Absence
June 1st, 2011 § 5 Comments
Day 151
I’ve always been amazed at the magic a song can possess. I love how a space of time not outside four minutes can just make me feel. I love combining slow beautiful melodies with warm, dreamy pictures. I love playing out a season, a time or an event in front of my own life soundtrack and having it all just come together so perfectly. A song can take me back to any time in my life or launch me forward to a time when all I know are dreams. It can evoke tears from my soul, send chills up my arms, cause my heart to skip a beat and give me a sense of completeness unmatched by anything else in this world. In short, music sparks me. It makes me feel alive and thankful and blessed. It helps me to live in the moment.
The most wonderful thing to me as a writer is the thought that perhaps my words have held the same type of sentiment to someone whose eyes have passed over something I’ve written. There is a great sense of excitement conjuring up an idea, letting it come to fruition by way of scrawling ink or pecking keys and – perhaps this is the hardest and most rewarding part – sharing it with the world. It’s as if you’ve opened the most coveted gift, one you’ve dreamed of for weeks, and immediately you turn around to give it away. It’s not easy, and it’s certainly not a principle everyone understands, but you know that the true pleasure comes from being on the giving end, not the receiving.
Like a songwriter, a singer or a musician, writing takes time. It takes practice. It is a labor of love. It can be picked up where it’s left off, but I’ve learned that the longer it sits, the heavier it becomes. Turning back the pages or cracking open the laptop to give face time to something that you know in your memory feels so natural can actually be, well, difficult.
I wouldn’t say that I’ve stopped writing. I’ve done more for myself off the blog than I have in a very long time. Still, it’s been light and silly – nothing profound and thought-provoking like some of the stories and perspectives I used to so frequently share here. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me, this absence from what I know my calling is.
I’d also be lying if I said I knew what I was going to do to turn it all around. I’m certainly not complaining about my life circumstances that leave me little room to work writing in – I’m happier than I think I’ve ever been – it’s just that I haven’t figured out the balance yet.
Some days, though, I feel like I’m cheating by posting a photo and a few words. I know photography is now a lifelong passion of mine, but writing was first and I don’t want it to feel forgotten.
So today I’d like to say thank you, for sticking around and doing more looking than reading these past few months. For encouraging me and understanding when it would appear I’m not doing the same for you. I want you to know that just because you don’t see me or hear from me doesn’t mean you’re not on my mind and more importantly, in my heart. And just like you have in the past, I know you’ll still be here, and just like I have in the past, you know I’ll still be there. And I promise – wholeheartedly – that if you’ve ever fallen in love with my words, gotten lost in my thoughts or taken something from my sentences, you will again.
Chomp!
April 1st, 2010 § 25 Comments
Something incredible happened this week. Something amazing, something that’s been a long time coming.
Ladies and gentlemen, blends, friends and strangers,
I have been bitten by the running bug.
Now, you might be scratching your head, thinking, “Hold the phone. I thought you run all the time? Aren’t you training for a half marathon? Whaaaa?”
Yes, yes. I have been running consistently since last summer when I quit smoking. Yes I have raced before and have another one in a month (a month?! Ahh!) but this week everything clicked.
Enter Monday. After two rest days and a day at work that left me considering pulling out multiple chunks of my own hair, I ate a late lunch of the kitchen disaster manicotti at 4 p.m. By 6:45 I was headed out the door to tackle a short run. I was thinking I’d only do about three miles or so because I didn’t want to be running all over the City in the dark. Right off the bat, something in this run felt different. I literally felt like my feet were lighter. I had absolutely no pain anywhere. Throughout my entire training, I’ve been dealing with a sore back and the end of my tailbone pain and last weekend I took a spill that left my ankles, feet and knees bruised so I was very hesitant in believing I wouldn’t be ouch-ing my way through several miles.
I decided to go with it, half expecting to feel a little burnt out, but fully hoping the feeling would last. As I ran the course I run every day, I snuck several glances my Garmin reading paces in the 8:00-10:00 mile ranges. For someone who averages a nice jog around 11:00ish or slower, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I kept checking the screen to make sure some crazy magnetic force wasn’t bouncing off sky scrapers and throwing it off. As my distance increased, I maintained my quicker pace, realizing I was soon going to hit a record time. I crossed an intersection by PNC Park and looked down just as I hit the 5K mark. I stopped the Garmin, and stood there in disbelief.
I shaved five minutes off my best 5K time. Five whole minutes!! I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry, I wanted to laugh, to jump up and down, to hug someone – tell someone!
I looked at the screen, took in the moment for what it was, walked a block and started running again.
I ran around the stadiums and back to my neighborhood. It was dusk by this time and I was still on top of the world. I knew my training plan called for 4.5 miles and I was less than a mile off at that point so I decided to run around my block a few times. I took to the street instead of the side walk and felt like I was 100 feet tall. I had to have been glowing at this point because I just wanted to burst with happiness.
Being the over analyst that I am, I tried to justify my record time with factors from my day – I did have two cups of coffee, I did have a large serving of pasta before my run, I did rest for days prior. Surely, this was a fluke and I’d return to my normal easy jogs. I mean, I have never been an athlete in my life. As my mother puts it, I joined sports for the social aspect of it. I have always envied my friends who excel at a sport (or at three and four as many of them do.) “Running” a mile in high school took me 15 minutes. Last summer, I huffed and puffed to even run a solid minute. Heck, I have struggled some days just to pump out a mile.
I’ve had two runs since, one very short and one a PDR of 6.5 miles. Neither gave me that floating feeling. Both left me itching to hit the pavement again. Neither of them had me running as fast the entire time. Both had me running that fast at least part of the time.
What I can tell you is this: running feels more natural now than it ever has. It feels like writing does to me. It feels like home. It feels like something I should and will be doing for the rest of my life.I know something clicked and I know that my life will never be the same.
And in keeping the two in comparison, neither writing nor running is easy. In fact, I find them to be two of the most challenging tasks I take on every day. But with that challenge comes reward. There are times the words just flow from my brain to my finger tips and times where I get stuck for hours, days even. There are times where my feet feel like air and times when they feel like cement blocks.
Will I have bad runs? Yup. Will I struggle to write posts and content? Absolutely.
Will the PDRs and record times keep coming in? Without a doubt. Will I reach my goals of being published again? If I can dream it I can do it.
Right now, I think I’ll just ride out the feeling of weightlessness and continue to feel like I can fly.
Adding good to good
January 5th, 2010 § 7 Comments
Oh, hello friends – I have not forgotten you! I hope you enjoyed my last post and that the first five days of 2010 have been nothing short of wonderful for you. My craziest week of work wrapped up and I’ve been regrouping my thoughts and mind. Now I’m fully geared up for the year ahead! As promised, I am going to recap December to Remember and share New Year’s Resolutions.
First, to recap my goals:
1.) Drink at least 64 ounces of water every.single.day. Well y’all, I wish I could say I took this goal by the horns and bronco-ed it out of the bullpen, but sadly I did not. I got tons of great suggestions of ways to increase my intake, but I know I am still dehydrated. I am getting better at remembering and actually drinking as often as I can, it’s just a matter of me being absent-minded about it. This is still an on-going goal for the year (and, well, my life.)
2.) Donate to charity. Aside from the usual contributions made through every day purchases, this too was an epic fail. However, I have some super exciting charity news to share in the upcoming weeks as soon as details are ironed out that totally makes up for my lack of it in December.
3.) Take time for me. Now, call me selfish, but this is the one I have had the most success with. Don’t get me wrong, homegirl still kept it social, only it wasn’t so run-run-run try to please everyone. I made decisions as a compromise between pleasing myself and others. Y’all it felt good. I think I put too much pressure on myself to be everything to everyone. Slap me with some starred panties and call me Lynda Carter – sometimes I think I can do it all. Class, this is also known as “Superwoman Syndrome.”
4.) Continue and adopt more smart spending habits. Here is another one I had success with and I can thank my Kenmore refrigerator for a large part of that. Yes, Chase is still iced out in the freezer. I’ve continued to think and re-think purchases and spend more wisely. I’ve been scouting sales and specials and cutting coupons. I’ve been without the skinny jeans and high boots I so admire every other woman I see. And ya know what? I’m still alive.
5.) Shake up my workouts. Sadly, yoga and I have not reunited – yet. The instructor I adore only teaches a few times a week and with the busiest time of my year just passed, I let this go to the back burner. Fear not, January will shake things up….
..Which leads me to…resolutions!
I may have mentioned before I am not someone who’s exactly big on resolutions. While I think it’s great to have goals and things to strive toward, having all of them culminate on one day is a bit daunting. For me, it’s also a sure-fire backfire. Every monumental change I’ve made in my life in 2009 just happened. Let me rephrase: it happened because I wanted it to. I quit smoking. I started running. I took control of my spending and finances. Were these things I wanted for myself last December? Absolutely. But it doesn’t take the turn of a calendar page to entice me to change. It just takes waking up on some idle Tuesday morning, feeling it in my heart and thinking, “OK let’s do it.”
In recent weeks, I have slowly started to get myself into some habits I’d like to make a part of 2010. You call them resolutions, I call them life improvements. Tomato, to-mah-toe.
* Cook. As in, real meals, from scratch, from this ancient device called a recipe book. Considering I got three great ones for Christmas and I have several others collecting dust in my pantry, I have decided this is the year I will actually purchase things at the grocery store that can be combined together to make a meal. Amazing concept, no? I have already been successful with this and had the most delightful time making a categorized list of items to tackle my supermarket Sunday. Speaking of, a bit of trivia for you. Did you know all of the “essential” items for daily consumption are found around the perimeter of an average grocery store? Think about it: produce, dairy, meat, bread. (And if you go to mine, also magazines, which I consider to be essential.) It’s when you venture down those aisles that you can get in trouble.
*Run a Half Marathon. I’ve mentioned this a few times and quite frankly, even typing it scares me. I know it’s going to take a lot of work but I really enjoy the thrill and challenge of training. Doing 13.1 miles is really stepping up my game so I plan to incorporate lots of cross-training. I’m looking into swimming, spinning and hot yoga while it’s still sub-zero out. Once I can properly breathe without having to thaw my lungs out post-run, I’ll be hittin’ the streets of the City with my trusty Garmin Forerunner. After all, you’ve got to have a dream to make a dream come true.
*Plan and take a big vacation. The destination is unknown, but the last time I took a big trip – as in more than a long weekend with girlfriends or visiting family for the holidays – was before I graduated college, and even then it wasn’t lavish. I’m talking six of us slept on two beds pushed together at a Red Roof Inn and drank on the beach all day. I’d say I’m long overdue.
*Continue writing and give my blog more love. This may, and will, mean many things in the upcoming months. While I would love to find a way to make a living writing, I know the harsh reality after working in the business. Anyone who’s flipped on CNN in the past, um decade, knows the state of the economy and the writing/journalism world is taking the blunt end of it. I’m looking into a domain name, adding more to the site and posting more often. I also need to join the rest of the century and subscribe to blogs with Google Reader and master my Gmail to organize my life. As much as I lurve the Internet, I can be a bit slow hesitant to pick up on the ways it can make my life easier. I’d also really love to attend a blogger conference this year -BlogHer 2010 NYC anyone?
So folks, there you have it. I’m sure things will be modified along the way. I’m sure I’ll be adding more goals for myself in the next 12 months. I’m sure I’ll struggle. I’m sure I’ll succeed. Thanks for joining me on the ride.
The flame
September 16th, 2010 § 74 Comments
There was a time – in what feels like another life – that I was a reporter. I worked for a weekly newspaper in Philadelphia. I covered such an array of subjects and people – I wrote about schools, the Mayor and City Council, theater, art, doctors, restaurants, criminals, authors and even a few celebrities (Patti LaBelle sang “Lady Marmalade” to me one afternoon.) Every week I poured myself into my stories. I might not have loved the assignment initially but I learned to love some part of it. Every word was well-crafted, (and edited) every inch of text had my heart all over it. Come Thursday morning, I’d watch the stacks on every corner of South Philadelphia dwindle down as the papers were distributed. I’d walk into my office with a bit on anticipation. Was the message light on my phone blinking? Were there emails praising or criticizing my work? Even though I’d seen the pages being laid out for days, I thumbed through the issue with pride. I loved – correction, love – seeing my name in print.
Some weeks, I heard nothing. No good, no bad. No “thank you” no “screw you” (yes, you get that in a newspaper). Nothing.
Now that I’m not working on deadline, now that I’m not scanning wires and newspapers and forums and developing ideas, things have shifted a bit. I’m still writing, but I’ve got the freedom to write about myself and my interests. I can use “me,” “my,” “mine.” As a journalist, you just don’t do that.
However.
I still get excited every time I post. I seek the thrill in being inspired to write something. I love that I can write as often as I want and see my “name” in print at my will.
I’ve been blogging for nearly a year and while every post is received differently, I can tell you there’s been times I’ve waited in anticipation and heard nothing. Sometimes when I really put my heart into the words found here, when my fingers seem to grace the keys without a hesitation, when it just flows, I don’t get the response I seek. My inbox doesn’t flood with emails. My stats are stagnant. I may not get many or even any comments. I sit here and think, “Why?!? I’m writing about something no one else has! This isn’t about breakfast, lunch and dinner – this is from my heart- I’m really exposing myself, here! Doesn’t that count for something??’
Have you ever felt this way? Whether you’re new to the game, an established blogger, someone who gets hundreds of hits or could only wish to get 100 hits, have you ever felt this way?
It’s OK. It’s OK not to receive comments.
It’s OK to be mad about it.
When I was a reporter, my stories were held in the hands of over 65,000 people. I was in their homes, spread out on their kitchen tables, stacked up with their bills and mail. Tossed in the trash by the start of the next week. Hell, I’m sure they made a nice drop for painting projects, padding for packing and perhaps even the lining of a few bird cages.
At times, I’d get frustrated when Thursday would come and pass and I wouldn’t hear any feedback from the community I wrote for. As time went on, responses generated. People looked for my byline. They started to trust me – otherwise an outsider up until that point. They started calling me. It was my writing they wanted to tell their story. I’ll never forget the thank you cards, notes, emails, comments, letters to the editor, flowers and love I felt from the community. It made me want to write more, write better – give something back to them.
I feel the same can be said for blogging. When I first began, I was desperate to know exactly who was reading and what they thought. I wanted to feel appreciated and loved – like I was making a difference. When the comments were few and far between, it was frustrating. When my stats were low so was I.
Things have picked up in the last 12 months. I’ve neglected The Twenty-Fifth Year a number of times, but I’ve gotten to the point where I know I have a community. I know they appreciate me, love me and get something from my writing. I’ve gotten the emails, the comments, the inquiries for guest posts. I’ll never forget what it felt like to receive a wave of support when I’ve really put it all out there. It made me want to write more, write better.
But it wasn’t like that from the beginning. It took time. I had to get past the initial disappointment when I didn’t get comments and feedback and response. I had to establish myself here, gain the trust of others. I had to be tenacious and write for myself and about what mattered to me. I had to show gumption and stick around. I had to be OK with the reality that sometimes, there just aren’t comments but that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing something for someone.
The point here? Keep truckin’ friends. Keep writing. Keep clicking publish. Keep engaging in the community. Keep encouraging others. It is what you make it, after all. Think of it this way – blogging is a big pot of water. You put it over a flame of passion. At first the water makes no movement. You watch and nothing happens. When you shift your focus on something else, the flame still burns. Tiny bubbles start to form. Before you know it, it’s a full on rolling boil. You come back to the flame and you’ve got victory! What you choose to add into the water at this point is solely up to you – boiling water can change the fate of so many things, including yourself.