I GOT THE CALL

I look good made up in my compassion-finery.  My spiritual make-up rivals Starlet must-have miracles in a jar.

Looking good, but kiss proof.

But, naked, my thoughts challenge any great thriller writer.

Oh yeah, I’ve been pissed.

My heart burns with a sense of outrage, a point of finger to the offender.   At times, I have held a chronicle of the ways someone has wronged me.  I keep score.  I decide to cut my ties.  But, I don’t really let go.

I am the person I describe above.   I’ve allowed her to be that  ..no one, nothing has ever chastised me for this, because I hide it so well.

My brother has been one person who I hold to account.  Lots of reasons, to be sure.   I have prided myself at times on the ways others would back me up if they had the “facts”.   I have felt so entitled to be closed off to him.  Maybe with cause..maybe not, maybe I should just fucking let it all go to the grudge commode in the sky, for proper recycling.

Dump it and flush.

My brother may be in straits that anyone might shudder from..he may be sick.   And, I am sick if I don’t rise to the occasion and try to find a way to let go of the crap and hold close the light.  Because the clock waits for no one, especially someone who understands the power of intending to forgive like me, but passes on the chance to do it.

Yes, that’s me as a wee lass.

I know things about Things.  I am spiritually educated, one might say.

I don’t pretend to know more, I only can feel the colors, the design, the intersections, and live accordingly.

So, I am going to task myself to be a better person.  Do the really hard things.

Let go of the stuff I could not control,
the things that happened that angered or hurt me,
recognize the pain in people that blind and disable them,
be grateful that the stuff is forgivable,
ride high on the most insightful thoughts any of us have ever shared,
become a better version of me.

As you read this, you are reading a transformation.  Because as I write this, I have decided, I am going to forgive.

Polishing to the Nubs and Beyond @VerbaVitae

My last blog was a reaction to a statement about how writers often find publishing and its terms to be at the mercy of agents and publishing houses.  Of course, its struck a chord with me.  I find being beholden to anything that objectifies my creativity to the point of enslavement to be well – unsavory.

Just a few comments from fellow writers about how one’s soul does not need to be in the transaction, and this time, on this site, the optimism came from the commentators.  I love that.  I am hopelessly romantic and unavoidably shrewd, so I am in frequent discomfort.  After at least one other lifetime I recall as a writer, these issues are beyond disconcerting.  However, I do find governing solace and sanctuary in the quietest places in me, and so I go there to find the ways my mind and heart have reconciled – and those places are where the stories, concepts, and insights linger.  Getting to those places can be difficult for any of us, and yet, that is where the magic springs out of nothingness, to find its way to page and screen.

It’s true that to be a writer who contributes, one needs to live in both places – the alleys of the shrewd and caustic, the soiled and sparse – and the magical and transformed, the infinite and optimized.  In this way, it seems to me that we transform all sorts of things: concepts, perceptions, fears, and longings – in our readers and viewers.

@DavidLNewhoff just sent me a Tweet that says that “All writers have baggage”, in reply to a little chat we were having about the shoot of his upcoming film project.  I think that’s true, and may be that all artists compelled to create, do.  Our unresolved concepts, perceptions, fears, and longings find voice – and in this way we are transformed.

Listening, Letting Go, and Letting In

I’m Fifty now; I’d like to think my complexion stills begs the question. But, recently I’ve been feeling my age. It’s as if an entire Self has shed – I can see it behind me like some snake skin wrapped around a post.  I don’t know what’s gone, but I know I’m somehow less and somehow more; but, definitely not the same.

Periodically, there’s a piece that runs on CBS, during a news segment – “Everybody Has a Story”.  A reporter throws a dart behind him at a map of the United States.  Where it lands, he goes.  Then, when he gets there, he interviews a random name from the phone book.  I’ve been finding archives of interviews like that in my own psyche – stories that are complex, tragic or compelling, waiting for a someone to come by and ask the questions … and listen.

I’ve been through some of life’s downsides in the last few years – deaths of animals, deaths of people, my Sister’s sudden, serious illness.  The abrupt necessity for me to drop my career and writing lives to work 60+ hours per week for over a year – for the benefit of my sister, who needed my help.  Now, the horizon is clearing, and I can see far enough ahead to see that very soon, I will be able to devote time to my career and my writing again.

Enter the parts of my psyche who have been waiting for someone to listen to their tales – to the fear, the weariness, the disappointments.  To listen to the soldier in me who had to narrow her focus and march through territory – a territory that demanded everything, and perpetuated only Itself.

The soldier in me wants to speak now.  And, I need to listen.  So, I can acknowledge the sacrifice she made, and begin the integration of my psyche, my current life, and the future I long for.

Sometimes, if we choose to stop and listen to the parts of us that wait beside the road to be fed, we find that we fill ourselves in a way which is necessary to walk on.  In this way, we Let Go, and can Let In.  I am ready.