yourpassions.tk

Sometimes it's a good thing to make stories happen on purpose. In early 1985 I determined to do something I was seriously afraid to do and live to tell about it. That year I took up downhill skiing. I tried this sport four times, and not only lived to tell about it, but enjoyed the experience in spite of a couple of torn shoulders and skiing in a matching pair of two right boots (way better than two left ones!). Perhaps I would have continued if we hadn't moved to Pittsburgh where I have never met another skier. That moment passed. Tomorrow I am heading off on another such adventure. My son and grandson are determined to visit Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH, the roller coaster capital of the world. "With a lineup that includes three of the top 10 steel roller coasters in the world, Cedar Point is a coaster lover's dream come true." Is this more scary than downhill skiing? Definitely! I am terrified of huge coasters, and this park has three of the top ten. This same ...

I'm immersed in grandmothering this week. This is not an activity I have much experience with, although I achieved that status over fourteen years ago. Since our nearest grandchildren live about 1700 miles away, time with any of the six is short and precious. This week is the first time one has come to visit alone, and I'm enjoying every minute we are spending together. For the past couple of days I've discovered how very little this young fellow knows about our family, and I've been telling stories more or less non-stop. Many of these stories are already written, but for this eleven-year-old, telling the stories is important. Now that he's heard them, sooner or later he'll be happy to have print copies. He's hearing stories about ancestors, about what things were like when I was young, about how we used to do things, and what I think about many things. He’s even hearing stories about his daddy. But it isn't just “telling.” Dialog is involved, making the...

I prefer to write with my fingers, but you may do better with your toes. Seriously, as I noted in my recent post , My Write Hand , for years I was convinced that my “write brain” lives in my fingers and was activated by the pressure of finger-tips against keyboard. However, as I’ve continued my Morning Pages adventure, I’ve become hooked on writing by hand, the old-fashioned way. I still think my write brain lives in my fingers, but it has more than one trigger, and it easily becomes distracted by things like a skipping pen, a pen that quits, drags across the surface, or feels awkward in my fingers. I believe it does matter what I write with, and I have begun a search for the perfect writing implement. Yesterday I discovered that I’m not the only one on this quest. In a February column on Religion and Spirituality.com, Jane Conner writes about the pen she fell in love with. Her account is worth reading as an example of how to pack plenty of humor and suspense into the short space of 86...

It seems like ages since I’ve written a blog post. Life has intervened with a great big virtual brick wall. I’ve been busy writing workshop proposals, workshop handouts, urgent e-mails, Life Writers Forum postings, Morning Pages — everything but a blog post. Other things have also gotten in the way. I urgently needed to clean my desk off and that led to rearranging my office, trashing some files, that sort of thing. Plus, there’s yard work to be done, preparation for a visit from a grandson, you know how all that goes. You may think it odd that I let other writing get in the way of writing for my blog. Yes, that does seem strange. But it would be no different for someone who wrote reports at work all day to have trouble getting around to writing a lifestory in the evening. So, what does a person do when it’s been longer than intended between writing sessions? I could wallow in guilt, but (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't believe I have any readers who feel cheated or resentf...

In case you haven’t heard, which quite likely you haven’t, July 10 is International Happiness Day . You can find out more about the official undertaking by viewing the video at the International Happiness Day website . Happiness is a good thing, in and of itself, and it’s something we all aspire to. The good news is that according to reports published on IOL, a global network of social researchers found that between the years 1981 and 2007 the overall happiness level in the world increased. Time.com reports that the whole concept of measuring Gross National Happiness was begun by the King of Bhutan in 1972, emphasizing the priority he placed on the quality of life for his people in precedence to economic growth. The idea has caught on, and the Gallup Poll now keeps a running measure of happiness in the USA. LiveScience reports that 50% of the US population is “thriving” or happy, but that doesn’t place us very high on the ladder—in fact, we are only 16th in the world. In Denmark, t...

Happy Fourth of July! I’ve been thinking about the evolution of this day over the course of my many years: I remember fireworks! I remember sparklers. I remember skyrockets, the little kind we shot off at home. I remember those spinner things. I remember hearing fire crackers going off long past the hour I was sent to bed. I remember driving up to an overlook on a road high above Los Alamos to watch fireworks thirty miles away in Santa Fe. I remember my first bottle of beer when I was ten and how nasty it tasted so I only had a couple of sips and let my daddy finish the rest. I remember parades. I remember hoping my baby would be born that day and waiting another week. I remember neighbors pooling their resources to have a halfway respectable show of sparks in our cul-de-sac. I remember fighting slipping through crowds on Mt. Washington to watch the Zambelli spectacular high over Pittsburgh’s Point. I remember hearing about the Colonists fighting the British so they could pursue libert...