a tale to tell.

There is this woman inside me, and she has a story to tell.  i always thought that the book i would write would be my story, but the truth of the matter is that i’ve been trying to write that story for months now and it has been too difficult a task.

But there is another, and  she won’t leave me alone.  i think about her all the time and as the last week has gone by, she’s infiltrated her journey into my everyday thoughts, her story building and growing.

And then suddenly you realize this is the story you’ve been waiting to tell.

I don’t want to write a novel.  i have no interest in checking the latest books out of the library on how to write a best-seller.  i don’t want to push myself against the challenge of a 30 day novel or of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  right now i don’t want to explore plot and character points and editing.

Right now i just need to tell this story.

So begins her journey, and mine.  a step the two of us will take together.  we have different stories, but share a kindredness. i don’t know yet where along the way her story will end, but i know that it starts in a place of sorrow and grows.  and i hope that i can do right by her.  that somewhere along the way we will both find hope and healing and most importantly of all, our voices.

Who Am I?

{i think we should write these all the time, not just in elementary school}

 

I am a sister and friend.  My Mom would call me a daughter, but my aunts and uncles would call me a neice.  To my sister I’m a older sister, but in school I’m a student.  I am a grandaughter and a great-grandaughter.  Also I am the cousin of twelve other cousins.  I am very serious about my musician part in life.

My friends would tell me I am funny and friendly.  My Mom would say I’m pretty and sometimes worrisome.  My teacher would say I’m smart.  To me I’m a singer and a animal-holic.  My dad would say I’m creative.

Here are things I like.  I love burgers and books.  Some people know my favrite colors lime green and hot pink.  I like playing outside and flowers.  In winter I like sledding but in summer I like to swim. I like skirts all kinds of them.  I like to do make up and hair.  I love snow.  I like cool stickers and dill pickles.

–by Emily Istvan, the last stages of age nine.

 

**********     **********     **********     **********     **********     **********

 

I am a sister and a friend.  My mother would call me a daughter who is almost a clone.  My aunts and uncles would call me a niece.  To my sister and brother I am an older sister.  I am an aunt lost in translation.  I was and would even now be a poor student.  I used to be a wife.  I am not any longer.  I may call myself that again, but that is hard to realize.  I am a grandaughter and for a period of time a great-grandaughter.  I live in the place of my great-grandparents.  I am the cousin of seven, two of my aunts have kitties instead.  I am very serious about the photography part of my life.

My friends would tell me I am strong and a mindful mother.  My mother would say I am courageous and sometimes prone to worry.  My boss would say I am friendly and persuasive, he would say I draw people in.  My boyfriend would tell me I am the love of his life.  To me I’m a writer and a mother.  Also, I think I’m pretty empathetic.  My Dad would say I am impatient and quick to fly off the handle.

Here are some things I like.  I love pasta and a nice glass of wine.  I love getting lost in a really good book.  Some people know my favorite colors are blue and green, the colors of the earth.  I like being outside.  I love trees, but kill flowers.  In winter I like staying inside wrapped up in blankets with hot tea and chocolate chip cookies.  In summer I like to be among the trees.  I like skirts and prefer tank tops. I wear little to no makeup and it requires a lot of time to do my hair.  I like art and really sweet but sappy independent movies.  I love olives, I always have.

–by Jennifer Istvan, ten days short of turning 39.

time, time, time

i’ve been doing all my writing at night.  and i’m tired.  it’s been keeping me up too late, but it’s the time i seem to really settle into it and get a chance to pound the words out.  some of my best words tie together at night.  bed, laptop, music, quiet, and away we go.  i still haven’t settled on a project.  again with the stick your toes in the water but don’t dive right in kind of thing.  i have a lot of people telling me TO write.  I want you to write, they say.

i write here….often, but not often enough.  i write emails to send to Colorado at 2:30 a.m. when it’s dark and i’m lonely and unsure of how we are going to make it all work.  those emails usually contain those great big bomb words i don’t want my mother to read.  Like, *&#* this is so hard, i miss you.  i’ve started a few stories, lacking in faith to put them together.  i’ve written a handful of poems.  then just when i think about it, i find myself back at the editor focused on the photos.

never enough time is there?  i want to write.  i want to take more photos.  i want to make a new quilt.  i want to learn to sew a skirt.  i want to start a new Etsy store. i want to clean out my basement.

all in good time.

i’ll keep writing.  maybe one day it will all come together.

no pressure.

one word at a time.

 

 

This year I am vowing to take things a little slower.  ”slow” doesn’t seem to apply usually here unless you want to count trying to get Emily ready for school, that girl just works at her own pace.  But this year (among other things) I want to take things a bit at a time.

*****

when i am cooking dinner, i want to be just cooking dinner.

when i am reading bedtime stories, i want to be just reading bedtime stories.

when i make my evening call, i want to already be in bed, to turn off the light.

*****

I’ve been intent the last couple years on setting so many goals for myself which has been good, but this year my goals for myself are falling into three simple little categories which I’m not  going to elaborate on here because they are that self-explanatory and that low-stress.  I know without a shadow of a doubt I can accomplish these three things.

live. laugh. love.

 

There are other things I want to do too.  I want to work on my photographs more.  I want to write more.  I want to spend more time here online, but they are not the essentials.  These things are the essentials.  So when I go missing here for brief periods of time which I am hoping will not happen but somehow always does, know that I am busy on my list….living, laughing, loving.

I have worked so hard.  On myself and on my life.  Now I want to reap the benefits of the hard physical and emotional work I’ve done.  I’ve reached  another great goal and another favorite word of mine:

acceptance

This was the word I chose for my first self-portrait of 2011.  This was the word I chose when Shutter Sisters posted their One Word Project for this month, the first of 2011.  This is the word I think will finally define me this year and this was the word that made my dream come true landing a photo of my own on the Shutter Sisters site, a goal I’d been harboring for awhile and finally put out on “the list” last fall.

With three of my Mondo Beyondo dreams having found their way to me since September when  I posted them, I have found  it is best when I just allow them to reside here with me and find their own way to fruition.  They seem to do this best when I  let go of the controls and do another three words:

be. do. believe.

I will take this year one day at a time.  I will work on my photographs, one photo at a time and I will take all these beautiful words that have come into my life and I will write them, one word at a time, documenting this life I’ve been lucky enough to sculpt out of what I never thought was possible.

Onward and Upward.

I need to decide what to write.  I keep writing dribs and drabs here and there.  On the laptop.  On this computer, in a half a dozen random notebooks.  I have a memo I wrote on my cell phone in the morning when there was no paper handy. I send an email with writing in it every day Monday-Friday to my writing buddy.  I’ve always written best in short bursts.  Phrases, poems, little bits, but I want to collect them up, make some sense of them

I have pointed next year, 2011, as my year to focus on my writing and photography.

So far my unplanned, five-year plan could be summed up this way:

2007:  Cry, cry again, cry some more.  Feel sad and helpless, then go cry again.

2008:  Get the hell out of the marriage.

2009:  Recover from the divorce.  Get healthy and whole mentally.

2010:  Discover who I am.  Clean out house.  Lose 30 pounds.

So that’s it.  2011 will be the year of putting into action the things I identified this year that I feel driven and passionate about.

 

But I need organization.  I NEED organization, otherwise, I’ll continue to float around here all willy-nilly.  I would love to profess to be organized and I try.  I have calendars and lists, and spots for things, but really, when it comes down to it  “willy-nilly” may as well be my  middle name.  Because instead of doing those things on the calendar and the lists, I’m sitting here doing this AND it’s 8:26 p.m. AND I haven’t eaten AND I will end up staying up WAY TOO LATE again.

So….to organize.  My life seems to be on a pretty good trajectory right now.  There are still a few unknowns.  Oh hell, there’s a lot of big unknowns, so I need a guide, a map of sorts.   I did a VERY GOOD JOB (insert gold star here) of identifying what I wanted in my life this year, and surprisingly a lot of things have fallen into place.  Now I need to walk further down the path.

I think more than anything this year what I learned most was about loving myself, being grateful for what I have and not being afraid to reach for what I want.

I think next year.  I’m just going to stay focused on documenting it.

 

 

Priorities

Here lie my two most important.  I know I have been gone from this space longer than usual.  I know I have been away from Little Bits for even longer.  I’m dreadfully sorry it’s been even longer since I made real blog rounds.  This past week I’ve been sorting out priorities.  It seems you only get so much time in a day (bummer, most days really) and I have tried what is a novel idea of doing the things that should be done prior to the little extras which means more time here in the real world.

My girls and I had a kick-ass night last night.  I mean one of those nights where you laugh so hard at dinner your daughter has to spit out her food so she doesn’t choke.  We have re-introduced the bedtime story, every drawer and cabinet in my kitchen was purged and organized last weekend, the animals bins have been emptied daily and the house looks less like a tornado has just blown through.

I started writing on the weekends, real writing that comes from my soul.  Writing that makes me proud.  I found a writing partner across the ocean and today we sent our first bits of writing off to each other.  When I get done here I will draft off Day 2 to send her tomorrow a.m.

I started 30 days of gratitude on Flickr.  Every day, a photo and a message of something I am grateful for.  I thought it would be fun. It ended up being something more for me.  It reminded me that I need to slow down and appreciate the fantastic things I have around me on a daily basis while they are here.  It reminded me that first and foremost I have to blog, I have to write, I have to photograph for me.

There is a limited amount of time, both in the day-to-day and during this lifetime so I have chosen carefully what I want to focus on.  I want to go out to dinner each month with my adult girls and drink wine and eat good food and laugh in a way I cannot do here at home.  I want to spend more nights wrapped up in a blanket with my little girls or out daring them to push themselves. I want to finally finish making this home the simple nest I’ve been envisioning now for two years. I want to go ahead and lay casually in bed and talk on the phone late at night like a teenage girl and find a new form for an old relationship.  I want to explore my writing and my photography in a way that does not elicit pressure.

I am remaining committed to this blog because it is as much home to me as everything else in my life.  I am putting Little Bits on the backburner because as much as I like it, I don’t love it enough.  I organized my blogroll so that when I have the time I can find  my friends and the places that provide  inspiration easily.

And that’s the whole of what I’ve been doing.

A Poem.

I have written four today, here in the  quiet of the house, but Emily wrote this one, last night and took it with her to school.

Veterans

Veterans are people who fought in the war.

Veterans are heroic and brave.

They might lose their hearing or get an injury.

My Grandpa is a veteran.

He lost almost all of his hearing.

We should respect our veterans everyday.

Even when it’s not Veteran’s Day.

 

Emily, Grade Four.

Living

“…the reason i write is because it chronicles my life, it’s always been the best souvenir i’ve ever had.  it’s always been my therapy.  it’s always been how i work out problems and enjoy the realizations and savor every moment, the highs and lows….”

the master of my favorite quotes, Mr. Jason Mraz.

I guess I haven’t fully been back to the blog world yet.  I’ve been doing a lot of growing here lately.  A lot of living. A lot of being one with myself.  I dare say I may begin to come off cocky or arrogant, I’m that full of myself.

Regardless of my absence here I am doing the things that I love, writing and snapping the pho-tos.  I started a journal.  Not a dear diary kind of thing, but a small pretty notebook to write down the random thoughts that seem to go floating in and out of my head on a daily basis.   I’ve also been trying to sit down and work on editing a photo or two every night, so watch for Flickr to start filling up.  This is a poppy in my grandmother’s yard from a bug’s eye view.

I found I didn’t much miss the AMOUNT of time I spent stuck to this chair, but it is important for me to keep writing because I read the blog back to the beginning while I was off and am amazed at the way my life has shaped out.

I’m pretty amazed at everything right now.  The sky, the trees, the birds, the clouds, my mom, my grandparents, good friends, the deliciousness of a ripe strawberry, the way my body feels  at about minute 40 of a good workout, the things that come out of my girl’s mouths, how a cup of tea and chocolate can make everything alright at the end of the day, and more specifically the way words can flow right out of my soul through my fingertips.

Life is good.

On Blogging

Sometimes realizations sneak up on you.  Sometimes they just sit there silently brewing until you are ready and then say, “uh-huh, I knew eventually you would get it“.

my head fills up easily with dreams.  it always has. “could I have been…” as Dave Matthews would sing.  i can too easily place myself into some other person’s shoes or situation and imagine myself there.  which is how i easily make friends. which is why sometimes it is difficult for my brain to wrap itself around the blogosphere.  so many wonderful people, doing so many wonderful things.

i almost gave up blogging a couple of weeks ago.  not out loud or anything.  just a thought in my head that i might be too busy. my blog reading unfortunately has dropped off.  i asked a friend, a fellow blogger, if i should feel guilty about not making the rounds as often. “absolutely not” she said, “you and your family come first“.  she is so wise even when she doesn’t know it.

but i cannot stop writing.  even if no one visits.  okay, my mom will visit. probably my grandmother too.  i’ve been blogging now over two years on this and two previous blogs. this is my 524th post.  for years i scribbled the words Under The BIG blue Sky in notebooks because i liked the way it sounded.  i didn’t know how i would eventually use it.  but this seems to suit it well.

recently there was a “beautiful blogger” award from Leslie that i have still yet to follow up on.  a couple of emails from people that i am just getting to know. tina thoughtfully guest posted my dear girls post with a beautiful introduction that made me hide my head but grin.  i received a note from a dear friend in the mail that said, “please keep writing“.

i’m not sure how to take it all.  i’m just a girl.  an ordinary girl doing ordinary things.  that people would say to me that i inspire them, that my words are beautiful catches me by surprise, but thank you, all of you.  to take this life, turn it into something beautiful, it’s something we all aim to do.  i was never just sure which way to do it.

i will keep writing.  even when it’s just me, my computer and my mom. and if you don’t think that what you are writing is worth anything, keep going.  because even if you don’t know it,  it is meaning something to someone, even if that someone is just yourself.   and that is a realization worth having.

writing.

I could write probably twenty-five posts here about my love for Harry Potter.  In confession, I am probably one of the biggest Harry Potter nerds there are. I have read the books four times completely through.  I have read through the night still with book in hand when the sun comes up.  I laughed roaringly reading them, I sobbed miserably and very unbecomingly through them.  I have spent far too many hours thinking about it, listening to podcasts about it, reading the works of John Granger and Travis Prinzi who have discussed and dissected the books multiple times.

Bear with me here, because I am getting to something.  When I read Harry Potter it left a profound mark on me and this may seem a silly thing if you are a casual reader.  But when you invest yourself that  much into the characters of a book, these characters that seem so real after seven books that they feel like family,  if you sit and think about the struggle a young boy must go through from abused orphan to tortured teenager, to hero, it is quite a story indeed.  If you think about the greater themes of good versus evil, social prejudice, political corruption, and the power of love, which in the end was what the story was about: how a mother’s love was more  powerful than evil even after death, if you look at it that way then you know why these books are so important to me.

Last night I finally watched J.K. Rowling:  A Year In The Life.  It’s been a long time coming for me to watch.  I already knew her story, having heard it over and over. Her divorce, her depression, her single motherhood, her poverty, her writing in cafe’s when she had nothing else, the loss of her mother and how it impacted her books.  But this documentary which covered her as she finished that last book and took her back through her past moved me in an even bigger way.

It was quite amazing to take that journey with her.  To see how from pain and struggle came something quite amazing. To know the power there is in writing and how it can heal.  When I turned off the computer last night after watching it I lay awake for quite some time.  For weeks and weeks and weeks now I have been struggling with myself, beating myself up for not knowing myself, trying to find myself.

And then last night in the dark, it came to me.  I write.  I have written for a long, long time. Created in my head, turned words into something else on the page.  I have stacks of papers upstairs filed tidily away of the beginnings of stories, the ramblings of my emotions during tough times going way back to my freshman year of high school.  It’s what I have always done.  When times were tough, when life was too hard, I have escaped into my own imagination and for a long time I have considered that a weakness, others have considered that a weakness, a pulling away from life.

Writing is a very easy and inexpensive form of therapy, any blogger knows this.  I find it funny that I have been searching all this time and didn’t see what was right here in front of my face.  I am sitting here doing it now, I do it just about every day.  I write.  It may never, ever amount to anything, but if i do it, and I do it diligently, I might just find myself again. And that would be completely worth it. Thank you  Joanne Rowling.