Author: Melissa Snyder

Melissa Snyder https://awriterbecoming.wordpress.com Melissa Snyder is an introvert with a flair for the dramatic in her writing. She is a wife, mother, teacher, compulsive writer, voracious reader, and fierce defender of Love and Imagination. She likes to write about faith (her own and faith in general) and self and emotion and society and hobbies, as well as revealing the myriad paracosms that inhabit her mind. These paper bullets of the brain live in her blog and on Facebook where she endeavors to write about life and Imagination boldly and share honestly.

Growing Up is Hard

Leave a comment

Muncie Gras 2008 062

Muncie Gras 2008

Late last night, I performed at an annual event called Muncie Gras. Yep, it’s Muncie’s version of Mardi Gras. For those of you who don’t know or are new to this particular blog, I have an alias: Vaskha. I began belly dancing in 2007 and I took the performance name when I joined Carenza Bint Asya’s student troupe, Mashallah, later that year.

The first time I belly danced at Muncie Gras was 2008. It was 30 degrees or lower outside, the snow from earlier in the week had melted off but there was still mud and muck about. Our stage was an open, rug-covered, raised platform in the middle of Walnut Street, which was transformed into Bourbon Street for this one night. It was cold, but it was fun, out there with all of my girls. I was there all night and it was a great time.

For several years, belly dance was my primary hobby. I was in classes/practices five hours a week, daily practices and conditioning at home (I had a chart with stickers/stamps and everything), and performances or workshops several weekends a month. As the years have gone by, my life has changed and I am no longer as deep into belly dance as I was. I’ve had a daughter and gotten involved in other hobbies, which, as a result, has seen my presence and involvement in the belly dance community wane. I don’t perform with a troupe any more. I still take classes when my schedule permits and perform with those classes when I can, but that amounts to maybe one or two performances a year. And now I am taking classes from my former class- and troupe-mates. Yallah to them, by the way, for achieving their dance goals!

So, last night, I returned to Muncie Gras for the…fourth time, I think. Carenza is one of the kindest souls and asked if I would perform at her stage this year. I have to admit that I was flattered, extremely so. To say that I think of myself as rusty after two years of less-than-regular practice and learning would be putting it politely. Right after Christmas, I started working out again and I have come to enjoy skipping out to Planet Fitness to run on the elliptical, either with my friend or on my own. But I digress.

While I still enjoy performing…something has changed. I can always feel it and it’s there like a weight in my chest. I am not part of the community anymore. Because of life and money responsibilities, I don’t get to attend the workshops, conventions, or galas with any frequency any longer. Therefore, I do not spend any substantial time with the ladies with whom I practiced this beautiful art. So when I do attend or perform now, I often feel like an outsider. Total honesty here. I am far more comfortable performing on my own at a larp game or when just dancing with my friends than I am at a hafla or show. I feel freer then. It’s a little difficult to explain. I know that the women that I dance with are kind, beautiful, loving souls, but the truth is that I haven’t heartily enjoyed any performances over the past few years because I do feel so displaced. The belly dance community is one of the most beautiful and accepting ones that I have ever been a part of and I am truly glad that I was able to be a part of it for a few years and that I can still take classes to practice this art of beauty and grace and power.

As a friend put it when we discussed this, it is hard growing up sometimes and growing into new things and new places. I still enjoy dancing, it still makes me feel beautiful and graceful, and the classes still challenge and condition me. But I know that some aspects of it just aren’t as fun for me anymore, and that’s OK. We all grow, we all move on, we find new hobbies and new joys, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy what was once a huge part of our lives.

Muncie Gras 2010

Muncie Gras 2010

So thank you, Carenza, Zhenna, Ja’Niesa, Liz von Moxie, and Ariellah, for being my inspirations as well as my teachers. Thank you to all of my belly dance sisters. Thank you for all that you have taught me and continue to teach me about accepting myself and others, challenging my body and my mind, and revelling in my own beauty. Thank you for always reminding me that I am beautiful and that, if nothing else works, I can just shimmy it out.

PS. To clarify, this doesn’t mean I’m giving up belly dancing. Far from it. I am just being honest about how I have changed and feel eight years down the road. I still enjoy belly dance, love to take classes, and have a great time dancing with my friends. That has not changed and I don’t think it ever will.

Presented Without Comment

Leave a comment

I believe in good when my daughter wants me to sit with her while she colors, just because she wants me there. 

It’s still strange when I touch my cesarean scar two years later. It feels like a coil of rope embedded in my skin, worn smooth at its smiling edges. 

That moment when your heart is racing and you don’t know why or what emotion is prompting it: one of the scariest ones in my life. 

“[R]ules might give us some order but love and grace make life worth living.” – Sheila Walsh

Here, Have a Happy #InternationalDayofHappiness

Leave a comment

So today is one of my favorite days of the year: the International Day of Happiness. What is the International Day of Happiness, you ask? Well, I shall let them tell you, direct from their own website:

March 20 has been established as the annual International Day of Happiness and all 193 United Nations member states have adopted a resolution calling for happiness to be given greater priority. First ever UN conference on Happiness and wellbeing

In 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which recognised happiness as a “fundamental human goal” and called for “a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all peoples”.

In 2012, the first ever UN conference on Happiness took place and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which decreed that the International Day of Happiness would be observed every year on 20 March. It was celebrated for the first time in 2013.

I love any holiday that gives me an (extra) excuse to do stuff for friends, family, and neighbors or to remind them of how glad I am that they are in my life. I think, sometimes, we forget that, while we can choose to be happy in our own lives, we can also contribute to the happiness of others. Sometimes, we have no idea just how much a kind word, thoughtful gesture, or a little bit of help can change or be an uplift to someone’s day. I was personally reminded of this the other day amidst a ginormous conniption fit by my daughter in the middle of a restaurant, and I am deeply thankful to those who shared the happy with their kindness.

So, today, I want to thank you – yes, you, the persons reading this – for stopping by and giving my blog a perusal. I appreciate your consideration of my writing; it means a great deal. And I wish you a day full of unexpected miracles and little happinesses. Now, go share the happy.

Review: Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

Leave a comment

3/12/2015 – I have read several of Neil’s short stories before and really enjoyed them. My husband is an avid fan of some of his novels. So, when I spied this new collection at the bookstore, I immediately grabbed it up as a gift to myself after a long week.

I am always intrigued by Gaiman’s writing and, moreover, of his thought processes as a writer and the introduction alone to this collection of stories is a thing of beauty.

We build the stories in our heads. We take words, and we give them power, and we look out through other eyes, and we see, and exprience, what others see. I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? (page xiii)

Many of the most profound stories I have read have encited some of the most intense emotional reactions in me – anger at injustice, tears, worry, fear, joy, etc. – and many of them, I have read time and time again. I chose to skip Gaiman’s words about the individual stories that he has included in this collection; I shall come back to them after I have read the tales.

So far, I am through the first two pieces, “Making a Chair” and “A Lunar Labyrinth”. The first, in my mind, stands as an introduction to the collection and the idea of “trigger warnings”:

Making a book is a little like making a chair./Perhaps it out to come with warnings,/like the chair instructions./A folded piece of paper slipped into each copy,/warning us:/”Only for one person at a time.”/”Do not use as a stool or a stepladder.”/”Failure to follow these warnings can result in serious injury.”

More to come! ^_^

 

‘He’

Leave a comment

She watched with fascination as he took the book from her, opening its covers with immeasurably more reverence than anyone has ever approached the Ark of the Covenant with in any movie. Ever. He kept repeating incredulously that he had a book, that it was his book. 

And it was his book. And she watched him read it. Wait. Should she even call him a ‘him’? 

Yes. Yes, he was definitely ‘him’. In all her years of teaching, she had never seen a student approach a book with such unbound awe, wonder, and respect. No, anyone who held such esteem and love for paper, cardboard, marks on a page, and the wisdom and knowledge they possessed, that individual could never be called an ‘it’. No, he was definitely a ‘he’. A thinking, pondering, imagining ‘he’. 

But he wasn’t even human. Far from it. Yet he was still unique and very much still ‘he’.  

Who Is the Outsider?

Leave a comment

I recently started watching the new “Hawaii Five-0” television series from the beginning and one of the words that shows up frequently, especially in relation to Detective Danny “Danno” Williams, is “haole”. “Haole” is the Hawaiian word for “outsider”, and, honestly, it makes me bristle a bit to hear it sometimes, just like it does Danno. So many movies and stories are predicated on the plot of the outsider making good, finding common ground, and becoming part of his surroundings/community. So many languages have a word for outsider – gadjo, gaijin, haole, jackeen, msungu, for example. It makes me think. It makes me wonder.

Have I ever been seen as the outsider?

I know that I have seen myself that way before and it served to make me afraid and worried about doing well and thriving in a new community. When I first arrived at graduate school is a prime example of this, and it took a great deal of encouragement and love from friends and family far away and a fair amount of courage on my part to overcome it. But I do wonder if anyone else has ever seen me as an outsider.

Admitting new people into our lives and into our social circles is a part of life, though not always easy. Learning to share our friends, our family, the people whom we have seen as ours one way or another, can be incredibly difficult, but it opens us up to chances at new friendships, new relationships, which are pretty scary in their own right. I’ve stepped out and gotten to know people, admitted them into my life, into my circle, and sometimes it has worked out wonderfully, and sometimes it hasn’t. That’s life. I will admit, however, to having thoughts of “hey, they are mine” when I have seen friends make friends and hang out with new people, and that is where I have to stop, take stock, and remind myself that these people have done nothing wrong to me, neither set. Also, everyone deserves and needs friends and that, above all things, I want my friends, the dear ones in my life, to be happy. So while there may indeed be people who are ‘outsiders’ to my life, I often have to remind myself that they do not deserve to be thought of or treated so. I needed people to accept me and all the connections that I would make throughout my life that would also weave through theirs, so I can owe someone else nothing less than that same acceptance. Even if we never become ‘insiders’ to each other’s lives, I don’t want to see or think of them as an outsider. It would set us at odds and that can weigh heavily on the mind and soul.

But it still prods me to wonder, to even ask the question: have you ever seen me as an outsider?

Her

Leave a comment

Photo credit – http://free.wallpaperbackgrounds.com/photography/women/woman-photography-41886.jpg

They all saw her outside. They witnessed her every day. Many remarked on her poise and grace, her intelligence and gentleness. They watched her, saw her, day in and day out. Everyone thought they knew her, knew her story, who she was. But there was, of course, a her that they did not see, that they never saw.

Out of sight, there was the her whose shoulders stooped with the weight of responsibility and yet bore up. A her whose voice rang triumphantly in the celebration of a moment. A her who bit her tongue sharply to remind herself of the importance of silence’s role in making wise decisions. A her who chose every day to be the best her she could be. That was what people didn’t see, what they didn’t hear. But it made her the woman that they saw and knew.

I Choose…

Leave a comment

Today has been a bit of a sucky day. It’s rare that I want to admit that in public because, to me, it sounds suspiciously like complaining, whether it actually is or not. But today has been one of those days. I haven’t had the motivation (though I have had the desire) to do any substantial writing (even journaling) over the past few days. I know that, sometimes, you just have to treat things like a job: do it, get it done, get off your desk. But even that couldn’t persuade me to put fingers to keys or pen to paper the past few days or encourage me when what I did try to write fell flat and lifeless. Add into it that I haven’t felt my best the past few days, and it sends the rest of me spiraling down.

I’m weary, unmotivated to do the housework that needs doing. I want to be sleeping but can’t bring myself to climb into bed alone. I want time to myself but, at the same time, I am lonely. I want to be cuddled and comforted, but I cringe to have my daughter right at my hip or using me as a tumbling mat as she did all morning. I want to sit in a quiet, dark room, but I feel like, if I do, I’ll burst into tears.

And yet, in all of this and sundry other things that have gone on this week, I find myself brought back again and again to the idea represented by these quotes:

“Feelings are an indicator of where we might be in a moment but they DO NOT need to dictate our actions.” – Lysa TerKeurst

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

I can choose my next moment. I can choose what I do next, and I can choose the attitude with which I react to the moments that threaten to unglue me. I might feel low to the ground right now, but I do not have to act like it. I might feel sucky and lonely and irritable, but it doesn’t mean that I have to lash out and be vitriolic to those around me. I have been blessed by friends and dear ones who have endeavored to give me smiles and encourage me today, even amidst their own lives and difficult moments, and, for that, I am extremely grateful. Thank you, friends.

No, today is not the best day. It’s tiring and hard. I want to do something good for my soul, however, so I am going to go and find what that is and do it. Thank you for reading.

Book Review: The Snatchabook by Helen Docherty & Thomas Docherty

2 Comments

I have found my new favorite children’s storybook – The Snatchabook. This is a story about a little bunny named Eliza Brown and all her friends in Burrow Down. Every evening, they all cuddle down in their little homes at bedtime and listen excitedly to their bedtime stories. Then, suddenly, one night, the story books start to disappear, right out of their hands, flying out the windows and disappearing. Poor Eliza Brown is shocked but determined to find out what is happening. So she lays a trap and, when the thief comes for the pile of story books she has set out, Eliza confronts them! It turns out that the thief is a little creature called a Snatchabook (looks like a kangaroo mouse with dragonfly wings), and it has been stealing books because it has no one to read to it. Poor thing!

Eliza Brown takes pity on the Snatchabook and, together, they come up with a plan to return everyone’s books. Afterward, Eliza gathers her friends and explains the situation and, after that, the Snatchabook is welcomed to storytime in everyone’s home.

Written and illustrated by Helen and Thomas Docherty, a husband and wife team from Wales, this is a simply lovely storybook, composed of lush illustrations and a beautiful story written in lilting rhyme, perfect for a little ones. I thoroughly enjoy reading this to my 2-year-old daughter and, sometimes, I even take it down to read just to myself.

Nightlight Snowfall

Leave a comment

I wish I could show you the snow from my window. Few things are as beautiful to me as a nighttime snowfall.The flakes are big and fat, kissing the window-pane as I sit on the other side.They shake, shiver, and fall in the purple-white glow of the street light across the street, like feathers shaken loose from a heavenly pillow. Silent, it covers the world like softest blanket, greeting morning light with airy brightness. It is peace personified, and so, for a moment, I sit and watch.