Writing

‘He’

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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?

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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

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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…

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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.

Nightlight Snowfall

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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.

Fan-fiction: The Daughter of the King

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Author’s Note: Based on the television show Forever, starring Ioan Gruffud,. This is written from the perspective of a female character as she rides in an ambulance towards the end of the episode “The King of Colombus Circle”.

“Courage. You are the daughter of a king.”

The daughter of a king. I certainly didn’t feel like the daughter of a king. I was lying in the back of an ambulance, the klaxons whirring and whining overhead, drilling into my temples, my blood leaking out onto the gurney. And he sat over me, reminding me that I was the daughter of a king.

A dead king.

A king who was assassinated. By an assassin who had now come for me. And for my son.

My son!

My baby!

There I lay, shot and bleeding. Soon, I would be dead. The dead daughter of a dead king. Soon, my son would be as I had been: an orphan. Shuffled back and forth through the system all his life. My precious, beautiful, black-haired baby boy.

I felt the tears on my face but I couldn’t tell if they were hot or cool, whether the world was loud or quiet. All I could feel was the weight of fear on my chest.

I couldn’t leave my boy an orphan. I couldn’t let him grow up like I had: shuffled between foster, group homes, and CPS facilities all his life until he aged out, never cared for, never loved. I thought I had found love, once, in the arms of his father. A man with a wife and family of his own, but I convinced myself that he loved me. He didn’t.

But he gave me my son. And I loved him. My son who would soon be motherless.

No. I couldn’t let my son grow up like I had: wondering every day where he came from, why he was given up, why no one loves him. I couldn’t let him go through that.

I could not die.

I would not die!

He held my hand, that man from the police, with the lilting British accent. The man who had told this Cinderella that she was a princess. He told me to have courage, that I was a king’s daughter.

And the world slipped to the left, darkness flipping over my head.

= = =

When I woke again, I saw my son. He was in the Queen’s arms. She smiled and, seeing me awake, came over to the side of the bed.

“I hope you do not mind me holding him,” she said, “It’s just that he looks so much like his grandfather.”

Grandfather. Father. Gone. But I had not been forgotten. My son would not be forgotten. He would be raised with a family, with love. A grandmother and a mother who adore him.

Princess or not, I would give him a legacy.

An Existence Woven in Words

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I didn’t exist in your world until you started reading this sentence of mine.

Did you know that? I didn’t exist in your world until a moment ago. Ta da! How do you do? Nice to meet you in this big old universe of ours.

This is one of the reasons I write (send letters, journal, blog, tweet, update, etc.): to send my words out into the world, into the universe, and to join my world with that of others’. My words are proof that I did indeed exist in this universe that we call our own; they are also proof of my existence in the worlds and lives of others.

One year ago, a new avenue of world-reaching opened up for me when the wonderful ladies of The Well Written Woman welcomed me as a contributor to their fabulous site. Over the course of 2014, TWWW was kind enough to publish seven of my articles/stories, giving me a safe place to share some of my most deeply felt and vulnerable writings with the world. There really is a sense of fear and foreboding at sending what basically amounts to a piece of your heart and self out into the world. Those soul-written words alert the world to your existence, not to mention your opinions and thoughts, and that can be dangerous, as well as wonderful, as many recent events have revealed to us. It has scared me to death on more than one occasion, but I have not regretted it. Even if I thought I did at the time, the truth is that, when it comes down to it, I really haven’t. When I have doubted myself the most, there always comes a kind, encouraging word from someone (whether friend or stranger) that reminds me of the aforementioned reason why I do this, why I write.

So this thought is a very profound one to me; the thought that, when people read my writing, I then exist in their world and in their lives, even if only for the brief amount of time it takes them to read my words. There are people who have become dearly important parts of my life, my relationships with whom began with words on a screen. Over time, those words have been exchanged in person, along with hugs and smiles and wonderful memories. But, until I first read their words, that person didn’t exist in my universe, and now I do not know what I would do without them. There are people whose words and teachings have affected my mind and the way I think about myself, others, and life. Words that I have taken to heart and incorporated into my own way of living and making the world around me better.

So thank you. Yes, thank YOU. You, who have read my words and allowed me into your world, even if just for a little while. You, who have opened doors and allowed my words to flow through them. You, who have shared your words and your world with me. I hope and pray that the thoughts, sentences, opinions, and reflections that I have woven my existence with have been and will be, in some measure, of help, encouragement, or inspiration to someone whose world I have touched and who has touched mine in return.

Again, nice to meet you.

Writing is Hard

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It is. Everyone knows it, but it bears repeating. Writing is hard.

Even as I sit here, writing in my notebook with the loveliest of all instruments, a fountain pen, it’s hard and even annoying to have to admit how difficult writing can be. I have had an idea drifting around in my head for the past week, at least, that I just cannot seem to get translated into words on a page or screen. I hate it when writing is difficult. I despise it when the bifrost between my mind and my hands feels fractured and cracked, preventing me from weaving my thoughts into reality. I get frustrated and irritated, like trying to make a square peg fit  into a round hole.

I know that, sometimes, just writing is the answer, whether it feels “right” or not but I truly dislike forcing words out. It feels just that: forced. I know that writing is work and work is hard. I’m not disputing it. I just…*stamps foot*

Come on, brain, work!

That Sublime Moment

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Photo credit – http://favim.com/orig/201105/11/art-artistic-author-unknown-back-beauty-black-and-white-Favim.com-40696.jpg

Author’s Note – Inspiration: This piece was inspired by a post by a friend. One sentence: “You don’t know sexy until you’ve had a man loosen your corset.” So, naturally, I had to think, how could one describe those moments?

She had done her duty all night, played the beautiful, enchanting hostess, intelligent and entrancing. Her dress was heavy with velvet and lace, glittering with jewels. As she reached her rooms, it was with a sigh threaded through with weariness. Now, in the quiet, her torso ached with a stiffness forced beyond her own natural posture, eliciting another sigh from her.

“Let me help,” came a soft, low voice, not of a lady’s maid but a body servant that she much preferred. Deft fingers undid the delicate buttons of her gown, loosening the silken sash, and allowing her free of the heavy confectionary of fashion.

Her sighs came in earnest now, her body feeling twenty pounds lighter, her limbs floating upward in relief and eliciting a chuckle from the assistant behind her. There then came the soft sound of cord rubbing against itself as he began to deconstruct the ties of her laces. His fingers were gentle as the bows fell away, and they slipped between the grommets, brushing the delicate skin beneath, to loosen the stays that held her captive. She felt freedom inch towards her step by step, moment by moment, as the bars of steel that surrounded her form gave way. Her breath came deeply, filling her lungs and blossoming the bust that the corset yet kept prisoner. His fingertips drew warm lines over the indentations left in her pinkened back.

His voice dropped pearls in her ear as the laces slipped free, the corset soon following, only to be lovingly replaced by his arms. But these were a binding ever more gentle and yet everlastingly stronger than steel and canvas and far more beautiful than embroidered silk and satin-wrapped laces.

 

I Am

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Author’s Note: Based on Nichole Parrish’s “I AM” poem and on different stories that I have written and experiences I have had over the years. Originally posted in April 2007, now updated January 2015.

I am a Ravenclaw.
I am a Slytherin.
I am a Jedi.
I am a gargoyle.
I am a princess.
I am an Amazon.
I am a faery queen.
I am a prophecy.
I am a shield maiden.
I am an Elf.
I am a Hobbit.
I am a mutant.
I am a legend.
I am a reflection.
I am a culmination.
I am a seduction.
I am an artist.
I am a warrior.
I am a belly dancer.
I am a geisha.
I am a writer.
I am a teacher.
I am a student.
I am an inspiration.
I am a disappointment.
I am a friend.
I am a wife.
I am a mother.
I am a musician.
I am an actress.
I am earthly.
I am ethereal.
I am also only human.
I am her.
I am me.
I am.