couples, we often said we loved and missed each other. We were mushy and flirtatious.

When I first got engaged, a few women (married women) told me not to get married. They seemed sure I would be miserable and unfulfilled a few years later. It’s true–things did get harder. We have faced medical issues that have scared me and adjusting to living together, merging our lives and finances has not always been what I dreamed it would be.

But there are times when I look at him and know I couldn’t be anywhere else and there is really no grass that is greener.

What’s better is we still flirt, hold hands and say I love you. Six years of marriage and we look forward to seeing each other at the end of the day.

I have told some friends I (almost) wish more couples could go through trials where they fear they could lose the other person. Even for a moment. More people wouldn’t be so quick to throw it all away. Happy doesn’t always look and feel the way you think it will and no version of perfection actually exists.

I certainly don’t have all the answers to anyone’s relationship problems but I would ask anyone to not take the love they have at home for granted.

It may turn out to be the love you were supposed to fight for and the love you may never have again.

Ready for 2019

Today, I woke up excited for the new year. I know–it’s November and there are still holidays left to celebrate.

I can’t put my finger on why I was jubilant on this particular morning however I know there is so much to look forward to. Here are a few:

1. Going somewhere new. Hubby and I choose a different city/state and hopefully soon, country to go to for our anniversary in lieu of gifts.

2. I am going to a Broadway show in New York again and I am determined to see an Alvin Ailey show there in 2019, too.

3. My digital story, along with the other women who participated in the University of Alabama Digital Storytelling Workshop for Women of Color will have our work published in Liminalities.

4. 2019 will be the year I dance consistently as part of a class. I have never felt as strongly as I do now that I need to have something just for me, something I commit to, just for me.

5. Finishing my novel. I have talked about this at length before. This will be my year. That’s all there is to it.

Your turn:

What are you looking forward to in 2019?