Fearless Writing

I was having coffee with a new fellow writer friend the other night and earlier in the day had written a question down that I wanted to ask her "When you blog or write, do you edit or screen what you say in order to save someone embarassment or shame or humiliation or hurt feelings?" and "How does one know when to draw the line in regards to how much to divulge in their writing?" I guess it is a personal thing and no two writers would have the same line in the sand. I read somewhere in one of my many writing books that to truly be a good writer, one must go to those scary places, those places that take risks, risks of telling one's story regardless of what others may think. Are we not entitled to tell our stories. I realize they may not be the same for all of the characters in the actual story but still, my experience is my story and am I not entitled to tell it. At what point is it inappropriate to share with the public. We talked a bit about this and came to a few conclusions, one being that the intention behind telling the story makes a big difference.

If my intention is to share my experience in order to inspire or motivate or connect with readers, it means something a little different than if my intention is to hurt someone, get revenge or embarass someone. Just for the record, my intention is never to hurt someone but my quandry is at what price am I willing to pay not to hurt someone, to suppress my experience, to hold back to save someone else's feelings? I feel like I've spent most of my life holding back in order to avoid hurting another's feelings or letting someone down. At some point I need to honor my feelings, my desire to be heard and most of all seize the opportunity to connect with readers no matter what the outcome.

I write for many reasons but most of all to connect. I have no expectations that what I write will change anyone's life or even inspire them but I'd be lying if I said my intentions weren't to take my experiences and share them with the world in order to possibly let someone out there know they are not alone or that we humans have more in common than we are different. In this day and age, and at my age, finding the connections between people and places is more important than focusing on myself. I'm more passionate about community and connecting now more than ever. The world has gotten smaller it seems and we can't live in our little box of a neighborhood or job or city or state, we are all effected by everything that happens across the universe. I'm interested in intentions and consequences and doing my part to leave the world a better place than before I came even if in a small way. So my plan is to try to go to more author readings and see how their process works for them and how they put themselves out there. Maybe I'll learn more about the writing process along the way.

So when asked to go hear Salman Rushdie at the Jimmy Carter Museum with a friend, I wasn't sure what to expect. I've heard things about Rushdie but not alot but always appreciate fearless writers, those that write from their heart and soul regardless of what others may think. He does just that. He put his life in danger by expressing himself and that I can admire. He is an eloquent speaker and extremely knowledgeable and best of all has a great sense of humor.

At one point I was afraid when this older man was walked up to one of the mircrophones to ask a question, this same older man was heard throughout Rushdie's reading whispering loudly to his assistant "I am not an idiot" and other things I couldn't understand but was a little annoyed at his rudeness. Everyone kept turning around to see who was talking during this reading. So when he made his way up to the mic, I nudged my friend to say that's him, that's the man that keeps talking out loud an we both looked like we didn't know what to expect to come out of his mouth. The first thing he said was "I am from where you are from" in a really thick Indian accent. "I have walked the streets you've walked and I want you to tell me about this quest for fire in your writing" and he said so much more but I really couldn't understand him. Rushdie was peering from behind the microphone on stage with somewhat of a confused yet bewildered expression like he wasn't quite sure what this man was capable of. I couldn't tell if he was going to cry out, accuse rushdie of something or do something crazy like throw something at Rushdie but near the end of rambling, he said "Sorry to put you on the spot Mr. Rushdie but I paid my $27 tonight so would like an answer" so everyone let out a sigh of relief, this older Indian man that came from Rushdie's hometown had a sense of humor. Rusdie proceeded to talk of the quest for fire being in every culture throughout history. That people often give fire a bad rap like when a house burns down but when a flood ruins a town, they don't give water a bad name. People have associated water with life but he said "Life is not a drip, life is a flame to be lit or put out"

Wow....anyway...long story short, I have a newfound respect for Rusdie's intelligence and breadth of knowledge in regards to Greek and Roman mythology, history of all sorts. One audience member compared his works to Lewis Carroll of which Rusdie went on to explain he went to the same school as Carroll and how he took that as a compliment as he's memorized many, many parts of Alice in Wonderland. He even joked that he'd be happy to recite the Jabberwocky lines...

Today is the first day

of the next 14 days....the say it takes 14 days to form a new habit so I'm claiming today as the first of 14 days of blogging to make myself habituated to writing again. I'm reading so many great books on spirituality of sorts and plan to post my experience with them within the next 14 days. For now I will say that one in particular changed the course of my life and that says a lot. I'll just give you a hint of the power of a book, a friend of mine and I decided to read a book together and discuss it via email and telephone as she lives out of state. The book we chose was Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss. Well lets just say within one month of starting it, a little over half way through, she had ended her 5 year relationship and soon after I ended my 3 year relationship. The book brought about questions in my mind that I'd been avoiding. Within the first quarter of the book she says, here are the two most important questions you need to answer in life 1) Where are you going and 2) Who is going with you and if you get these out of order it can make all the difference in the world...Wow, this totally resonated with me as they were two questions I never even considered and agree, they are quite important. No wonder I've been led astray :)

So here I am a month after ending that relationship and on an emotional rollercoaster and just trying to find my footing. I get a little stronger each day and can see the light way, way, way down at the end of the tunnel. I see that one day, hopefully in the near future, I will begin to really ask myself the first question of where I am going and live with that question for quite awhile. I think it is just the right time in my life to begin the most important relationship of all, with myself. Maybe then I can have some compassion for those that have been in a relationship with me in the past lol...I know I'm not easy. Never claimed to be. Don't really want to be. I've been called intense, complex, contradictory, free spirited, non-committal, need to be committed (not really) and all sorts of things but I love those things about me and refuse to give them up. It is now time to be my own best friend so I say this to Carla loud and clear "Carla, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree, slide down my rainbow, into my cellar door and we'll be jolly friends, forever more, more, more!

The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


reading for end of july book club. makes me want to go to antarctica where it's cold, especially with the heat wave going on here. love the book. once i got past the first quarter of it, it got easier as it is a story told with three narratives so at first was a bit confusing and frustrating as i wanted to find out more about a particular character and then it would switch. it was a nice read considering the temperatures have been in the 3 digits here in atlanta. i was trying to cool off vicariosly through the descriptions of ice, freezing temperatures and frozen landscapes.

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The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose by Matthew Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


wow, what a great inspirational book. i found so much of what was said to be true and yet the need to be reminded is strong. the idea that without a plan or goal, we will feel frustrated and exhausted and out of control makes sense. i realize we can make the best of plans and something change but it makes sense to have an idea of what you want from life and to set goals and try to work to achieve them daily will point you toward the path of the best version of yourself. i like the thought that courage is not the absence of fear but the acquired ability to move beyond fear. at this point in my life, i don't want fear to be the reason i'm not doing the things i want to do or working toward my highest good. i would rather shoot for the stars and land on the moon....

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Let There be Balance

It’s Friday. The end of a long week, the beginning of a short weekend, the possibilities are endless……Today I am grateful for the ability to practice living in the moment. It is never effortless but it does get easier with practice. I’ve begun to pay attention to my footsteps, my breath, the feelings in my physical body and this seems to keep me in the present. I’ve lived so much of my life in my head, my thoughts, my fears, my dreams, my regrets and this has taken me away from the present moment. I don’t know where I picked up the notion that the physical experience was not important, maybe I created that idea from always searching for the spiritual or higher level of experience. However, we are here in the physical for a reason and to ignore that is not working toward my highest good with all of my resources. It takes the mental, spiritual, emotional and physical experience to fully live where I am in this moment. It always comes back to balance. Funny enough, I was born a Libra which is the scales. I’ve often thought that we are the signs we are born into but someone shared the idea that we are born to learn those attributes under the sign we are born into. This explains why I’m always striving to stay balanced and find it extremely difficult. I’m either 100% into something or not at all. When I’m 100% into something, this leaves 0% for anything else therefore, no balance whatsoever. May the rest of this Friday and the upcoming weekend present me with opportunities to remember to find balance.

In the Moment

I'm back after months and months of missing in action...Again, my only excuse seems to be work. I've come to the conclusion that there is a high possiblity that I'm a workaholic. I guess I tend to spend too much energy working and I am thinking maybe it is due to not wanting to let anyone down, not my customers and not my co-workers but what about me. I was talking to a fellow co-worker today at an off-site bookfair I'm hosting at the Gwinnett County Board of Education about how tired I am most all of the time. Even when I've not been physically active, I feel sore and my joints hurt and just tired all over. One conclusion I've come to is that when I don't give to myself, I get depleted. I am a giver. I get so much from serving others and wouldn't want it to be any other way however, I am going to have to work on giving to myself in order to live a long life because I feel that if I continue going at this pace, I'll burn out.
I've had a few great conversations within the past week where I've felt like I've connected with others. At least I feel like they've heard me, really heard me and understood. Sitting at Dancing Goat Coffee Shop studying GRE stuff, an elderly woman at the table next to me told a man she'd watch his bike while he went inside the shop to order coffee. For some reason, all I could think of was what she would do if someone did try to take off on is bike so instead of just thinking it, I said,"What are you going to do if someone tries to get it, you don't have any running shoes on?" and she laughed and thus began a deeper conversation about books of course, her former teaching career, her travels to New York where I'd just returned from, my desire to go to graduate school and study community and how we are lacking a third place outside of home and work to commune and tell our stories. So for the next hour we proceeded to tell a few of our stories and her husband and daughter sat and joined in and the table across the way listened in and for a little piece of a beautiful rainy Saturday afternoon on the porch of a local coffee shop with our hot cups of coffee and tea and a few dogs lying about the ground, we commenced to enjoy our third place we'd created and it was just what I needed to remind of why I want to study community.....
I'm grateful for having the courage to speak out when I'm not spoken to if that is what it takes to open up a space to connect to others.

Community

Funny that I've kind of dropped off the blogosphere lately. Work has been taking all of my energy and while posting a review on my other blog of a book I just finished for my non-fiction book group, I thought I'd pop in and see what I'd last posted about here. Knitting...That was my obsession for a month or so. I still love my knitting books, my yarn, my 3 hats I've knitted and 2 scarves and plan to knit a pair of fingerless gloves out of the Baby Alpaca Skein I bought, beautiful earth tones, but am not quite ready to pick it up again until after the holidays, can I say working retail during the holidays :( and yet :) when I get to have some time on the book floor talking books to customers instead of sitting behind my computer in the back office.
I mainly want to share this one story as it directly relates to knitting and the process of forming a community which is exactly what drives me and what I'm passionate about, connections and community....
I saw a book that was to be released in November back in September and it had a huge ball of yarn and knitting needles on the cover. The book is called Spinning Forward by an author named Terri DuLong out of Florida. Since I was deep into my knitting obsession at the time, I thought how fun it would be to have the author visit our store on a Wednesday night during our store's weekly knitting group night with a group of knitters named "Noble Knitters" that have been meeting on Wednesdays from 6-8 for over 5 years. I emailed the author and explained my newfound love of knitting and our group and that I would love for her to sign her book and speak in our store. She agreed and was excited and we corresponded via email until November. She even emailed to check on me after all of the flooding in Georgia, she said she'd seen it on the news and was worried about me.
After much planning, working with her publicist and marketing her event with all of the local yarn shops I could find, the date of her signing was quickly approaching. As I began to put the signage up and books on the display, I thought why not call the closest yarn shop, one I had recently visited on my wonderful day mentioned in the post previous to this, and see if they wanted to partner with me and decorate a window display with their yarn products etc. along with the book in order to create awareness of the event and awareness of their shop. The owners loved the idea and quickly came over to create a beautiful display with a basket of beautiful yarn, a handmade shawl by one of the ladies in the local Wednesday night knitting group, a spinning wheel and more, it was lovely. The only thing missing was a live knitter in the window for effect.
The night came and my marketing worked as we had over 50 people show up to support the event. Half of the cafe was full of knitters talking and showing off their projects. Some were part of the weekly group but a lot were either knitters that hadn't been in awhile or were there for the first time. It was great and when Terri DuLong showed up, they were all happy to listen to her talk and read while they knitted and afterwards they patiently waited in line as she signed books. Each knitter had plenty of time to talk and share her project with Terri so the signing took longer than usual and since the line was full of other knitters, they kept busy knitting while waiting and talking so nobody was impatient or in a hurry.
I received a gift from Terri in the mail last week, as much as I claim to not necessarily want "things" I must admit that I couldn't wait to get from the mailbox to my office to cut my box open and look inside.
There was a beautiful handmade Christmas Ornament with a picture of yarn and needles and Spinning Forward 2009 on it....with a card thanking me for a lovely event and how she can't wait to come back in the spring. I also received an email from the owners of Only Ewe and Cotton Too, the yarn shop that decorated the window display, saying how our store was so much more warm and cozy than the one closest to them. Both of those compliments made me feel grateful to be a part of the creation of this event and the opportunity to bring joy and delight to not only the Noble Knitters in the audience but to the author and the owners of the yarn shop. This is what I mean by connection and this is what I like best about my job.