Here They Are!
The most extraordinary band of inspiring souls ever!!
Tomorrow kicks off a month-long series of 60-second interviews with all of the beautiful contributors to Desire to Inspire: Using Creative Passion to Transform the World. To sweeten the whole celebration, I’ll be giving away one of the beautiful canvas bookmarks from the Christine Mason Miller Collection everyday. Just leave a comment on any (or all!) of the 60-Second Interview entries this month and you might win one of these:
More Give Aways will be going around the world wide web throughout the month ~ I’ll be posting all the latest and greatest right here, on Twitter, and on Facebook!
A Conversation in Rome
{Photo taken at the Pantheon in Rome, earlier this month.}
After a visit to the Pantheon:
Me: ”So I got hit on by an Italian pervert in the Pantheon.”
Mr. Husband: “What are you talking about?”
Me: “Well I was standing there in front of Raphael’s tomb, listening to the recorded tour guide, and this man starts talking to me.”
Mr. Husband: “Yes….”
Me: “And every time he spoke he leaned in closer and closer, while I leaned back farther and farther.”
Mr. Husband: “Yes…”
Me: “I was finally able to let him know my husband was with me, just on the other side of the Pantheon, and after offering up his best look of shock and horror, he put up his two hands as if he were holding an invisible shotgun and then did his best charades-esque imitation of the shotgun being fired.”
Mr. Husband: Stares at me blankly
Me: “You know, he was pretending to be you, reacting to him practically trying to french kiss me in the Pantheon.”
Mr. Husband: “Yes…”
Me: “Then I was finally able to wrangle away from him, but not before he leaned in one more time to tell me (I now move into my best impression of a strong Italian accent) ‘I will dream about you tonight!’ After that I watched him, and all he did was walk around looking for women by themselves so he could accost them in the same way he did me.”
Mr. Husband, who is Italian: “Honey, he’s not an Italian pervert, he’s just Italian!”
[Epilogue: I shared this story with two girlfriends recently, and their response was exactly the same.]
Five ~ no Ten! ~ Things
Ten offerings is the least I can do considered I wasn’t able to post anything on the past two Fridays!
3. Roots of She
4. Behind the Scenes with Marianne Elliott and WilloToons
5. The Time is Now ~ Writing Prompts from Poets & Writers
7. The Word by Tony Hoagland
9. The Coaching Blueprint from Your Courageous Life
10. And get ready for 11/11/11 and the release of The Beckoning of Lovely!
Out of Sorts
{Santa Barbara Cathedral, Rome.}
To say I have felt disconnected over the past month would be an understatement. Between a much-needed vacation for Mr. Husband and I, the jet lag that followed, and then the nastiest stomach bug I have ever experienced in my life, I have felt totally out of sorts, fairly isolated, and overwhelmed by all the thoughts that decided to take advantage of my weak state and swoop in my brain like a pack of wild monkeys – howling and swinging and generally making me crazy. I’ve been trying my best to ride through all the discomfort with grace – to be with it all and stay mindful of how much worse things could be – but I don’t feel like I have done an especially good job at that this time around. I’ve been grouchy and cranky and a little more prone to self-pity than I care to admit, annoyed by all the things that I decided were going wrong.
In the midst of all this, there have still been – as always – plenty of moments of beautiful stillness, genuine laughter, and deep, soulful connections. Like last Monday, when I crawled into bed around 10:00am and proceeded to sleep for a solid three hours, which was bliss after not sleeping for more than an hour or so at a time throughout the previous four nights. Or this past Friday, when I was getting ready for dinner while Mr. Husband and his best friend on the planet were in the kitchen waiting for me. At one point I overheard them talking, which wasn’t talking actually; it was the two of them saying goofy things for the Talking Hippo app on an iPad. Yep, two grown men with serious jobs and fierce intellectual streaks asking an animated hippo if it will make them a martini. Or right now, when the house is perfectly quiet, Tilda is asleep at my feet, and I have absolutely nothing to do tonight. Tomorrow’s To Do list is a whopper, but for now, I can rest.
Or the moment last Thursday when I opened my front door and found a package at my feet, a package that contained this:
The first two advance copies of my book are here, and I couldn’t be more excited. The designers at North Light Books did a beautiful, beautiful job, and I cannot wait to share this with everyone. I started working on this book just over a year ago, and now here it is!
I am also on a bit of a spiritual journey at the moment, educating myself on a number of different fronts. I have been reading The Zen Works of Stonehouse for a while now, and it has been a unique source of solace over the past couple of weeks in particular. Sometimes it is just one line that gives me exactly what I need, and calms my heart exactly the way it needs to be calmed. And sometimes the words stop me in my tracks, and I have to immediately put the book down just to sit with the passage I have just read. I am one week into an e-course with this lovely soul - a Gospel immersion course, which is giving me the impetus to read the Gospels for the first time in my life. And I am a happy registrant for the next SouLodge course, where I am looking forward to learning how to tap into the wilder side of my spirituality in new and creative ways.
I am still not feeling 100% myself and wish there were more hours in a day (or more hours that I could stay awake), but there is so much to be grateful for and look forward to. A crazy fun marketing blitz for Desire to Inspire is about to commence – next month will bring all sorts of sneak peeks and Give Aways and general cheer and merriment. If you’re in the Santa Monica / Los Angeles area, mark your calendars for Thursday, December 15th, when we’ll be celebrating with an official Desire to Inspire Book Launch. Details coming soon.
Thank you for all of the well wishes last week, and for being patient with me as I get back into the swing of things.
“The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.” ~Anais Nin
Quarantined
{Photo of The Pantheon in Rome. Taken by my husband about two weeks ago.}
I have, as of late, been flattened by a nasty stomach bug, and therefore need to keep today’s entry brief. I’m basically here to say, “I’m sick, and that’s why I’ve been MIA, but there are still a few places where you can find me this week.” Here’s the scoop ~
* The amazing and inspiring Halle Butvin was my guest for the latest interview over at Global Inspirations.
* Wish Studio has my tribute to one of my favorite college professors right here.
* I’m proud to have a story in the premiere issue of Mingle.
* I re-posted one of my favorite travel entries for Gypsy Girl’s Guide today ~ a piece inspired from a journey to Jordan.
* Speaking of Gypsy Girl’s Guide, we’re featured in the current issue of Somerset Life!
* I’m about to start introducing all of the extraordinary contributors to Desire to Inspire along with some tiny give aways ~ get ready for some fun next month!
* As part of the Desire to Inspire kick-off, I’m offering ten copies of the Limited Edition Hardcovers of Ordinary Sparkling Moments for the price of the softcover editions. That’s $28 instead of $64. Grab ‘em while they are available!
OK, back to bed.
Snippet
The other day I was in my studio, at my computer, catching up on emails and whatnot, everything that had gone neglected while my husband and I were on holiday. I heard a strange noise, as did Tilda, and she proceeded to have one of her big barking freak outs. We stepped out into the hallway, heard nothing more, and then parted ways. I went back to my desk, Tilda went wandering.
I then heard another strange noise.
So I went back out into the hallway and called for Tilda.
Nothing.
I looked in our bedroom, and through the rest of the upstairs. Noting. I went downstairs, and looked in all of her usual hangout spots. Nothing. I shook her jar of treats. Nothing. I went to her dog food, and poured some into her ceramic dog dish – which creates a sound that never fails to make her run like mad downstairs. Nothing.
But wait ~ a bark! But it sounds strange, like it is far in the distance.
I look around some more. Nothing. And then another bark! Again in the distance!
Now I’m getting freaked out. What the hell is going on?
I call my husband: “Hi. Something weird is going on here.”
Him: “What is it?”
Me: “Well, I heard a strange noise, and Tilda freaked out. Then she wandered off, and I heard another strange noise, and now I can’t find her anywhere.”
Him: “You can’t find her?”
Me: “No! But I heard her bark a few times!”
I then proceed to make him stay on the phone with me while I walk through the house one more time, until ~ tada! ~ I find the door to a guest bedroom bathroom closed, and as soon as I open it, out pops Tilda as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
Later, when we met for lunch ~
Him: “What did you think? That there was someone in the house holding Tilda hostage, who was going to jump out and getcha?”
Me: “Yes! That’s exactly what I thought!”
Because why gloss over the truth, when it is so much easier to openly admit your paranoid delusions.
The Secret of Joy
In 1994, I went to Australia for three weeks. During that trip, our car was broken into. Our camera and plane tickets were gone, along with whatever other items we had in the back seat of the car. After doing a full inventory of what was missing and what we still had, I felt a tremendous wave of relief that there was one piece of paper that remained in our possession – a letter from Alice Walker’s agent. Why I had this particular letter in Australia I’m not sure, but it was one of those items that I treasured beyond words, even though the letter was letting me know it would not be possible for me to interview Ms. Walker as part of the research I was doing for my graduate school thesis. At the time, I was reading everything by Alice Walker I could get my hands on – her novels, her essays, all of it – and having this tiny shred of a connection to her, which was nothing more than a piece of her letterhead, inspired me beyond words. I sent a request to her, and someone on her team actually read it and responded to it. It was a small gesture that didn’t even result in the interview I was seeking, but it mean the world to me nonetheless.
Alice Walker is with me all the time, in my day to day, as she has been since I was a graduate student when I was writing a thesis that discussed the educational theories of Paulo Freire as they could be applied to the eradication of female genital mutilation. This practice was just beginning to gain attention in the media while I was in graduate school, thanks in no small part to Alice Walker’s novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, whose main character is, to put it mildly, dealing with the repercussions of this experience. It was this novel that inspired me to write the thesis I did, and it was Alice Walker who first opened the door to the world of personal essays for me. Although it was many years before I began my own full-fledged journey as a writer, her influence never left me.
In the midst of more than a dozen moves since graduate school, I eventually ended up losing that letter, as well as my thesis. I keep hoping someday they will turn up, stuffed in a folder or a box or some long-lost notebook, but until then I’m content with the memory, ungraspable as it is. Letter or no letter, Alice Walker is with me, every single day.
Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don’t notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention… except walk?
[they laugh]
Shug: Oh Miss Celie, I feels like singing!
~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple
While I Was Away…
{Image from NYDailyNews ~ credited to Kevork Djansezian/Getty}
I was in Rome last week the day Steve Jobs died. I woke up, turned to look at my husband – who had obviously been awake for a while – and he immediately told me the news. Like so many longtime Apple devotees around the world, we had been following all the stories and updates about his health and gradual departure from the day-to-day operations at Apple from months, so this wasn’t necessarily a great shock, but it saddened us deeply nonetheless. My husband and I have been using Apple computers and products since the mid nineties, and I even remember the long-ago day it was announced that Apple stock was a mere $3 per share – during the time when Jobs was not involved. Not long after that, Jobs returned to Apple, and, well, you know the rest – his trajectory now being well-documented in all the recent articles, tributes and CNN specials about his life and impact on the world.
I found it striking that Jobs died just as the Occupy Wall Street protests were building up. I couldn’t help but wonder what the world would look like today if Jobs had spent his time and energy being angry and organizing protests instead of focusing on his ideas and working his ass off. I understand that this capitalist system of ours is flawed, that there are greedy people engaging in immoral acts solely for their own financial gain. I get it. But there are also innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, and visionaries doing extraordinary work and making profoundly positive impacts on the world with the help of the Wall Street. Steve Jobs took Apple public, made lots of money, promptly got ousted from Apple, and then created a little company called Pixar. Bill Gates took Microsoft public, made lots of money, and has since focused his energies on global philanthropic projects that have saved and improved countless lives. You know who else is a capitalist? Oprah.
Steve Jobs did not come from wealth. He did not finish college. He was adopted. He started his business in a garage. His is a story that is only possible in a free market and capitalist economy – a story of someone with an idea and a willingness to do the work to make it real. This is what is possible in the United States. As frequently as I get disgusted by the behavior of individuals who let their lives and souls get corrupted by dollar signs (and I’ve seen this up close and personally under various circumstances, and it is abhorrent and disheartening and bewildering), I have also grown weary of all the blanket generalizations and accusations flying around the media these days – that capitalism is evil, that money is evil, that anyone who is “rich” or “on Wall Street” or a “banker” or whatever is evil, corrupt, greedy, and bad. No one today would dare make such sweeping derogatory statements about women or Asian Americans or yoga instructors, yet there seems to be a no-holds-barred free for all against anyone who actually thinks this capitalist system of ours has a few redeeming qualities.
I imagine I might ruffle a few feathers with all of this, but after having traveled to countries where their citizen’s right to earn a living doing what they love (or earn a living doing anything) is stripped from them at birth, I’ve developed a bit of a patriotic streak. And as a longtime admirer of Steve Jobs’s passion, work ethic, and unwavering commitment to his vision and ideals, I can’t help but want to stand up to all the capitalist-haters and ask them to, just for a moment, consider the possibility that sometimes, with some individuals, this system works, for the benefit not only of whoever does something such as take their company public, but for all of us.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” ~ Steve Jobs
Five Things
2. Jacaranda Music ~ I have to include their “About” statement because I just love it:
Jacaranda is designed for newcomers, recording collectors, and edge-loving connoisseurs – listening with a sense of discovery and all the social benefits that only live concerts can provide. Jacaranda is a series of adventures – music from centuries past next to unforgettable new and modern music played by brilliant musicians. Each concert has a point of view and the series, as a whole, is rich with musical relationships that are satisfying on many levels.
3. To the Best of Our Knowledge from National Public Radio
4. The Story from American Public Media
5. It’s time for the LA Derby Dolls!
Who Knew…
the natural speaker from Studio Joon&Jung on Vimeo.
…watching the production of a set of speakers could be so mesmerizing?
