Let's Go Fly a Kite

One day you grow up and you decide to get married, you decide to buy a car, you decide to buy a house, you decide to take a job. You think you decide to have a baby.

But you really have no choice in what baby you get. The baby they put in your arms is a total surprise. And even as you hold her, and kiss her and know beyond any shadow of any doubt that you will love this little person forever – until your dying breath and beyond – you still don’t even know who she is. It is the most out of control you will ever be and it is wonderful and scary and inspirational all at once.

Suddenly, your world shifts, or it should, and all your thoughts are bent on this tiny person, the little girl who stares into your eyes as she nurses.  Your “world” still exists out there somewhere – career, dream, plan. But somehow there is a fish eye lens on the camera and the focus has shifted.

Then a strange thing happens. She begins to grow, unfurl, leave your lap, run down the hall way and “hide” from you. You have spent years talking to her, in the middle of the night, when you go to her in the morning and she smiles at you – a smile that wraps your heart all up in string and squeezes tight – you’ve talked her through her crying jags, you’ve made her laugh by twisting your words into funny sounds complemented by tickling fingers. And suddenly, she starts talking back to you.

Her view of the world from knee-height makes you laugh, makes you cry, and makes you realize that she is watching everything you do. Now, you worry not just about what you are putting in her stomach (for that has always been in the front of your mind) but what you are putting into her heart.

A great thing happens then. Your curiosity all these years finally has a hope of being quenched. You get to see who she is, you get to see glimpses of who she might one day be. She startles you with interests you never had or she might sidle up to you and want to learn everything about what you do.

You try to find activities that fit this new person. What will interest her? What will she want to explore next? You set her on a path, dare to let go and whoosh! She takes off like a kite on a March morning. You know now that you found the right thing as you watch her grow and soar. You laugh in surprise and delight and just a bit of sorrow as the wind of her dreams and hopes takes her up, up , up.

Now, comes the hard part. You can’t let go of the kite string, no she needs you to hold on. Forever. But the trick is to know when to let out the line and give her room to soar higher and higher. But no, mom. Don’t let go.

Great Writers Start Ugly - day 7

Jeff Goins urges us today to just write, and not be afraid of the ugly first draft. So, I decided to test myself and wrote a poem on his blog this morning.

Here goes Ugly, composed on the spot:

There it is
the door
tall and narrow
surely I will never fit
heavy
surely I am not strong enough

I can't quite read the sign
held up by shiny tape
orange letters
or maybe
I can't quite believe them

I stand, hand poised

If I open it, I might fail
and that shakes me
If I open it, I might succeed
And that thought,
that kernel of hope
frightens me more

But here, on this side, I am only half me.
I need to see the whole
at least to know
beyond shadow
beyond doubt
that I exist,
even in failure,
even
in success.

I try the door
and to my wonder,
it swings freely

freely

the only strength needed
is here
here in my heart.


6/13/12
Naomi G. Martinez-Goldstick

Day 3 - Write for Two Hours

Technically, today's challenge was get up *early* and write for two hours. It didn't happen for me today (I can hear my husband chastising me already about how late I stay up....) but with Summer here I enjoy exercising my late night movie habit.

Still, I did write today for an hour and plan another hour this afternoon. It feels good to work again. I had been on a roll for a while, a time when I was burning up the page and couldn't NOT write this story, but after a point I let many things get in the way. I want to say what everyone says, what is easy to say, which is that I was BUSY. But I know that is not true. I had time. I just didn't. I know why.

I had reached a point in my story that gave me doubts. And those doubts started to get bigger and they crowded out the story, the message and meaning behind why I started writing it in the first place. Being "ordered" to get up and just DO it today forced me to face that hump and start to walk over it. I just needed a push to put my head down and work it out.

Hopefully the forming of good habits will keep these blocks at bay. No, no, no, that is wrong thinking. Here is the correct sentence: The forming of a good consistant writing habit will keep these blocks at bay.

That's better.

Write on, Friends!

Do I believe what I say?

Today we as writers are called to believe what we say about ourselves. I can declare to the world that I am a writer, but this will not be a reality if I do not wholly believe it. And how do I judge what I believe? God tells us in the Bible it is where our heart lies, where our time is spent.

Hmmm...

But often what stops me is not lack of belief in the fact that I should write, that I was created this way, with words clanging around inside my head, an insatiable need to devour words and use them to show you how I see the world.

The thing that stops me is fear. Fear that I don't have what it takes, that it won't "work" - whatever that means. That no one really wants to hear what I have to say. Even with proof that sits right in front of me.

When my kids are faced with mean kids saying mean things, I tell them - "Believe the truth that is here, with people who love you and know you rather than the lies of 10 year olds." But do I take my own advice?

It is so easy to listen to the world, isn't it? To feed the scary monsters that live under the bed. Well, it's time to starve those monsters and feed my soul instead, the good food of the Truth that He Who created a good work in me is faithful to complete it.

Tomorrow? Up early and write for two hours. *sigh* .......

I am a writer....

Starting a Writing Challenge today:

Today's assignment: Declare myself a writer.

Well, I guess I have defined myself as a writer for years now. I know inside it is what I love and what I want to do with my time and creativity. But there was a moment that helped me define that in my heart. As a student at the New England Conservatory, I took several of their wonderful Liberal Arts classes and in one of them, we were asked to write a story. I gave it my best shot, but was so intimidated by my own voice that I could not read it out to the class, and asked a dear friend of mine to read it for me. I found myself regretting it, though. She was a fine reader, but no one knows your work like you do and there were so many places where I would have changed the inflection, where I knew the subtly of meaning that was so important. I should have read it.

When I got the story back, my teacher wrote five words that changed my life. Well, I should say, they changed the idea of my life. He wrote: "Naomi, you are a writer."

I have never, ever forgotten this small encouragement. He also encouraged me to do a double major at Tufts University so I could study with him there. But in my mind, I was still a "musician" and couldn't conceive otherwise. I so wish I had looked into it.

But yes, I will always consider myself a writer. It is how I best express myself, how I look at the world, how the world communicates itself to me, through words that paint a picture.

Perhaps it is the approach of 45, but this year, my writing has meant more to me than ever. That, and a funny little story that has taken hold of my heart and won't let go. More on that later.

Write on, friends!

Who is this man?

Tonight I went to a dance with a handsome young man. He wore a gray suit with a blue shirt and a lovely blue tie. He offered me his elbow and escorted me to the dance floor. He bought the tickets to the dance and gave them to the ladies at the table. He made me laugh and held an interesting conversation with me.

I knew it was the last dance I would be invited to. Soon, he will perhaps feel a little embarrassed by me. Soon, he may offer that elbow to another girl.

But for tonight, it was still me.

How is it that I can blink my eye and the whole world changes?  How is it that I can take so much for granted and not even realize what a miracle a day is? Thank you, God, for moments like these when you sharpen the lens and bring into focus all that I thought I would never be able to see.

13 years and he's gone from a critically ill baby boy, through many trials, so much pain, so much effort, such perseverance, to now, a young man with broad shoulders and a quick smile. I watch him with wonder, realizing (again - why is it that I forget??) how close we came to all of this being an impossibility. I watch him and feel my worries dim - worries for his future, his success, his life. They dim because I see how very far he has come, how he defies me with his miracles. Every step I thought he would never take he runs right through.

So, tonight, I danced and laughed and watched. And I saved my tears for later.

I love you, son.

Goodbye Old Year

2010 has contained a lot of pain for me. Physical in nature, for the most part. I'm not sad to see it go. But every new year, I wonder, what have I done? And I think, what will I do now? Why does this night seem different? Why do I feel some need to "start over?" Me and the rest of the world....

Each morning should be like tomorrow morning. Each new sunrise should make me think about my resourcefulness and usefulness - what did I do with the passing day that was worthwhile? It should make me realize that I have one more opportunity. To be kind, to love, to make a difference in someone's life. To make a difference in my own life.

So, apart from learning to write a new year when I date things, perhaps tomorrow should hold no other charm for me, but a new sunrise, more breath, more heartbeats (however fast and wonky they may be). And I should just start from there.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Day.