Sep4

My Mission

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School has started and from the window of my house I can see the red brake lights of cars lining up to drop off their precious cargo. The teachers have, more than likely, been there for weeks setting up their classrooms and have been in school this morning for an hour or more, after getting very little sleep the night before. This is the first year I’m not there too.

I wondered how I would feel today.

As the new business begins to get a little busy and the nonprofit begins to take shape, I can say that I made the right decision. I’ll miss the kids  today. Some of them knew they would have me as a teacher this year and I think they will be disappointed. Some of the students that return to tell me how their summer was, or show me that they grew into young men or women, will wonder where I am.  I’ll miss some of my colleagues too. I’m going to need to create a new work community as I also try to stay in touch with people I have known for years.

Deep in my heart I know that I’m doing the right thing. I have something else to do in this life and in the infancy of this nonprofit I am creating I can see it taking shape. It’s the meshing of all I’ve done before coming to together. I continue to meet other woman that have started nonprofits in the oddest ways. I pick up just the right article or book. I mention what I’m doing to a person who knows someone who can help me. It’s just all falling into place. It feels right.

So there is a bit of melancholy, but more so an overwhelming feeling of having made the right turn in search of my mission. What a relief!

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. 
~Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Aug29

To write, write(s), wrote, written, writing

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I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.
Nora Ephron

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thewritersworkshop.net

 I have a book in my head and my goal is to write enough to attend a workshop at the Fine Arts Workshop Center In Provincetown in the summer of 2013. Now this may not sound like an insurmountable task unless, of course, one has not written a single word. Then it becomes a little more difficult. 

When I was teaching I was lucky enough to have my class conduct a Skype interview with award winning children’s book author Linda Sue Park who wrote an incredible book,  A Long Walk to Water, that we had read in class. One of my students, who has a severe language based learning disability, intends to become an author and asked a great question. He wanted to know if she ever had writer’s block and what she did about it. Of course like everyone that writes she agreed that not being able to do so on occasion was quite disturbing and then related a story of a friend of hers, also an award winning novelist, who writes for 15 minutes a day, every day. She limits her time this way and rarely experiences writer’s block. My thoughts were that she must be a furious typist but I thought is seemed do-able. So, I promised myself I’d spend 15 minutes a day writing, every day, no excuses. That never happened, except for blogging which wasn’t supposed to count for that 15 minutes, until today. A full page is out of my head and saved on to the computer. I’m sure I’ll edit the crap out of it, figuratively and literally, but I like it. I can feel it when I read it it. Now that I’ve told all of you I suppose I’ll need to follow through too. 

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin

Aug27

Panic

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best-of-web.com

There are these incredible moments of panic that strike me occasionally. They come out of nowhere. Today I was driving down the street and a commercial came on for the 40th year reunion concert of Orleans. Remember them? Dance with Me? No, okay, well I was never a fan either but the thought that forty years had passed since that song came out started a bit of chain reaction ending in me wondering what the hell I was doing starting all over again. I’m better now. I really thought by now I’d be settled on something but the panic inducing thought is that I will be starting over for the rest of my life because that’s just who I am. There will never be the 40th anniversary of anything I’ve done because most things have about a 7-year expiration date with me. A good friend says I shed a skin every seven years. Well, that’s not the most appealing visual is it? But I suppose there is some truth to it.

So, I am taking a deep breathe (no, not in a paper bag) and moving forward. Scared shitless, white-knuckled, screaming on the inside but forging ahead.

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” 
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Aug23

The Booker Award

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The Booker Award

I really do love this award because I love books, as I’m sure most of you do. They are everywhere in my home and have been my escape from reality since I learned to read. I’ve moved across the US more than once and I’m sure I could have paid for the moving van with the money saved had I not packed every book. But I could never part with them.

Do you know how some people like to look in other people’s bathroom cabinets when they visit. That never really held much appeal to me. I like to look at their bookshelves. This award saves me the trip times nine not to mention the restraining orders. So here we go…

1. Nominate other blogs, as many as you want but 5-10 is always a good suggestion. Don’t forget to let your recipients know. See below.

2. Post the Booker Award picture. Done

3. Share your top 5 books of all time

1.  My first favorite book was definitely A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle along with The Velvet Room by    Zilpha Snyder

2. All time favorite book is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

3. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4. Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

5.  Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Thank you to Jenn from http://newsofthetimes.org/. Her blog is original, inspiring and informative and the photography that goes along with it is a winner, which is why you should vote for her photo of Patagonia on Bucket List Publications Travel Photo of the Year Contest! Just saying….

Okay, so Jenn has already listed quite a few of my favorite blogs and I’ll look forward to seeing what they consider their favorite books. I am really curious to see what these incredibly interesting people read. Come on, let’s hear it. Don’t make me look on your bookshelves!

Life with the Top Down: http://fretym.wordpress.com/

David Kanigan: http://davidkanigan.com/

Kyle Mew: http://kylemew.com/

Momentum of Joy: http://momentumofjoy.com/

Lucky Leo : http://maryannemistretta.wordpress.com/

Rendezvous with Renee: http://rendezvouswithrenee.com/

Jmgoyder: http://jmgoyder.com/

Life in the Boomer  Lane http://lifeintheboomerlane.wordpress.com/

And last but not least Help Me Rhonda: http://help-me-rhonda.com/ who must also write seven things about herself because we all just want more! If you weren’t so damn funny I’d leave you alone.  Well, maybe not : )

Happy Reading!

Aug23

Love is a Four Letter Word

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http://www.scrapsplanet.com

Why is LOVE a four letter word? 

Why are so many people afraid to say I love you? Or maybe we just neglect saying it, thinking that the people we love already know, or we’ll get them the next time we see them or speak with them. This is a question that has been bothering me over the past year of change. 

This morning I was reading a post by jmgoyder (http://jmgoyder.com/2012/08/23/love-story-88-saying-i-love-you/).  She is quickly becoming one of the people I look for in the morning when I’m going through the blogs I follow. She has a beautiful post today about saying I love you in a romantic relationship, one of the many lovely and heartfelt posts on her blog.

Think about it.

Have you missed the opportunity to say I love you recently? Maybe you told your children, or even your partner, but did you tell your best friend? Or did you just miss someone whose company you always enjoy? 

Now ask yourself this question; If you never had the opportunity to say it to this person again would you be sorry? 

Okay now go say it for crying out loud! Write an email, make a phone call, have coffee and give them a hug and a big I love you when they are leaving. Yeah, I know, you’ll get a few odd looks. Who cares? Odd looks are so much better than regrets!

Love you all : ) Thanks for the reminder, Julie. 

Aug22

Routine

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I am desperately trying to establish a routine. I have my “to do” list broken up into manageable parts and my date book filled with upcoming appointments. After years of teaching I’ve learned to allow time for each task on the list, prioritize them, and then schedule them on my day planner. I need that structure to my day or I get lost and then I get nuts.

So, why am I fighting getting back in this routine? Don’t get me wrong. I know that life happens and things need to be changed but I know myself. I know that unless I can manage my day nothing gets done. I won’t write, I won’t exercise and I won’t work. Then I won’t allow myself time to time to think and imagine and be creative.

This past Monday was my first day of the new work schedule. Accountable to only myself, I can see if will be easy to mismanage my time.  So, if you get a message from me between 10 am and 5pm EST, do me a favor, tell me to get back to work!!

So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man’s genius contracts itself to a very few hours.

Ralph Waldo Emerson