making a difference.

Part A. What makes you you? What are the things that make you unique or different or the same?

We are all the same ... in that we all need to feel loved and wanted. I've discovered through personal observation and interpersonal relationships that those two things are all anybody really needs, and we're just all here trying to help each other out.
In that way, we are all the same. All wanting and needing the same things.

And we're all different in the way that we help each other take care of these needs. I've been thinking about this a lot recenty - how I, Kylie, can make a difference to someone else. What can I offer to anyone?

You can only offer yourself. Somehow, somewhere in the nebulus components of your mind and body, you can touch others' souls in a unique way, because you are unique and the way you'll discover to reach them is unique.

Part B. How can you challenge yourself to become better writers, storytellers, poets? How can you infuse who you are with your desire to write? Have you done steps one and two and are you ready to really just into step three?

Challenging myself? All I can do is a self-depricating snort of laughter. I'm infamous for making millions of goals...and never finishing anything. Challenge to write? Sure, but to what end? A challenge to be a better writer? Ah, that will only come with a goal to practice, a goal to experiment. I want to touch people, I want to make a difference in their lives. I feel that maybe writing is a way I can do that...I just have to allow myself to see that by allowing myself to indulge in writing that maybe, just maybe, I might make a difference.

#5

Part A of the prompt:

     What makes you you? What are the things that make you unique or different or the same?

The words pounded through my body like no other. “I am disappointed in you,” she said. And I cried for three days straight. Even the man I sometimes loved did not have time to calm my heaving sobs. This deafening loneliness returns periodically to remind me that sometimes I am not worth much (or so my mind deceitfully tells me).

A therapist once told me that I seem to have a fear of people leaving and hurting me, and unfortunately I have experiences to back that up.

And yet there is a mask sculpted from my flesh that hides those fears. The corners of my mouth lift to a toothy smile. And sometimes that mask is true to my present state of being. Sometimes the most vibrant energy pulses through my soul, leaving no doubt in my mind that God is good, that all is well.

But sometimes the mask hides every intimate detail of my soul so beautifully, and deceives even the closest acquaintance.

I am fragile, but I am also strong. I take those fears and privately let them go, one by one. Then I work fiercely to become more than I was before, to find a grace and refinement that I so desperately desire in my life.

Part B of the prompt:

      How can you challenge yourself to become better writers, storytellers, poets? How can you infuse who you are with your desire to write? Have you done steps one and two and are you ready to really just into step three?

I try to be honest when I write. But I also try to write in a vague, seemingly exaggerated way. I try to hide in my writing, not only to maintain some privacy, but to hopefully let my experiences stretch to become relatable to others. This is not always easy, and I think that is how I push myself, just by continuing on in this practice.

I love the goal of step three: “Infusing the work you are doing with the specific things that make you you.” And I think I capture glimpses of that idea every so often in the things I create-- which sometimes seems quite devastating. But I hope that grace and refinement show through.

Writing Prompt #5

Click the link and watch this video of Sarah Kay:

Do it. Really. It is good and you will like it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html

Now... think about the steps she shared.

Step One: The moment you say "I can. I can do this."

Step Two: The moment you say "I will. I will continue... I will keep coming back week after week."

Step Three: "It's not enough to just teach that you can express yourself. You have to grow and explore and take risks and challenge yourself. And that is step three: infusing the work you are doing with the specific things that make you you, even while those things are always changing."

Part A of the prompt:

      What makes you you? What are the things that make you unique or different or the same?

Part B of the prompt:

       How can you challenge yourself to become better writers, storytellers, poets? How can you infuse who you are with your desire to write? Have you done steps one and two and are you ready to really jump into step three?

the town in which i live

When we first moved here, people would ask how we liked it.

“It’s a small town without the small town charm.”

That seemed the nicest way to say the truth: I didn't like it. Not because the distance to the freeway or the lack of grocery store, though those things do make everything a little difficult. No. The real reason was the overflow of houses, all seeming the same. There are no houses that were 70 years old with their walnut trees with swings in them. Then there was the mountains. Oh how far away they seemed, leaving us out here with the desolate sagebrush and dry tumble weeds stuck in fences. There are no bookstores for us to peruse on quiet Friday nights. And even though there is a library, it is too far to walk to so what use is it to me? No cafes for buying French sodas and writing away in quiet corners. I wondered how we had found ourselves out here.

Like turning on a light after sitting in a dark room, my eyes slowly began adjusting to the small world I found myself in. I think it began in my own front yard, with our small apple tree that yields large, sweet apples. Then it was the blossoming pear tree that cools us with its lazy shade and that houses our little bird feeder. Then I saw around the corner where my neighbors wild flowers grow happy and free.

I began seeing that the houses and their gardens were unique, just like their owners. I fell in love with the house with the weeping willow, with its front room full of books. Or the two houses a couple blocks away, one wild and untamed and the other planned and particular, yet both so full and happy with color and flowers and birds.

We learned that the gas station has the most decadent, moist Dunford Donuts so who needs a grocery store. And the library, which is still growing, has story time for our little ones to enjoy. There is the little Chinese restaurant and the pizza place with their family deals and food that makes my mouth water. And a little ice cream shop within walking distance. There are winding pathways where runners, walkers, bikers, families, and individuals share the love of fresh air and movement.

And then finally I saw it, as the sun goes to sleep and I look up into the night sky. With no street lights to crowd them, the stars dance and sing for us on clear nights. Oh yes, this town in which I live holds little secrets of beauty and wonder, even if I still hate the sage brush.

These Streets

Ah, tonight. Tonight is a good night to write about these streets. Tonight, with clarity come by rain, and more pregnant clouds hanging low overhead, and the air heavy with the scent of blossoms. I breathe deeply as I pass each popcorned tree. Yes, tonight I love these streets.

But when I am honest, I must tell you, I cannot always say this. If you had asked me three months ago, I would have withered you with a single look. These streets?! I would scoff. These?! And folded inside my sweatshirt-blanket-mukluks-beanie, I would focus my hateful stare on the scene outside--the snow and the ice and the single-digit temperature--as if the heat of my anger could thaw the gray-scaled world back into warm color. I would curse the actions of slipping on boots and hat and jacket to walk the fifty feet to the mailbox; the penguin shuffle across frozen asphalt to prevent bruises and broken bones; the futility of keeping one's temper when you are held in captivity month after frozen month with three restless pixies--who by February have shed sparkling fairy skins and become imps, full of dark mischief for want of the tempering sun. No, three months ago I cursed these streets and held wistful, heavy, covetous dreams of California in my heart.

Ah, but tonight! Tonight these streets remember their beauty, have begun climbing back into their robes of grandeur. I feel a chill, but I feel it on bare arms. Clear of its smothering white blankets, the ground is raising her colors again. I see green, and that one color alone breathes life back into me. I send my pixies out into the greenness; and as they dash between tree and hill and sky, the last patches of the sinking sun catch new sparkles across noses and hands and strands of hair. Tonight I can look at the stars and remind myself that no streetlights interrupt my looking. I can sit untouched by the mad rushing that belongs to city streets. I can breathe deep blossom scents. I can welcome quiet raindrops. I can touch earth and feel a tug, a connection. And I can say, honestly, that tonight I love these streets.

“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.”

~Henry David Thoreau

#5

My sweet mother, bless her heart, instilled in me a sort of paranoia-- which was surely instilled in her from her own mother. The “lock the doors,” “don’t hike alone,” “be careful when you’re walking downtown at night,” “carry your pepper spray,” “keep a quilt in your car, just in case” sort of paranoia. And as I left for college, I did have my pepper spray and quilt in tow, because I didn’t think to question it.

If I did venture out alone, there was a hint of anxiety just below the surface, keeping my guard up. There still is.

But some nights, there is an inescapable energy that builds within me-- a mix of pain, frustration, and restlessness-- and I have to go. So I throw on a tank top, shove my feet into running shoes, and go.

It was summertime when I truly learned to love my city. The days were almost unbearably warm, but the nights were divine. I began to learn of myself as I meditated to the beat of my feet on the pavement, as I let the cool air rush around my arms and neck, and as I ran around the blocks that carried a much different feel with darkness and street light. Yes, I still carried pepper spray, but I also carried a strength that I had never known before. My city gave that to me. It still does.