Under Rock Bottom

There is a place below rock bottom. Darkness and Fear live in this place. They cloud your vision and you are unable to see rock bottom. They like to keep you there with them. Your life force drained for their greedy appetites. Darkness and Fear are relentless in their pursuit of your light. They wish to extinguish it.

They lie to you about what the place they inhabit really is. They call it life. They tell you this is just the way it is and will always be. No use trying for anything better, they shrug with feigned indifference. They distract you and you are unable to see rock bottom. You don’t even know you are deeper than rock bottom because Darkness and Fear are constantly in your ear, tricking you with whispered lies. Convincing lies.

I hope you can learn to navigate this space. If you want to live, you must. No one can do it for you. If you will only look up, you will see how far away from the light you have wandered. If you will only look up, you will see your proximity to rock bottom and know it is time to engage in your return to yourself.

Look up, my sisters. Look up.

Gifted Books

Books can do amazing things. Like bring people together who might not otherwise meet. Books can bring a person out of their own head to find some other people. People who also like to get lost in books.

I joined a few book clubs.

This was terrifying for me. This fear has not always been a part of who I am. I am not sure when it happened. Somewhere along the way of life, I became a full on homebody. I have fully embraced it for the last decade. Kids make it easy to hide in yourself. You give so much. Everything. Everyday. You don’t have much left. So you decline invitations. You avoid crowds. You sink deeper and deeper into the land of no people until the only ones around you are your sweet babies and the village you create for them consisting of only family and maybe a couple of highly trusted friends.

I dived deep into this land. It was safe and sweet filled with babies, kisses, lots of laughs, family events and love. So much love. And it was enough. It was all I needed.

Until it wasn’t.

Until I needed something. Something for me. Something fun. Something new.

I remembered I love books. Like a lot. I love to read books. I love to talk about books. I love to write about books. In the spirit of living this year with the theme of love, I decided to crawl out onto the limb and find some people to talk about books with. I decided to follow love and it nudged me to books which inspired me to talk about books. I joined a few book clubs and started reading the books.

The first meeting was not really one at all, as it would turn out.  Today was the actual first book club meeting and it couldn’t have gone better. I met two women who I have plans to see again soon and I had a terrific time.

I was scared. I was nervous and a bit anxious. I went anyway. I am so glad I did. I can’t wait to see what else and who else might be out there in the world, ready for new adventures. And of course, lots of wonderful books.

Books can do amazing things. Like take you outside of your comfort zones so you can reside in the space of growth. Books are gifted like that.

Still a Win

I’m socially awkward. There I’ve said it.

I’m also pretty good at faking it so most people don’t know that about me. Now, you dear readers, know the truth!

I took a step outside of my comfort zone, with the help of books. I joined a couple of book clubs. Today was the first meeting I signed up for. The book was good and disturbing so perfect for discussion. I was a little nervous, ok terrifird, to attend. I take that to mean I was on the proper path. 

The meeting was cancelled a couple of days ago with a caveat that if anyone read the book and wanted to go ahead with the meeting, please feel free. Normally, I would take this as an out. Breath a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to go and move on with my socially awkward ways. 

Not today. Today I showed up. 

I felt a little silly with my book on the table like a red rose signalling a blind date. I did it anyway. I enjoyed lunch while waiting to see if anyone would show. 

I’m calling it. It’s a win.

In case you’re wondering, the book is All the Ugly and Beautiful Things by Bryn Grrenwood. It is not for everyone. Those that enjoy proactive contango we written in unique stlye may enjoy this one. If anyone has read it and would like to discuss, I would love that! I am all amped up to talk about books and would relish the chance to do so. 

Books

It would be possible for me to live forever in the pages of books.

As a child, I would devour books. Library books from the elementary schoolhouse library were meant to last a week. How am I supposed to read this one book for an entire week, I would often think to myself. I would take my newly borrowed book home and return the next day, finished and never satisfied. I wanted more.

I started reading above my grade level. The books were longer. It made sense. So I started the part of my book loving journey that included questionable and possibly inappropriate reading material. That is not to say that it could have anything outrageously adult. I was confined to my school library and our small town library, in a highly religious area. Still. There were books that were maybe not meant for the eyes of an elementary school student.

No one seemed to be noticing what I was reading. So I kept reading. And reading. And reading. When the lights would be turned out and the house started to settle, I would wait for my sisters to drift off to sleep. They were tattlers. I would bring my book into the bed and with the light from my alarm clock, pick up where I left off. Many a book saw the dim red light of the digital numbers as I moved the alarm clock across the pages.

Books shaped me. Books connected me to something bigger than myself. A lifeline to the heartbeat of the world.

My first job was at a bookstore. As a teenager, working in the mall was ideal. Books and malls. Perfect for a reader who was also a hopeless teenager. It was fitting for me to work with and around books. It felt like home. Bookstores, the few left, still feel like home.

My love affair with books was put on the shelf in recent years. Kids, husband, career, social media, life, it all took the time and space in my day. I didn’t make room for books. I was in a dark place in that regard. I would read sporadically but it was nothing like before.

Until now.

The reader is back. I’m flying through books. I’m sharing books. I’m talking about books. I’m sending books as gifts. I’m once again, happily, obsessed with the art of the written word.

In a stunning move of bravery on my part, I have joined a book club with complete strangers. I signed up for the next meetup and read the entire book in a morning. I’m excited to discuss it with others who read it recently and I’m also a little terrified of the experience. That feels right. Putting myself out there for the love of books. Feels right, for me.

If you will excuse me now, I must be getting back to my books. They are calling me and I intend to answer the call the brings joy to my soul.

Be Ready

I am ready. Inspiration comes calling in the early morning hours I carve out to make room for creating. I must be ready.

When the mood strikes, I am ready with space to create. When inspiration comes round, I am equipped with journals and notebooks and pens. Should it be one of the days when inspiration is visiting someone else, I am all set with books, marveling at writers that inspiration has visited.

I am ready because I am easily distracted from inspiration’s invitations. If inspiration is a quick moving guest, and I believe that it is, I don’t want to be rude. I won’t ask inspiration to wait while I assemble my tools and prepare for the business of creating. That rudeness is generally met with inspiration making a hasty retreat as it moves on to a more prepared individual.

Be ready! Inspiration is at the door!

Feels

“Feels” is far and away my favorite of the slang that I am too old to utter and yet use often. It fits. Emotions are big and scary. It suits me to utilize a word that softens the edges of big scary things.

Feels are necessary. I get it. I also run from them. A lot. It is easier to hide than it is to feel. Until it’s not anymore. 

Today, I felt the feels. I allowed emotion to flow through and out of me. I’m drained and exhausted. It is no small thing to take my feels on and not hide in the bottom of a bag of chips. I felt. I cried. I survived. 

This evening, I am enjoying the feels that come with mothering. The feels are like that. They can wipe you out one moment and lift you up the next. 

I feel. Deeply. And that’s ok. 

Writing Tugs

There are mornings that are for reading. The book of choice comes easily, settling in to the chair is effortless, and the coffee is perfect. I head down the rabbit hole of an author’s beautiful mind, with glee.

Then there are other mornings. Nothing feels right. The books are not calling out. The chair is not comfortable. The coffee has cooled.

That’s the tug.

Writing is tugging at my shirt sleeve, gently urging me to pay attention. If I choose to ignore the tugging, it will stop. I make that choice occasionally. How sad for writing. To want to inspire and be turned away.

So I listen. And then I write.

Joy

Rainy Mornings

Rainy mornings are for coffee and reading and writing and texting your mom. That is this morning, for me. 
My mom. How do I tell you about my mom? It would take all the words in my vocabulary and that still wouldn’t cover it. In a word, she is spectacular! 

Witty and sharp, she is a force. A verb. I’m so unbelievably grateful to know her, to love her, to be loved by her.

Call your mothers! 

Enjoy rain!

Laugh, often!

Write!

Writing is Dangerous

For real. 

Use caution if you are starting a journal. You might read it one day. You might wonder if that was really you. It was. It is. 

I’ve been with my Valentine for a tad under two decades. As a little gift this year, I found some journal entries written about him over the years. I wanted to find more than I did but I had to stop. 

For my own sanity.

I’m a bit too much. I needed a break, from myself. That’s right. I’m too much, even for myself.

This Valentine of mine deserves epic poems and dream vacations.