I Want to Sparkle

It’s September. 

Of course, you already knew that. 

I’m not sure, though, when, or how, this year became to be three-quarters of its way through. Really, I look at the calendar and I’m certain that the pages just turned to June. By the time I recognized it was June, I think it was August. That may explain that.

Time flies when you’re having fun, moving on, learning new things, or growing up. That’s all happened in the last nine months. What have you learned this year?

This year, I learned that I love to be spontaneous, so long as everything else is planned. It’s important to me to know where I’ll sleep, or how I’ll get somewhere, but the rest -- I can go with the flow.

Also, I learned that I’m content with being alone. In fact, much to my dismay, I actually enjoy it. That being said, I do love companionship and hope one day that I can have a relationship where there’s an honest blend of mutual interests and individual interests.

What I learned most about myself and my experiences of this year is what I don’t want, and how to help those who may not want it either. I don’t want to be stifled. 

I want to sparkle.

Getting the frump out of your rump is a permanent process; it is a constant cycle and the recognition of what does deserve and what one does not; and getting it out allows your sparkle to shine through. 

I have something big coming. It’s still in development and it is coming. As soon as I can tell you, I will. I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. 

The Best Way to Heal is to Help

When I first set out to write this blog it started because of a wound that was very deep, but very few people could see it. No matter how hard I tried to cover it up, the temporary bandages didn’t seem to be working.

There are bruises we can see, and there are bruises we can’t. It’s the latter that are the most common and the least talked about. 

When I set out to get the frump out of my rump, I didn’t realize that it came with the shedding of the source of my “frumpage.” 

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t realize I was being hurt until I wasn’t being hurt anymore.

It’s been a struggle, almost daily, these past several months trying to figure out if there’s a story to tell. If I was alone, and if I wasn’t, could others need to be helped. If they needed to be helped, how can I do that? 

It’s clear, as I write this, that the pain still exists. Some of the wounds have healed, but it’s an ongoing process. 

I heal when I can fit into that little black dress and am confident to wear it.

I heal when I am not afraid, or bothered by the possibility of enjoying tea alone.

There are other moments I heal. 

But, the biggest is finding ways to help. Would you be willing to help me help others? 

You Don't Know Something Stinks Until it Smells

The first week of Spring is coming to a close, even though it roared in like it was Winter saying it was going to stick around another week.

I refused to let that get the best of me. Just because I can’t lay out by the pool or go running in the sunshine right away doesn’t mean it’s not Spring.

For whatever reason, I’m particularly excited about this year’s Spring. 

All I can think about is Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit, and having tea parties in rooms surrounded by tulips and girl friends wearing pastel Easter Springy-dresses! 

It might be throwback to my childhood, but I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that my guest room is starting to look like the Easter Bunny’s Workshop. First of all, the bed spread is very spring-like with all the flowers on it. Secondly, I have pastel post-it notes marking which card and gift goes to which person. Third, I can’t seem to stop myself from gathering up little books, magnets, lotions, and candies for a list of people.... (Yep, made a list, checked twice or so already) who are on the recipient list.

It’s all part of bringing back good mail. It’s a campaign I’ve been on, mainly because I’m tired of getting just junk and bills in my mailbox. I’m sure you are too. Just saying.

Going to the mail box now is like an Easter egg hunt. You don’t know if there’ll be a surprise when you look tomorrow! 

For all the good things that Easter and Spring can bring, one lesson from my childhood really stinks. Or, sticks out. Honestly, you don’t know something stinks until it smells!

One year my Dad hid eggs all over the house, the backyard, as well as jelly beans. I seem to recall finding jelly beans and eggs for days after Easter. Maybe even a week. Once they were all collected some of the multi-colored sugar-shaped eggs were hard and nearly broke my teeth off. I’d also had about seven egg-salad sandwiches a day - and I had moved on. I was ready for Summer. 

I don’t know exactly when it was, but we had gone somewhere, and when Mom, Dad, and I arrived back home, we opened up the front door and..... Blast.

Damn. It stunk. It stunk like a sewer on a hot summer day near the Salton Sea. 

So, what happened? Dad stuck an Easter egg in Mom’s china cabinet. The egg, mind you, had ideas of its own. It didn’t want to stay put. So, it exploded all over that thing. Dad had to cart the china cabinet, dishes inside, into the garage, empty everything out, scrub it down, and in the process decided to cut two inches or so off the height of the china cabinet.

Mom was not pleased. I don’t think this was the kind of Spring renewal she was hoping for.

I’m telling you, you don’t know something stinks until it smells. 

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How about you? Do you have a memory from Easter that taught you a lesson? Or when was the last time something really had a stench? What was it?

Stand Up, Take the Chance

Every now and then, there is a time to become retrospective. You know, to stare back at your past and contemplate past situations.

The other day, I bought pickles. Someone I know didn’t like pickles at all and often would say, “Eww, gross.” Sometimes the sound “blech” would even be uttered.

Yum.... pickles.

I like pickles. I also like olives. Ok, so sometimes, I really like salty things that have a vinegar kind of taste, and I will walk for miles until I find them.

When I was younger, I gave advice to friends who were at that time the age that I am now. I would say, “If there’s something you want, do it.” 

Of course, I assumed all known consequences would be taken into consideration and they wouldn’t actually do anything that could get them into trouble.

So, here I am, the other day, standing at my kitchen counter staring at this jar of pickles. Then, it dawned on me, I really wanted those pickles. In fact, I wanted them just as much as I wanted olives in 1994. 

Almost 17 years ago, I was in Spain. My parents sent me there as part of an Educational Foreign tour (which I highly recommend, by the way). Towards the last leg of the trip, I was staying somewhere along the Costa del Sol and enjoying the sunshine. It was just hours before my 14th birthday and I had a hankering for something salty. Not just salty, I wanted olives. 

So, I gathered up my little backpack and I started walking along a boardwalk, a sidewalk along the beach. I walked, and I walked, and I really do not know how long I walked. Yet, clear as if it were two minutes ago, I remember walking, turning left into a store, and darting straight for “cans of stuff.” I sure was persistent. I found my olives, I bought them with whatever little money I had left, and walked all the way back to my hotel room. I don’t even remember how I opened the can, but I sat there and I ate every single olive. I even stuck the olives on my fingers, and ate them off of the tips, just as if I were 7 again.

The point is, I wanted those olives (or pickles, I would have taken pickles). I knew that eating them wouldn’t hurt me, so I took the risk, or rather, the chance, of walking along that boardwalk by myself in search of something that, in that moment, was so important.

It was my very own, yet incredibly small “call to action.” 

That stand up and take charge desire carries with me through today. 

On March 30, 1999, 5 years after my olive pursuit, and 2 years after a several mile walk through London to find Dr. Pepper (yet, another story), I sat down to write something about taking charge. 

I stumbled across it recently, in this green hand-written journal I've been keeping since 1997. Now, I believe it resonates with the entire focus of doing something. 

In part, it reads:

“You’ve got to take the chance.

Never wash your hands.

Let them run through your hair.

You’ve got to give yourself praises.

Never be a bum.

You can do more than chew gum.

You’ve got to take charge.

Never let your ambition die. 

You know you can claim all your fame.

If you know there’s something you want to do,

Get up the courage.

Stand up, take the chance.

If you know there’s something you want to do

Get up, take charge.

Never walk away, it doesn’t matter

if you’re ten minutes late.” 

I think that now I could add a line to the part there in bold. Remember Lee Ann Womack’s song, “I Hope You Dance,” well, just remember “Stand up, take the chance, I Hope You Dance.” 

Or, Martina McBride, and her song “Anyway.” Unlike that first part, it’s not about fame. It’s just about doing something good just because it makes you, or someone else, smile. 

Floating On the Wings of Earthly Angels

The healing is just beginning. 

In these final weeks of 2010, the healing is just beginning. It started with writing this blog. Everyone needs an outlet of some kind to identify why they are hurting and need healing in the first place. 

Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keys on a keyboard, is one way a person can get close with their thoughts. Joan Didion once said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 

Perhaps, healing comes in a two step process when one is writing. First, the thoughts enter your mind. Then, there’s an adjustment between resting on a sturdy foundation and falling into a deep pool of uncertainty. At that point, if you’re writing, the words start to flow. Then, you start to make sense of it. l guess it was more than two steps, wasn’t it? 

This process, this blog is a way to heal, for me. It is my sincerest hope that if you’re reading this, and you wonder how to begin the healing process that maybe you find a nugget of hope, or process, or passages to sustain you. After all, the characteristics that make us all human come in the form of faith, hope and love and are sometimes masked as doubt, worry, or regret. 

Floating on the wings of earthly angels. I’ve said this statement a few times this week and at first it sounded quite holy and mighty. Then, I realized it just happened to be the truth. 

Sometimes, things change in our lives in a way that we don’t understand, or we have trouble accepting why things have changed, or just can’t get beyond being stuck in a moment. 

The healing process for me got a kick start because of others in my life. The recognition that people like you for you and for no other reason is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. People just sometimes show up. You have no idea who they will be or why it is them, but when they do, embrace them with open arms. I have to. 

I’m trying to like myself more. It’s really easy to give up on yourself when you’re so busy running errands, going to work, cooking meals, dealing with the kids, the cat, the dog.... You get the idea. You become exhausted. Remember when I talked about napping? We can’t do anything for anyone else if we don’t do something for ourselves. In 2011, I’m going to like myself more. 

You know, giving is not about the anticipation of anything in return, it’s about the genuine human character of the giver. People who give do so because they want to and because they can. 

And that, realizing that in order to really give, one must heal (which may involve forgiving oneself), accept love, and try to like themselves more and allow themselves time to do all those things, is the lesson learned in 2010. 

Oh, and to smile more. Maybe someone will smile back. 

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My Wine Corks Tell A Story

I make most things in the kitchen.

On Thanksgiving, I made my first turkey.
What I would like to make is a creative project. For more than a year I have been saving wine corks. My boyfriend* and I enjoy going wine tasting and joined several wine clubs over the years.

Each cork has a memory, a story, or something else.

The project I want to undertake includes taking those corks and cutting them to frame a memory, a photograph, or two. Maybe I could make one for someone else, as a gift, and practice giving, that way. As a bonus, I could include a bottle of wine.

What is the last thing you made? Or better yet, what is the last thing you created?

Visit www.reverb10.com

This post is part of Reverb10, a project to reflect on the year before it ends.


*Ex-boyfriend as of December 12, 2010


UPDATED: DECEMBER 20, 2010

It's Not About the Decorations

Growing up, a neighbor would have Christmas tree lights, a tree, decorations, and a Christmas card all ready to go the day after Thanksgiving. 

It’s not about the decorations.

When I was old enough to send my own Christmas cards, about six years ago, I strived to have the same “urgency” with spreading my holiday cheer. After all, professionally, I am a broadcast journalist. Everything is deadline driven.

So, here I am on the fifth day of December and I don’t have the budget for Christmas cards, Christmas gifts, or anything else that spreads holiday cheer. As much as I’d love to spend tomorrow evening after work sipping some hot chocolate and writing in the Christmas cards I had bought weeks ago, I won’t be. 

Somewhere between who I once was and who I might have been, I realized that Christmas isn’t about the decorations, or the holiday cards, or all the gifts you think you have to buy. What gift are you giving if you end up in debt? It helps no one. 

You might be asking, so, what is the season about?

For me, this year, it’s about loving, and really living, and demonstrating gratitude of tremendous proportion. It’s gratitude extending from the Thanksgiving holiday, that I am afforded the possibility to give, even if it means giving up something else to do it. 

To borrow a line from the song from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” Faith Hill sings in “Where Are You Christmas:” 

“If there is love in your heart and your mind, you will feel like Christmas all the time.” 

It is Better to Give Than to Receive

“It is better to give than to receive.”

I remember being assigned a lesson in 4th or 5th grade, I cannot remember which, where I had to decide which was in fact better. 

In class we read books like “The Giver.”

In 7th or 8th grade, a few years later, I decided that there was so much to be thankful for. People in my life who I could not wait to give back to. 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for many reasons. One, it usually means I get to be with the ones I love, or I work and am with some of my closest friends. It is also a reminder to the rest of country what gratitude is all about. 

I believe gratitude is an attitude we must hold all year long.

Giving doesn’t always have to be done monetarily. Admittedly, I would like to give money to charitable organizations or to people I see on the streets who I know are starving or dying for a warm blanket. Giving, instead, can be through kind gestures, a simple pay it forward attitude. Start small.

1. Bring your co-worker a cup of coffee, if you know they will like it.
2. Send a friend a “just because card.” You know, through the mail. I don’t know about you but I love to get mail and I don’t always like checking my phone to see if someone thought of me today or this week. 
3. Volunteer at a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.
4. Instead of giving the homeless person cash, give them a gift card. 
5. Pray for someone. 
6. Show someone a smile. Trust me, it will make you feel good, too. 

There are so many ways we can give back. Seeing that person smile is a gift we may then receive, and it’s simple, and free. 

It really is better to give than to receive.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, may you be blessed and aware of your blessings, on this day, and everyday.