Today’s assignment is to appreciate things people have taught me in life.
Thanks to Charlotte who taught me what it feels like to be a grandmother.
Thanks to Boaz who taught me how to let go.
Thanks to Lydia who taught me to love unconditionally.
Thanks to Tony who taught me to endure difficulty and remain compassionate.
Thanks to David who taught me how to relax and love again.
Today’s assignment is to commit to 30 days of doing something without breaking the chain. After 30 days I get a prize of my choosing. I am going to commit to actually doing these exercises and blogging them daily for 30 days. As for my prize…I’ll have to think about that. I can pick anything!!!
Today’s assignment is to Write a Fan Letter.
Dear Dr. Martha Beck,
Thank you for all the help and guidance you have given to me in my life. I have read every one of your books and every article written in O the Oprah magazine. At night before I go to sleep, I read a few pages of Finding Your Way in a Wild New World. I call you my guru when quoting you to others.
Part of my connection to your writing is the religious element. I read your book Leaving The Saints about your strict religious background that you broke away from to create the life you have now. Only someone who has survived such an experience can understand. Knowing you have come from that place makes me trust your advice all the more and makes it more relevant to my own experience.
I have become more open to the spiritual element in my life thanks to meditation exercises, written exercises, and insightful quotes that you have shared in your books. I’ve begun writing as a future career path thanks to reading Finding Your Own North Star. And the monthly articles in O give great, useful, life advice that I have shared with many a friend in crisis. I hope someday I can afford to hire you as a Life Coach or attend a retreat, but in the meantime I’ll garner all the wisdom I can from your writing.
The fact that you love and quote Mary Oliver is the icing on the cake. You spur me to heroic adventures that “break my heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.”
Thank you for your loving help through your heartfelt writing,
Rebekah Marshall
Today’s assignment was to “steal a title from a book you’ve never read and invent your own story.”
Nineteen Eighty-Four
I was eleven, smart rather than fun – so smart that I was a year ahead in school. My long black hair stayed perpetually in a braid because I couldn’t figure out what else to do with it. My parents wouldn’t let me cut it short and get a perm like the rest of the cool girls in school. Every day I watched them strut through the hallways bouncing their hair side to side, those curls tossing perfectly as they laughed and called each other names in that mean girl joking sort of way. I pretended not to care, but I wanted more than anything to be pretty and funny and popular like them.
It probably didn’t help things any that I had the highest GPA. The natural correlation to that ranking was naturally the lowest social status in school. Every teacher knew me by name and liked me name – also a bad sign in pre-teen land. My only real friend was a fellow loser named Grace whose super religious parents made her wear long skirts every day of her life.
“Angela,” a voice called from behind me. I turned, shocked to hear my name, wondering if someone said it by accident.
Running to catch up was one of the bouncy-haired girls wearing hot pink lipstick and a fluorescent green shirt that hurt my eyes to look at directly. I stood frozen, unsure what to do in this unusual circumstance. She had a half-sheet of paper that she was waving in my general direction in her one gloved hand (a la Michael Jackson.) The entire moment was unsettling, due to the being addressed by a cool girl part, being expected to respond to something other than a math equation or history fact, and the unknown cause of the incident.
“Hey,” she said breathlessly when she reached me planted in front of the boys’ bathroom. She stuck the paper in my face. “I’m having a birthday party this Saturday and was hoping you could come.”
I was dumbfounded and just stood there staring at her like a dumb-ass. It was like my brain short-circuited and I had no response available for retrieval. She stared at me for a few seconds, then smiled and tilted her head like a cute puppy.
“You have really pretty hair,” she said, then stuffed the paper into my hand and headed on down the hall to chase someone else with another flier.
I stared at the crumpled paper, then smoothed it as best I could. Not only was this the best day of my life to date, but I had an even better day to look forward to on Saturday. One of the cool girls wanted me at her party. Things were looking up.
Today I am assigned to paste four pictures of my heroes.
Oprah, Jesse Owens, Spock, and Jimmy Carter
This exercise is about maximizing tips by setting up rivalries that will get support from people. I dance Salsa, so the only bar-type environment I’ve ever experienced is Salsa night. Here are some rivalries that might get some people voting with their tips:
On-1 Vs. On-2
Old School Vs. New Guys
Salseros Vs. Bachateros
Live Music Vs. DJ’s
I always tip well, even if all I get is a soda. On each of these, I would put my money in On-1, Old School, Salseros, and DJ’s.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.” – T.S. Eliot
I am at my WriteHers’ Group at Monkey Nest in Austin, TX. My exercise for the night is to create captions for circles.
The journal I’m reading highlights the artist’s way of looking at the world as though always “casing the joint”, finding inspiration everywhere, using ideas from unlikely places, and creating new art from all those great ingredients.
Today’s activities ask me to make 8 captions for a triangle. 
I’m not sure the real purpose of this exercise, except to maybe get the brain thinking a bit more globally, but there it is. Tomorrow is circles. By the way, I thought of the words, then went and found images for them afterwards. I don’t think it would be cheating, though, to scroll through images for ideas, especially since this whole book is about stealing for artistic use.
Ready to celebrate some successes! I finished my creativity course, got married, wrote a novel in the month of November for NanoWrimo, and feel back on track with writing daily.
Today I bought a new journal called The Steal Like An Artist Journal – A Notebook For Creative Kleptomaniacs by Austin Kleon. He opens the book with a quote by Mary Oliver – “I think we’re creative all day long. We have to have an appointment to have that work out on the page. Because the creative part of us gets tired of waiting, or just gets tired.” This sums up my new writing plans perfectly. I am attempting to set aside time daily to work out my creativity on the page. I plan to start sharing some of that experimentation here.
Activity #1 in the journal is Ten Things I Want To Learn:
I have thoroughly enjoyed this vacation. I have filled it a bit too full at times, but I made up for that yesterday with two long naps! My creativity course is proceeding splendidly. I am in week 2 and have done all of my writing exercises each and every day. I’m learning a little bit about my own habits and weaknesses that tend to interfere with my time for writing. I am also learning a plethora about my own creative potential and how much untapped awesomeness is contained in this universe. I don’t have to believe that every ounce resides in me, but simply that I can be a channel to get it on paper. I have to develop the willingness to let all that energy and beauty flow through me. Part of the willingness is simply showing up to the page and taking the steps to do the work. I do a ton more daydreaming about writing than actually writing. 🙂
Also, I am very excited to report that my sweet fiance has a three day weekend, which he will be spending with me when he wakes up. He was up during the night with a sick dog. I was no help. I was conked out. The dog and I are fine this morning, but my poor man is exhausted and needs to sleep the morning away.
Super amazing news – I have reached my summertime swimming goal of 60 laps. I’m not resting on my laurels, though. Now I’ve decided to set a new goal of 66 laps because my grandfather figured out that 66 (considering all the measurements of his pool) would equal half a mile. I just like the sound of swimming a nice round half mile.
This has been one of my best vacations ever. I have Salsa’d, written, read, sipped tons of tea, played with my granddaughter, attended support groups, worked on my creativity course, cleaned house making my environment more livable, swam, had outings with friends, gone to the movies, taken myself out to eat, roamed bookstores, and napped to my heart’s content. This is the way to live.
The lady at the front desk
has an accent I can’t place.
Bright red dyed hair glows
like something radioactive.
She scolds the fact that I am on time;
early is the only acceptable number.
Words spit like machine gun fire –
bullet proof glass protects her from reprisal.
Woman number two attacks, actually
leaves her booth to eviscerate my daughter’s wardrobe.
My glare the only weapon I have;
she knows she has all the power.
Our true crime –
being related to my son.
He awaits our visit behind a clear wall,
his voice distant through the jailhouse phone.
He rolls his eyes as I explain the
reason his sister cannot visit.
Shorts too short, probably influenced
by the blue hair and tattoos.
We talk openly of the evil guards,
hope they’re listening in.
Corruption abounds, secret rules,
a cesspool of human indecency.
We wax simplistic on the meaning of life
and whether or not God sends dreams.
Black holes, the beginning of time,
alternate realities, expansion of the universe.
The mother in me wonders if other mothers
talk of such things when they visit their sons in jail.
A piece of trash sits on the floor
unmoved since my visit last week.
Even the air is oppressive,
cold hard metal the most comfort offered.
Another mother and I
ride the elevator down to the ground.
We talk like old friends of everything
except our sons, guilty with relief of leaving.
The fluorescent red-head plops my license into the metal indention
so no actual human interaction has to occur.
No eye contact, no goodbye, no apology
for making a horrible situation even worse.
The workers look miserable, underpaid, imprisoned
within the same walls as the people they guard.
My daughter posts a selfie as she flips off the jail –
and the women who cannot see her from the safety of outside.
I am irritated by her silent vulgar rebellion,
and maybe a little proud that she is my daughter.
-Rebekah J. Marshall
rebekahjmarshall 