Baby Steps (or, How to Tread Lightly on New Paths)

Rewind. It’s March 2015, and my colleague has just posted a link on a networking feed about a Denver-based organization that connects college students and young professionals in the US with high schoolers in Brazil. Mildly interested, but mostly on a whim, I click the link and begin to read about the organization’s six-month Global Leaders program. Here, fellows “coach” small groups of Brazilian students in English, helping the young people to build confidence and competence with a new language, while also developing their own personal strengths and leadership skills.

The organization is called US-Brazil Connect, and, I read, they coordinate closely with many of the industries in Brazil to deliver this program to hundreds of students around the country. Most of the coaching is completed using Facebook, Google Hangout and other social media-based platforms, but one full month happens on the ground, in-person, in Brazil, where coaches and students spend five days each week working together, deepening relationships, and learning in a setting that is fun, supportive and team-oriented.

Instantly, I fall in love. Without a second’s thought into whether it’s “practical,” “doable” or “realistic,” I already know the answer: I’m going for it.

As I continue reading, I discover there are are some… well, challenges. First, as I’m sitting here on Tuesday afternoon reading about the program, I discover that applications are, of course, due in just under 48 hours. It’s not the first time I’ve signed on late into the on-boardong process, I think, surely I can write a few essays and make a video intro in 48 hours.

There is also the tiny matter that I work full-time for an already under-staffed association that will be rapidly ramping up for a statewide convention at the time of the month-long trip to Brazil. Would they let me go? Or, I guess more accurately, would I have a job when I come back?

And then there’s the fact that it’s now two months since I purchased a vehicle with every dime of my savings, so I don’t actually have the financial cushion to set out on an international excursion in a matter of months. The organization’s Brazilian partners generously pay for Fellows to stay and travel around Brazil, but not for the flight to Brazil, or obviously any of the pieces leading up to it (Passport? Visa? Immunizations? I’ve never even been through the process of obtaining any of these). Fellows are also responsible for a $500 program deposit, returned after successfully competing the full six months. All in all, I was probably looking at saving/borrowing/raising around $2,000 in less than a month. For now, though, the only task at hand is to get an application in, and proceed from there. You know, baby steps…

After all, I figure, all of these are just details, really. They carry only the significance I choose to grant them. And right now, I choose to grant them none.

Quinoa in the Sofa & Other Tales of Universal Flow

Shiva’s rather impressibe handiwork

My dad likes to tell the story of the time he came home to find my three year-old brother and my two year-old self in the kitchen “cleaning” his vinyl record collection. I use the term cleaning loosely, because the cleaning agents we employed included jelly, ketchup, mayo, and all other manner of condiments from the refrigerator door. I don’t remember this, but he’ll never let me forget it happened.

Ironically, I was talking to him on the phone today when I walked in the door to my house to find my dog and my living room covered in an assortment of my roommate’s dried and baking goods. I didn’t quite notice until thinking back on it later that my pops had a mild chuckle in his voice when he said he’d let me go and wished me luck. A hundred bucks says he was remembering that moment from twenty-five years ago, thanking Karma for finally paying up.

Life is a Trust Fall

You said, “I’m not sure what you would have me do. Where you will lead. Who it is I’m meant to be.”

But I see you. 

You said you had a dream you were standing 10 feet above the crowd, asking them catch you if you fall backwards. When you fall backwards. 

Asking them to hold you, soothe you, warm you. 

Asking them, “If I trust you now to be my net, would you tie me into knots like the ones in my chest? Would you cast me back? Would you trap me like bird with clipped wings?”
You said you weren’t afraid of being dropped. 

You said you couldn’t bear the thought of being consumed, your limbs pulled tight together at your sides, hog tied.

You said you woke up screaming and I…

I felt myself wishing I could unwrap you, clip the strings of the net around your heart.

Show you that freedom is Being Who You Are. 

If trust is in the falling, I’ll allow myself to leap. 

If trust is in the falling, I’ll surrender, and release. 

If trust is in the falling, I’ll allow myself to dream

and pray I wake up soaring, so you see there is no cage.

So you can see the way.

Broken Open: Initial Thoughts on Jessie Hernandez

Last night, I Googled Jessie Hernandez after a friend reached out for support in the aftermath of her shooting. I’d been out of the loop for a few days and was stunned to read about the killing which took place while I was safely asleep in my bed just a few miles away early Monday morning.

Before I even finished reading the first article on Jessie’s death, I felt sick. First at the sheer tragedy of Jessie’s loss, and then with the knowledge that some news outlets will report on the shooting with a finger pointed at the now-dead sixteen year-old Latina, simply because she was driving a stolen car.

The Lessons We Live

My parents divorced when I was 10. I remember being very angry at my father for most of my childhood, and telling my mom over and over–with that high volume passion and know-it-all-ness that’s absolutely characteristic of how I show up in the world–how much I hated him and wished they would just get a divorce. I railed about how terrible he was to her and how she deserved better. How he didn’t care and didn’t love us and certainly didn’t deserve us. I was eight and nine and ten and absolutely positive I knew what was best for my family. I was always, always right.

At my Memaw’s service a few weeks ago, my Pappap spoke about their life together. Fifty-seven crazy long years, packed full of love and humor and lots of mistakes. He told a story I hadn’t heard about how, years and years ago when they were first married and he was spending most of his time fucking around in bars, my Memaw packed her things and took their five kids to live with her mother–and did so probably rightfully, considering who he was as a husband at the time.

He expressed his deepest regrets about what he put her through, and also his deepest joy and gratitude that they were eventually able to make it work. I don’t think I’ve known a couple more in love, though I never realized it growing up. That’s who my Memaw was: she held the family together. She was the glue or sticky tack or duct tape depending on the situation. That’s just who she was for us, and we are all better for it.

Maybe at least part of what hit me this weekend is the awareness that that’s who I want to be for my family–both the family I was born into as well as the one I’ll start someday. The woman who lives the Truth that Love is powerful and unconditional, the woman who exemplifies the strength that bond.

I found a picture in my Uncle’s box that healed my heart and broke it to pieces at the very same time. I held on to it most of the night Saturday and lost it sometime after beer number eight (gotta love day drinking at sea level): A family portrait from when I was 8 and Bobby was 9 and Megan was 6 and my parents were far younger than I remember them seeming at the time. I remember having the portrait taken. I don’t remember why, at that age, I wanted nothing more in the world than for that family to be ripped apart. I was sad and angry and thought them splitting up was the fix. It turned out to be the wound that never healed.

If I could take anything back, I think it would be that. This “I fly solo” shit is the mask I wear to protect myself from the vulnerability and messiness of being fully and unabashedly in relationships. I don’t wanna live my life a runaway. I don’t want things being hard to be an easy out. I wanna be glue and sticky tack and duct tape when everything and everyone around me is falling apart. That’s what I got from the weekend, and it’s a lesson I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.

For Ms. Dorelyn Gayle Bennett. With all my love, admiration and respect. A hundred more years on this Earth wouldn’t have been enough. We’ll miss you and hold you in our hearts forever.

Does this job make my butt look big?

So…I’m having a hard time trusting myself.

Perhaps this is because I keep making commitments I’m not authentically committed to, and agreeing to take on things that don’t feel right. I don’t know why this keeps occurring for me or where it comes from, only that it seems a pattern in my life–my getting to a place of hair-pulling frustration with the agreements I hear come out of my mouth. It’s as if I only know how to live overwhelmed and spread thin, so I bite off commitment after commitment after commitment, bringing myself to a point where I can hardly concentrate on a single task for the stress mounting over all I haven’t gotten to. My guess is this is a shared struggle.

How’s that for a Hell Yeah!

Hola!!

Oh my gosh, can you believe it’s December 31 already?! And you know what that means, doncha?

That’s right! My words are due!

So after a full month of diligent, committed, daily writing, I’ve ended up with a total of… *drum roll please* 51,044 words!

*Stacey does her happy dance*

Now, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but, well, I think a little horn tootin’ is in order after this one. I have roughly one hundred pages of story to play with, revise, build onto, and form into something beautiful. How effin RAD is that???

But what I really wanted to say was that this challenge has taught me so much about the writing process, and about myself as a writer. I wanted to share a few things for all you other word artists and aspirers out there, in case any of these lessons have thus far evaded you as well. If anyone else has tips, advice, or observations in this vein, please feel free to share them with us!!

So, what I’ve taken from this month:

– I’ve heard it a million times, but this experience really nailed home how important it is to maintain a daily practice when it comes to one’s craft—the same way it is with things like yoga and meditating. Doing a little bit every day makes the whole process less daunting (and honestly, a lot more fun). You can play around with one story today and another tomorrow. And if you’re not diggin your creative flow right now, no worries. Put down what you can and pick it back up later. That’s much easier to do when “later” is in 24 hours and not some indefinite span of time in the who-knows-how-distant future.

– Turning off the mental (and digital) editor is an absolute must during the initial pouring-thoughts-on-paper phase. Eventually, I’ll have to turn spelling and grammar check back on, and God knows what kind of mess I’ll have on my hands. But I know for certain that I’ve written thousands more words than I would have if I’d insisted on retyping “the” instead of “teh” in every other sentence, or if I’d demanded perfectly flawless, evocative  prose straight from the jump. Get it out, and then do something magical with it.

– Characters create themselves as much as they are created by the author. They will begin to surprise you, act in ways you didn’t intend or understand until you uncover a new piece of their history, something else that had a hand in making them who they are. The people in your stories will grow and change over time. They’ll show you how they are like other characters and how they are different. They’ll tell you about their fears and hopes and demons. They speak to you this way, little by little, as you chip away at the story you’re creating. For me, this has been the most beautiful and invigorating part of the process.

– You never know what kind of story lives inside you until you sit down and write it. It may start out as a whole lot o’ not much. It may seem trite and awkward at first, and yeah, it may stay trite and awkward. You may have to scrap the whole thing and start fresh. It’s not always a pretty process, but all of it is necessary for us to discover our voices as writers. It’s the only way we can hope to give our stories—and our Selves—a fighting chance.

– The biggest lesson I took from this month is simply that our passions need time and space in our lives if they are to grow in us, fulfill us, and sustain us. It is this time and space we create for our crafts that makes us artists to begin with. We are writers (or painters, or sculptors, or musicians, etc.) because we write (or paint, or sculpt, or play music). We do not become artists by selling our work, but by doing it. I’ve never published a book, and it may be a while before my first one is born. But this month I proved to myself that I am a writer–that I absolutely can write, as long as I’m willing to sit down and do it.  As long as I make the commitment and put in the effort. That is what it means to live my Truth, and I think the same goes for all of us.

So anyway, thank you for taking the time to read these updates, and thank you for supporting me through this project. It’s been an amazing experience, and I can’t wait to do it again–for real next time! NaNoWriMo 2014: You’re mine!!

On that note, have a marvelous, safe New Years everyone. May your stories only get better from here, and may you write the next chapters with all the love and brilliance your big, beautiful hearts can contain.

Stand tall. Laugh often. And as always, be excellent to each other.

Cheers! 🙂

– Stacey

Labor of Love

Well hi!

Geez, I can’t believe how fast this month is flying by! I feel like just yesterday I was typing my first words for this challenge, and now here I am, with just 10 days and 16,165 words to go! And I gotta say: the closer I get, the antsier. I promised myself reward money for reaching my goal, and I am soooo pumped to go shoppin!

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that inspire, motivate, and get us energized and moving throughout the day. One of the most important ways we can choose consciously on behalf of our wellness and happiness is to make time for the things that fuel our passions and replenish our reserves.

For example, as exhausted as I am when I get home after work, something  about writing lights me up. I still feel daunted sometimes when I sit down to kick out my words for the day, but I get an inner push that moves me through my resistance to a place of excitement and eagerness to press forward. This is exactly the feeling I’m looking for in my work.

I think part of our problem as a society is that too few people are doing the work their souls long for. In her book Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow, Marsha Sinetar calls this work our right livelihoods. It’s a great book for anyone who wants to know more about the importance of finding their right life’s work, and about what can stand in the way of getting there. It also helps readers make sense the baggage we carry in our thought patterns that keeps us trapped, stuck doing work that only drains us. Ultimately, it all comes down to how we see ourselves and our work, and what we’re willing to do to have the lives we truly, deeply want.

Anyway, those are just my musings on the subject. It’s time for me to call it a night now. Rest well world. I hope your Tomorrows sparkle with awesome 🙂

-Stacey

A day like this one.

Hello hello!

Just a super quick word count update. I said last time the next few days would be pretty crazy, and that’s sure the truth! Yesterday, I was able to put in 999 words despite working from 7:30 in the morning until 9:00 at night. After another long day today, I’ve added 889 to my tally, bringing me to 30,526 words so far this month!! *Does a little dance* Pretty rad, eh?

Anyway, I’m gearing  up for another long day tomorrow, so chances are I won’t have an update for ya. But I do plan on using Saturday evening to catch up on my words, and I’ll keep y’all posted.

Have a splendid night, everyone, and a fabulous Tomorrow. Sweet dreams 🙂

-Stacey

Something’s gonna give.

Hello dearies!

Just a quick update tonight:

Geez these days off fly by!!  I’ve been exhausted all day, so I’m calling it a night at 2,618 words—which I’ve decided is totally fair on this, my last day off till Christmas. Rest and relaxation are important too, especially when you rely on those energy reserves to help ya push on.

I’ve got a lot going on the next few days, so I may not be as consistent on my word counts, but I’ll make sure to update as frequently as possible. I appreciate all of you who take the time to check these things out. These posts keep me on track and give me something to be proud of, and something to be accountable to, so they’re an important part of the process.It’s nice to have you all along for the ride 🙂

And with that, I bid you all a splendid, restful night. Have a wonderful hump day 🙂

-Stacey