The dermatologist worked for weeks to clear up the not so bad, but embarrassing acne. It would not do, to not put her best face forward at the party.
She arrived in a beautiful blouse with three eye-catching cutouts in the back, a perfect frame for the spectacular fiery pimple.
RL
A short creative writing challenge to write a story in exactly 50 words. This one is a mostly true nightmare that I’d witnessed. Seemed metaphorical for all kinds of teachable moments. 😉
For a friend, and in light of some recent stories coming forward. We all have a story to tell, I search for yours to better understand mine.
I originally posted this last year, but it feels like it’s a better time to share it now.
RL
Whose Story Will Be the Worst?
We all have a story that waits to be heard. No matter how uplifting or how dire the tale may seem, we all have known pain and we’ve all known joy. We like to mostly brag about the joyful things in life and to show off, a little, all the good we have. It’s good to say my happiness in life is good, and maybe even a little special.
On the other hand, how odd and strange is it that we sometimes take great pains to take measure of the pain of others too? To judge whose suffering is worse or not, or even worthy? Are we really special because of the ways we have been subjected to pain?
Regardless of our circumstances, richer or poorer, surrounded by many or none, we encounter the same range of emotions from various ranges of circumstances. It is…
View original post 389 more words
Okay, if you ever get an email where the subject line says ‘congrats, you’ve been freshly pressed’, do not automatically send it to the trash folder assuming it’s just another clever piece of junk mail. Just sayin’.
Wait! Do not delete!
Instead of madly retrieving crucial mail, maybe check the sender’s name by say, a Google search or checking the supposedly being Freshly Pressed post ‘likes’. It’s likely that name is there too, in which case, let out a big breath and semi-whisper WTF?
For non-bloggers, Freshly Pressed is a showcase on our host website, WordPress.com. It’s the site where they feature editors’ picks and community favorites to a following of millions of writers.
If you’re like me, you will then re-read that email repeatedly. After that, it starts to sink in and then, really? Will what I blurted out in a moment of bravery inspired by an hour of heroism by someone else matter that much to other people?
WordPress Editor Cheri Lucas Rowlands thought so, and I’m deeply grateful that her take on people sharing vulnerabilities is that it’s important and a path to understanding.
So, before I knew that Cheri had, however miraculously, set her eyes on my post, (103 People Unfriended Her…) I calculated that a total of 50 of my loyals would read it. Freshly Pressed sent it shooting past thousands of eyes. Kind of heady stuff.
Anyway, it is quite an experience, and natch, I took notes as I rode the “FP” roller coaster.
Seeing as how mine was pressed the day after the Oscars, it felt like an extension of the awards. Hey, this IS my Oscar.
Anyhoo, once pressing is done, you know you’re going to get more readers than usual, and you do, lots of new viewers.
One notification came that totally cracked me up, “Your blog, Blog Woman!!!, appears to be getting more traffic than usual”!
You get the coveted blue Freshly Pressed badge in your Widget tools. Way cool. It’s added to your collection once the post is pressed.
Without a doubt, what was really, really outstanding, were the comments. The overwhelming support for the point of my post was heartrending. The amount of thoughtfulness is amazing. The humor, the sincerity, the straightforward opinions are just beautiful. Each comment touches my heart for its own reason.
All those comments and only one that I didn’t know how to take. Joke or jerk? I published it anyway.
I got a really good look at how many blog names are incredible, amazing, and hilarious. Oh you witty writers.
If, like me, you get a kick at seeing the notification box light up orange, you’re really going to like the first few hours of being pressed. You can just sit and stare as that little box lights up with each blink – like the cats that love that red dot.
Anyway, all those eyes! Thousands! Wow, right? Little reality check – reading is not the same as liking. In fact, the stats say roughly 10-15% of the overall readers hit that like button or commented.
On the other hand, those 10-15 percenters were damned overwhelming with how much they opened up. As I read through them, I thought this must be what the Ellens and Oprahs feel like when they come out from behind the curtains and feel a whoosh of emotion so moving, that I’m surprised any hair or make-up stays on.
Then, some of those 10-15 percenters also perused my other not Freshly Pressed posts. That was also awesome sauce, and their comments were absolutely uplifting on those too.
Oh, and seeing new followers, well, what’s a higher compliment than that?
Finally, my agent (AKA 12 yr. old son) said that when I go on Ellen (he’s determined to get me there), I better have a thank you list, and he’d better be #1 on it!
So, thank you all so much for this fantastical ride, it’s been stunning fun so far. … And to my agent, I am nothing without you.
Could I also leave you with this 4 minute video that happened to show up on my Facebook page this week? It couldn’t be a better example of the definition of what is beauty. It is by Oscar winner Lupita N’yongo. I believe that most of you exhibited that to me in your comments. It’s taken me one more step away from “the seduction of inadequacy”.
Dare you to keep a dry eye:
RL
Alright, my mother isn’t, and wasn’t ever, a nun. She grew up wanting to be one, but life has a way of trading dreams on people, and I was the first trade-off.
Her life wasn’t anywhere close to a serene cloistered order. I wrote a little about that in a post called ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’.
Her adult road didn’t include even following the tenets of her early faith. The closest to church involvement was the annual search for one that held summer camps for kids. That was her summer break and our free annual vacation.
What she ended up doing mostly was working 12 hour days in emergency first-aid and security detail. A few years into this industry, she’d re-found her faith, but it could never be used as any kind of vocation. Those 12 hour shifts were an economic necessity and there are few comparable offerings in the faith field.
So, it was long days until retirement at age 71. By then she wanted only to putter, and maybe volunteer a little. She’d already started going to church regularly again, and she helped the Reverend here and there. Their pleasant working relationship became true friendship. She had no idea this would cause her earliest reveries to swell again.
One day the Reverend made her an offer. Would she like to be a lay-reader? She would only have to study some, and practise the rituals in assistance for a while. She was instantly transported to places of long ago innocence. Her sixty something year old dream, a little re-shaped, finally got her to that place that was always meant to be.
Kicked the habit, made good in
vestments
My mother,
Lay-Reader
RL
Blogger and author JT Weaver posted a challenge to write stories in the 270 word range. For some of us, this is like requesting a brush-cut after we’ve been used to only a trim up to the hips. In the end though, it’s made me appreciate the less is more doctrine even more. JT’s challenge idea was inspired by the “Hemingway Challenge” and Abraham Lincoln’s succinct Gettysburg Address of 270 words:
jtweaver.net (2014 – 01 – 11- the-270)
P.S. This exercise also taught me that WordPress includes the captions on photos in their word count. I did not.
I came across a Huffington post about a woman who posted pictures of herself on her Facebook wall that caused a collapse in her social circle. The headline said “When Beth Posted These Images on Facebook, 103 People Unfriended Her”.
The headline effectively grabbed my attention, but what the story really did was zero in on the heart of one of my own deepest fears. It cut to a deep vulnerability that even I don’t fully understand, but it’s one that has held me back from engaging as fully in life as I possibly could. I can’t do that until I can somehow get to a place of true peace about it.
The pictures that Beth Whaanga, the woman in the Huffington piece, posted were semi-nude images of herself featuring her scars from a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. They were taken by a photographer leading a project called, “Under the Red Dress”. It endeavors to share a pictorial story to inform and support anyone who has or may be affected by breast cancer.
I found the project a beautiful and amazing effort and I applaud Beth’s astonishing courage. It was those 103 friends though, that stayed with me longer than the point of her story. They represented the maybe 103 reasons I have an issue of my own. Like Beth, my body has been criss–crossed with several large and deep scars, not from cancer, but another serious chronic issue. I find despite my confidence in life generally, I haven’t yet been able to re-gain confidence about this new reality of my own image.
I know some of my friends might be surprised to hear this, but maybe not a few who knew me from long ago when I was more carefree in my pre-health issue, pre-pregnancy and pre-surgical body. I received plenty of positive attention back then, and I am sure that, despite all equality efforts to move past this, I won some business benefits because of my appearance. Looks matter.
In seeming contradiction to what I’m saying so far, I do have a full life, in large part because of those scars. My priorities absolutely honed in on family, community, purpose(s), and I do live to serve as best as I am able, but. But.
Cripes, I didn’t even want to tell anyone I had them, and now that I have, it’s still safe to say that there will be no pole-dancing in my future.
Yes, I know I am not my scars. That, on the surface of it, considering that I have been able to claim at least 4 of my 9 lives, this shouldn’t even be a factor in my world. I’ve been told to wear my scars proudly, as the badges of (literal & figurative) survival. Truth be told, I would say the same to someone else. So then, why aren’t I able to do that for me? Why can I stand up for Beth, but not me?
I’m one of those people who believe that there are no real coincidences and that I was meant to see this story. It compelled me to review myself again and honestly and directly confront the part of me that holds me back from feeling whole again. I believe in my whole spirit, but I haven’t yet worked out how to truly infuse that into my life experience. I know that next to that, one new step is allowing me to entertain the idea of another relationship. (Yes, girlfriends and parents, I know you think the time for a new man is overdue, but…).
In the end, I have to live with myself, and I find that hard enough in some of the ways I’ve shown. I’m not sure if I will ever live with someone else again, but if I decide that’s for me, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to get to that place of peace first.
So there, I’ve said it out loud. Sort of. Maybe this note is about just getting to honest acknowledgement that this is real for me and the real me. Perhaps the scars are a step in my overall purpose. Maybe someday I will be as brave as Beth – not for pictures, but in her confident acceptance. I don’t have the answers yet, but I hope to one day. This is a story written mid-struggle. For now, the only thing about life that I’m certain about is it’s uncertainty, – and how much I love my boy.
RL
Blog Woman!!! - Life Uncategorized 