Do Your Work

I’m doing it again. Occasionally I stumble across other authors’ posts with a message so simple, resonant, and true, I have to share it.

Meet Gina Caruso Hussar. (https://www.ginahussar.com)

After she published the post below, Gina explained on Facebook that she wrote this in a fit of pique over approaches from men. Apparently, it was controversial. You decide for yourself.

Gina articulates what it is that makes a man attractive. Her message applies to women, too. I will deliberately twist her intention by editing her post ever so lightly to answer the universal question: what should I do to become an attractive and lovable person and find the love I am looking for in life?

This is Gina’s answer.

“Do you want to know what turns me on? What makes me burn for you?

What makes us breathless? What awakens every passionate instinct and unwraps every layer of fiery feminine sensuality?

Go to freaking therapy.

Do your work.

Heal yourself.

Lead yourself.

Be brave enough to get uncomfortable for the sake of wholeness and depth.

Be willing to build your emotional muscle so your arms are strong enough to hold the fire of an awakened woman.

Be open enough to lean into a level of depth you’ve never experienced.

Talk.

Be humble enough to admit that you don’t know everything.

Go deep.

Get real.

Stop hiding behind surface-level sex.

Evolve.

Confront what you need to confront so you can move forward without the shadow of your past.

Stop thinking that vulnerability is a weakness. It takes a GIANT of a wild man to get vulnerable and it’s HOT.

Stop running from magic when it’s exactly what you need.

Stop telling yourself “She’s too much” when the reality is you’re just afraid to be enough.

Lead yourself so you can lead ME.

Believe that you can handle it. Act accordingly.

Be the safe space. The strong ground. The calm for her storm.

Do this and you’ll find your Goddess. Do this and you’ll be taken to a place of wholeness and ecstasy you didn’t know existed and likely wouldn’t have found on your own.

Do this… and you’ll be home.

P.S. Women – do the same. 😉“

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you, Gina.

Self-Help Your Self

I scan my inbox. Many “heal here” invitations. (Also many “write right here” come-ons, as I’ve said.) These days, there is a large segment of society committed to “changing” their lives. There is an equally large segment committed to healing the unhealed masses.

Many healing practitioners have internalized the “god within all of us” concept and gone to hell with the joke. They claim they not only have mastery over their own inner god, but can help you master yours, too!! Given what I write about, I can hardly point fingers. I have a strong healing bent myself. I have grown and benefited immensely from a lifetime of doing so.

But I know I won’t ever try to sell anyone on something “I and I alone” have to offer. I am a “take me or leave me” kind of gal. If I ever hold a healing retreat, I can promise great company and equally great food. Maybe my retreat will give you time to write or reflect in a supportive environment. To meet great people who care about the same things you do. You may give voice to your writing or listen to fellow authors. But as for instantaneous healing, absolutely no promises.

I take strong issue with the panacea approach out there today. The sages and the insightfully gifted world of people who want you to believe that if you jump on their bandwagon, your life will improve: Drastically! Dramatically! Incontrovertibly! Overnight!

I know from hard experience that just isn’t true. Life unfolds for everyone in finite minutes, days, hours, weeks, and events. Most days are humdrum, go-along-to-get-along days. Everyone has to keep body and soul together. Some of those events are unpleasant and traumatic. Others are pleasant and fleeting. On our birthdays, if we’re lucky, we get to reflect on what we gained in the preceding year. Somber events prompt more somber reflection.

Why and how and who we will be is a great unknown at our birth. The nature versus nurture debate has gone on for decades. We all arrive on this planet pre-programmed to some extent. But it makes sense – speaking as a mother – that much of who we are and are ever going to be is pre-installed. How else are we to account for vastly different personalities in the same family? Even among siblings? Even twins?

The tabula rasa theory about an infant arriving as a “blank slate” with no inherent characteristics or abilities is pretty much defunct. If it isn’t, it should be. I have concluded much of life is subjective and piecemeal. Everyone pursues the path in life that are drawn to if they have enough courage. Everyone has access to a piece of life’s truth. Like the parable of the elephant and the twelve blind men, everyone describes an elephant (or life) from their POV of the elephant.

Occasionally, a “heal-here” email will offer an especially well-crafted heartfelt pitch. But the question is are they able to supply the precise tools and exact methodology to heal OUR dysfunctional families and ease our personal pain? Questionable.

Ultimately, it is an exercise in self-help. Accepting responsibility to make our lives better and live a more fulfilling life is on us, and us alone. I don’t decry the mentors or guides who are out there. The problem is that the valuable guides and mentors work in a world awash in snake oil salespeople. Troubled hearts and minds are delicate and impressionable. The work is ours and ours alone. Own that and apply the principle of caveat emptor when choosing who to turn your delicate inner life over to. Buyer beware.

I shudder when I hear about “life-changing” work accomplished in a weekend seminar if only we learn to breathe properly. Or a writing and yoga retreat promises: “Your chakras will be opened to give full voice to the spirit within that is crying to be heard.”

What an arrogant assumption that we all even know what our chakras are or that we should value them highly enough to invest a month’s worth of wages and weekend into a gauzy promise of instantaneous spiritual conversion. Would that it was so easy. Achieving anything worthwhile usually isn’t.

Anything worthwhile I have ever heard of emerges from learning the age-old basics of respect and decency to live a good life. If you didn’t get that learning at home, then you have to find it for yourself. Over and over and over again.

It all boils down to a pretty simple formula. Don’t be a dick. If you don’t know how not to be one, then learn. That is your work.

Lost and Found

It happens to all of us. That sickening feeling when you lose a precious thing. A thing you loved. A thing from which you derived so much joy and happiness. A thing you convinced yourself you could never live without.

It happened to me so many times. And with it, the sinking heart, the welling tears, the panic, and feeling of pure helplessness. God, how I loathed loss. But life doles out grace one loss at a time. Don’t get me wrong. Loss can still slice me in half. But the searing pain of loss, when we were young, gives way to the grace of acceptance. And the sense of inevitability.

We learn the hard way that loss is universal. When a parent dies, so many other people can relate. Divorce is devastating. But hardly an isolated experience. What we fear losing changes as we do because what matters to us changes.

I was heading home for the holidays when I was pickpocketed at Montreal airport. My wallet had my ID and $150 cash in it. All my Christmas money. I was inconsolable. I got through Christmas somehow and returned to school. Weeks later, my cash light wallet showed up in my mailbox. The thief had been gracious enough to only lift the money and return the ID. Gotta love a crook with a heart.

The loss of friends turned out to be way harder. A group of us sat around a residence cafeteria breakfast table in stunned disbelief. Our friend Heather MacAskill had been killed the night before in a single-car crash on her way home for the holidays. My loss was minor compared to that of my friend Kathy Fisher, Heather’s very best friend.

Kathy looked like a wraith herself at that early morning requiem. By times she was silent and brooding, then wailing like a banshee. The death of another young person under tragic circumstances is very hard to process. It digs into young psyches with ferocity and can generate rage as much as sadness.

I didn’t experience many deaths after Heather. But I did lose my peers through my own stupidity. I was often the cause of the separation. Worse is that I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I had done or said to drive me out of those people’s lives and affections. In other cases, I was profoundly aware of what triggered the loss. And I had to live with that. Being a drunken teenager with non-existent boundaries may have been all the reason that was needed.

So when a dear lost friend from childhood wandered back into my life yesterday, I was beyond joyous. It felt as if a piece of my heart had been restored in my chest. That she answered a tremulous overture with warmth and kindness filled me with the same. I was so afraid of approaching her again. I am very glad I did. Time does heal.

What I’ve learned about loss is that there are – as author Judith Viorst put it – Necessary Losses. Not only necessary but inevitable. We must shed the illusions of childhood to become adults. We may have to move and leave our comfort zone to pursue a new opportunity. We must let our children go to let them build their own lives. Our parents must leave for their well-deserved rest. That’s the deal.

Life is all about birth and death; rising and falling; coming and going; giving and taking. We are regularly reminded that it is life’s brevity that gives it meaning. When we leave this planet, as we inevitably must, there will be lots and lots of people out there to fill in the gap.

This is my time and it is precious. I didn’t always see it that way. What a sad and stupid little girl I was. I feel sorry for the me I once was and the hard lessons I had to learn to finally “get it.” To finally learn that it is life’s very uncertainties that make it so rich and unreplaceable. That was a lovely lesson I found along the way. Bring on the day.

Rubber and Roads

I’m getting ready to jump off the high diving board this week. All of my dithering about whether or not to engage a book coach went out the window after I talked with Carolyn Flynn. Carolyn is described by KN Literary Services’ Publishing Consultant Sarah Bossenbroek as “one of their most beloved and trusted coaches.” High praise. Well-deserved.

Carolyn and I hit it off as there are similarities in our work backgrounds. She was once the editor of a now-defunct healing-oriented magazine I read and admired years ago called Sage. I immediately entered a secret sisterhood with her discussing the demise of Sage. That magazine was a victim of the rise of online technology platforms and the steady of erosion and support for printed publications. It was a tragedy. There have been many.

As a former fellow journalist, I squelched the temptation to use our time to bemoan the deplorable state of journalism. We pivoted back to the business at hand. But we both feel it. The shared grief over the decline of print and widespread diminished respect for writers and words. I saw that as a good sign.

KN Literary has already sent a draft contract to review. Essentially, it is a commitment to whip this manuscript into publishable shape by an as-yet-to-be-determined late fall date. I am required to write an outline. I thought I might dodge that task as my book is a transitional memoir. No such luck.

So I am bearing down. I discover something interesting every day as I write this blog. What I really think and really feel comes into clearer focus. That, in itself, is a gift. The short but significant journey from confusion to clarity. That clarity makes it easier to choose what to include and exclude from the book. I also realize the value of affirming what matters to me as well as that which is no longer important. I see this sorting exercise will be useful up the road when I have to consider what should stay and what should go in the manuscript.

If I don’t know what I really care about, how will I be able to advocate for it? At one point in my life, I was regularly run over by other people’s priorities and wishes. Even if I knew what I wanted and preferred, I was powerless to express and act on my own instincts much of the time. It is a consequence of deep-seated trauma and terror. Being beyond that and in a place where I own my integrity around my feelings and dreams is light years away from those difficult days.

Growing older means shedding stuff. Ego. Stuff. Abilities. Ambition. Becoming comfortable in our chosen “ruts” and enjoying the comforts of consistency and familiarity. We rein in the extraordinary scope of possibility we had as young adults and then bear down on a chosen path. Life’ll learn ya who you are and what you are made of.

It is a good time to be writing this book. If I’d started earlier there likely would not have been enough material or insight. There would not have been the necessary coda to life chapters I had to pack up and put away. I had not fully tested and integrated the lessons I’d learned for their validity and durability.

I am embarrassed by how simple it all turns out to be. I originally learned the most basic and important rule somewhere around Grade Three. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And keep your mouth shut until you are asked to offer your opinion or your help. Both of those lessons took a while to take root and fully learn.

So, back to the outline. Rubber is hitting the road. What started out metaphorically as a Sunday drive to see what I might see is turning into a major road trip. Or a life trip depending on how you look at it.

These days, I no longer worry about whether or not I packed everything for the journey. I am confident enough in myself that I know I can pick up along the way what I might have forgotten to pack. That is progress.

Say What

I am taking part in the Facebook Ultimate Blog Challenge. The ask is to post daily for the 30 days of April. If we do, I think we win a badge. That makes me happy. I am big on badges. Money would be nice but a badge will do.

If I’m honest, I had a bit of a head start on daily blog-writing, publishing my first post on March 14 and committing to do that daily for a year. (That could change and for an exceptionally good reason which I will address in a later post.)

Paul Taubman is running the challenge. Since April 1, he has been posting prompts I have blithely ignored until now. I have lots to write about. But his prompt today was not only an interesting ask but potentially valuable to me. For the memoir, I have to describe my ideal reader. As of now, I don’t know exactly who I should be writing for. Imagine, Paul suggests, sitting in a cafe with one of your blog readers. Letting them tell you what they need to hear. The exact words of Paul’s prompt:

Have Coffee With A Reader

If you were sitting in a coffee shop with one of your blog readers, what would you chat about? What would you like them to know? Or what would you like to know about them? Share it in a blog post.

I am naturally garrulous and gregarious (ie, verbose) and a former multi-media journalist. Talking to people is easy for me. Not just easy but usually enjoyable and occasionally fascinating. I believe every single person has a story to tell. Finding them was my main bread and butter as a CBC journalist. The newsroom hierarchy was such that you weren’t rising on the corporate ladder unless you were bent on pursuing “hard news.” My bent was more toward “human interest” stories. That is the sole reason I did not become the female version of Peter Mansbridge, the legendary CBC TV news host, of my set.

I did a few stories I was exceptionally proud of. Annie Cairns was an orphaned Middlemore Home schoolgirl who was moved from England to Canada at 14 in the 1940s. Her story was analogous to Anne of Green Gables as she evolved from a mistreated child to eventually become a settled wife, mother, and homemaker.

Annie’s story was broadcast on CBC radio and ripped off the cloak of shame she had worn all her life. She eventually traveled back to England and elsewhere around the world in the remaining years of her life. Free as a bird. That pleased me greatly. It was my first real-world experience of giving voice to a miserable history allowing them to drop the veil of shame that changed someone’s life for the better.

So, back to the present and Paul’s prompt, what would I ask a blog reader? I would want to know what grabbed them about any particular blog post they had read. What bored them? Or confused them? Did any of the posts delight them? Or repel them? I would want to know how to address readers’ concerns more directly. What would they want to know more about? What would they prefer never to hear tell of again?

I enjoy sharing my take on what I have learned about life in our time. It makes life make more sense to me, in fact. The lessons have been abundant. Sometimes hilarious. At other times, searingly painful. Wondrous. Perplexing. Savage and sacred. The whole enchilada.

I would like them to know about the lessons I have learned from the greats of history. Antoine St. Exupery’s The Little Prince taught me that we find love and meaning by pouring them into something we care about and watching it grow. Don Miguel de Ruiz’ The Four Agreements taught me to lighten up and not take everything people said personally. And to do my best no matter how lowly the task. Gandhi taught that lesson well as he cleaned latrines along with the untouchables caste in his Indian compound. That is the very definition of walking a mile in someone else’s moccasins.

I’d say more to my blog readers if I knew I had their ear. I’d ask them more questions. I’d probably get up and get us another coffee. And a couple of biscotti.

Writing this blog is something like starting a conversation. A little one-sided at the moment I grant you. But it is written in the hope that one day that conversation will become a two-way street. Even a multi-way street. Which would be – to use the parlance of the time – awesome.

Beginnings and Endings

Outside my window, church bells have started pealing. The sun is slowly edging its way upwards into the day. Light casts shadows over the landscape on its way to fully illuminating everything for today. Birds call in the distance. Every dawn feels like the beginning of a new, undefined something. Our days are ours to make of them what we will. How easily the sacred twilight time dissipates and the doors of the day fly open.

It is like trying to hold on to our infant children. That unrepeatable time in their life and yours when there is nothing there but promise and peace and possibility in their little beings. And within those moments, the poignant realization that I can only hold on to them as they now are in memories. Which fade. Aught to do but see them as they are right then, savor them for a little while, and then take yourself away from their cribs and make the morning coffee.

I believe those occasional glimpses of “sacred” moments keep us moving forward. Unrepentant cynics aren’t completely wrong. It is a messed up old world and always has been. But I live for the slivers of sacred moments, then pile them up in my head until I have a banquet of happy moments and memories to look back on. I choose to absorb into myself the peace I know is out there in the world.

It wasn’t always like that for me. Dawn would break, the birds would start singing and I would reach for a glass of the hair of the dog that bit me. Pain begets pain. That is until we decide to step up and into and steep ourselves in its lessons. I once sat in my living room off and on for weeks as waves of pain would wash over me like sitting in a lye bath. Lye is caustic and made from wood ashes. It was used in times gone by for washing clothes and soap making. Overexposure can burn the skin. My memories felt like they were burning mine.

Steeping in the emotional lye bath of unwanted memories, I truly suffered but could feel my heart being cleansed and cauterized. This is the only way to healing, I was assured. To face up to your delinquencies and feel the pain fully before it can be released. Something in there, too, about finally taking personal responsibility for everything you did or that happened to you. That is not to be confused with taking on all the blame for what happened to you. People do bad things. And you have done bad things, too. I did. It is a reminder that you have a choice in how to face up to everything that happens to you – good or bad.

I remember a repetitive thought I had as I was going through this emotional test by fire. In the midst of learning some horrendously painful life lessons, I thought I would much rather have read them in a book. Would that a book or two would have intervened earlier in my life and set me on an easier path. But life unfolds for each of us at the age and stage when we are ready to learn the lessons. That sounds much more orderly than it actually is. We can either learn deliberately by staring down our demons or our demons take over and control us. It’s about feeding the right wolf as I have said before.

We all have measures of light and dark inside us. Refute that fact and you can become one sorry son of a bitch. One of those humans who is so convinced of their holiness and right-thinking that they can make no allowances for the frailty and ambiguity in fellow humans. Evangelical Christians come to mind. They take what is essentially some good common sense direction in the Bible about how to live a good life and go to hell with the joke. As it were.

If you are making others miserable because you can’t treat anyone else’s belief system with respect, then you have kind of missed the point JC was trying to make. I am impatient with stereotyping. I am impatient with the implicit set of “tests” good Christians arbitrarily dream up to admit you to their circle of the blessed and worthy. I am not a great joiner of clubs.

Since early, early morning, the darkened skies are now lightening up and rent through with long skinny clouds of gold. The bells and the birds have mostly gone quiet, their reveille chores having been completed for today. I love the certainty of what I wake up to every morning. I rely on it in my life much as I do my breath and my heartbeat. I stop to take in these precious slices of time in the morning. Because one day, I know I won’t be able to.

Dear Abby

From the Facebook Wisdom of Life Community

This query from an overwhelmed Mom popped up on this Facebook group I belong to. My answer to this writer’s call for help generated positive feedback on that site. I thought it might be worth sharing. (The inquiry is anonymous so I am fairly sure I haven’t breached any ethical boundaries.)

Not so long ago, I could have written a similarly themed post. On the other side of those dark days now, I wanted to share insights with her that helped me. Healing deep emotional damage is a marathon, not a sprint.

In my answer, I borrow shamelessly from the advice column stylings of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. They were sisters who doled out daily nuggets of hope in “advice” columns published back in the middle to late 20th century in newspapers across North America.

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Writer: I am suffering from severe treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. I am in the middle of tapering off Valium and having an extremely hard time getting off of it. I’m in a loveless relationship for 20 years with four kids. I have no job or career and nothing to call my own except for being a mom. I’m scared, lost, and have no support system. My dad died in September and I was disowned by my mom and family so I only have one sister left. I’ve spent my life caring for others and not being cared for myself. I’m in a deep dark hole with no way out. Nowhere to turn. Can’t sleep. Can barely function. And very moody. My only time to myself is when the kids are in school but soon they will be home all summer and I don’t think I can handle it with the way I feel. I just need someone to love and support me. And I don’t have that. How do I navigate my way through this?

Answer from Margot Brewer: I have been where you are (but with two kids). Identifying your misery is a healthy start. That may sound contradictory but it isn’t. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. You have to start learning to love yourself and truly believe you are worthy of love. You have lived without love in your marriage for a long time. When you have a long history of want, it is hard to conceive of another way of being. You have a lot of healing to do. Losing your Dad and your family are massive losses that need to be acknowledged and grieved. I lived through that, including the estrangement from the family. Be ever so gentle and compassionate with yourself. Look around your life and decide what you can and cannot control. Find something in your world every day to be grateful for. Make a gratitude jar. This may seem flaky. I get that. Do it anyway. And start taking extra special care of yourself every day. Carve out space in your downtime to do things that make you happy. Music, books, nature, gardening. Anything that gives you even slivers of joy and gets you outside yourself. It is a long road to get out from underneath the weight of your life but you can by holding on to the belief it can change. I still take some medication for occasional relief but it is only part of my self-care routine, not all of it. Thank you for your post. I hope you find the strength and belief in yourself to feel better. It may take a while but the journey is worth it. Take good care of yourself.

Around and Around

Lately, I’ve cast my mind back on all of the international travel I did. I sure saw a lot of this old world. I’m still able enough to travel. Just not as motivated.

The first time I flew overseas I worked in a massive Waldhotel (country hotel) in the German Rheingau (Rhine Valley). All around for a full 360 degrees, vineyards bearing plump white grapes were everywhere I looked. This is the home of Liebfraumilch, the famous Blue Nun white wine, among many others.

The massive hotel restaurant I worked in mostly served tourists as its main clientele. Busloads would arrive shortly before noon. Getting all of the travellers fed and watered in a timely manner was a challenge. We would be running between the kitchen and serving tables for the better part of two-hours over the lunch period.

I struggled with German at first having set off from “Kanada” with only one year of university German under my belt. Luckily, the menu wasn’t too complicated and I could rhyme it off easily enough. In any case, the tourists were more interested in their food and drink than my German skill. As long as I got their orders right.

Had a bit of culture shock as a young foreign kellnerin (waitress). I remember a group of nuns who all ordered beer with their meals. Nuns drink alcohol? I saw a four-year-old boy sway back and forth as he whined to his father he was betrunken (drunk) after imbibing too much wine with his meal.

I flew over to Germany again in the summer after my second year of university. This time, I was a student attending Freiburg University with a bunch of other Canadian kids. My German picked up much more quickly. The in-depth studies were more rigorous and demanding on my German proficiency than reciting the choices off the daily Nach Eigner Wahl (a la carte) menu.

The summer following my third year, I went to Cairo, Egypt. I had been chosen as the UNB (University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada) representative on a national World University Service of Canada (WUSC) scholarship. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had previously gone on such a seminar elsewhere in Africa in his student days. Trudeau became a lifelong WUSC supporter.

I studied Egyptian small business and tourism during the seminar. Our “downtime” was spent roaming the streets of Cairo stopping for shawarma and visiting places such as the Cairo Museum. All of downtown Cairo was a study in antiquities. We had field trips to Alexandria on coast of the Mediterranean Sea and down the Nile to Luxor before the area was flooded for the Aswan Dam. We sailed in an Egyptian felucca on the Nile River. On another day we took part in a Nubian feast deep in the desert.

Summer approaches and there have been discussions in our house about summer travel again. ehave talked about returning to Florence for a month or two. My husband paints in oil and was trained in a Florence art studio some years ago. He would like to go back. We are only at the dream stage at the minute. But haven’t I already said that is how most dreams start?

A cross-Canada train trip is also a possibility. I have travelled from Toronto to Jasper, Alberta. Once you get past the unending horizons in the Prairies, the Rockies loom large and imposing. There are few sights more breathtaking than a first glimpse of the towering Rockies. It is no wonder that Banff and nearby mountain towns are awash in tourists for a good part of every year.

So we’ll see what actually happens.

My compass has turned to more internal exploration these days. That particular element was missing in my earlier travel exploits. Did I ever make some major culturally inappropriate decisions. I am much better now.

I have said that I learned that wherever I go, there I am. Happily, now that I’ve been around the world and back, those destinations will now live in my memory until I die. By writing down some of my travel stories, they may live on a little longer.

The Bookee

The way I see it, if KN Literary Services is a purveyor and “booker” of book coaches, then I am a “bookee.” Yesterday I had the long-awaited ZOOM consult with KN Literary Services. It was productive. I met with Publishing Consultant Sarah Bossenbroek. I was heartened when our fifteen minutes expanded to half an hour without protest or polite dismissal.

Mutual respect is essential to a fruitful working relationship. My conversation with Sarah felt like a promising start in that regard. Sarah went over the challenges she sees in my writing project that we both feel I face when writing this memoir.

To start, the acknowledgment that there is much too much material. To address this, she advised me to think about this memoir as step one and park the remaining eras on the back burner once I’ve wrung all the juice out of one of them.

Sarah identified three distinct “eras” and stages in my life that she feels will be worth exploring: 1) Childhood 2) Young adulthood 3) Early days of parenting.

Each of those life chapters presented unique challenges and lessons for me. All were teaching experiences, eventually. Exceptionally well-disguised at first. What I took from Sarah’s summary was that creating an outline would be an effective place to start. I could then make lists of scenes, stories, and incidents from which I can pick and choose. I get to decide which scenes to develop and which to leave on the literary cutting room floor. I have to say that sounds like it would be helpful. I’d been leaning that way anyway.

I was also heartened to hear Sarah already has someone in mind with whom I might be a good match. Once I put a deposit down on our contract, Sarah will connect me with her and see if we are a good fit. If her first book coach pick doesn’t work out, Sarah assures me she will seek out another. And so on until I have an official book coach and partner

This book-writing project is getting real, folks, now that there is money and a contract involved. As my husband said to me early in our courtship, “You know a man is getting serious when he lays money on the table.”

I have moved out of the giddy excitement phase about starting off on this book-writing path. I am moving inexorably into the “real work” phase. It is odd how my mind processes words differently when it knows one day there may be in front of an external reader out there. I am having more internal discussions about what to include and what to exclude from the narrative. What moves the story along. What is extraneous and what is interesting enough to keep in.

Earlier I made a comparison between book writing and making a cake. The “birth-day” is today. I have to assemble the ingredients. I need to decide if I will proceed with KN Literary Services to commit and engage a book coach.

Where I did say earlier that engaging a book coach might be premature, I now believe the investment might be the difference between getting the book done or not.

Going forward, I will let you know what I decide. Full disclosure, I am leaning heavily into the “onward” camp. I’ve come this far.

Poor Bird

Missed my 3X Weekly Writers Group ZOOM meeting yesterday. I was wrung out. I slept poorly the night before. Woke up at 4 AM on Sunday morning. Sat down in front of the computer to make myself sleepy again. Got sleepy. Fell asleep and didn’t wake up until after the noon hour. Our group meeting starts at noon.

The bloody domino effect. I had been awash in nervous tension all week around a decision I needed someone to make in my favor so I could travel. The decision was not made in my favor. In fact, no decision was made at all. In any case, that nil decision completely upended my plans for this week, travel and otherwise

I am not 100% certain how to rebalance myself but it does seem like a “learning opportunity.” (Thank you, Oprah, for that emotional exit strategy.) I started by letting go of the outcome over which I had no control anyway. That was easier said than done. And it appears my psyche didn’t get the memo. Otherwise, I would not have been up in the middle of the night fretting and fitful.

So it goes. Now I have a brand new set of tasks ahead of me this week as I try to recover what I lost in losing out on the travel plans. So there’s that. Lots of busy work ahead.

After this is posted today, I have a 15-minute consult scheduled with KN Literary Services. I need help. They want money. Seems like a marriage made in heaven. KN Literary Services is the brainchild of author/publisher Kelly Notaras. Her book title is pure marketing genius. The Book You Were Born to Write. There is not a budding writer in the world who hasn’t frequently wondered if, and how, to scratch their book writing itch. Notaras nails it.

As a bona fide twenty-year veteran of the New York “big house” book publishing scene, Notaras is now embedded in what appears to be a mutually fruitful collaboration with the Hay House publishing company. My current focus is on writing a book proposal to submit to the Hay House Writer’s Community publishing contest (Deadline: May 5 or June 5, 2023) depending on the power of the procrastination phantasms. (I was looking in Merriam-Webster for an alliterative synonym for demons. Phantasms is way better than phantoms in this context, don’t you agree?)

I had already put off this consult with KN Literary Services twice. I feared I was not focused enough on what I wanted to write about to have that conversation. I feel I am clearer now but I expect they will tell me. I write a series of scenes dutifully each day, then save them to my computer in a file called “SCENES.” The so-called narrative “arc” of my memoir is building. Salty-sweet, let’s call it.

It is about the struggle of getting from where I was sprung to where I am now. A place of peace. That was the most implausible of dreams in my youth, but here we are. There is a whole literature devoted to society’s tendency to “blame the victim.” What I didn’t expect was to experience blame from a parent for violations that happened to me on my parents’ watch. My mother (my primary antagonist) had a number of memorable sayings. One I remember that is germane to this discussion: “It’s a poor bird that shits in its own nest.”

Maybe in writing this memoir, my mother was right. Come to think of it, Poor Bird isn’t a bad working title. At the very least, I can thank my mother for that.