Tag: blogging

November

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Tomorrow is November 1st, and several of my friends will be taking on the challenge of NaNoWriMo, a month in which the goal is to write an entire novel or 50,000 words. While I have always thought this would be a great contest to participate in, I am realistic, and I know I wouldn’t get beyond day two.

However, in support of those of you who are gearing up to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge, I have decided to ramp up my blogging for the month of November. There are two reasons for this. First, I need to write more often, and second, my blog is feeling neglected.

I have downloaded a November blogging challenge from 2014, and I will use the prompts to fuel my writing of daily (or nearly) blog posts. The first day’s challenge: 20 facts about me. In my mind, I figure that’s 20 days of material right there!

Stay tuned, Friends. November will be a great month for us. You’re going to learn some things you might wish you didn’t know….

Creativity

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I am struggling through a dilemma that has slowed my blogging. Lately, my mind has been laced up tight with ribbons of business and busyness, trapping any trace of Creativity deep inside where I cannot access it. Every now and then, Creativity gets restless and tugs at the laces, poking a shiny bright finger through like a ray of sunshine piercing a sky heavy with storm clouds. It is taunting me, daring me to race after it. When I reach for the light, it disappears back into the far corners of my mind, and when I follow, Creativity is nowhere to be found.

I am in search of Creativity, and it is elusive. It stays one step ahead of me always, darting around corners and out of sight when I am almost close enough to touch it. I am cranky and moody and not myself. Without Creativity, I am lost.

This weekend, I spent some time hunting and engaging in activities carefully designed to entice Creativity to come back. These activities generally involved a mindful pause in the crazy weekday activity that is often my life. On Saturday, I went out for a walk, bringing my pocket sized camera just in case I happened on a moment that might inspire. Color. Nature. Feeling…. Moments happened, but Creativity did not rejoin me on my journey.

On Sunday, I baked some bread. I made two delicious loaves of sourdough, their warmth and goodness filling the kitchen with heavenly smells. But creation does not equate to Creativity. I tried sewing, but I got tangled in the threads of all that wasn’t being accomplished, and I was back to square one. Perhaps an artistic endeavor—drawing, painting, wire work, or journaling.

But time said no. And Creativity does not come to stalkers.

Creativity comes to those who are still and quiet and patient and open. It comes in the moments when our filters are down and we are least expecting it. It comes on walks, in stillness and in prayer. It comes when we are just about to fall asleep and our minds have given up the stresses of the day and are just beginning to slip into dreams. Creativity comes when it wants.

I am looking to rediscover the voice that Creativity abandoned, the voice that has become buried in the mire of every day chaos. I think I am getting closer, but one never knows. Creativity cannot be forced to join me, so I must enjoy the journey, wherever it takes me. Who knows? What I seek may be around the next corner!

Welcome Home…

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Below is the first journal piece I wrote in my friend Kate’s amazing Soul Reclamation workshop over the weekend. I was not able to give the exercises of the workshop my full focus because of the demands of my job, so I will be working through some of them over the next couple of weeks.

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How long has it been since you’ve been here? Truly been present in this place? Too long ago, I saw you here, lingering just outside the bounds of your self. Lingering longingly, like you had a sense you still belong here.

We’ve missed you. Welcome home. It’s been a long road, and I am hoping you can stay for a while. I know what you’re going to say… life, and all that. That’s always the first excuse. But you need some time to hang out here. To reconnect and get to know us again. To be present with us.

This is a journey, and I will grant myself permission to reconnect with myself, my life, my soul. There is so much that pulls me away on a daily basis. So much that grabs my attention and sucks me out in all different directions so I can’t possibly focus and center and find my wholeness.

This journey, this workshop is about reconnection. It is about finding myself, becoming whole once again, and granting myself the time to recognize that I need attention. I cannot continue to put all of myself, my attention into outside forces if I do not focus some attention on me, on the inside, on the person who makes it happen.

So grab a pen and take a seat. Linger awhile and do the work you need to do.

Welcome home. We’ve missed you.

Soul Reclamation Workshop

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This weekend, I will be joining my friend Kate and several others for her “Soul Reclamation Workshop.” I have written with Kate before, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to do so again this weekend. If you are not busy, or if you are looking for something to jump-start a new direction for your writing, join us! You won’t be disappointed!

 

https://wishingstone.wordpress.com/retreats-and-workshops/soul-reclamation-spring-2016/

Ideas and Inspiration #atozchallenge

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The A to Z Challenge has piqued the interest of my children, even though they don’t always read the blog posts that result from discussions and suggestions they make about subject matter. The fact that mom is responding to assignments rather than simply writing when an idea comes is much like what they do in school, isn’t it?

Well… isn’t it?

Yesterday, our discussion focused around the letter I.

“What will you write for your I-blog, Mom?” C asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t have an idea yet.”

“’Idea!’ There’s your blog post,” he said triumphantly. As if simply saying a word could make it happen… I thought. An idea without inspiration just wasn’t going to happen.

“That’s it?” I asked him. “That’s your idea for I?”

He shrugged. “You used my idea for F. There’s no reason why you can’t use my idea for I.” He was smiling as he drove home his point by incorporating the very word he was suggesting into his statement.

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it,” I assured him.

“I think it could work,” J chimed in. “After all, what else are you going to write about?”

“Igloo,” my boyfriend suggested. “That’s a good one.” I suppose it could be… if I knew anything about igloos. Which I don’t.

Ideas are funny though; they flit in and plant themselves in your brain, but then when you try to examine them, turn them around, and analyze them so you can write about them, they dig in their heels and refuse to budge. How many times had I struggled to write, even when I thought I had an idea? But then other times, I think I have no ideas when I sit down to write, and amazingly coherent pieces flow out.

Two days ago, for example, I sat down to write my H blog on happiness, but it didn’t happen that way, did it? A hiccup or two later, and here we are at the letter I.

No doubt, I will continue to get help with my ideas through the rest of the A to Z Challenge, and beyond. I’m happy to entertain any idea that’s thrown at me, but don’t be surprised if I sit down to write, and I end up with something completely different.

Ideas are funny like that.

Resolutions (2)

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It is January first, and I am feeling unmotivated. I want to set some goals for the year and work on the things that need fixing—to write more, to clean and organize, to focus on health and fitness, and to find ways to give back.

But today, I am unmotivated.

I want to write a blog post every day, though based on my past performance, I might focus on writing one post per week. This drop in expectation is not because I am unmotivated, but because I am a single parent to three children, and like many single parents, I maintain two jobs to cover expenses. And well… priorities.

I may be unmotivated, but today, I am realistic.

This is the year that I will sort through my clutter, clean, and purge. I realized at the end of this past year that if I tackle one small area per day/week/whatever, I will get through the trouble spots (eventually) and deactivate the clutter magnets in my house. At the rate of one small area per day (or week), my house will not be clean and clutter-free as quickly I might like. But little by little, the house will become uncluttered. My hope is that by January 1, 2017, I can blog about my success and how amazing it is to live in a house with a manageable amount of stuff. In the meantime, I can blog about the fun (okay, interesting…) stuff I uncover while de-cluttering!

Being realistic means that I will acknowledge my limitations.

Then there is the “taking care of me” resolution. I have two health goals for the immediate future. The most important is to sleep/rest more. Five hours of sleep a night is tough on a healthy body, but such limited sleep on a not-so-healthy body makes it nearly impossible to maintain normalcy. My second goal is to get back to regular exercise—walking regularly will be a step in the right direction. And baby steps are better than no steps. There are a lot of years between me and my most fit self, and I don’t expect to regain that level of fitness in the foreseeable future. But I do know that taking better care of me will allow me to take care of others. And that is important.

Which leads me to my final resolution…

… to actively look for and act on opportunities to give back. It’s not always easy to see beyond the chaos that follows me like a cloud and obscures my view of my surroundings. Paying attention to the people and opportunities around me will keep me grounded and present and will foster a greater sense of community connection.

These changes, I think they are doable. They are memorable—meaning I won’t forget them halfway through the month of January—because they are important. Of course, I set goals knowing they could always be derailed by more pressing issues.

What are your goals for the New Year?

A Single Image

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Going back to Writing 101, Day 4: A story in a single image…

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Image is not mine but from Unsplash.com

When I was in college, I took several photography courses as part of a self-designed minor of study. One weekend during my senior year, I got the idea to go to the top of a mountain and photograph the sunrise. It was October, and around here, you never know whether October will be the back end of summer or the front end of winter. I remember getting up very early and piling on layers of clothing. While the forecast was for seasonal temperatures in the valley, the mountain was a different story. Two shirts, a sweater, winter jacket, hat, gloves… I was prepared.

It was still dark as my car crested the mountain and pulled into the small parking lot near the lodge. There was no sign of other people, though a couple of cars sat empty in the lot. The lodge was dark. I turned off my headlights and got out of the car. Stars blinked in the night, but the sky was just taking on a faint grey cast. I picked my way over the rocks to find myself a perch at the top of the eastern slope. I sat in silence; the only sound was the cold wind which swiped at the top of the mountain as if to blow it clean. I shivered, and I remember wondering if I would make it to daylight without breaking down and seeking shelter my heated car.

It didn’t get warmer, but slowly, the sky brightened. The first rays of morning sunlight winked over the distant horizon, and a layer of white fog blanketed the valley. The mountains, in varying shades of blue-grey, touched the sky tainted pink with the promise of a new day. In time, the color faded to a pale blue.

That morning, as I sat on the rock and watch the landscape change from night to day, I realized that there are some things that we truly must experience. I could take pictures to show to family and friends, but being on that mountain, exposed to the elements and taking in the splendor of the scenery as the day dawned was a moment that is meant to be captured by the eye and the brain and the senses, by being present and in the moment. It was a moment that created an image that will forever remain in the accessible archives of my brain.

Social Media

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This post was written for Writing 101, Day 5: Respond to a quote…

“Just as we teach our children how to ride a bike, we need to teach them how to navigate social media and make the right moves that will help them. The physical world is similar to the virtual world in many cases. It’s about being aware. We can prevent many debacles if we’re educated.”     —Amy Jo Martin

 

The great thing about social media is that it is (for the most part) public. We can see what others are posting, saying, doing, thinking. Social media allows us to navigate a different world—to create a persona, if you will, of how we see ourselves or would like to be seen. Because it is so public, it provides great lessons for parents who are willing to trot out their ‘friends’ as examples, both good and bad.

A few years back, a young acquaintance of ours made an impulsive tweet in a moment of adolescent thoughtlessness. Hundreds of miles away, his tweet was picked up by people paid by our federal government to monitor such things, and he ended up squarely in the center of their radar. By the time he arrived at his first class of the school day, the local police were there to meet him. His parents were called, and ultimately, he was asked to quietly withdraw himself from the school—a private institution—and finish his senior year elsewhere.

What parent wouldn’t use this incident as an example for his or her children? Granted, this is an extreme example, but nothing that ends up on the Internet is private. Or unmonitored. Or irretrievable. If SnapChat postings actually did “disappear,” the terms and conditions wouldn’t ask users to agree to allow them to store all posts forever. But who reads the terms and conditions, right?

Every now and then, I see things on the Facebook sites or blog posts of the adult crowd. “I don’t think she should have shared that,” I grumble to my children. “Her children might not be on Facebook, but their friends and their friends’ parents are….” I wonder sometimes if people consider the ramifications of the things they post.

As C prepares for college, he is going out into a different world—his own world, away my watchful eye, where he has to make his own decisions and create his own identity and purpose. What I don’t want is for him to suddenly find that his Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, or whatever are under scrutiny and not be prepared for that. This is the world in which we live, Friends. If you are putting yourself on the Internet for people to see, you very well may fall under scrutiny. That scrutiny may mean that you are held as an example within the private world of your “friends,” or it may have much bigger implications.

This lesson is one that each of us—teen or adult—will benefit from keeping in the forefront of our minds as we venture ever further into the virtual world.

Writing (2)

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This post was written in response to November’s Writing 101 – Day 1 assignment.

It never hurts to re-examine why we write. Back in September, I completed the assignment I write because… which gave some insight as to how I became a writer. That first assignment can be found here: https://positivelyunbroken.com/2015/09/13/writing/ I am re-taking Writing 101 because the need to write is strong. My ability to find the time and structure is weak. So here goes….

I write because I am convinced that the world in which I live will someday live up to my expectations. For now, my life is rough around the edges; stuffed with busyness and work and people who might be too unfriendly or even downright rude. Writing helps me to process and to find a place where I can be at ease, reflect, and be myself.

I write because lately, the need to write has been immediate and pressing. There is something out there that I am missing; I just know it. When my head hits the pillow at night, the ideas are knocking at the door, pushing hard to get in. As I am falling asleep, the barrier between the conscious and the subconscious relaxes. Sometimes, the ideas push hard enough that fingers slip between the door and the casing, slivers of light into a world I have yet to explore. Through writing, I believe I will find the key to that world.

Some days, when I least expect it, I find pieces of ideas scattered across the floor like shards of glass, glinting in the sunlight, begging to be picked up, examined, and assembled into a logical or creative whole. On those days, I have the choice to gingerly tiptoe around them, or to dive in and begin to assemble, using the words I write to bind and develop the found ideas.

As long as the ideas continue to be compelling and urgent, I will continue to write. When the urgency is no longer there, I will dig deeper, searching, until I can dig no more. I write because I am convinced that when the ideas stop appearing, I may also cease to exist.

Virtual coffee date…

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For Writing 101, Day 10 (which was many days ago…), we were asked to update our readers in a post of a “virtual coffee date.” So here goes….

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If we were having coffee, I would tell you that the school year is getting off to a slow start. Every September, I marvel at how late the sun rises, and yet every September when I wake up at 5:30, it is dark. Just like last year. Getting up at 5:30 is not my favorite thing to do, and the weeks are already feeling long, while the weekend is a mere blink. This year, readjusting to the strict schedule has been taxing to my mind and body. Each day, it seems, I wake up with a new pain that I chalk up to aging for the time being. For now, I will leave those “aging” pieces where they lie.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how much I love reading the essays of my college freshmen—the narrative essays on a place that shaped them. Through years of reading these essays, I have learned that students don’t choose to write about the elaborate vacations, and the events or places that represent the material parts of life. I have learned that an overwhelming number of students choose the places where they have been able to connect with their families, spend meaningful time together, and feel the love and support that surrounds them. These essays let me know that even though I am not able to take my children on long vacations far away—even though they haven’t had some of the amazing experiences that their peers have had—maybe, just maybe, what I am doing is not so bad.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how often I hear the phrase “Welcome to my life,” and how very much I despise it. There are so many things people keep secret, not revealing their pain, their failures, and their worries. No one has a right to assume that their life is more difficult than that of another person. Their life is different. Period. Using this phrase only serves to diminish the road traveled by others.

If we were having coffee, I might tell you that I had a challenging summer. I took on a great deal of work—more than usual—because it was available, it was offered and the offer halfway felt like a promotion, and I need to support my family. The workload might not have been such a great idea. Other areas of my life suffered, and I felt as though I was unable to do anything well. I hate not doing things well.

If we were having coffee, I might tell you that I worry a lot about my children. I would tell you that I try my best to keep up with everything that needs to be done, but sometimes things slip. Letting things slip falls under the category of “not doing things well.” Did I mention I hate that? Being a single parent is the toughest thing I’ve ever done, and I need to learn to let go of some of the things that can slip and not be noticed.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am truly blessed to have three teenagers and a boyfriend who love me. I am sure that some days, they love me more than others, but they love me. And that’s what matters. Sometimes, when I am being honest with myself about my life, my past, and my future, I realize that I would not trade a thing. My road is difficult sometimes, but everyone’s is. Some days, I am stronger than I look, and those days are the ones that get me through.

Then again, if we were having coffee, I might have second thoughts about not trading any of it… I can think of one or two toxic people I would trade for something more positive….