A Writer's Life

Good Bye and Hello!

I've got some good news to announce.  I'm going to start teaching classes every Tuesday night at the Dhanyata Life Center in West Jordan, Utah. These are all classes that I am writing from scratch. :) The classes will be associated with my (coming soon) website, I Have the Write and the purpose is creative writing for fun and relaxation. 

I’ve got a classroom reserved all summer long, and each week, I’ll present a new writing class. The classes will be fun and thought-provoking. Each class will include a discussion of the topic, a creativity/brainstorming exercise, and some quiet time to write about the topic. There’ll be no red pens in sight, but sharing is welcomed. Students will receive a writing packet for each class session; packets can be hole-punched and collated as a personal writing guidebook of sorts.

To focus my intentions on my new venture, I'm going to be putting this blog on hiatus. The original purpose of this blog was for me to explore my own writing life, and it’s kind of morphed into a personal diary of sorts, where I describe the minutia of my days. Somehow, I let the creative part of my writing transform into a day-to-day account of what I ate for breakfast and what movie I watched on Saturday afternoon—it’s easy to do, I think, all under the guise of writing.  I mean, as long as I’m typing, I’m at least saying something, right?

The morphing was fine, but now my intuitive driving skills are leading me in a different direction. The direction of doing what I really want to do every week. And that’s using my creativity to develop writing classes and using my desire to teach to share my ideas with students. I’ll start with in-person students and then those same classes will be both offered on my upcoming website (www.ihavethewrite.com) and in a book by the same title.

You are welcome to view my temporary blog: www.ihavethewrite.blogspot.com

Or e-mail me at my new e-mail address: rachel@ihavethewrite.com

I think it’s fitting that the last entry in a blog called “The Writer’s Life” is the first step towards really living one. Thank you for your support on this part of my journey. Hope to see you at that little café a few miles past the exit.

Love, Rachel

Happy Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day was in 1998 when my little Jaeme was only a few days old.  I remember saying, "I get to be a mother on Mother's Day!"  It made me happy but that's all I remember, was that I was happy.  Don't remember what we did or anything. 

This morning, though, ten years later, I do remember very well (ha ha...short term memory works great!)  My sweet Jaeme made me a low-carb breakfast in bed (yes, it's the diet of the month) that included stevia-sweetened ricotta cheese, peanut-butter filled celery sticks, and her Chef Jaeme creation of the morning "sweet sweet cinnamon coffee."  It was all delicious (and all appropriately sweetened with stevia.  She said, "I even checked the peanut butter jar for carbs!!")  As we ate in my bed upstairs, Jasmine curled up between us and purred and purred and purred.  The rest of the day?  We'll be planting some flowers, doing a fun activity (haven't selected one yet), and going to to the place every mom enjoys on Mother's Day, the grocery store.  :)

But it's not just my Mother's Day.  It's also my mom's.  My mom was the kind of mom who when we were growing up did stuff with us.  She took me to the library on Saturday mornings and let me fill up my box with ten books (or all I could carry!) at a time.  She let us paint pictures  on our front windows at Halloween. She spent one spring break taking us to the new sub sandwich shop every day for lunch.  I can still taste the pepperoni!! :)  She spent hours playing baseball with us and taking us to swimming lessons and leading our Girl Scout troop.   

My mom was also an encouraging influence in my writing life.  When I was in Girl Scouts, she was the leader and helped us put together "The Junior News."  Oh, I miss those concept meetings at our kitchen table!  (Didn't know to call them concept meetings way back then!) She encouraged me to write essays for local competitions, and I won--one winning essay was about a family called "The Tuckers" who lived in pioneer times.  For that essay, I won three dollars, which I used to buy two boxes of candy from my brother Bud who was raising money for baseball.  Another essay that I wrote was for Sunflower Girl's State--it won me a place in their camp up at the University of Kansas during the summer of my junior year in high school.  She helped me write a story called "The Wacky World of Winglethorpe" for my junior high school newspaper, and she was the one who sat up with me all night long, drinking diet (?) cokes and writing my high school graduation speech.

She was an incredible caregiver, too.  Whenever I was sick, she'd always fix the couch up for me with sheets and blankets and pillows.  I now do the same for my daughter.  The week (days!) that I had chicken pox and was miserable with them at age 13, she let me sleep in her bed during the day and brought me all the jello I could attempt to eat.  When I started feeling a little bit better, she went to Long John Silver's and brought me fish for lunch one day.  And went and bought me books to read.  And when it was almost all over, she brought me to a hair salon and I got my hair washed and trimmed. 

She could also cook like no one else quite can.  No one can make tacos like my mom did (I can't even replicate them.)  Or french dip sandwiches.  Or beef stew.  Or those biscuits cooked with fried chicken where the biscuits would get all kind of crispy/greasy (I know, but they were SO good!!) on the bottom of each one.  She made a great chicken and dumplings and I think were were probably making nachos at home before they hit their peak of popularity in the common market.

I was always proud that she was my mom.  I always felt that she was able to talk with anyone and that she had a very outgong personality (my daughter calls me a "people person" and says maybe I got some of my people personality from her!)  I always loved it that whenever I'd have a school program, she'd get dressed up and put on make-up and wear her Chantilly perfume.  That always made me so happy.

I could write about my mom all day long, but I'll just stop here and wish her a Happy Mother's Day, snow at the lake notwithstanding. *smile*  Love you mom!!!

Love, Rachel

   

Heart Shaped

I always thought my face shape was round.

But I had it analyzed last night and it's heart shaped.  I've got a wider forehead and a narrower chin.   It was kind of cool to have it figured out for me and then to have a 3D model made of my face/head.   With the 3D model, I was able to look at what different hairstyles would look like on ME from the front, the sides and the back.  Pretty cool but kind of funny how the model is a little bit off and all the hairstyles with bangs wind up with them covering my eyes (a high school boyfriend once said, "Rachel's cute.  Sometimes she looks like a sheepdog with her bangs in her eyes!) 

Here's one of the photos that was used to analyze my face shape:

I'm looking for hairstyles that are good for a heart shaped face today.  My hair's grown down to my collarbones in the front and down to my shoulderblades in the back, so I've got some length now.  I just don't feel like I've got much of a hairstyle.  I might cut it, but no shorter than my shoulders, I don't think. 

Will share pictures once I make a decision!

Love, Rachel   

Freedom versus Security

Can you have freedom without security?

Can you have security without freedom?

Love,  Rachel

Teardrop to Teardrop

I've cried a lot these last days, each tear drop a point in a stream that's my life.  I'm populating a whole river by myself with these tears, and even when I'm tried to hold them back, there's been no dam (maybe a damn, ha ha.)  The first tears were a realization of who I am not and the middle tears were a scary finding place and the third tears were the sunrise. 

The first set of tears were a culmination of two people being angry with me over something that simply doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of life.  It was crying to the point where all my words came out fractured.   I literally couldn't speak. At the time, I was horribly embarrassed and upset with myself about not managing  my emotions better but in retrospect, I realize that it was more than that.  It was a lesson in who I AM not, a ruler that marked just how far away I am from myself.  It was a literal losing of my voice, a pointing out of how unimportant my invitations and conversations have become. 

Those tears left me open for twenty four hours; although there were no more visible tears, there was a deep feeling inside of things not being right with the word that even my most optimistic attempts to push close just wouldn't.  A trip to pick out new paint didn't close the gap.  Stopping to get a Diet Coke didn't close the gap.  Going with Jaeme to spend her birthday money didn't close the gap.  It'd been opened, and I couldn't find the right thread to stitch it up again.

Which left me open for more tears on the next day as I figured things out, and finally an easing of the pain lingering from the tears the day before.  All at once, a quelling of the pain but more tear drops pricking at my eyes; I didn't let them escape the irises, learned my sobbing lesson from the day before.  Couldn't take the professional exposure of what those tears meant, not even to the people who care about me the most. 

And then the third tears today.  The touchstone tears.  The sunrise tears.  The realization tears.  The end of one little chapter in the story of my life.  The relief tears mixed with darn it, I wanted to look cute tonight when we go out shopping, ha ha.  (Yes, even when I'm deep, I'm shallow. *smile*)

Love, Rachel

Your Turn: Look at a series of tears, the ones that you cried and the ones that you didn't.  The ones you wished you could hold back and the ones that you couldn't.  The ones that made you feel worse and the ones that made you feel better.  Tell the Tear Story.   

Querying the Universe

Yesterday, David Whyte said that you only need to open the door up a crack and that you don't have to figure it all out by yourself.  The "figuring it all out by myself" and "figuring it all out before I take a single step" is what's been stopping me from going forward with a plan that I've been pondering for over two years now.

I have started and stopped.  I have halfway requested help.  I have told people that I am going forward and then stopped in my tracks.  It's no wonder I feel lost when I keep turning around and running back to the comfort of my slipcovered couch.  I'm not so much lost as caught in a comfort circle of my own making. 

Today I took a really small step.  I found a place to teach the writing classes that I've been storing in my mind for at least twenty-four month.  Now it's just a matter of setting the date and the time.   More baby steps.

If you reserve it, will they come?  It's not about making money for me; it's about finding that place where I am at home.  Even one student in a class is worth it to me.  Let's see how the universe responds.    

Love, Rachel

Your Turn: It's scary and liberating all at the same time.  I am filled with so joy at the idea of working towards something that feels like myself that tears are dripping down my face as I type these words.  I didn't realize how big my prison was until I found a little key to turn.  Didn't realize just to what extent I've been impersonating myself until I've spent the last twenty four hours thinking about David Whyte's words.  I don't have it all figure out yet, but that's ok.  I don't have to figure out the next fifty years of my life right now--all I have to do is be HERE.     

Home

Today, my writers and I went to a conference to hear a poet named David Whyte speak.  He shared many interesting thoughts, many of which I am still processing, but one of the ones that really grabbed my attention was the idea of being home. 

Not being home in the literal sense, but being at home with who you are and living an authentic life.  Home for creative types is what I call "the zone" or what my friend M. refers to as "the sweet spot."  It's that place where you are totally engaged, and when you're there, you're able to expand your heart and mind.  It's also a place where you're able to invite others in and share generously of your talents.

I feel so lost in my life sometimes. 

Perhaps a  pair of ruby slippers could come in handy. 

Love, Rachel

Your Turn: He said that you don't have to figure it out all on your own and that you're never really lost.  You're always HERE.  The universe always knows, even if your GPS is sending you on a wild goose chase up a mountain.  Wherever you go, there you are?!  Do you agree, yes or no? 

At The Car Wash

Today arrived, sunny and beautiful!  The perfect day for a fund-raising car wash/garage sale, in which our department raised $800 for the foundation.  It was interesting to see who was willing to step in and help out all day long, and it was really fun to wash other people's cars.  My daughter even commented on it, as she vacuumed out a stranger's car, how much fun it was to be cleaning out the car of someone who you don't even know.

Although the car wash ended at 4PM, we didn't leave until almost 6PM.  It was really fun to see who was working really hard, who was taking charge, who was developing a plan and a process for getting things done right, who was most encouraging,  who was willing to pitch in and help even after his or her shift had eneded and who handled what aspect of the fundraising the best.  It was also fun to watch my daughter and my friend's son chasing after two ducks who decided to settle down in the parking lot and keep an eye on the proceedings.

And it was gratifying to feel like I did something today that made a difference.

Love, Rachel

Star Wars Meets Soccer or Something

It's finally warm enough to walk for a little bit in the evenings.  We like to go walking at the nearby high school in the evenings.  There's always a baseball game or a lacrosse practice in session.  We like to stop and watch the little kids swinging their lacrosse sticks (I am sure there is a formal name for them) wildly at each other.   It's hard not to laugh when half the team is "sitting" on the sidelines, smacking each other with the sticks and comicly falling over on the ground.

Lacrosse must be the perfect game for boys, I think.  Kind of Star Wars meets Soccer or something.

There's also an exercise track that surrounds the school, with exercises posted that you can stop and do at several different stations.  Tonight, while stretching, we had a pink water balloon thrown at us by some rambunctious high school boys driving an old ratty white car.  They yelled, "Alta Rocks" and then they drove off (guess this private school is the rival of nearby Alta High School, and they must have thought we were patrons or something.)  I'm adding their message here to my blog; wouldn't want that pink water balloon wasted for nothing.

Love, Rachel

Your Turn: My writing is really flat lately.  I'm struggling to write anything at all.  Sometimes that's when you need to write the most, when you can't think of anything interesting to say and when it all just kind of collapses into each other.  On Friday, I'm going to hear a famous poet speak; perhaps he'll inspire me.   

Double Digits

Today my Jaeme turned 10.  It seems like just yesterday that I was in the hospital, agreeing with the doctor that it would be great if she could be born before the Utah Jazz playoff game at 7PM that evening.  I was in such agreement with him, in fact, that I allowed for plenty of time for the pre-game show: she was born at 6:18.  I still remember the moment that the nurse handed her to me and said, "Does she look like a Jaeme Lynn?"  Yes, she did, and yes, she still does.

We'd planned to spend this afternoon helping to raise money for the foundation supported by my employer, but unfortunately, we woke up to snow, which wasn't a good omen for the car wash/yard sale that we were planning outdoors.  Still, I'd promised to pick her up at school after lunch and told her that I'd bring her by the office to meet a few of my co-workers.  So, we did that and then we went to IKEA and bought the quilt cover for her bed that she'd wanted.

Later, we went and had dinner with her dad at McGrath's, and she just sat there and smiled and laughed and said, "I'm so happy."  After dinner, Jaeme and I headed over to Home Depot to get a color match on the blue in her quilt cover (for the paint on her bedroom walls) and then we came home and she finished drawing the pictures for her young author story.  We read all the birthday wishes from everyone (thank you!  And happy birthday to Maeryn and Britney M., who also share this May Day birthday with my daughter!) and then it was time for bed.

The "real" party is on Saturday--we're headed off to Park City for a day of shopping with Jaeme's best friend Savannah. :)  It's going to be fun, even if the weather is debating the merits of spring with me.

Happiest Birthday to you, sweet girl of mine. 

Love, Rachel