yourpassions.tk

It's easy to forget that every person on the planet is one walking, pulsating, vivid life story in progress. I don't know how I got there, but when I found this video on DeeDee's blog, Pinch Me to See if I'm Dreaming , I was moved to tears. I can't think of a better way to write this "story," so I offer the video in the hope it will also touch you in some way. Write now: about times you've been impatient, or times you've worn "the glasses." Write about your thoughts after watching this video.

HELP! I’m being held prisoner by life! Over the last few days I’ve started three different blogs, and life events intervened every time. The new windows we’ve waited over two months for arrived, I had unexpected meetings, and blah, blah, blah. I sound just like people in my writing groups and classes. “I had company. I was sick. I had seventeen deadlines, and ...” Yes. There are times in all our lives when writing does not get done. Maybe it doesn’t even get started. So, today I can beat myself up over not having a blog posted in some timely fashion. I can ignore the whole thing, Or I can write something, anything at all, and put it up there. I don’t ordinarily choose the latter, because posting “anything at all” violates my personal standards of offering my best and my commitment to write about writing, not my life. But today I’m posting something off-the-cuff, specifically to remind all of us that writing something, anything at all, is better than writing nothing at all. Two of the ...

Where were you when you heard the news of JFK’s assassination? How about the day Neil Armstrong took one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind? Do you remember the advent of credit cards? These events shaped our national awareness, but history books are full of lesser occurrences that also shaped the flow of history, most of which will pass unremembered. You may not have thought of your life story as part of history — few people do. But just as the ocean is an accumulation of drops of rain, so history is the accumulation of the lives of individuals. We each have a part, if only as a participant in daily life and a recorder of developments. When you include larger historical elements in your personal story, you link your life with the overall flow of others in your time and space. Kim Pearson , author and owner of Primary Sources , has written a book that makes it easy to do this. In Making History : How to remember, record, interpret, and share the events in your life , she i...

When the electricity goes out, color fades from my world. Part of the reason is visual. The retinal cells involved in seeing color require far more light to activate than the peripheral ones that see in dim light, but don’t sense color. When the light is dim, so is color perception. But it’s more than just the change in vision. My world seems smaller and more limited when my routine is upset. Most clocks are blank. I can’t cook on my stove. I have to keep the refrigerator closed so food will stay cool as long as possible. I reflexively reach for dead light switches. Only two phones of the many in the house function. My computer doesn’t work . I feel as if I move through the day wearing lead boots and bracelets. These limitations are fresh in my mind, because Hurricane Ike aimed his last blast of destruction at the greater Pittsburgh area, toppling trees and power lines like toys kicked around during a child’s tantrum. Hurricane force winds were recorded a few miles north of here, but ...

Shortly after the last post about Truth, a reader, we’ll call her Jackie, sent me an e-mail about a memory. The way she remembers things, she paid for half the cost of her first bicycle, a blue Schwinn. In a conversation with her mother some years ago, she mentioned this memory. “I don’t know why you think that!” snapped her mom. “Your father and I bought you that bicycle for your birthday, and you certainly didn’t help pay for it! What on earth gave you that idea?” For the sake of peace, and because Jackie suddenly doubted her own memory, she deferred to her mother’s version — as usual. “I still remember it the original way. I don’t know why I let her talk me out of believing in my own memory,” she wrote. This story has several implications. First, Jackie’s original memory persists in spite of the challenge. That’s a sign it’s probably valid. In any case, it’s her memory, and it’s important to honor your memories, and not allow anyone to talk you out of them against your sense of tru...

I just discovered that SARK has a new blog, or as she calls it, her online journal . In a post last month I wrote about her new book, Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper . She’s just full of new things. Like her books and e-letters, SARK’s journal brings scented pens to mind. Sometimes I lean toward my monitor and sniff to be sure, disappointed that I can’t actually verify the scent of a succulent strawberry, grape, blueberry, orange, and raspberry salad with a tangy lemon-mint dressing. My disappointment at the lack was forgotten when I played the audio file she posted. I won't repeat her whole story. The part that inspired me was her intention to start a new tradition of using only positive, affirmative words to clarify oral spelling. For example, A is for Awesome rather than Apple. Just like that Sarabelle tossed me an idea: using this Affirmation Alphabet to spell names. This may not be a piece of writing you’ll want to share with the world at large. You may feel embarrassed to public...

What is the truth of a tree? What’s to wonder about? A tree is a tree. Maybe the truth is that it is an oak tree. Or a pine tree. Or is the truth of a tree that it is in a forest in Colorado, or by a creek in Texas? Is the tree’s truth its age? Maybe the truth of a tree is the birds that nest in its branches, or the fading of its leaves in autumn. Could it be the sap that runs in its veins, or the growth ring it acquires each year, expanding its girth? Maybe the truth of the tree is the fruit or seeds it produces, or the playground it provides for squirrels. Or the shade it sheds to shelter sensitive plants. Perhaps the tree’s truth lies in the lumber it produces for building shelters, or the logs it yields for warming fuel. Its truth may emerge in newsprint, carrying other truth to your eyes. These suggestions are all made from the eyes of an observer. What would the tree claim as its own truth? “I sprouted from an acorn 86 springs ago. I have survived droughts, floods, and kids naili...

Writing from an adult state of mind often results in dingy gray writing that has all the appeal of instruction manuals for installing dishwashers. The roots of gray writing go all the way back to childhood. Remember when you first started coloring in a color book? The day you made the sky bright orange and scribbled the grass purple and put pink leaves on the tree? And your mother looked aghast at your proud efforts. “You know the sky is blue. Why did you make the grass purple?” And you knew failure.  Even if you don’t remember, your Inner Critic was born that day, and life became a little less fun. So here you are now, wanting with every fiber of your being to amaze your family and friends with wondrous webs of enchanting words, and you sit staring at blank paper with your solar plexus squooshing your guts up into the back of your throat and you think of orange skies and you can no more write brightly blossoming words than fly to the moon. TAKE HEART! BE BRAVE! Reclaim your rig...