Are YOU Successful?

November 1, 2013 / roughwighting / 32 Comments

Funny, how conflicted a person can feel about success.

And there’s the rub. What IS success, and what is not?

That is what I’m thinking at 5 a.m. as I take in a deep breath, smell the essence of my tropical green tea, look outside my window and glory in the darkness, the blinking lights of the town and the city beyond the bay.

This, this is my success.

Waking up at 5.

Stretching and pulling and moving my muscles, yoga style, in bed before encouraging the whole lot of them – the cold feet, the sleepy leg muscles, the torso, the heavy head, to rise up from bed and start a new day.

This is success, starting a new day, every day, with freshness and vigor.

But sometimes I, and a lot of us (let’s be frank, it’s human nature to lie in bed in the middle of the night and …) ask the age-old question — “why?”.

Why strain and strive for another day, for another “success,” whether it be writing or banking, running a business or running a marathon, selling sailboats or collecting stamps, lawyering or antiquing (and I’m just listing a few of the passions I know of friends and family).

Don’t we all stop once in a while and ask, “what the hell does it matter?”

That’s when we should stop and, well, just STOP, and ask ourselves, “what does matter?”

I sip my tea and watch the harsh blackness of the night begin to slowly, slowly become a softer dark, a black that silhouettes the hills, the dark floating islands, the deep mystery of the bay in front of me. A black that mystifies and entices. These dark shadows soon will be illuminated by the sun’s rays. Objects that are dark now, will soon glow pink and peach and glory in the day.

Like me.

That’s what matters. I just want to glory in each day, stretch my body and my mind to wakefulness of the light, and the dark. Wakefulness of the laughter that surrounds me, and the sadness. Wakefulness to the aroma of steaming tea, and the soft strain of the classical music in my background.

Rosy dawn turns to a blue morning.

That’s what makes my day. I throw out the fear and insecurity of being a “success,” since it means nothing.

Instead, I promise to just stay in the moment, and ignore the rest.

Success!

Here’s to your success!

Life’s Great Lessons on a Rocky Wall

April 5, 2013 / roughwighting / 35 Comments

We sit out on the deck on a perfect late spring Saturday, drinking gallons of lemonade and munching on turkey subs. The three of us – my man, my son and I – have been working for hours in the garden planting, snipping, weeding, watering, and for the men, moving rocks.

The father and the adult son have little to say to each other most times – it’s that time in their lives when the father can no longer tell the son what to do, and the son is no longer willing to listen to anything the father suggests anyway. But when they take their shirts off in the hot sun and push and pull 200-pound rocks to remake a 100-year-old rock wall, then, then they love each other. No talk, just grunts, a curse now and then, and suddenly a spurt of laughter.

Father and Son on the Rocks.

When the food is gone, my man goes back to rebuilding the stone wall, and my son and I sit quietly, companionably, not wanting to move from the warmth and relaxation.

“What are you up to, mom?” he asks suddenly. I never talk with him about what I’m doing. I’m too busy asking him about his life, his plans, his philosophy on life. I’m the questioner and the listener. But now he insists that I talk about me.

“Just the usual,” I reply. “Working, teaching, writing, not much, I guess.”

He looks at me with blue eyes as clear as the sky above and says, “You must be kidding.”

“What?” I ask.

“You could write anything. You could write something like, what’s his name, the guy who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie.”

I laugh. “This from the son who doesn’t read my stories.”

“Yes I do,” he retorts. “I read your stuff. Some of it.”

“Well, what should I write about?” I ask kiddingly. But he ponders the question seriously, thinking.

“Well, a book like Tuesdays with Morrie but about being a mother. You could write a great book about being a mother.”

I examine his face, one-day growth on it, intense eyes, no smirk.

He means it.

I want to cry. Instead, I hug my son, and he returns to the rocks.

And me? I return to my writing…

Do Writers Have Big Egos?

March 15, 2013 / roughwighting / 33 Comments

That’s the question I suddenly ask myself after I’ve been on hold for 13 minutes. Thirteen minutes with a faceless woman who spells my name wrong, three times. Who can’t find my order for 6 minutes (see above re misspelling), and who does not make me feel confident that the order, once placed, will be correct.

And what am I ordering?

Faceless woman.

Bookmarks. Customized bookmarks that feature my book and links to my book as well as my blog.Now, see where I’m leading?

Who wastes their time on faceless people after creating a bookmark for hours (oh yes, it took me a total of over 8 hours in front of the computer cursing, screaming, pulling out my hair and scaring the dog) while the ‘easy to use’ website crashed, burped, blinked, and generally made my life hell as I chose colors, downloaded my book cover, and then added text.

Scared dog – see him rolling his eyes at me?

Self-involved people, that’s who waste their time on these frustrating tasks. I never ever considered myself one of those people who think only of themselves – those kind of self-important people who are clueless about the world around them.

But. Gulp. Have I just described writers?

We sit in a room by ourselves and make up people, imaginary people with whom we use up (some would say waste) a lot of our time and energy.

We join our friends at a café but our eyes glaze over during the intense conversations about….life…. while in our heads we plot the next chapter in our imaginary characters’ lives.

We create blogs that talk about ourselves, and our writing, and our characters, so that everyone will know about our work when we publish. (Thank you, Karen Elliott for featuring my “A Brave New World” post on your Word Shark blog today!)

SEE??

We go on Facebook and post ‘Buy my book!” or “Like me and my blog and my newest publication.”

We spend our time marketing our books and stories, creating bookmarks and accepting invitations to women’s groups and book clubs, and library workshops to talk about ourselves, and our writing and our books and…

Oh dear.

Writers must have big egos!

I sit back in my chair as the faceless lady takes my credit card number, and I realize I’m a self-involved, heartless soul, despite my years of parent-ing and wife-ing and attempting to be a good sister and daughter and meditating peace and good will to all.

But perhaps those of us with a passion, those of us who believe in what we do, whether it be writing fiction or skiing down a mountain or collecting antique cars or hitting a small ball on a long stretch of hilly grass, perhaps we all stroke our egos to allow ourselves to believe (and to encourage others to believe) in what we do.

And what, exactly, do we do?

We make up people – but in doing so, we help ourselves and our readers to understand life just a fraction better. To understand what makes us humans work (or not work) in the scheme of this confusing universe.

So really (my big ego says) we writers are quite important.

Perhaps I should have ordered 200, instead of 100, bookmarks… 🙂

Never Give Up Chocolate

February 15, 2013 / roughwighting / 21 Comments

chocolate, writing exercise, wish I'd known

Pondering the things I wish I’d known.

What do you wish you’d known in your past, now that you’ve reached some type of maturity and can look back?

When I encourage my writing class students to write their list of “Things I Wish I’d Known,” I write along with them, thinking it’s an easy exercise.But I’m surprised by my first esoteric response:

“Never, ever give up chocolate.”

Embarrassed, but intent on following my own instructions of just writing out the first things that come to mind, I continue my list:

“Give to others, but be sure to also give to yourself.”

My grandson already knows some of the things I wish I’d known.

The following one surprises me:

“Don’t worry so much about hurting someone else’s feelings.”

Wait a minute. I catch a glimmer of something.

The next insightful “wish I’d known” advises:

“Those you love, love more; those you don’t like – avoid more.”

Ah, I’m connecting all the dots, or all the “wish I’d knowns,” to be more exact.

Never ever give up chocolate expresses all of the above platitudes, only better.

Never give up what I am, what I need, what is right for me.

Ever.

I’ve learned that yes, it’s important to keep others happy, to take care of them, to be a “good” mother,wife,daughter,friend,colleague,sister,aunt,grandmother,mom-in-law,sis-in-law,cousin.

But, I shouldn’t have to give up ME to be a good anything.

Not that I’d give up my mistakes and misdirections and missions lost. I needed each and every one of those experiences to get here – to a chocolate-loaded life of love, wonder, worry, pleasure, sadness, but mostly joy.

Particularly if I have a piece of saved (and hidden) dark chocolate buttercream nearby.

What’s on YOUR list of “things you wish you’d known”…?

P.S. I also wish I’d known that poetry can be fun, instructive, soul-searching, and beautiful. If you feel the same way about poems, my blogging friend Karen Elliott is featuring a Poetry Week February 18-23 – check it out at http://karenselliott.wordpress.com/ (one of my poems will be featured on Friday, 2/22).

Hit Me (the link between football and blogging)

February 1, 2013 / roughwighting / 32 Comments

I’m a middle-aged woman who hates violent movies and shies away from angry words or, really, any kind of confrontation.

But, I absolutely LOVE football. Go figure!

My love affair began in 1985, living in San Francisco, watching Joe Montana and the 49ers. Of course, I’d watched football before then – didn’t “get” it. What was the fuss all about?

I dated a quarterback in high school. He was cute, and my popularity increased because I was seen with the BMOC, but the football games were for hot dogs, dancing to the band, and dishing about the cheerleaders, not watching the game.

In college I went out with a guy who tried to inspire passion through round pretzels. No, really. He wanted me to understand the game of football, so he pulled out a bag of those small round pretzels (do they make those kind anymore?) and turned the dorm lobby’s old wood table into a football field.

“Here’s the quarterback,” he’d try. “Now this guy on defense will try and get away from the offensive line..” (the pretzels would be moved in position) “and hit the quarterback so he can’t throw the ball.”The guy lost me at “hit.” Any game that worked because one person had to hit another just wasn’t my cup of tea, or in those days, my mug of beer.

Joe Montana happened.

But Montana happened, and then Steve Young, and ‘The Catch,’ and 49er fever throughout the Bay Area. I had an ‘aha’ moment, and I began to love football (and its strategy), and to understand the necessity of hits.

49ers, quarterback, blogging, hits, football

New astounding quarterback.

Segue to this coming Sunday, with another 49er team suddenly coming from nowhere to the SUPERBOWL, with a new quarterback who astounds pundits with his finesse and running abilities and de-stressed attitude.Where are my pretzels? Where’s my 49er hat and sweatshirt and friends who are fanatic fans like me? We will dance with Michael-Jackson-moves when our team gets a field goal, prance after a touchdown, sing bird tunes with a first down, and groan like sick seals after a sack.

Sack of our quarterback – bad. Sack of the other team’s quarterback – good. Yet both are hits.

The moral of my post is that – hits can be good, if used properly, in football.

Or Blogs.

Roughwighting has been ’hit’ over 10,000 times! Yes, over 10,800 readers have come on over to my blog in the past 1 ½ years to see if I’m quarterbacking a blog worth hitting.

I thank all of you who read my wighting words and enjoy them, who comment when moved, who are touched in some small way from my shared revelations.

Hit me again.