The Aftermath of Lost Opportunities
Opportunities pass idle people by. And opportunities don’t care what your reasons for being idle are. They stop ever so briefly before you, they search your soul and ask, “are you in?” They sense your hesitation. They see you step back from the leaping line. They cross over, urging you, wanting you to join them. But opportunities aren’t static, they can’t wait for you forever, and usually don’t wait long. Opportunities are action on the move, looking for the brave soul who is ready to leap and say, “I’m in, I’m the one, don’t pass me by.”
April
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Life Unafraid
I learned the following life lessons from a six year old who has a far better handle on how to fully live life than most adults I know. How much better would the quality of our lives be if we really embraced these things?
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
Domestic Violence: It’s Closer Than You Think
Originally published on Owning Pink
Somewhere right this minute a 5 year old is hiding under their bed with their ears covered, humming quietly to drown out the sound of their parents screaming at each other down the hall.
Somewhere right this minute a 10 year old is sitting alone in a dark treehouse, hoping to hide from the anger of a drunken parent who always turns their anger on the only person in the house small enough to not be able to fight back.
It happens. Every day.
These children live in your neighborhood, go to your school system, play with your kids, maybe even spend the night at your house occasionally. Statistics say as many as 10 million children witness, and are subject to, domestic violence each year. It’s not happening across town or in the inner city, it’s happening right next door.
Domestic Violence Is Real
Somewhere right this minute a child is trying not to cry, because crying will only make it worse.
Somewhere right this minute a little girl’s eyes hold fear instead of magic. And somewhere right this minute a small boy holding a careworn teddy bear is having nightmares of the angry shadow that comes down the hall rather than happy little league dreams.
More often than most would care to admit, breakable objects get thrown around homes that look normal enough from the outside, while the small children inside console each other. The older siblings try to distract the younger siblings so they won’t be frightened. And it’s a nightly occurrence.
There are children who aren’t old enough to cross the street by themselves but who have witnessed their father’s skull cracked open by their mother, and then watch the blood pour out, knowing they can’t rush to his arms because they could be next.
There are children who can barely read yet but who have to make weighted decisions like whether or not they’re going to try to fight their father to keep him from beating their mother into the ground.
According to www.childhelp.org more than 80% of children killed as a result of domestic violence are under the age of 4. KILLED. Can you imagine the life of that child? Are you willing to think of the life of that helpless child who knew nothing but a few fleeting years of pain and suffering before being killed?
This is not some hour long “real life” television drama that you can half watch while you check your email and then go to bed without giving it another thought. These things don’t just happen as part of a plot line for your entertainment. Children die, every day. Children suffer, every day.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
Stop SOPA
Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
Everyday Extraordinary
Life is so fast, and so technical, and so gadget run these days, that it seems most of us have lost sight of what’s extraordinary, right in front of us, every day.
How much of life are we actually seeing as we walk hurriedly from place to place, with our heads down, tapping away on some touchscreen or tiny keyboard, to someone who is nowhere near where we are, and who is also not seeing the extraordinary all around them, as they tap away on their own screen/keyboard?
What about the people right in front of us?
It seems that unless an event or a person has landed on some form of news platform, it is not extraordinary, and therefore we miss it completely. Because unless it flashes across our Facebook feed, or lands in our email, it isn’t going to get our attention.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
My Year in Review – 2011 Revisited
This website may only have been up for a few weeks, but I’ve been a busy bee this past year with other projects. So for all of you that are new to what I’m doing and want the skinny on how this past year brought me to where I am, this post will bring you up to date. And for those of you who have followed me on the rollercoaster ride of this past year, and may be wondering how I really think it went, here’s all the deets.
A few days ago my great friend and mentor Lissa Rankin (read further to see her part in this past year) posted her own year in review and challenged others to do the same, with emphasis on two questions.
- • What went well in 2011?
- • What did not go well in 2011?
With those questions in mind, and with open and honest reflection, here is a review of how I feel about the past year.
What Went Well in 2011
I finished writing my 100,000+ word novel. This happened within the first few days of the calendar year, and was no small feat. I had started it and stopped it about 53 times since 2006. At one point I lamented to a friend that the story was bigger than me and needed a better writer to write it, and I nearly gave up all together. Then midway through 2010 I found myself stuck at home recovering from back-to-back surgeries (1 planned, 1 emergency unplanned), and decided once and for all that I was going to finish my book. I cancelled my phone, internet, and cable and spent the next six months writing. When I finished it, at 4am on a Wednesday, I felt the greatest sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that I think I’ve ever known.
I hired a life coach to help me evaluate every area of my life. This turned out to be not only the best decision I made in 2011, but the best decision I’ve made in the past 32 years. Lissa, (mentioned earlier), helped me to see all the ways in which my life had gone askew. There isn’t enough time in the day to accurately express how completely she helped me change my life. We worked closely together on my professional life, my personal life, and everything in between. No stone left unturned. And as it turns out, most of those stones needed to be turned and moved around so I could figure out who I was authentically, what my message was, and how I truly wanted to live this life. She helped me set the foundation for my dreams, so that in 2012 I’ll be ready to build on that foundation.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
Christmas Magic in Christmas Memories
When I think of Christmas magic I think of three things. And none of them have anything to do with piles of presents packed under colorful Christmas trees. They also have nothing to do with St. Nick, his reindeer or his elves.
Christmas magic is the feeling I remember having at 12 years old when a group of strangers from a local church that we had never attended appeared on the doorstep of our single-wide trailer and offered my father two full boxes of food.
The Kindness of Strangers
My Dad is the hardest working man I’ll ever know. He worked 80 hours a week to make ends meet and although he made sure we never went hungry, we also knew at a young age what it meant to literally count pennies. And nothing went to waste. My little brother and I would eat first, and Dad would eat whatever was left on our plates when we were done, and that would be his dinner. So when the church people showed up with boxes full of food, I think I saw tears in my proud father’s eyes.
My brother and I dug through those boxes with more delight than a child opening that one gift they wanted more than anything in the world.
I doubt very much that my father had ever in his life cooked a turkey before that year, but he did that Christmas because there was one in the boxes of food, and we feasted like kings.
The church came back every Thanksgiving and every Christmas with those boxes, and every year my brother and I would look forward to it as much as Christmas morning itself. It was from those church-goers that we learned why random acts of kindness are so important.
To this day my father says he doesn’t know who put our name on the list of needy families for that church. Then he gets a far away look in his eye and only now as an adult do I understand the emotion he must have felt when strangers reached out to help him provide Christmas for his two kids.
Since then, I have never passed on an opportunity to give to churches and food pantries that are collecting for families during the holidays. The gratitude I feel to this day to that church is not something that can be measured in words.
Magic is in believing, not in seeing
Another magical Christmas memory that still swells my heart with magic and happiness is how every year my father would tell us that once a year, on Christmas Eve night, after my brother and I went to bed, our beloved family cat Patches would be able to talk. He would animatedly tell us how only on this one night of the year would the household pets of the world be able to talk, so they could go to the store and buy us a small present. It had to be a small present, after all, because they had to carry it home in their teeth.
My brother and I would listen with rapt attention every year as my Dad would tell us about how the stores would stay open late just so all the pets could go in and get their little gifts. He would go on and on about how he would wait up that night after we went to bed to make sure Patches would get home and he would have to help her wrap our little gifts.
Every Christmas without fail there would be a gift under the tree with chicken scratch writing on it that would say To: April, From: Patches. And another gift with my brother’s name on it. And we would flip for those little trinkets and would run over to love all over the cat while my father would laugh.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
The Truth About Health And Healing: A TEDx Talk By Lissa Rankin
“What if I told you that caring for your body was the least important part of your health?”
Lissa Rankin, MD asks us this question in her TEDx talk, and it’s a valid question. Most of us have been trained by our doctors to believe that caring for our physical bodies is the most important thing to our overall health. And it’s definitely a factor in our health, but it’s not everything.
I can comment on this with a sense of knowing because I spent many years taking pills and undergoing treatments for a variety of mysterious medical maladies while my doctors would scratch their heads and say they didn’t really understand what the root cause of this problem was. For six years they tried to get to the bottom of my issues and kept me as healthy as possible in the meantime. I am fortunate in that my primary care physician has always been interested in all the areas of my life, not just my physical health and so I got more out of her treatment plan than I would have from a colder, more clinical doctor.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
Uprooted: Adventures In Retail
By April of 2010, 14.4 million people were employed in the U.S. Retail Industry, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Apparently that number is fairly low in comparison to previous years. Job slashing and downsizing reaches everywhere. Retail has become a surprisingly competitive market.
Up until October of this year, I was not one of those 14.4 million people, and truth be told, had no desire to be. None of my family or friends really seemed to understand what I was up to when I announced that I was moving from my stable life in upstate New York to small town Iowa. It was a leap of faith.
As with any leap of faith, I had concerns. I second guessed myself. I had been making leaps towards my dreams since March, but moving my entire existence to Middle America was by far the biggest of the leaps. I worried about my living arrangements. I fretted over whether or not my 3 year old niece would forget who I was if she didn’t see me every week. I wondered aloud if those that I cared about and looked up to would understand that I needed to do this for myself. The very last concern that I had was what I would do for work. After all, I was coming to town with 13 years of varied and versatile experience in my profession. I was bringing advanced training and credentials with me. I had a folder full of letters of commendation and certificates of merit, not to mention pages of colleagues who would give me glowing references. In my mind, finding a job was going to be the easiest part of my relocation.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
How To Meet Yourself Where You’re At
Originally published on Owning Pink.
The other morning I woke up with the uncontrollable urge to make art in some form or fashion. It didn’t much matter to me what that art was or wasn’t. And it also didn’t matter to me that I have no art history at all. I don’t hold a fine art degree or have some extensive list of various art workshops that I’ve taken. All I have is a folder full of pencil sketches that I have done at random intervals over the years and a sudden yearning to create. Lately it seems that I have been more interested in wielding a paint brush dripping with color and attacking any surface in sight (including my bedroom walls) to fulfill my creative needs than doing just about anything else.
A few weeks ago I had a wonderful opportunity to have a one on one afternoon crash course in creating art in the personal studio of a nationally represented artist, and it woke something up in me – a deep and intense longing to express myself in some way through art.
The Problem
I recently packed up my entire life and moved halfway across the country to pursue my writing dreams, not these newfound art dreams. I left two steady jobs and a very stable income to take a chance on what could be. Needless to say, setting up an art studio fully equipped to meet my new art needs is simply not in the budget at the present time. I also have a fancy art center within five minutes of where I’m currently living that offers a plethora of classes and workshops. Of course, the fall course schedule started while I was out of town a few weeks ago. So it would seem the Universe wants me to take a smaller approach to this, and I’m okay with that.
What is art?
Art is one of those things that is hard to narrow down to a definition because it’s so broad in its possibilities. Much like life, art is endless in its options and is limited only by the imagination of the person in control (you). But for definitions sake, the one I found that I liked best simply said that art is “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”.
April
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Disclaimer: All are invited to comment and differing opinions are welcome in a non-flaming or offensive manner. Overtly disrespectful or hurtful posts will be removed by administration.
