(What could I have said) they said he jumped why the I-5 bridge he wouldn’t have died no they said he didn’t jump I saw it on the news someone else said if you want to kill yourself you go to the top of the Fremont Bridge (I said In the Spring not thinking) It is spring she said (I smiled before I realized) he just wanted attention someone said he didn’t want (that…
At first I attempt to make myself smaller, an effort thwarted by my generous thighs, extra-wide hips, and large breasts resting atop my big stomach. As Oprah says, you can’t hold up double-Ds with a six-dollar bra from Walmart. But money is tight so the buy-2-get-one-free bras and Hanes boxers, along with a pair of jeans and a polo shirt from the Goodwill outlet, are all that buffer my body from the world.
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“What is it that you do here?” This isn’t the question you think it is…
…Like a swimmer no longer struggling to keep from drowning, I become aware of how much the salty seas sting. The temptation to choose happiness (as touted by talk shows, books, magazine and blog articles) is compelling, as are the many distractions of technology and entertainment. Yet there is something about sitting with the sadness, with the disquieting sensation of the imminent crying that is sure to happen if I don’t actively work to avert it…
“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness — mine, yours, ours — need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.” – Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life
To be whole is not to be unbroken, is not to be perfect, is not to be well balanced. It does not mean that all my goals have been reached, my desires fulfilled, my expectations met. It does not mean that I have found God, lost my demons, eat vegan/local/paleo/organic. It does not mean that I have my shit together, meditate daily, move for at least 30 minutes 3 times a week…
Words count. That isn’t meant as a philosophical statement, at least not in this particular post. That is the heart of National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words count, to be more precise: that’s the goal for the month. As the title might give away, the idea is to write a 50k-word novel in the month of November. People do this. My writing partner, Dot, has done it every year since forever and…
Hemingway’s “Write one true sentence” is one of those pieces of writing advice that has always made me chuckle…Sometimes I feel as if I can spend a lifetime and not reach that goal. Other times, I remember that he did not say “Write the best line ever known to humanity” or even “Write one good line.”
If life faithfully followed my calendar, by the time the clock struck 7am, I’d be awake, fed, caffeinated, and sitting with a pencil in hand writing fervently for the next 90 minutes. At the end of what would surely be an inspired writing session, what were once empty pages would be covered with well-wrought language, ready to transport readers (which would be lined up eager to consume said pages) to places of deep connections with a new understanding of the world we all live in. And I’d close my notebook, satisfied and eager to move on to the portion of my day dedicated to more practical endeavors, like work that pays enough money to pay the bills.
The real world and the brightly colored blocks on my calendar, however, seem to be in constant conflict.