Tag Archives: writing

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?

Worthy

I was reflecting on a time when a lot was happening but if you asked me back then, I would have told you it was a slow crawl to nowhere. I somehow knew I wouldn’t stay there but I didn’t know exactly how to get where I needed to be.. I was around 19.

During that time, one of my jobs was at a credit card company where I did data entry and scanning from 1pm to midnight. There were a lot of students or people like me who were taking time away from school.

One of the women I worked with seemed sad, anxious and then surprisingly bubbly at times. Let’s call her Pam. She was a full-figured bespectacled woman in her mid-30s with an 80’s pageboy haircut who only wore high-waisted tight stonewash jeans with plain, tucked in T-shirts. She seemed afraid of her own body, her own shadow and her curves.

I tried to befriend her. We bonded over books.  I offered to help her shop and clean her apartment. It was littered with used snotty tissues and empty soda cans. One day, I was driving back to her place after a shopping trip. She took the opportunity to tell me something she believed.

Pam told me that she believed some people never get better. Some people never recover from depression and there is no amount of therapy, medication, diet or lifestyle change that will ever help them.

Then she told me she believed she was one of those people. I told her I hoped she wasn’t but I pretty much left the subject alone. Soon afterwards, I left the job and a couple of years later, I got my act together and went a couple hours away to finish college.

I was walking out of the library one afternoon and ran right into her! It was surreal. I was 23, about 75 pounds smaller living in the mountains but there she was, a random person from my past. She looked the same but there was something different about her. I approached her, reintroduced myself and she told me she was there on a tour for prospective freshmen.

Our reunion was short-lived but I walked away with hope. Maybe she believed she wasn’t one of those people anymore. Pam was clearly open to starting over or at least believed herself worthy of it.

I haven’t thought about her in years but this afternoon she crossed my mind. Maybe it’s because of my college visit this past weekend or because of this new trial Hubby and I are going through.

I want to remain open to fresh starts, rewrites, unexplored paths no matter where they may take me or where I am beginning from.

After all, aren’t I worthy enough?

You Can Stay?

I was listening to a podcast in which the woman, a fellow psoriasis sufferer, said after years of using biologics (injectable medicinal treatment), she took a break.  After a while, she said she spoke to her scales. She told her scales that it was ok for them to be there. She invited her scales to stay if they wanted to. I suppose she wanted to take away the stress that comes with their arrival.

After the invite, her scales began to disappear. Her story made me question the power I give to the scales when they come to visit. I have gotten used to the coming and going, the scars, the blood, the itchy sensations and the constant leaving behind of my skin everywhere especially during drier seasons.

I am trying to imagine a world where I see a new plaque and find a peaceful way to say it’s ok for it to be here. A way to not give power to the stress.

Maybe releasing the stress will be the most important effective tactic for the scales not to feel at home in this body, especially since stress is a trigger. Maybe after inviting them to stay, they will no longer feel the need to overstay their welcome.

I don’t know how I will do this but the part that attracted me the most was the stress release. I am open to the results that may come but I am more excited about what I am going to do just for me that will enable its release.