What Was I Thinking? - Publishing a Book Series

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I often write when I’m grieving, upset, or have a strong emotion. It’s a way for me to process the emotions and get them out. This wouldn’t be a problem for me except for the fact I then publish such feelings in a very public forum. Whenever I get close to releasing a new book, I can be found, head buried in my hands, wailing aloud, “What was I thinking?” I’ll even go back to my editors and ask if we should take a poem out as it’s just too personal but they inevitably respond, “You can’t take that out. It’s so powerful!” This is partly why I have editors – to keep me away from the trash can. I also know the most vulnerable poems, the ones where I don’t hold anything back, are usually the ones people tell me mean the most to them. And so I publish and let my heart’s lament live out there for all to see.

This is not an easy place to be on a continual basis – it brings new meaning to the phrase “wearing your heart on your sleeve” but, in general, I don’t think we’re open enough with each other about our inner thoughts and feelings. Aside from the seeming intimacy of the internet, when in life do we really express those deepest places within us face-to-face? It’s good to have a handful of people in our lives we know we can go to for a good talk but what about when we write? It can be hard to express such things on paper and have no control over who reads them.

“How do you share such personal thoughts so publicly?” is a question I’ve been asked and that I still struggle with. Now that I have an idea of what this book will be, I’m right there asking once again, “What was I thinking?” I then have to remind myself of a couple things. Perhaps what I tell myself will help you the next time you go to write such words.

• You are not what you write. Writers can be artists and as artists, we equate ourselves closely with what we create. However, what we create is not us. My words do not define me any more than what I wear. Whenever I write or sell a book, I remember that I am not what I put down on paper. My soul is always my own. Once a creation is produced or a book published, it takes on a life of its own and it’s out of my hands. If you want to get to know me, I would love to meet up with you and talk over coffee. But don’t think because you’ve read one of my books or friended me on Facebook that you know who I am. That takes time and friendship.

• Don’t be ashamed of those thoughts and feelings you’ve expressed. The thoughts and feelings you’ve expressed are beautiful and genuine. So much of yourself has gone into your writing that it is valuable no matter what you’ve said. Do no harm, but be honest and vulnerable. If we as writers aren’t willing to be open with such thoughts and to then share them, who is going to be?

• What you write will help other people. Everyone has these deeper thoughts and feelings but many times we need someone else to express them first before we’re willing to hear our own. Our words travel far more widely and to more unexpected places than we could possibly go ourselves. You have no idea who you’re reaching and in what ways all because you were willing to be open with yourself. Anything written in love never goes to waste but is planted and grown in the lives of those who turn the pages. This always happens. You may not always see it.

• When people read your words, they don’t see the full story behind them, they see their own. Much of my poetry and writing in general lies at the intersection of my life and deeper truth. However, what I've discovered over the years is when people read my words, they don’t see my story, they see their own. I may have written my heart out about a relationship or an experience but they read it and see their own relationships, their own experiences. You can, metaphorically speaking, stand center-stage under the spotlights and tell of those things you would never otherwise say aloud but what they hear is their own life. I would bet, even when I’m writing about my relationship with a specific person, that person can read it and not even recognize themselves. (I never use names.) It works that well. This is why I balk at how poetry is taught in schools. We don’t really know what the author was thinking but we teach that kind of analysis to students. Just yesterday, someone read a poem going into Finding Love’s Way and told me what I had done within it. I didn't say anything but in my mind, I was thinking, “Wow! I did all that? I didn't even mean to!” But he read himself into the words. People do it every time. Write whatever you want.

Sometimes it’s our strongest emotions, the darker ones we don’t easily express that can be filled with the most light. Sometimes it’s in the depths where we find the treasure and remember, as you write, this treasure is not just for you. We are all so connected, it is a gift for us all. So please, write. Write honestly and openly, share your thoughts and feelings. I want to learn from them. I want to be able to say, “Me too!” and “I never saw it that way.” I want to be challenged, to hear what I haven’t had the courage to say myself and maybe what I've written will do the same for you. Keep writing.

For more on clearing the clutter within before taking pen to paper read, “Clearing the Clutter: Journaling for Writers.”

(This is the 14th post in my "Publishing a Book Series." To see the others, click here.)

Printing Choices - Publishing a Book Series

This story starts a few years back at a women’s conference out on the coast. I had been looking over the contents of the book table when I saw a book called Soul Custody by Stephen W. Smith. The title intrigued me but when I picked it up, I had a hard time putting the book down. The book itself was great and I later bought it, but it was the feel of the cover that enthralled me. It was soft and velvety, a pleasure to just hold. Someday, I wanted a book of mine to feel like that.

Unfortunately, the next book I was publishing was the last of a trilogy and I needed to stay with the mold I’d already created with the first two: 6x9, glossy covers, illustrations, running headers, and white pages. But this book stands on its own. This book is complete in and of itself. I can throw everything out the window and recreate a whole new look.

To do this, I wanted to talk to the printer in person. I wanted to look at examples of previous books printed, to see for myself what they meant by “matte” covers.  So this last weekend on my drive up to celebrate Christmas early with my family, I stopped by my favorite print shop, Gorham Printing, in Centralia, Washington. As I’ve already shared, we have a great working relationship and I trust their quality. I really wanted to use them for this next book if possible.

Explaining to the staff what I wanted, I was shown some matte cover books they’ve recently printed. It was exactly what I had been hoping for. That soft, velvety feel, the kind of cover you want to keep running your hand across, that’s what I wanted for my book. Writing about love, I wanted the physical book itself to be as warm as the people who inspired me to write it. I couldn’t have been happier.

I also took a look at books on their shelves printed with cream colored paper. This is a decision I have been wrestling with: white or cream paper? I loved the idea of the warmth of cream and that it was different and would match the softer feel of the cover, but it could prove difficult for drawings. Looking at their books, though, cream is going to win the day. If I stick to pencil illustrations, I think it will look lovely. I want this book to be my best work yet, both in aesthetics and in the writing. Cream paper is what I’ve envisioned for so long, it just belongs to the book now.

I hadn’t yet decided on the size of the book. When I was putting the poems into their rough order, I noted many of them were shorter than I’ve usually written in the past and that means I won’t need as much physical space. I joked to my friend that I must be a better writer if I can write less. Making the book a 5 ½ by 8 ½ would also have the added benefit of being a bit cheaper than a 6 by 9, thus offsetting the cost of the more expensive paper.

This time there will be no running headers, just a page number centered on the bottom of the page with a simple swirl or some such symbol above. As I wrote in my last post, the poems will also stand on their own – no drawings on the same page, just at the start of the sections. Less is more is my new mantra.

The staff at Gorham sent me home with a printed matte cover from one of their current projects. I keep running my fingers across its surface as I imagine what it will be like to pick up my own book with such a cover for the very first time. I’m loving being able to match the physical printing choices to what the book is about. I also find it deeply inspiring as I continue writing, editing, and putting the poems in order.  It’s a book I can now see in my mind as well as in my heart.

Diving Into Publishing - Publishing a Book Series

You’ve been working on some writing and are considering the possibility of self-publishing down the road, but it looks like a large, unmanageable jungle. You’re not sure where to even start and thus ask a question I often hear, “How did you start publishing?”

This is a story that goes back to when I started writing in junior high school as a way to express the feelings I didn’t have the courage to say aloud. I wrote pages to God to share all the angst in my heart and poems about the world and those I loved within it. It was a way to get things out and to process my thoughts. These habits of journaling and writing poetry stayed with me through high school and on into college. When I was particularly proud of a poem I wrote, I would share it with those around me.

After graduation, friends told me they wanted to read more of my poetry so I collected it all and made three copies to circulate around. It was not enough and I was looking for a solution when I met another poet at the Salem, Oregon Art Fair’s Author Table. We hit it off and she extended an invitation to visit her and find out more about self-publishing. At her house, she told me about ISBN numbers, editing, illustrators, copyright, and obtaining a Library of Congress Number. She told me where she had her books printed and showed me more of her own work.

Being poor, I didn’t have much money to pay for such a project so I asked the people who wanted me to publish if they would be willing to buy the book before it was printed. They were. I added some of my own money, hired an artist friend for the illustrations, and recruited another friend who designed a church newsletter to help me layout the pages. We spent hours and hours in a small room figuring out all the little and not so little problems of laying out a book and when we were finally done, I took the files to a copy shop to have the books printed.

It was a fantastic feeling to hold a book in my hands that I wrote and I am still immensely proud of my much younger self for opening up her writing to the world and for having the courage and determination to see the project through at a remarkably young age. People liked the book and with the extra copies I sold, I had enough money to reprint a second edition. With the money earned from that printing, I printed the second book and so on. Each time I print a new book, whether it’s one I wrote or someone else’s work, I learn something new. I would, of course, make some different choices if I went back to do it again, but I would never tell myself not to publish the book. Even as amateurish as that first book looked, I would still give myself the go ahead for it has meant something to the people who read it – far more than I would have ever thought possible when I first wrote it.

Behind the Scenes - Publishing a Book Series

Note: As part of my work with Stories to Tell, I'm starting a series of blog posts about the writing and publishing of my next book. I'll still be posting about other topics as well, but this will be an ongoing story over the next year. This is a new kind of writing for me as writing and publishing is usually a behind-the-scenes effort but here I'll be bringing it out to center stage. You will be able to find all the posts under the label "Publishing a Book Series." If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I will respond to them. I'm looking forward to sharing this with you!

The original blog post can be found here on the Stories to Tell website.

 

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It’s the question so many people ask. As writers, I’m sure you know what it is. It’s the question that brings both great delight and great discomfort. It’s the question that makes us smile with pride yet also makes us suddenly shy. It’s the coaxing out of information we tend to clutch tightly to our chests. The one we are secretly longing to be asked.

“So how’s the book going?”

There it is. What do we say? Do we tell them what we’re writing about, what stage the book is in, what we want it to become? I’ve been asked this question recently by my editors, by the baristas at my favorite coffee shop, and by a friend while I was visiting her house. I actually love to be asked this question as it keeps me accountable to keep writing and it gives me opportunity to share about a topic I love.

Here at “Stories to Tell,” we know many of you are going through the same process of writing, editing, and publishing your book so we thought it would be fun and informative if we created a blog series around the process of me putting my book together. You’ll get to come along on the journey as I figure out what writing I want to include, what to do about illustrations, printing, working with editors, and just how this thing is going to come together. As this is my fifth book, I’ll also be going back and talking about other things I’ve learned while publishing the first four.

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I’ll respond to them in the next post!

Welcome aboard!

Needed Rest

Once I was seated on the plane during my first leg of the trip, it didn't take me long to pull out a book to read.  I had been looking forward to that moment for two months.  Well, I would have been looking forward to it if I'd had the time.  I was so intensely busy I even let my dishes go and only washed them when I really needed to.  Most of the rest of the house stayed picked up. 

Do you remember me talking about the rocks in the jar?  It's a good thing I dumped out that jar before working on publishing the books because there is no way I would have been able to continue juggling everything, including this blog, and ready the books for printing at the same time.  My two poetry books are beautiful.  Through the work of Emily on the cover art and Janelle on the design, they look fantastic.  The insides too, have been redone, cleaned up, added to, and even a tad rewritten.  Christine's book is completely new so I had to lay it out, work with her on cover design, and we worked on all the edits.  It was a very intense two months of work.  Well worth it, but not a pace I can readily sustain for a long period of time.

By the time I gave the woman my ticket and carried my bags onto the plane, I was done, 110% done.  Not just done as in the books were at the printers being printed up, which they are, but emotionally and physically spent several times over.  I have had an image in my head of myself all dry and cracked, bleeding and parched.  Before I truly settled into my book, I talked to God about it and had the sense he was taking me here for awhile so he could rub some of that healing balm into my soul, that he would minister to me over and over again as only many repeated applications of balm would heal me. 

As I've said in other places, printing one book takes over your life--three are insane.  So now I am here in Indiana to rest.  Brie, the woman next to me on the plane, after hearing where I was going and for how long, was speechless for a second and then exclaimed, "Why?!"  But Richmond is a very pleasant town and a great place for me to rest and relax.  There isn't a lot of big things to go see so I can spend much of my time reading books I neither have to write nor edit.  Heaven.  I can write if I want, attend seminary classes if I want, spend time with friends, and cuddle a cat named Chub in what has quickly become my favorite house.  At this moment his head is resting on my elbow (Carole and he just came to a good compromise on who got that particular seat on the couch--they're sharing it.)

Yesterday I spent at Quaker Hill cuddled up on a couch downstairs reading a book about who really killed Humpty Dumpty when he fell off that wall.  Thinking about it, I realized I felt so raw, I needed to escape into a book as a kind of protective layering.  That and a lovely walk through the woods was exactly what I needed.  Today I spent at Earlham School of Religion.  It was really nice to meet some of the community there and see some of my friends who attend.

So thank you for hanging in here and still reading after this long break.  I really do appreciate it.  Now that the books are off to the printers, I will have a lot more time to write.  When I get home which won't be until late next week, I'll post pictures of the new covers.

I pray you too, are all finding the rest you need.

"Broken Blessings" by Christine Elder

"Broken Blessings" by Christine Elder

Art by Jeff Tiner

I once heard Paul Young, author of "The Shack", say that he no longer asked God to bless anything he did but if there was something God was blessing and he could be a part of it, he would be all over that. Today I get to announce to all of you the thing God is blessing that I am honored to be a part of.

My friend, Christine Elder, has been writing a blog this past year about her experiences surrounding her son's attempted suicide and the healing process that followed, a story I have known and followed since that first awful night. She has now turned it into a book and I am pleased to announce Spirit Water Publications will be publishing this book and that it will be ready for release at the end of October, 2010.

Christine's book, I deeply believe in just as I deeply believe in Christine. Her writing is honest, real, and full of the truth of our struggles in the midst of faith. Christine has been very conscious of God's leading as she's written and edited and I am excited to see the fruits of this labor as God uses her hope and love to speak light into the lives of others. The first full night of her son's stay in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit , over 50 of us prayed outside in a circle. We prayed for healing, that Michael would feel himself surrounded by God's love, and that somehow, God would use this tragedy to show his power and love to the world. I believe this book is a partial answer to that prayer.

Sarah

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Book Description

Few things in life could be more terrifying than finding your child hanging lifeless by a rope on the back of a deserted house, yet this is precisely what author Christine Elder encountered one dark fall night. Broken Blessings is the true story of the hope and strength that guided the author and her family through this trauma, and through the aftermath of her teenage son’s massive brain injury and his continuing struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. It is a tale of both tragedy and miracles, and serves as a courageous example of how we can respond to life’s challenges with trust and hope no matter the depth of our pain or loss. Christine’s deep faith and innate spirituality weave through every page of the narrative, offering a beacon to guide others through their own struggles and to help them discover that there is a compass that guides them, and they are never alone.

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Christine Elder, the author, is a music professor at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon as well as a classical soprano soloist, wife and mother of two. She is a lifelong Presbyterian and a longtime seeker, student and teacher of mystical traditions and human consciousness. Her musical credits include singing a solo in Carnegie Hall and conducting multiple choirs with orchestra on a nationally televised Christmas Eve special. Described by her college students as being a teacher of “Life Lessons” as much as Voice and Theory, she also teaches Reiki Spiritual Body Building. She lives in Salem with her husband Rob, son Michael, two dogs and one cat.


Jeff Tiner, the artist, is an inmate awaiting execution on death row in Oregon. He has hand-written over 4,000 letters from his cell on behalf of the Bahkita project, a missionary effort he began and which has raised over $100,000 for those left destitute by conflict in the war-torn region of Darfur in the Sudan. He also is a gifted artist who creates mostly sacred, iconic art with the limited supplies available to him in prison. Jeff and Christine met through a chaplain who serves both a local hospital as well as the state penitentiary.

You can read an article about Jeff here.

You can see his artwork here.

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Sample from Chapter 8: Safe in the Flood

Our dog Sasha is really bossy sometimes. She mostly bosses Max, our Golden Retriever, bullying him with growls and woofs and forceful nosing. Sasha is a mutt, and our vet thinks she may have some cattle dog in her. This makes sense to us as she herds every moving thing in sight, and the more warm bodies there are in close proximity, the bossier she gets. She was especially hard on Max his past week since we had family visiting, often turning on him in sudden eruptions of snarling and nipping. So this afternoon when I was downstairs putting my body through some exercise paces and Sasha pounced all over Max again, I gave her a piece of my mind. She groveled over to me, tucked her head in penitent submission and gazed up imploringly with big brown eyes. She’s a very cute mutt, after all. Just as she and I were making up, Max let out a “Woof!” right at her and then turned and ran like a rabbit up the stairs. I laughed out loud as she tore after him, realizing how much he wanted her to boss him.

Max led me to a grander observation just then: we can’t save someone that doesn’t want saving, not to mention that our assessment of their peril may be completely erroneous. We may be able to open a person’s eyes to how much they need help (Rob insists Max is enough of an underdog that we do come in handy from time to time), but ultimately everyone chooses the help they do or do not want.

I am helping Michael a lot these days. His therapists continually stress the goal of independence, and I am beginning to see why it is so important to keep a tight lead on this objective. Michael often seems less independent rather than more so as time goes by. His friends aren’t calling or coming by much now, so I suggested perhaps he call them. Initiation continues to be a major hurdle whether it involves getting up, eating, practicing therapies, or deciding what to do next. Social contact seemed like a good idea, but he simply wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t articulate why. He said he didn’t feel shy or self-conscious, said yes, he enjoyed time spent with friends and that he would like more of it, and absolutely no, he wouldn’t call. With his newfound awareness of the power of assertiveness, he flat out refused. My mother’s heart aches at his isolation, and in light of his solitary time I realize my fears have shifted. Just a few weeks ago I worried what he might do when he eventually got out more. Now I fear he’ll never go. He spends day after day here with his family when he used to be such a social boy. I am learning there is some help we can give and some we can’t. And I am beginning to make a regular habit of questioning my wisdom regarding another’s happiness.

Of course sometimes I put the parental foot down, as all moms do. I insisted Michael take a walk with us today, since the Willamette gym is closed for the week and we are off our regular fitness routine. We all needed fresh air. He came and kept pace, albeit half a block behind us. His measured distance reminded me very much of a normal teenage boy who might lag behind to avoid embarrassing familial association. He did catch up when Sasha took a business break, and then happily plop-plopped along next to us the remainder of the way.

Questions and decisions regularly arise as we navigate his recovery: Is this essential help I’m giving? Am I projecting my own goals onto him? Is it better to prod him or wait for him to find his own motivation? Can I help him discover that motivation? Is he ready for more responsibility or is it too soon? These are questions every parent faces in one form or another. And then there is that other, overarching question which occasionally insists itself in my psyche: “Why? Why did this have to happen?” Once I dive into the “Why?” vortex I can easily lose sight of the objectives at hand, spinning deeper and deeper. Why would Michael take the beautiful life he had and throw it away? Why would he attempt such terminal harm? This grief cuts deep. As parents we must feel at times that we value our children’s lives more than they do. We incubate them, birth them, tend them, love them, celebrate with them and rear up in indignant rage when someone else hurts them.

I remember when Natalie participated in a school “pageant” and the woman directing the event rigged the results, arranging for her favorite to win. The contest was a fundraiser for a children’s hospital, so bringing in money was part of the competition. Since people would be making donations the night of the event, the result was supposed to be in suspense. But at the dress rehearsal the day before I overheard the director saying to another contestant, “Now when they announce your name I want you to first walk this way, and then turn and go there,” coaching the young girl across the stage. I was incensed! I confronted her about it and she made excuses and denied it, but the next night when the designated young lady won (as well as the director’s son) I felt confirmed and justified in my mama-bear outrage. My anger simmered for a good long while, stoked by repeated mental replays of the injustice, even after Natalie said, “But mom, it really doesn’t matter. The point was to raise money for the hospital, and we did, so it’s all good..” (who made my then middle-school-aged daughter more mature than me?). We know it isn’t OK for someone to hurt our kids. But where do we direct our rage when they hurt themselves?

I put off praying much of the day today. After a productive morning I did other things, all kinds of nothing, and finally, a half hour after announcing I was heading to quiet time, when I found myself snacking on blue corn chips and playing games on Facebook, I knew I was into some serious avoidance behavior. So I buckled down and went. Once there I quickly came face to face with the object of my avoidance: grief. My beautiful boy, my beautiful, sweet Michael fell deep enough into the well of darkness that he lost sight of the light above and felt the only way forward was to hasten going under. Surely one of a parent’s greatest griefs is to see their children hurt. At whom do we rage? I believe the answer is we don’t rage at all, we weep. God holds the wreckage of our hearts and heads in strong, secure hands that do not falter or fail. There we cry and rest, and let healing come.

How interesting and utterly human that I would spend a good part of the day avoiding the one place where I might find sustaining comfort. What is so terrifying about surrender, I wonder? Is it simply the posture of presumed weakness, or the flood of emotion? Neither is such a monster, especially when I consider the behemoths of pride and emotional sterility. And why would hiding from God seem at all secure? It is an irony to think we find strength in maintaining a tight stillness when such rigidity leaves us brittle and ultimately vulnerable. It is only in the soft, supple care of the One who wrote our names in the book of life before we were in our mothers’ wombs that we are safe. I, too, can’t be helped if I don’t want to be. I can hold tight and brace against love, or I can give in to the wave and be safe within its folds.

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The book will be available in late October.  Let me know if you would like to preorder a copy.



Spirit Water Publications Website

For those of you who may not know, I have a website for my books and photography. If you are interested in taking a look at them or at all the newsletters (what I did before the blog), go to www.SpiritWaterPublications.com.

Silverton Friends Bazaar

My photography, matted poetry, and books are being sold this weekend at the Silverton Friends Bazaar in Silverton, Oregon, Friday and Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm. I will be there working a shift on Friday late afternoon, from 2:30-5 pm. I love how they set this up, particularly from an artist's point of view. You deliver the items and they set it up like one large fancy boutique but with great prices. You wander through and drink hot cider to Christmas music and then buy everything you want at one register. It's great and I don't need to be there all weekend. What an awesome deal!!! I've done it for several years now and I love going as well and checking out all the other crafts. This year, it's one great big slice of Christmas pie for me and I'm going to treasure every moment of it. It's really fun, you should check it out! Their address is:

Silverton Friends Church
229 Eureka Avenue
Silverton, OR 97381
503-873-5131

If you want to check out what is for sale there, look at my website, www.SpiritWaterPublications.com. See you at the bazaar!

365-09 #315

Re-Organization

I've been busy working on reorganizing my website. After working on Stacey's last week, adding oodles of photographs to the photo gallery, now I am working on updating my own. Her website was a lot more fun because you could see the results. The organizing on mine you'll never see but it makes it much more streamlined for me and easier to find things. I already did a lot of that with Stacey's a while back, now it's my turn. A warning though, you might find some errors or broken links while I work on moving things around. It feels a lot like the book "The Bearnstein Bears and the Messy Room". I have to create places to put things, throw things out, and reconnect all the links. When I'm all finished, I think I'll erase everything from the server and upload it cleanly from my computer. Though it's a bear to do, it will be better in the end. And it is nice to have the time to do all these things that have been clamoring to get done but that just got thrown off the side of my to-do pile. It has all certainly been keeping me busy. Even though I'm without a full time job, I feel like I have a job just the same.

I'm reading a book right now called "Handbook of the Soul". It's one of the books I found at that awesome bookshop in Milwaukee. I am really enjoying it and just like God has a habit of doing, it is exactly what I needed right now. I tend to do so much, I neglect the time I need for my soul, mainly the time to write. It seems nearly every author in this book, a collection of essays, mentions writing poetry as a way to care for the soul. I've started playing around, but lets admit it, warm-ups often suck and certainly, that is the case here. Still, I feel that if you open the doors up wide, good things will come. I'm counting on it.

365-09 #172

April 2009 - "I've Got Brains in My Head and Feet in My Shoes!"

April 2009 Newsletter From My Website

www.SpiritWaterPublications.com

"I've Got Brains in My Head and Feet in My Shoes!"

Quietly, I make my way along the light-lit path and out onto the deck of the Pentacle Theatre. I can just hear The Cat in the Hat starting the auction scene in act two in "Seussical the Musical". Turning right, walking past the doors to the auditorium, I find the narrow door many people don't even notice is there. Over the last few months, I have learned the Pentacle Theatre has many such doors, doors people don't see as they walk past on the deck or down below near the lobby. These doors are often the most interesting ones though! They lead downstairs to the dressing room, the paint room, the costume floor, and the one I'm pulling open, to the sound booth. Knowing the audience is just on the other side of a thin wooden wall, I creep up the small stairs and let myself into a larger-than-you'd-think black room above the audience. Paige, the sound technician, sees me come in and cheerfully says, "Hey girl! A seat's over there." I pull out the chair and bring it over to the counter overlooking the audience and stage below. I can see it's another sold out night, it's the show that in a few weeks, will set the record for attendance and money earned for any Pentacle show. Ever.

For now, I'm just happy to see my friends perform a play I have quickly grown to love over the weeks I have been photographing them. An incredible cast of actors, they have welcomed me into their Seussical world as their friend and personal paparazzi. Having already spent one entire night in the dressing room with them, I can picture what they are doing when not on stage. But as the next song starts up, these thoughts are set aside and I listen to the words sung, words that have been sinking deeper and deeper into my heart every time I hear them. And as I have them on my ipod as well, I hear them a lot. The messages inherent in the show have been finding their mark in me and I am captured in what they teach.

One of my favorite scenes is when Jo-Jo is taking a bath and imagines he's really in McElliot's Pool, singing "Anything's Possible!" Jo-Jo thinks incredible thinks, encouraged on by the cat who sometimes gets him in trouble, but Jo-Jo changes the world around him in the process. Just because something doesn't seem to be true, doesn't mean it's not. Jo-Jo thinks outside the box, outside of black and white, outside of what others tell him is so. Instead, he dreams in bright colors and flies to places like Solla Solew. These worlds he thinks of come to life around him and he brings forth the truth that we have the power to create our thinks, we have the power to bring to life what is in our heads and that often times, there is a lot more around us than what we see and hear.

Later that night as Jo-Jo is lying in bed and longing for a true friend in the universe, he meets Horton the Elephant protecting the clover their tiny dust speck of a planet is on. No one believes that Horton can hear people on the dust speck, all the jungle animals think he's crazy but after all, "an elephant's faithful 100% percent," and he knows they are there and firmly believes "a person's a person no matter how small." Just because they can't be seen, doesn't mean they are any less important, that every voice in the universe needs to be heard. He puts the Whos who live on the planet first before himself, protecting them despite the opposition. Then while sitting there protecting the clover, he hears Jo-Jo and they find they both dream and understand how alone each other feels. They find someone to believe in and who believes in them. Throughout the show, the theme of faithfulness, of being true to your word, and sticking by what you know to be true, is woven into the fabric of the story in circling patterns, ever growing wider and deeper.

While Horton protects the Whos, there is another faithful character named Gertrude, a one feather-tailed bird. Gertrude has admired Horton from afar with his "kind and powerful heart" but Horton has never really noticed Gertrude. Wanting to be beautiful so Horton will notice her, she goes to the doctor and takes pills to make her tail grow. It does grow, so long in fact, she can no longer fly. Horton doesn't notice her still and by the end of the second act, she realizes that to be able to help Horton, she really just needs to be herself, large feet, pitiful tweet, and all. She teaches there are songs we are each given, ways we look, feel, and those things are there for a reason. We are each created to be who we are and to grow through that experience.

While each of the characters are having troubles galore, The Cat pops in as he often does, singing, "tell yourself how lucky you are! When the fates are unkind and you get kicked from behind, tell yourself how lucky you are." His message, among the many, is to look to the light, the bright side, all of the things you do have. Why decry the dark sky? Things could be worse after all. Just think of life as a thrill and be thankful you've gotten this far. Find all the gifts in your life, the beauty and the love. Instead of concentrating on what you don't have, concentrate on what you DO have. And we have quite a lot.

There is a point in the second act when Jo-Jo is lost and scared. He doesn't know what to do or where to go when The Cat pops in again and urges him to think of a glimmer of light and to follow his hunch. These are some of the lyrics from the song.

Follow your Hunch!

And oh!

The places you'll go!

I've got brains in my head

And feet in my shoes

So steer yourself any direction you choose!

And oh, the places you'll go!

Set your hunches free to wander

And follow them where they roam

And follow your hunch

Follow your hunch

Follow it... home!
Anything's possible!

Jo-Jo finds that if he trusts himself, if he listens to the voice inside, pays attention to it, it will lead him where he wants to go. He already has everything he needs within him, brains in his head and feet in his shoes. Imagination, faithfulness, a positive outlook, and believing in your own power are all qualities that carry the characters through the difficulties that arise. I have had friends in my life who have instilled these lessons, these words, into the very rhythms of my breath, but seeing them sung on stage night after night, seeing them lived out by the actors in and out of costume, made them sink that much deeper into the makeup of who I am and they helped me find the additional confidence I need to find where I want to go. Anything is possible.

365-09 #93

December 2008 - Moving in the Storm

Here in the Northwest of the United States, we always dream of a white Christmas but it's extremely rare we ever get one. Then, a week and a half before Christmas, the forecast for the coming days called for snow. Many were excited, we hardly ever get snow this early in the winter season! A week and a half later, we were singing a different tune. Gone was "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" for we had all forgotten what that entails. First the snow came turning everything white and slippery, then the freezing rain that made the whole world one giant ice cube, then the snow again, and finally it all froze over once more into ice before the rains finally came back and all the snow and ice is melting away. (I've never been so happy to see rain in the forecast.) It will take a while for the banks of snow to clear, some are still pretty high where it was pushed off of sidewalks and parking lots. We just aren't used to that here and a lot of people have been housebound for days on end, including me. It's enough to make you just want to get OUT.

At the same time the storms have been rolling on through the valley, storms have been rolling through my life. A week into the storm, I was laid off from my job. They wouldn't tell me why, but budget cuts are a pretty reliable bet as it's happening to many. Getting a hold of unemployment has been frustrating to say the least. Then on Christmas day, I tried unsuccessfully to start my car. The next day I tried replacing the battery which apparently needed it anyway but that didn't work, then tried putting gas in and that didn't work either. The next options are the fuel pump, much more expensive. At this point I was in tears, I had reached the end of my rope and didn't know what else to grab onto. It was right then my dad called me getting a very upset daughter on the phone. I managed to tell him about the car through my tears, he said some very fatherly things, and after telling me he would pick me up in the morning for our family Christmas, we hung up. A half-hour later, there was a knock on my door and there stood my dad, coming straight to my apartment after work to give me a big hug.

Thus far, I have felt like I've been alone in my problems; that I need to come up with the solutions by myself with little help from anyone else. It's very depressing. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me that my dad let me know I am not in this by myself, that he is there for me and will continue to be there through it all with endless love.

The next morning as my family was sitting around the living room with my nieces playing amongst us, my dad explained to my mechanically inclined brother what was going on with my car. My brother said he'll look at it and try to figure out what is wrong. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders to know I have help, people who care.

This storm is certainly not the one I wanted, either the ice and snow or the one in my life. We often don't know why these storms come through and shake up what we counted on, why they alter the way we live our lives. But if there is something I have learned from the ice, is that it eventually melts and goes away. The snow banks disappear and are no more. This gives me hope. Eventually we find our feet again and when we do, we find the storm has pushed us in a new direction, a direction we had resisted or never knew existed. The storms open our eyes to new possibilities. As dark and jumbled up as they seem, there is light and strength in the storm. This is a hard thing for me to write, even harder to remember when I am struggling to not despair. But something deep within me tells me this is true, truer than the storm and truer than the darkness. It is true beyond all things, the truth that is part of the deepest truth: God's love. And I know it's there. Like my dad coming to reassure me I am not alone, so God assures us we are not alone. He is there, even when we cannot see Him in the way we did before. God is indeed moving in the storm.

November 2008 - Thankful

I finally have my book website caught up- for the next two days anyway until January. Here is the November newsletter.

Thankful

This may sound funny but this afternoon I realized it is Thanksgiving, a time to give thanks. There is so much in my life to be grateful for. The first things that come into mind are not things at all but people, images. Stacey dancing, Katie cheating at cards :o), my nieces playing twirl-a-chair, Emily sitting on her stool, the editorial board laughing together, the folks at Freedom Friends in our regular seats, and countless other friends too many to name. I am so grateful for them all. To love and be loved is the greatest gift of all. Everyday of my life I know this to be true on an ever deeper level in my heart.

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about what is meaningful in our lives. I've seen the American dream and how it is more of a nightmare than a dream. I've seen what it does to a person and the people around them when power becomes vital to have and to hold. I've seen people who have plenty of money but have little room in their lives to enjoy what it can bring. In my culture, we tend to spend a great deal of time and energy trying to obtain what is not worth having and little time on what is. Sometimes i imagine being in heaven and looking down to see what I still hold in my hands. What of value in my life made it through the fire of death? So far, I have only come up with two answers. One is the love that has been poured into my life by those around me and the other is the love I have poured into theirs. Everything else is transient and not eternal.

This is the knowledge I want to direct my life with. This is the truth I hold as my guide. I may not be well off financially or the most worldly successful, but when it comes to a rich life where it counts, that I've got and what's more, I know who to be grateful to. I truly am, a rich woman.

My Publishing Website

In addition to this blog, I run a website for my publishing company. There you can read past newsletters dating back to 2004. Each one has a story from my life with a point, much like my blog. You can also find poetry and devotional samples from the books. The address is www.SpiritWaterPublications.com. There is also a guest book to sign if you would like. Enjoy!