Tag Archives: future

“My soul keeps reminding me that we’re forever young.”

I listened to “Flamenco” from Cowboy Carter today. Three listens. Back to back to back. I am attached to writing these muses. I am already starting to think about poetry, albums and fiction I want to write about here. It’s inspiring to let the art of others put you on a new path. It’s the wonder of possibility.

But back to “Flamenco”, I heard a cry for help or a yearning to send a message to someone who may already be lost. Maybe the person who is already lost or fading away is her or the type of fan she always thought she would have. That is up to her to tell her fans if she so chooses. When anyone is singing they are in need of help right now, I want to know all of the things. Why? How?

Where can I fit in if I am the piece of the puzzle you are looking for?

The lyrics about her soul reminding her that we’re forever young brought back a random memory. My father and I were on a long walk several years ago, probably over a decade. He told me that when he looks in the mirror, it doesn’t match what he sees in his mind. That the boy or man he was in his teens or twenties didn’t seem so far away. I was too young to fully get it but I do now. I remember who I was 20 years ago. The things I laughed at, hugging my friends, goofing off with my sister, conversations I had with my brother. My perception of what was is strong but who knows how accurate and that doesn’t even matter. It is within me. She is within me. No need to reclaim it.

We are traveling this journey with our past, present and future right about now.

What Unfolds

Recently, without realizing it, I developed an obsession with the concept of time. Well, not so much time but the concepts of an alternative future and time travel.

This is not something I would normally write about but this is where I am.

No matter how silly it was (re: Seth Rogen’s Hulu Original Future Man), innovative and emotional (Amazon’s Undone), groundbreaking (the writers’ doomed vision for the world’s future in Westworld) or how prolific (Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred), over the past couple of weeks, I haven’t been able to tear my eyes or hands away from it.

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Octavia Butler’s “Kindred.” I am only sad I didn’t read it years ago.

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“Undone” on Amazon Prime.

It was happening and for some reason, I didn’t connect the dots or recognize the common thread.

Each time I read or watched, I was asking myself if I would make the same choices.

Change the past for a better future. Alter a minute detail for a shiny, new me. Attempt to take control over what’s already done.

These stories have made me examine choice in a way I haven’t in a long time, if ever.

I understand there is no sense in longing for a past that never was or clinging to a hope I will one day bend reality to my whim.

But my analytical nature examines why I made the choices I did–picked up the phone at a particular moment, took long aimless drives, booked that flight, didn’t take the leap to pursue teaching overseas when I had the chance, grew silent when I should have been shouting or simply why some people have floated in and out of my life like nameless ghosts and others seemingly tethered to me, part of my DNA.

I have found myself indulging in the fantasy: if I went through this door, maybe I would have been a dancer or an activist or a healer, adorned in vibrant headscarves and crystals or a suburban woman with a brood of children or a tightly wound, bespectacled corporate drone in a more metropolitan setting.

I will never know the truth of any of those closed doors, those unexplored lives.

Choices have been made. Deals have been struck.

And thankfully, more will come.

Everyday, I am living in the abundance of choice, the beauty of possibility. Even now, in the midst of this uncertainty.

I think that’s enough to take with me as I watch and read, in awe at the boundless imagination of others and my real life unfolds.

 

 

 

Back at it Again

One of my writing goals for 2018 was to take writing classes again, whether it be a one-day workshop or a 6-week course. I almost didn’t start the year with a class but decided at the last minute that it should be a priority right at the beginning of the year. What makes it even more special is that it is Life in 10 Minutes again. I took a couple of sessions last year. It was my first writing class outside of school. I remember feeling so shy and unsure of myself. At the time, I was also in the throes of deciding whether or not I wanted to continue with graduate school (currently thanking God I made the right choice not to do so).  This class did two things for me: It made me take a hard look at what I really wanted for my future AND it confused me.

Why the confusion one may ask?

After cracking my shell open and reading words aloud I wouldn’t have dared just a few months before, I thought it was time to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be. It seems silly now. But I thought I was this woman trying to finish a novel and anything else was superfluous. I had to confront all of the many colors, shades and textures of who I am as a writer.

I have just come back from the first session tonight. Even with all of the new faces and voices, the feeling is the same. We read our confessions, our musings, our wishes, our regrets, our stories, our characters out loud in communion with one another. We share our art. We share our lives.

It was like I never left.

 

Sowing Into Our Future

I forgot it was Halloween when I woke up today. It’s not a holiday I celebrate so it slips by except for the cute kids costumes I see online. My husband and I were cutting up pineapple and bananas last night, preparing to make green smoothies this morning for a sale going on at his job. I was grateful to be up and busy early in the morning with the loud, whirring noises of the blenders.

And busy is a good thing especially when it is not empty. Lately, when I have started to feel some anxiety about where things are going, I remind myself of the reason. It’s because I am actively pointing myself on a path and walking it. I am sowing into my future and as a wife, I am sowing into our future.

I visited an awesome church this weekend and had one of those moments where the pastor says something and you could almost swear it was directed at you. He was talking about sowing into people, places and products with roots and they would bear fruit. And it occurred to me that everything I was investing in had roots–my husband, my faith, my writing, my writing tribe, my friends, my family and my health.

As we were blending, pouring and scurrying around the kitchen this morning, I knew there would be fruit.

I am writing this after hearing the news of the attack in Manhattan today. It was another  tragic reminder to treasure your time, sow into the people and the gifts that you have been blessed with and to stay grateful.