Friday, April 3, 2009

The Book of Days II: Words Worth Heeding

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

We only have the present moment. Here's how to make the most of 24 hours, according to an article in Bottom Line magazine.

1. Don't carry your "to-do" list in your head. Write it down. You can't remember everything.

2. Don't multi-task. It's stressful. Stress does not make for doing things well. It's really not efficient. As Confucius said, "A man who chases 2 rabbits, catches neither."

3. Slow down. Focus on 1 high priority at a time. Take your time. Your best thinking comes when you're focused and relaxed.

4. Get enough sleep. Research shows that productivity, clarity, alertness, judgment, creativity, memory, motivation, cheerfulness, relaxation all thrive on adequate sleep. All suffer when you don't get enough.

5. Do what you love. Make time for it. Even better, do it full time if you can. You deserve it.

The Retrospective Series- 3: Banging Our Own Drum, An Excerpt from "Banging Our Own Drum"

Copyright 1978-All Rights Reserved

Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my first published writing. The editor asked me to write it for a community magazine when I was living in Evansville, Indiana. All the pieces published on my blog under "The Retrospective Series" are pieces I wrote years ago. You'll be able to tell when by the copyright dates.

Banging Our Own Drum

John W. Vandercook, in his book, Tom-Tom, said: "A race is like a man; until it uses its own talents, takes pride in its own history, loves its own memories, it can never fulfill itself completely."

Black people must explore and keep alive our own cultural heritage. This heritage must be passed on to our children so they, in turn, can pass it on to their children. It's been said that Culture is nothing if it's not communicated. By handing down our cultural traditions, we understand our common desires, values, strengths, fears, and hopes. We discover how much we share--our views about good and evil, what is just and what is unjust, what is sensible and what is ridiculous, what is valuable and must be guarded with care, what is vain or pompous and needs discarding...what moves us to joy or to grief, to laughter, to rage...what leaves us cold and unmoved... what fires us up.

Through our traditions, our cultural legacy, we find the key to our common identity and our humanity. We must pass our heritage on...because it is there that we find the image and reflection of ourselves. It is there that we find our history, our memories--which can lead us to self-love, rather than self-hate. It is there that we can find something denied and lost for so long: pride in being Black.

Writing Series: Fear of Creating/Writing

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Fear of Writing/Creating: Finding Your Footing

"Walking in the dark is like writing. When I first came to Hedgebrook, I was afraid to go out after dark. I feared many things--bogeymen, monsters, some psycho with a grudge against women writers, even the other women who I thought might be psychos in disguise--but mostly, it was just not being able to see that bothered me.

"I wanted to confront my fear so after a while, I ventured out at night, first in a group and then by myself, wielding my flashlight as a weapon against the dark. I didn't go far from my cottage-- to the bathhouse and back again. One night I got very brave and turned off my flashlight. I stumbled at first, but then found my footing. I felt the gravel beneath me and I knew I was on the path. I followed it to the bend by the pond. Then I felt for the softness of grass. If I stepped on a bush, I knew I'd gone wrong, or, I was about to forge a new route home. I realized I'd become too reliant on seeing and less reliant on feeling.

"When I quit panicking, I knew the way. Just like when I'm writing, I have some instinctive sense of where I'm going even if I can't see beyond the blank screen. I've walked this path before. My imagination has gone ahead of me and charted the way. If I pause and listen, i can hear her footsteps on front, guiding me. If I listen even closer, I can hear other footstpes of the writers who have come before me and the writers, like you, who are still to come.

"We are not alone in the woods groping in the dark. We are wlking on paths that have been walked on a thousand times before. We are saying things for the first time that have been said a thousand times before."

from Hedgebrook Waterfall Journal #5, Lynn Dixon

Writing Series: Thoughts about Writing

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

About Writing

"Writing is like going on a journey to find something one dreams of. It is like crossing a mangrove to reach the sea [going through] its entangled roots, its pools of briny water and its many layers of mud. It is like mapping a dark and rebellious land.

by Maryse Conde, a Guadeloupean writer of the African diaspora

"I live in my head a lot. Sometimes, when I'm in bed, I lie there in the dark and when I get a thought, I come into my den and put a few lines into paragraphs and let whatever grows out of that come. Eventually, I will have a page. And then, eventually, two pages. I write every day, as a matter of fact.

by Sidney Poitier, actor, from an interview in AARP magazine, September and October, 2008


"Fiction begins with a crisis, from which future action grows."

by Kathy Krajcous, Lighthouse Writing Tips

"If you allow yourself not to write when you don't want to, the writing will naturally bubble up, all the more powerfully in its own time.... Never force yourself to write. and never force yourself to write one thing when you feel the urge to write something else."

from Waterfall Journal #6, Hedgebrook writer, Susan Kiyo-Ito


Journey Series: Affirmations

Positive Affirmations

from the Literature of Co-Dependents Anonymous

Just for today: I will respect my own and others' boundaries.
Just for today: I will be vulnerable with someone I trust.
Just for today: I will take one compliment and hold it in my heart for more than just a fleeting moment. I will let it nurture me.
Just for today: I will act in a way that I would admire in someone else.

I am a child of God.
I am a precious person.
I am a worthwhile person.
I am beautiful, inside and out.
I love myself unconditionally.
I will allow myself ample leisure time without feeling guilty.
I deserve to be loved by myself and others.
I am loved because I deserve love.
I deserve love, peace, prosperity and serenity.
I forgive myself for hurting myself and others.
I forgive myself for letting others hurt me.
I forgive myself for acepting sex when I wanted love.
I am willing to accept love.
I am not alone. I am one with God/Spirit and the universe.
I am whole and good.
I am capable of changing.
I am enough.
The pain that I might feel by remembering can't be any worse than the pain that I feel by knowing and NOT remembering.

Journey Series: Self-Validation: Declaration

Copyright 1995-All Rights Reserved

Declaration of My Rights

The only moment of life we really "have" is the present.
Today, we can improve on our choices.
Today, we can stand up for our rights.

Today, I know...
What I feel and what I think counts. Carrying shame about who I am is NOT okay.

MY RIGHTS:

I can say No without feeling guilty.

I don't have to take care of your responsibilities or feelings.

I have the right to feel all of my feelings--from love to anger.

I have the right to make my own decisions about what I want & need to do.

I don't have to feel the way you want or tell me to feel.

I have the right to tell you what I need and ask for what I want, knowing you have the right to refuse.

If what you do hurts me or feels wrong, I can walk away and figure out how to take care of myself.

I can and do have the right to stand up for myself.


--Frankie Lennon