Self Help

I spend a lot of money on self-help... not just counseling/therapy ( I actually highly recommend that)  I mean that I will frantically delve into a new regimen when the mood takes me.  When this happens, I buy books, foods, shakes, vitamins, exercise equipment, and more books.

I guess this shows that I really do need help.  It’s not just on New Year’s Eve that I feel the pressing need to start anew.  No, I feel it every season, every month, every week, every single day.  I sense something is amiss in my life and I set up goals and objectives for myself. 

And some of this is not bad.  It’s good to take stock of where you have been and where you are going.  In fact, it was a super helpful trait in teaching because no one had to tell me twice to post my objectives, I would post and repost them obsessively.  

As I reflect I can think of several things I’ve felt the need to help myself achieve or attain:

1. Peace...just the ability to breath easy and worry less
2. Control...because everything seems wildly out of hand and it scares me.
3. Beauty...because I feel like I’m a mess and not a hot mess, an ugly, gross mess.  

Here are some ways I have tried to help myself attain these characteristics (none of which have panned out with the great success I hoped for): yoga, drinking cleansing teas, spinning classes, drinking coffee, pilates, drinking acai juice, marathoning,  drinking pure water, cooking, drinking tequila, reading, writing, being really pious (for example, confessing faults I might have but am not really sure... just in case they are keeping me from being at peace) and the list goes on and on.  

I have found one sure fire thing always works, I discovered it when I was six years old and so very scared.  Somehow I always seem to forget about it in the heat of the moment...prayer.  Talking to God Almighty.  I think it is because He is greater than me.   He is peace. He is in control.  He is love.  He doesn’t need help.  I need Him.  I’m not really sure how one takes hold of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being but when I pray, I ask him to show me.  

Do you need help?  What is your story, your way to cope?

"You can't get there from here..." or can you?

Confession: I love blogs written by Farmer’s wives...The Pioneer Woman (http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/) ...A Holy Experience (http://www.aholyexperience.com/) , these are two (very different) examples of life stories/ blogs that rope me in completely every time I read them.  I am absolutely fascinated and terrified by farm life.  

Perhaps the fascination was sparked by reading Little House on the Prairie or by  the cover of an old book my mom had entitled, "True Women." Such a great title.  It chronicled the lives of several women who traveled out west and made their home out of the blank slate of land they found there.  I never actually read it, in fact I was a little traumatized by it because my mom reported that many of the women shot themselves out of complete despair.   Nevertheless, the women on the cover looked brave and strong, if not happy.  

So, back to the farmer's wife thing...I immediately wonder if I could make it.  Do I have the hutzpah to work the land sun up to sundown with my family... to live miles from the nearest hospital, police station, coffee shop?!  Would I be able to face everyday with joy and not succumb to the apparent temptation to go out to a field and give up on living?

Somewhat ironically, my husband grew up on a farm. I mean he isn't currently working on his family's land so I wouldn’t bubble in Farmer as his occupation but sometimes I wonder if it is his vocation.  That sort of thing is in your blood right?  Every time we get to some place with open space or large animals I sense he becomes a little more himself than he was before.   

I haven’t found that place yet, the place where I can breathe easy and just be me.  

So, how do you find that place?

Even as I type that I think of the verse from the Bible in John 14 when Thomas asks Jesus how they will know the way and Jesus says, “I am the way...no one comes to the Father but through me.”  I’ve always imagined that wasn’t exactly what the disciples were expecting to hear. 

Not surprisingly, Philip asks a follow up question.  He asks Jesus to show them the Father.  Jesus doesn’t seem to be of the opinion that there are no stupid questions...or if he does, he chooses to answer them with questions of his own, “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been with you such a long time?”  He continues to lovingly explain that he and the Father are one which I can only imagine totally blew the disciple’s minds.  

I don’t pretend to understand the complete unity and yet distinct persons of the trinity.  Here is what I get from the encounter...Jesus is the way, that’s it, if you have him then any place can be that place of peace for you.  

Fortunately for me, who still feels lost most of the time, the next thing Jesus does is promise the Holy Spirit.  He refers to him as “The Counselor” which is exactly what I need when I contemplate all of this.  So, by the leading of the Spirit which Jesus elsewhere says is like the blowing of the wind, we find our place, our identity in Christ.  

Where do you find peace?  Are you a farmer?  A farmer’s wife?  A city slicker?  An urban hoodlum? 

Whatever you have been, have you found Jesus?  If so, would you share the way he changed your life and the world you live in?  I need to hear that today.  Maybe we all do. 

What?! No poetry?

I was adding labels to all of my posts from 3 years ago and I had several epiphanies as I sorted through the work.  I realized, to my surprise, that I did not post any poetry.  Not mine.  Not anyone's.  I love poetry.  I do.  Some find it esoteric or a bygone beauty but I love it and can think of no better way to vent my emotions.  Granted it is easy to write bad poetry full of good emotion.  And I do, write a lot of abysmal poetry with great emotion.  But amidst all that some worthwhile raw material has surfaced.  For example, there is a poem that I wrote 10 years ago about the love of my life. I still return to it and tinker because I love the subject, the genre and the challenge of writing within the rules.   So, without further ado I present for the first time ever, in public, a sonnet by me:

Before I met my love, a boy wore pain

In fields to pluck the pipes of life from soil.

His freckled face alight with sweat and strain

He learned the trade from hands once soaked in oil

The work had turned them black as time’s result

A permanent reminder showing true

The calloused grin despite his life’s tumult

His beard the crimson sign of strength he grew.

I never knew the hands or beard in life

I see only the hue your cheeks retain

From sun and hay within the land of strife

I thirst for words inside and wish through pain

To meet to man who taught the boy to give

His hands, his bearded smile, his will to live.

James River Crab Cakes

Dear  Editors (and readers) ,

  This is my first submission ever to a literary publication.  I stumbled upon Glimmer Train and found helpful, hopeful writing and inspiration.  Thank you. -K.D.  (I have only included the first paragraph since I think that is the most important paragraph of a story.  If you want to read more, let me know, maybe I will post the rest in installments.)

Everybody on the James River called my daddy “Rooster.”   Mr. Williams, the foreman down at the shipyard, gave him the name years ago and it stuck.  My daddy never much cared for the name though and I had a mind to find out why.  Only clue I could get was that it had to do with a prize fighting cock my daddy killed a long time ago, back before I was born. 

Back in Action

Yes, well I am back, 2 kids later and more determined than ever to write, just write and see what happens.  That may be the most valuable lesson that I have learned in the past 3 years... my two year old says it best,

 “Mom, let’s just see what happens...let’s do that plan.”  

“I like that plan” I tell him, and I do.  I like the freedom I’ve discovered of going with the flow.  Granted it is not a naked freedom, lying on my back in dappled sun going with the mellow flow.  For me, it is more of a white water rapids ride, where I am strapped with helmet, “absolute adult compliance” life preserver, and grippy gloves to disguise my white knuckles clutching my paddle as I get pulled into the ferocious flow.  

So, here is my plan.  I am taking a year off teaching to stay at home with my two kids. This in and of itself is scary, on so many levels, I think each of those levels may need a post or two to tease out, so I’ll just skip ahead scary decision number 2: to submit something to a competition of publication every single month.  I’ll post the first paragraph of my current work in progress here for feedback, because Lord knows, I will need it. 

 My first attempt was with Glimmer Train, a publication I very much like and recommend.  I felt that the category “New Writer’s Short Stories” sounded about right.  Especially because this publication only accepts work from yet unpublished writers.  Even better, the editors are two sisters.  Just the thought of my two sisters makes me want to be part of this venture.  My first plan was to distill my entire life saga into 5,000 words.  I only had 2 weeks and soon found this might be biting off more than I could chew.  So, I started small.  I found an old piece, one that I had written as an undergraduate and gotten a generous A- on.  I worked on it, made it presentable.  

When I had the opportunity for 250 words of explanation or cover letter I was tempted to write, “I know this isn’t good...but this is something I have to do...bear with me. I believe I’ll get better.”  I was panic stricken at the thought of actually submitting it but I did it.  I paid $15 and put some work (read: my tender heart and soul) out there to be evaluated by strangers.   I will post the first paragraph tomorrow for feedback and thoughts. I just wanted to let you know what I was up to and that I am back.