Writing Challenges

Knowing what you know now, what are the top 5 things you would tell your 16 year old self?

There are so many things I’d tell my younger self!  Things to remember, reassure, and redirect.  Life is full of teachable moments.  Here are five things I’d tell 16-year-old me.

    1. When you start working for more than school credits, save more money so you won’t have to play catch-up later. Retirement looks far away, but the years will hop, skip, and jump away from you. Whatever you decide to save with those upcoming paid jobs, you really can up the amount and save more. Wondering where you’ll find it? In your wallet when you pay for lunch at the food court 5 days a week. Drop that to one or two days and save the rest of those dollars. Trust me, it’ll add up over time.
    • Just live. Your soul mate will show up when it’s time. Be open to your meeting not looking like an animated film about princesses or mermaids. Huntee, know that love ain’t like TV or movies. Sometimes it requires warm-fuzzies, other times it requires forgiveness and grit…and maybe grits even now and again. SIDEBAR: Practice making sweet AND savory pots so good, it’ll make you want to slap yourself.
    • Speaking of slaps, let’s go from the food-related humorous figurative sayings to the really serious issue. Your already know to NEVER accept that behavior from any romantic interest. But baby, add this to your quiver of self-preservation. RUN at the first sign of emotional abuse. No one’s perfect, but if that person tries to ascribe traits to your character that don’t exist based on their insecurities, bounce. For example, if that person accuses you of cheating because your smartphone battery died, you fell asleep, and he could’t reach you, but you’ve been nothing but faithful, bounce. You’re not a counselor. I can say with authority, you won’t choose that profession, so don’t feel bad that it’s not your job to walk them through their emotional morass. Tell them (with love and kindness) to take that to a counselor… and to the Lord in prayer.
    • Let’s talk about those after school routines… the ones you hate. Hon, I know you want to be “good and grown” and make your own choices, but the need for routine will never go away. It’s the one way to make sure you keep focusing on and plugging away at your goals.
    • Adults aren’t lying when they say “This too, shall pass.” Some sayings withstand time’s tests.  This is one.  Sounds trite, but it’s true.

This is my Day 5 post for the 30 Day Writing Challenge in the Speak Write Now Community.

Writing Challenges

Why do you do what you do?

Need drives me. A need to achieve everything on Maslow’s entire hierarchy.

Work feeds my wallet so I can feed my face. Can’t recall how many times my parents reminded me of 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat” (NIV).

The thought of going without Mom’s peach cobbler or sweet potato pie (not really pressing needs) or even her stick-to-the ribs casseroles was enough to propel me to work. As an adult, I work for the same reasons. Money buys food, shelter, water to bathe and keep my living spaces clean. Those dollars also buy power to warm my home and provide a comfy place to rest, recharge and go at it again.

Yes, need drives me. But it’s not the only thing. I also work to afford as much safety as possible.

Unfortunately, that won’t provide me with another type of warmth. Psychological warmth, which isn’t the same as trying to psych myself out when I’m cold. For me, it means those intimate, reciprocal relationships that make me feel warm and fuzzy, in tune with and accepted by others. From the connection with my immediate and extended family and fiancé, to my longtime friends and other loved ones, that need for connection and to impart warm fuzzies to others drives me to pick up the phone to just say hello.

From there, I do the specific work I do because maybe one thing I write and report will cause someone to smile, to peek at or examine life through a different lens or to look at others with more compassion and kindness. Maybe it’ll cause someone to say “Hey, I never thought about it like that before.” Or “I’ve never met anyone like that before, but we seem have things in common.”

The small part I play in the universe may cause someone to consider something, anything from a different perspective. Changing the world is hardly the goal, but maybe something I write or say can cause positive ripples, change someone else’s mind, and propel them to do great things in the world. That’s the kind of change I may never know. We may never know all the lives we reach with our kind words, smiles, or our written words.

There’s also the accomplishment factor. I recall one of the proudest moments during my teen years when I edited our high school yearbook as a sophomore. It was produced and delivered on time. It had been some years since that had happened at my school. That was THE goal that year, and I did everything I could to make it happen, including staying many an afternoon after school to make sure deadlines were met. At the end of that school year, we gathered everyone in the school cafeteria to make an announcement. It was worded in such a way to gear up folks for a disappointment.

“I just wanted to tell you…(BIG PAUSE) that the yearbooks… are here.” There was another palpable pause. One of my friends let out a scream, then the room was an avalanche of cheers. That, right there? Gave me the one of the biggest senses of accomplishment. These days, I experience that in multiple small doses peppered with the opposite emotion.

These Days…
I love the feeling when I finish a writing project, be it a blog post in my spare time, a writing challenge, or something written for work. I’m driven because I love the feeling of setting a goal and meeting it, be it large or small. Doesn’t really matter if it’s writing and mailing cards to others, to shredding that pile of old mail, to washing and folding that laundry to cooking or baking something something that tastes so good, it makes me want the slap myself.

From tiny things to the more weighty matters, completing goals reaffirms the idea that I am more than capable of doing what I set my mind to do, including reaching my potential as purposeful writer and storyteller. But walking into that purposeful and confident writing starts with putting one word on one piece of paper, or typing a word into a document. Then a phrase, sentence, paragraph, and giving the mind freedom to let the story unfold. Keeping my basic needs met, those on the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs keep me going, as well as the intrinsic need to accomplish everything inside and sometimes just outside my wheelhouse of potential.

From: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg/2000px-MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg.png

Doing what I do daily is the only way “do” will transform into “done”. “Done” breeds that sense of accomplishment which motivates me to… do more.

This is my Day 3 post for the 30 Day Writing Challenge in the Speak Write Now Community.

Uncategorized, Writing Challenges

If you could change ONE THING that would make the world better, what would it be?

2 April 2017

Because any question or comment is liable to get me singing the closest related tune floating through my mind, I started singing Change the World by Eric Clapton.

Yup, “If I could change the world, I would be the sunlight in your universe.  You would think my love was really something good, baby if I could change the world.”

Then I got stuck on the love being something good.  Wouldn’t it, if there were more of it?

Here’s why my mind is stuck on love.

Both of my stories for work dealt with tragic anniversaries.  A new exhibit at Arlington National Cemetery marks the centennial of United Sates involvement in World War I.  One hundred years since 116,000 lives were claimed during the Great War from combat and disease. Those were just folks from the USA. Looking at each country, the number totals spike into the tens of millions. That’s a LOT of people.

Sunday’s second story covered the kickoff event for National Crime Victims’ Rights Week in a local county.  The whole thing made me want to go weep in the station vehicle. Nine photos were perched on concrete stairs leading to a stage in the middle of a town-center style shopping center.  Each photo represented a life cut short by criminal activity.  From the cute little boy with chubby-looking cheeks, to the 18-year-old young lady who perished in the Virginia Tech shooting nearly a decade ago, to a 22-year-old who was gunned down, and his family still doesn’t know why.

Each photo represents an unknown number of family members and friends who are left to grieve absences that will never be filled by another human being on this planet.  Ever.  Each photo possibly represents an unknown number of first responders who may never be the same after working the crime scenes where these victims died.

Where do the tragic ripples end?  I have no answer for that, but what seems certain is that somewhere, somehow, love for these victims was absent during the slivers of time it took to commit each crime.  Can’t help but think that’s a truism, whether any victim’s life is taken by a stranger, an acquaintance, spouse, lover, or parent.

It’s not up to me to hash out each case and condemn any person.  What I deduce is rooted in another song.  The world just needs more love dipped in compassion and sprinkled with patience.

If I could change one thing to make the world better, that would definitely be it.  Love.  More of it.  I’ll let it begin with me, and put it to practice the next time I want to curse out an awful driver on the Beltway.

Writing Challenges

Who inspires you?

1 APRIL 2017

There’s a reason some folks list parents among the most inspiring figures in their lives. I’m no different. My mother and father are two of the people who continually animate me in my quest to keep pursuing my goals. Whether I gather that inspiration when I speak with them or by simply reflecting on their sacrifices for their children, they consistently top that list of personal influencers who keep me trying my best. When I grow weary, their example and kind words remind me to rest awhile, regroup and get up and back to chipping away at making those goals reality.

She, as the oldest of 11 children, was the first to leave home to build a life for herself. Fresh from high school, she traveled west from California’s Imperial Valley to “the big city,” San Diego. Those years were filled with school, work, socializing and dates. She saved up and bought her first car there and ended up teaching a cool Deep South fellow, the sweetheart she met there, how to drive. Mr. Deep South Navy man eventually became her husband… and my dad. My dad would occasionally regale us with tales about olden day driving lessons, and how my mom could stretch her money as a young single woman. She was no crybaby, though. Mom was persistent and she really could (and still can) make a dollar out of 15 cents.

Mom’s inspiration is especially palpable now. With a recent cancer diagnosis, the strength she’s showed in this post-operative period has cemented her place as one of the greatest people I know. She’s a woman with a faith which, from what I can tell, has not wavered during this challenging period. Not only has she not drop kicked her God belief during the ordeal, she also shows a resolve to regain her former strength and ease back into her daily routines with the help of my siblings and my Dad.

Speaking of Daddy, his brand of inspiration got on my nerves when I was a kid. I didn’t realize his influence was taking hold way back then. See, he would leave work every weekday, some days a bit before dawn when he used the city bus to hop across town to work. He got on my nerves because if we were supposed to do chores before he got home he would always arrive too soon. Wasn’t really too soon. We were just too busy lollygagging instead of working on our tasks.

But his consistency and example during my childhood helped impress in me the importance of routine: To work, back home. To church, back home. To the grocery store to get something Mom forgot and needed for holiday meals, back home. Of course we broke the routine every now and again, but that early example left an enduring mark in my mind.

There are many more personal influencers in my life from a longtime friend from church who is battling Multiple Sclerosis, to elementary, high school and college pals who are living their dreams, and to my dear fiancé—they all inspire me to keep plugging away at my goals and developing into the best version of myself.

Viewing Pleasures

Lady Mae cans choir director, tension between cousins begins burble

First of all, Lady Mae is going after Carlton. But it’s not because he’s gay.   That doesn’t mean she’s on the right side of wrong, though.

Meanwhile, I predict some boy-related tension is about to go down between Sofia and Cousin Zora. Sofia likes this young singer at Triumph Church, and Zora’s coaching her on ways to get his attention. But when they go watch Isiah Hambrick rehearse, he bores his attention into Zora as if awkward Sofia doesn’t exist.

Continue reading Lady Mae cans choir director, tension between cousins begins burble →

Things, Viewing Pleasures

Lawd, them Greenleaves are back with tawdry church drama to boot!

At the final scene of season 1, Uncle Mac’s still a cad. And he’s fresh out of jail. Poppa Greenleaf is still struggling with his disease and trying to hide it… I think it’s Parkinson’s. But the cops come for his ass as they drop Uncle Mac off at the mansion doorstep. They warn Pastor to stick around town. Why? Because he’s accused of being complicit in the death of a church caretaker who died in a fire at an early church Bishop ran during the 1980s. Lady Mae’s father (who is also a cad we’re learning) told Grace that fire wasn’t an act of God as had been previously thought. Some Johnny struck a match but the match DIDN’T go out.

Continue reading Lawd, them Greenleaves are back with tawdry church drama to boot! →

Uncategorized

Stomping out the Rittenhouse core, Houdini’s beginnings: Timeless episode’s 10 and 11

Our time traveling trio Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus are wondering if they are hopping through years and space for the bad guys and if the good guys are actually the ones they should fear most. Talking to Garcia Flynn makes them wonder. In the meantime, Agent Christopher knows the slightest changes in the past could cause present family members to vanish as if they never were. She knows Lucy’s sister has disappeared, so Agent Christopher asks Lucy to safeguard some memories in case her family is somehow erased.

Flynn sweetens the pot to enlist Wyatt’s help.

So they end up smack dab during the American Revolutionary War days, and they cross paths with Benedict Arnold. Flynn lets Rufus, Lucy and Wyatt know Arnold is a founding member of Rittenhouse and they should want to stop him.

Flynn sweetens the pot to enlist Wyatt’s help. He offers to reveal the name of his wife’s killer.

But first, they end up finding out that the mastermind behind Rittenhouse is another man. They succeed in killing that man, who also has a young son. Lucy wanted to spare the boy’s life… But Flynn wanted to smite that child. While Lucy was advocating for the boy’s life, the lad slipped away. We don’t know where that child is… But you can bet a bottom dollar that he probably filled his dad’s shoes within Rittenhouse.

Flynn wanted to kill that boy so dead in order to squelch Rittenhouse fresh out the womb, but since Lucy stopped him, he grabbed (basically kidnapped her) and forced her to board the nice, shiny, new time machine and they disappear before Rufus’ and Wyatt’s eyes.

In episode 11, the rickety Lifeboat pops back to Mason industries. And they’re trying to figure out where the mothership is located, but it’s been all over the place.

Back at Mason, they figure out that Flynn’s been able to hop hither-thither and yon because of a battery he made with Anthony’s help using the nuclear core from several episodes ago.

The kidnapped Lucy is typing at some computer, when Flynn comes back from a journey on the mothership and tells her that he tried to go back and finish the job. That means he went looking for the son of Rittenhouse’s founder so he could smite him. But the kid was nowhere to be found, and there was no subsequent trace of him in history.

So, Flynn says instead of trying to stamp down Rittenhouse at its origins, he’s going to kill each member one by one.
So they end up at the Columbian Exposition, or Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, with Rufus and Wyatt trailing them.

One of Flynn’s guys throws them off they end up going to a hotel, a sort of Roach Motel [https://youtu.be/jKhGHxO-woc?t=29s] for humans, called Murder Castle. Some monster, who went by the alias H.H. Holmes [http://www.biography.com/people/hh-holmes-307622#the-murder-castle-is-built], killed a bunch of people in this death trap hotel. Holmes is considered one of this country’s first serial killers, claiming his victims before the term “serial killer” was commonplace.

Rufus and Flynn ended up trapped in an airtight room with another man and a woman, who is an architect who was supposed to die, but ends up influencing the world.

Harry Houdini plays into this episode. He’s at the start of his ascent to fame. If you guess his help is enlisted to maneuver around some locks and get folks out of tight spaces, you’re right.

Confirm any other guesses by watching the entire episode:

Ideas, People, The Issues--Politics

Antonio Sabato, Jr. talks politics, a possible office run, what he thinks the U.S. Needs for unity

Interview with actor, model and entrepreneur Antonio Sabato, Jr. as entertainers geared up for party at MGM National Harbor the night of the inauguration to honor the military and their charities. Sabato stopped by the WTOP studios for a chat the night before the 2017 Inauguration.

Listen to the interview:

Artists, Ideas, Music, Things, Uncategorized

Celebrating music and stories that changed America

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Museum of History and Culture opened with lots of fanfare in September.

Tonight… a two-hour star-studded show to celebrate what the museum is about. A conversation about tonight’s show with Tasha Coleman, Senior Manager of Counsel Relations and Special Initiatives at the museum.

A preview of tonight’s extravaganza

Places

Home, heart and hearth

Gallery

Home is where the heart is, so said someone somewhere. Home can be here, there or everywhere at once. Warmth is what my heart-cockles feel in those special hearthy-homey places and spaces.

For me, home conjures a desire for a warmer holiday season—specifically Christmas.

One of the things I love most about my hometown… These beautiful, lithe-looking trees.

Memories of Laker games, concerts, tennis matches and hockey…

The Forum after dark. Memories of matches–tennis, hockey, basketball games, and one time riding the bus back home from Inglewood library.  I encountered a couple of Aerosmith fans who asked for directions after getting lost on the way to the show. The year?  Likely 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_Tour

Familiar sites along the street—using utility poles to visually hawk wares and services…

From bug killers to hair stylists, to club shows (I grew up seeing TONS of Bobby Blue Bland flyers).

Chicken joints I never frequented, but recall folks in the neighborhood swearing those fried fowls were the business!

I don’t recall ever eating at Jim Dandy, but this joint along with Golden Bird and Louisiana Fried Chicken (back in the day), folks swore on the tasty-goodness of those birds.

The liquor store along a familiar street from my youth. For better or worse, booze barns speak every language in every neighborhood.

Small strip mall with stores I used to see each week on my way to church. I never paid much attention to them back then.

A memorial to local legends, the Beach Boys.

Memorial to the Beach Boys at W 119th Street near Kornblum Avenue in Hawthorne, Calif.

Their childhood home in Hawthorne, Calif. was demolished to make way for “The 105” or Glenn Anderson Freeway.  But some folks got together to to memorialize the location where they crafted some of their works. This group—one to help change the musical landscape and put everyday parts of sunny Southern California on the map in some ways. I grew up not too far from that area. Never realized how close! I literally caught a bus one block south of their home while traveling to the local Hawthorne Mall (which has since closed down).

By the time I was born, I’m sure the neighborhood’s demographics had either significantly changed, or were about to. The Beach Boys’ tunes struck my fancy as a kid after I started listening to an oldies station in our area. Their songs sounded so light and airy. Whenever I want to steal away to a carefree bubble, I put their songs on. Whenever I want to feel appreciated for being a California Girl, I play that song… even though I can’t help but wonder if, in those days, that vision of beautiful ones included young ladies who look like me.

People, Places, Things, Ideas!

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