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In the west Texas town where I grew up, the sun comes down hard on its people
Like a disapproving father
A mountain silhouette wraps its arms around you,
its anemic air simultaneously giving life and making it hard to breathe.
Like a mother torn between nursing her baby
and smothering it.
Clouds cast moving shadows on the hillsides,
mocking the shapes of birds and snakes.
Like the light show puppets
my father used to sing me to sleep.

I ran from these hills once.
Breathless.

But they do not begrudge me.
Each time I return, they greet me like a prodigal.
Golden poppies unroll like a welcome mat across the valley.
Cacti lift their prickly arms to wave 'hello'.
Mountain peaks stand at attention
and stars twinkle lullabies.

And I take a slow, intentional breath,
Do everything I can to commit to memory the hollowed voice of the summer breeze.
The fault lines and furrows of my father's hands.

The adventure that almost wasn't. On overcoming fear...

My friend and colleague, Lauren, writes over at I'm Better in Real Life.  She has a way with making the everyday extraordinary. She chronicles her adventures, shares her misadventures, and occassionally taunts Republicans. It's all real life and it's all entertaining.

Last month, I had the honor of sharing a post with her readers about my adventure in New York City. Check it out!

One of the things I really love about my job is that I get to travel. During my first week, I trained in San Francisco where I met Lauren, who I soon discovered to be my uncanny counterpart in the universe. Then I got to go to New York City for the first time and ride a subway and eat hotdogs on the street and wear one of those shamefully cheesy I <3 NY hoodies and it was glorious.

So, when I got the opportunity to plan another business trip to the Big Apple, I was definitely excited. Then, a week before my trip, Sandy went all woman scorned, ripping up boardwalks and flooding subway stations and whatnot. The news footage was awful and New Yorkers and New Jers(ians?) were devastated. And I was…terrified.

I may have had a minor meltdown and begged my boss to delay my trip, citing impossible public transportation conditions, a cancelled reservation at a closed hotel, and ohmygosh what if Sandy comes back for more? I begged, I pleaded. Please don’t make me.

Ultimately, I had to answer to my boss’s boss about cancelling a costly trip. It was kind of like when you ask your dad for something, knowing he will say yes. Then he says “ask your mom.” And you’re like…never mind. When I had to explain my objections to the big boss, I was suddenly very embarrassed. I realized I was sounding like a big, ungrateful whiner. “I have to go to Manhattan?! And stay in a fancy hotel? For FREE? Woe is me!!”

And so my pride won over my fear and I went. But not without some considerable pouting and a [possibly subconscious] delay that almost made me miss my flight.

New York City is resilient. She’d bounced back by the time I’d arrived. Besides some stores being shut down near the seaport, the city was going about business as usual.

On the work side of the trip, I got to schmooze with some of the big shots in the company. They were impressed by my insight and my confidence in giving them constructive feedback about recent goings-on. I learned that the scope of my job is much larger than I thought, and I ended feeling re-energized and excited to get back to the office and put new things into play.

Basically, I owned it.

In the evenings, I was on my own. Oh, hello fear! You again! Alone in New York with the bad guys, and the big crowds, and the people who would surely know I’m an awkward solo girl. On the first night, I elected to stay in.

On Tuesday, I had a talk with my mother. She said she was so proud of me and my new job. Doing all the things she wished she could. Going places! Seeing the world! She was amazed at what a strong, confident woman I’ve become. Little did she know, I’d spent the previous night locked in a 150 square foot hotel room watching Pawn Stars and ordering room service. Mothers always just know what to say, don’t they?

At that I decided to take control of my situation, live up to my name, and stomp out fear.

In that moment everything changed. I navigated the streets and the avenues and the subway tunnels all on my own. I ate alone at bars in fancy restaurants, striking up conversations with strangers. I ordered an appletini because that’s what Carrie Bradshaw would do. I sat by myself in Bryant Park, drinking hot cider and watching ice skaters glide under the Christmas lights. I saw a musical on Broadway. I passed by Henry Winkler on the street, and he laughed at the face I made when I registered that he was The Fonz(!), then he waved at me and smiled. I stood in the middle of Grand Central Terminal and watched thousands of people swirl around me until I was dizzy with pure joy. I had a fall fling with New York City.

I had a beautiful, magical, so unreal, one-week fling with New York City – my greatest adventure yet. And it almost didn’t happen.

What adventures have you allowed your fear or uncertainty to steal from you? (There’s still time!) What great adventures have you had that were nearly missed because you were afraid?

Alec Baldwin is key to all success...and other things I learned from Bossypants

I don’t typically read books written by celebrities, on principle.  I spent nearly 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars to receive a piece of paper stating I have mastered the English language.  I may still have to spend thousands hours more to be deemed worthy of publishing. So, I find it unfair that any Polizzi, Conrad, or Duff can publish a novel and make money simply because they already have money.

This passionate resistance is why it took over a year for me to succumb to the curiosity and peer pressure to read Tina Fey’s memoir/self-help guide/laugh factory, Bossypants.  Sometimes you have to get off your high horse to pan for gold. I’m glad I made the dismount for this gem.

This book is full of little crumbs of hilarity laced with wisdom where you’d least expect it.  Bossypants follows in the fashion of Fey’s screenplay for Mean Girls.  It brings attention to some ugly realities of being female, and then flips them upside down so we can laugh at them and at ourselves.  When it comes to being a lady boss, Tina demands her peers take her seriously without doing so herself.

Here are 5 things I already kind of knew but for which I found affirmation in Bossypants:

1.       “We should leave people alone about their weight,” and their looks, and their choices about childbearing and breast-feeding.   Fey asserts that social expectations for women are largely unattainable, unless you’re “Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”  So, just accept what works for you, which is sometimes skinny, and sometimes a little chubby, and sometimes not what works for the next girl.

2.       Career advancement is not an election for homecoming queen. You don’t automatically lose if another girl wins.  “People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel like you are in competition with one another… Don't be fooled. You're not in competition with other women. You're in competition with everyone.”

3.       “Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.”  If Tina Fey cried every time someone told her women just aren’t funny or that she is an overrated troll, she wouldn’t have the time to be the Emmy award-winning, money-making BOSS that she is. 

4.       Going home for Christmas is a good way to stay down-to-earth.  Fey and her family make an annual pilgrimage from Philadelphia to Youngstown every year.  They have a sweet Christmas, complete with a senile, chain-smoking Mamaw, and “hugs and kisses and pies and soup and ham and biscuits…”

5.       Age is nothing but a number. Turning 40 (or 25, or 30) is only enormous if you allow it to be.  What turning 40 means to Tina Fey:  “I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn’t used to have to do that. But now I do. “
 

Oh, and, although you may never find yourself in this position, in case you do, “…when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f***ing life."

For the Love of Words: Getting Real

I have a very difficult confession to make. I have been a fraud. I am a writer who doesn't write. I'm pretty good at it. I'm passionate about it. I have blueprinted my future on the foundation of writing. I largely associate my identity with it. I've done it all my life. 

I write important emails for my boyfriend. I am one of the few people in my generation who still sends hand-written cards to friends and family. I do a few guest posts on friends' blogs here and there. I even get paid to write at my 9-5. 

But somewhere in the past year, I stopped writing about what counts, when it counts. I got busy. I didn't have anything important [enough] to say. I had writer's block. I was using all my creativity during the work day. When friends asked how my writing was going, how that book is coming along, I'd say "I'm working on it. It's going. I just need to make more time."  And then I didn't.

And I have felt the big, empty hole left behind for months and months now. Then I felt that I couldn't possibly write anything good anymore because I have allowed my hands and my right brain to atrophy. It was too late.

 Then I started seeing little messages like this blog post by Seth Godin: 

" Writer's block isn't hard to cure.

Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better."

And this one, by one of my writerly friends whom I very much admire:

"I'm afraid of using a bunch of words to say nothing. Or using a bunch of words to say what's already been said. So, sometimes, I really do just say nothing. Is that writerly? I wonder."  

To which my answer is YES.

So...this blog is making a comeback. And I am about to get real.

 “It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.”
―Robert Hass

News to me: Books

We all know by now that I love a good book. Heck, I even love a decent book. I even find some empathy for a bad one, simply because it tried.

Here are a few things I'm excited about in the world of books:

Illustrator Jillian Tamaki has teamed up with Penguin Books to release a new book series this fall which will feature these lovely embroidered covers. I've always known that I will collect books for my children when I have them, and what a treat these would be.

Shel Silverstein was one of my favorite writers as a kid, and still one of my all-time favorite poets. His poetry collections are the epitome of fun and whimsy with words. The LA Times recently announced that a collection of posthumous poems will be released by HarperCollins this fall.

I have gotten hooked on Good Reads.  It is essentially a social network for nerdy bookworms like yours truly.  You can let friends know what books you are currently reading, review books you've already read, create a to-read list, and exchange suggestions with your friends. When you finish a book, you can also take fun trivia quizzes or list your book in the book swap so you can trade it for something new!

What do you think about the new Penguin Threads Deluxe Classics? Do you put any thought into what your books look like?

Did you grow up on Shel Silverstein? What other books/authors remind you of your childhood? I want to hear from you!