Category Archives: Choices

Choices

Green-eyed Tour Guides

green-eyed-monster

Last night, I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I liked it. A lot.

Tonight, I read writer Stephen Chbosky’s bio, and wailed about all I haven’t done since his book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, was published in 1999. In Moonstruck fashion, but without the slap in the face, Suzin told me to snap out of it. “You were teaching kids! They needed you!”

I whined about the royalties I wasn’t collecting while I was teaching said kids. And then it occurred to me, I have reaped many emotional royalties: the perks of being a public school teacher for 12 years instead of a best-selling author, I guess.

A few days ago, author Jodi Angel told me, “You can’t revise what isn’t there.” Okay, she didn’t actually say it to me, but I was in the room, and it stuck like an earworm. But in a good way, not in an It’s-a-small-world-after-all kind of way. It made me want to replace what isn’t there with something.

The green-eyed monster can be nasty and destructive, or it can point us toward where we’d like to go; it’s our job to choose the path.

Your turn: What have you learned from your green-eyed monsters?

Choices

Fame and a Life

fameI spent a little time with PhotoShop today, creating the above image to showcase Clive James’ quote. I’d write more, but I reread the quote as I placed it on the page, so I am heading out the door to have a life today.

If you are not doing something to feed your spirit, right now, then I invite you to turn off your computer and find something that will.

Choices, Resistance

Shhh… Somebody Might Hear You

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shhhFor as long as I can remember, people have told me that I am a talented singer and a gifted writer. When I run into friends I haven’t seen for years, one of the first things they ask is, “Are you still singing?” If they know that I have been published, then “Are you still writing?” invariably follows.

I could say, “I’m writing excuses for not singing,” and kill two birds with one stone, but I’d be lying about the writing part. Mostly. Plus I sang the national anthem at a Super Bowl party to the appreciation of a lot of new friends who had never heard me sing—another dozen or so people who will ask, “Are you still singing?” every time we meet until the end of days.

The truth is that I love to sing. I have performed alone, in school choirs, in madrigal choirs, and in small local bands. I have sung for weddings, for memorial services, in musicals, on karaoke nights, and in the classroom, to the surprise and delight of my students.

I also love to write. Or rather, I love to have written. Poetry, short stories, articles, essays, blog posts, tweets, letters, and funny one-liners. In my early 30s, I combined my love of music and words into songwriting and created eight or nine demos over the course of about two years.

And still, I can never give a definitive, “Yes!” to either of those two questions.

I have declined some invitations to sing because I’m afraid I’ll forget the lyrics, and I have accepted others and then done just that. After Christina Aguilera’s performance at the actual Super Bowl, my new fans included, “And you even remembered the words!” in their praise. Smugness is cruel: I knew exactly how Christina felt.

My fear of writing—because surely it is fear—is that I will have nothing interesting to say. I can talk a good game about how it doesn’t matter, that writing is about the process, and that I only need to write about what is interesting to me, but when it comes down to facing the blank page, I see it only as a reflection of my mind: blank. I have nothing to say right now. I will have nothing to say five minutes from now. I will NEVER have ANYTHING to say.

We can now say things like, “Our beliefs create our realities,” in public, without having people exchange knowing glances behind our backs. The idea that our attitudes and intentions affect our lives has reached our collective consciousness. That said, as I write this, I am home, sick with a cold that has stolen my voice; teaching middle school is challenging enough on days that I can speak.

Let’s revisit two of my fears and throw in one of my persistent beliefs:

“I’m afraid I’ll forget the words.”
“I have nothing interesting to say.”
“My students don’t listen to me.”

Interesting.

I credit Diane D.M. Solis for bringing me to the page today. After I read her post, Life is Always Teaching Us…Something, it occurred to me: Talking is not an option right now, but silence is a choice. If I don’t honor the still, small voice within, it will stop singing, too. And that would be tragic.

Now it’s your turn. Where are you holding back because of what someone else might think? What things do you dismiss simply because they come easily to you? And, of course: What is the one thing you would do if you knew you could not fail?

Do it anyway.

Choices

Starstruck

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starstruckI am not one to gush at celebrities. People are people, and I respect others’ right to privacy, unlike my daughter’s friend, who all but lost bladder control when David Beckham came into her workplace. That said, I am intrigued by actors, and by knowing who appeared with whom in what. It fascinates me how often I rent two movies, sometimes from different genres and filmed years apart, and see the same character actor in both. When he or she shows up on CSI: Anywhere, a day or two later, I buy a lottery ticket.

I don’t worry about the meaning of life, but I have spent many a sleepless night wondering, “What is her name?” or, “Where have I seen him before?” Not only does the Internet Movie Database prove the interconnectedness of everything; it also keeps me off Ambien.

I am hardly the first one to suggest this celluloid-channeled-coincidence. It’s been two decades since the concept of six degrees of separation—that on the average, any two people in the world are separated by six social connections—became the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Until last weekend, however, I’d never turned to IMDB to investigate any connection to my own life.

When I checked in for a writers’ retreat, I recognized a name on the list as someone I’d searched several months ago. Despite my clear memory of having looked up her name, I could neither picture her face nor remember what had prompted the search. I consulted the IMDB app on my Android. Yes, her face seemed familiar, and I have seen several of the things listed in her filmography, but nothing hinted at why I so distinctly remembered her name.

Given my celebrities-are-just-people stance, I was mortified when my response to her sitting next to me at our retreat kickoff was an overwhelming desire to gush, “You got to work with Nora Ephron!” or, “You have such a cool job!” I said neither of these things, nor did I say, “I know who you are,” because (1) see right to privacy, above, and (2) it is rude to suggest that you know who somebody is because you have seen their resume. Plus, you know that feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time and you feel like you’ve known that person forever? Right. Stalking.

She introduced herself to our group as both an actress and a published novelist, and I realized that it was not a movie that originally prompted me to search IMDB; it was the bio on her web site, where I had landed after visiting her blog, where I had landed after visiting two or three writing sites recommended by someone on Twitter, who had undoubtedly retweeted something by Kevin Bacon.

Later, she told me that her 10-year-old forbids her to wear anything with stripes when she picks her up from school and asked if she would please “not smile so big” when she runs into friends. In other words, she has a perfectly typical relationship with her daughter. When I finally confessed the I-looked-you-up-on-IMDB thing, she asked if I thought it could have been a precognition that we would meet, which led to an interesting metaphysical discussion. And yes, she felt like she knew me, too.

We shape our lives with each choice we make. The difference between waking up famous and waking up FAMOUS can be as simple as the difference between majoring in acting instead of business administration. Choose with your heart, and once in a while, give yourself permission to be starstruck.

Kudos: In 2007, Kevin Bacon created SixDegrees.org, “social networking with a social conscience,” where people can support charitable organizations. Go Kevin!