Vacation Interrupted - A Writers at Work Assignment

Once a month, I attend Writers at Work (W@W). W@W is a place for writers, both published and unpublished, to write, learn, critique, and just have plain fun with one another. It is really a great group of people, led by an amazingly talented woman, and I feel blessed to be a part of it. For the first time since I moved to da 'burgh ten years ago, I have found my people or as we in W@W say, my tribe. Each month, we meet at a local library and we're given an assignment to work on until the following month. While I generally am not fond of the assignments, they really make one write outside of the box.

A couple of months ago, the library asked if we would have an evening of readings for patrons and their children. It was held on Thursday evening and we each read something we wrote as part of a W@W assignment. Since most of the work I've done for the group contains a lot of cuss words, I really had to comb through my files to find one that would be appropriate for children. For the July 2012 assignment, I wrote a story titled Vacation Interrupted. The story had the following requirements: 

"The assignment for next time is to write a story, poem or article including the following:

animal:  meerkat

clothing:  T-shirt

activity:  walking

weather:  balmy weather

location:  Kenya, Africa

situation:  an interrupted vacation

750 word limit"

So here is what I wrote:

Walking along the moonlit path between quaint cottages, I am overcome with a deep sense of gratitude. On all sides surrounding me are the most unique and colorful flowers, and various trees in more shades of green than I knew existed. Through deep reds, brilliant blues, bright yellows, and majestic purples, I meander speechlessly. Grand thoughts (too much to bear) flow through my soul and  I breathe in the balmy Kenyan air with a peaceful sigh. It is here at the Sopa Lodge I return to every year. It is only here that I can refresh from my chaotic life. Being here … completes me.

To be in this land that is still just as God created it is to bring me closer to Him. My heart stays behind each year when I leave, but while I am here, I am renewed as I spend my days in the safari wilds and spend my evenings as I am now, in quiet, joyful solitude.

"Well, hello there, pretty lady," a southern, United States voice frightens me out of my reverie. I turn to see a man wearing a stained T-shirt displaying a picture of a meerkat on it. It reads "Meerkat Manor" in giant letters.

Trying not to encourage him, I merely nod and continue along my way, but it is not to be.

"Where you from, Miss?" He has now turned and is following in my direction.

Quite irritated, I reply, "Noh Ahn-gles." My hope is that he would assume I was not an American and that he would leave me alone.

To my great relief, he tipped his head and replied, "Well, good evenin' then," and turned around to head back to wherever he came from.

Though I was alone again, the annoying southerner has somehow managed to ruin my peace of mind. No longer feeling the calm of a few moments before, I decide to head back to my cozy cottage for a glass of red wine before calling it a night.

The next morning, as is customary at the Sopa, I am taken to my assigned table for breakfast. I wait patiently for a server to take my drink order before getting up to partake of the delectable breakfast buffet. As I wait, I smile and reminisce of my first morning here when I had woken up early in desperate need of coffee. There was none to be found, not in my room, not in the lobby. I showered and got ready quickly, my body rebelling over doing these things without caffeine to jolt it awake. Having settled in the dining room, I was ready to jump out of my skin waiting for that first cup that took 20 minutes to get to me. In Africa, they are in no hurry. They live a leisurely life and have no concern for the caffeine addictions of Americans.

Still smiling, excited for a full day of safari, I stand as the waiter approaches, readying myself for the buffet line. "Jambo! May I please have a pot of chai?" I ask my waiter.

"Well, ain't this somethin’?" the Southern drawl asks. "No habla unglase, hu?" I turn to see the southerner, who has been sat at the table next to mine. Not only do I feel embarrassed to have been caught in a lie, but it is clear to me that this will be a vacation interrupted time and time again.

What to Write When Your Brain Is Highjacked?

NOTE (written after I posted the below verbiage): Being technologically challenged, I can't figure out why this blog, when posted, has 2-3 spaces between each paragraph when my editing page has no paragraph spacing and is spaced just as the previous post was spaced. I have OCD and this is driving me nuts!


I realized today that the reason I don't blog is because of my health situation. I'm not choosing not to blog because of it. Rather, certain health conditions frequently highjack my brain and writing something that might actually mean something to someone else just hasn't been possible (there are days I'm lucky I remember my name). However, I really want to make a habit of blogging, kind of like the bible study my church is doing, 91 Weeks with Jesus (a.k.a. Know the Word). For approximately twenty minutes a day, five days a week, you read portions of the Bible and listen to audio commentary on it. About 1,000 people at my church are doing the study together and there has been something really powerful about it. For most of the 19 weeks that we've been doing the study, I have kept up. It's the only routine in my life that I've been able to maintain week after week. Okay, 91 Weeks and morning coffee.


So what can I handle as far as blogging is concerned? I haven't been able to blog about health and nutrition because the research requires too much ... well, thinking. I haven't been able to interview people and write about it for the senior newsletter I report for because again, that requires a creativity and intellect that slips in and out whenever if feels instead of whenever I would like it to. I haven't been able to blog any book reviews because I've struggled for almost a year now with getting my beloved books even read. So sad.


Random thoughts. Random thoughts are about all I can handle right now. Random thoughts float around my head like garbage floats around on the waves of the beaches of Virginia. Non-stop floating. Day and night the disorganized thoughts in my head tease me as they come and go and meander in and out of my head. "Look at me," they shout before disappearing behind the murky clouds that fill the Pittsburgh skies day after day after day.


But writing is the thing I enjoy the most next to studying the cultural history and Christian theology found in the Holy Bible. My idea is to blog random thoughts when I have them and if, by chance, I wrest control of my brain out of the hands of chronic illness, then I will blog something intellectual.


Stay tuned!

Recommendations for the Road

It has been interesting, taking a journey going nowhere.  I have fought and screamed, ranted and raved, smoked a cigarette or two while camping out in my aunt's studio apartment.  We were worried about me and there was no one I could trust myself with but her.  I deactivated my Facebook account and praised God many drunken evenings for doing so!!  Tried changing my phone number even, but work and house-hunters have kept me too busy to make it to Verizon.  Instead, it's been turned off most days.

I don't know if I would recommend this to anyone.  Let's face it (or let me face it, admit it): some day I would like to marry and have baby-Raes running around (or baby-whomever is strong enough to marry me).  Yes, love and babies, but ain't gunna happen if I don't let a man in (into my heart, gutters-heads!).  So, I've had to go inside my heart all by myself and IT IS PAINFUL.  It hurts.  It's like everything you have ever felt in your life exploding at the drop of a comment, a sound, my unshed tears.  Swearing became my new language, so offensive, so automatic, and Pandora's box was opened and dumped out on my balcony.  My neighbors know a lot more about me now.

Would I recommend this?  You hate yourself until you realize you hate everyone else instead until you realize you don't hate anyone, you're just really, really hurt.  Bruised, not broken, but's it's the large, dark bruise on your calf that starts turning green.  Unlike the last time, I didn't have a big sister near to rush me to the hospital.

So, although necessary in my life to truly live, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is alone (praise God I had my aunt).  If someone does choose to take this kind of journey (and you have someone like an aunt or a therapist), here is my advice:

When in this phase of your healing, do not listen to metal no matter how much you love Quiet Riot.  I learned from experience, trust me.  I would not recommend it.

I would, however, recommend journaling.  Lots and lots of journaling (especially when your therapist seems to be out of the country every time you need her most).  No need for systems and fancy stuff.  Girlfriend, when you goin' crazy, just grab the nearest napkin and take it out on that.  I wrote some pretty ugly stuff in notebooks, but for once, the ugly stuff wasn't about me.  Yes, there were a few pages directed at the man currently holding my jewelry hostage, but I can't even be mad at him for long.  He has no clue who I am and I have no clue who he is.  I misdiagnosed us from the start, protected myself accordingly, and scared him away like I do best, before we could ever decide if we wanted to give us a chance.  Journal.

Lastly, don't try finding a safe place in someone who has never gone through the stuff you've gone through.  No matter how much they love you, they'll never get it and they'll never be able to understand the chaotic, inner roller coaster you are on.  Seriously, it can ruin a friendship.

Why blog about this?  Really, I don't know.  I believe God gave me the gift of writing for a reason, but when I've shut down all that made me vulnerable, my words couldn't get through the steel demeanors I built around me.  Without vulnerability, I couldn't write, but I'm writing again and I thank God for it.  I even found a poem I wrote forever ago about how writing has saved my life.  Maybe blogging about this is a way to remind someone else how writing can save lives.  And there's no need for me to share all the personal stuff in my notebooks.  I think a nice summary blog post will suffice.  If not, of course, you can always go talk to my neighbors!  ;-)

Am I Back Yet?

It is the day after Labor Day and my favorite time of year.  Like the leaves on the trees, I feel the season changing.  A new housemate, new test results, and a new air-rave box, I feel the solitary days of laying in bed are coming to an end.

I have missed blogging.  I've missed the sharing of blogging that journal writing doesn't provide and have realized when I couldn't bring myself to cancel this blog that I need this.  With school out, I need it even more as I'm still praying to God about His next step for me.

I've spent a lot of time alone this summer, a lot of time with God as my body has gone on hiatus from the abuse I've put it through over the last couple of years.  I've spent days in bed with weakness, fatigue, and pain being my constant companions.  No amount of eating raw has helped and as always, blood work and other tests I've been sent to do have come back negative (until recently).  The rheumatologist trying to fix me with meds and more meds, I stopped seeing her and went back to my PCP and am now on almost half the meds I was on a month or two ago.  I've also reached out to others for prayer and help and spent a lot of time reading the Word of God and journaling my thoughts and prayers to Him.

Am I healed?  Not yet, but I feel more focused and less pained.  I'm still fatigued, but not as weak.  I have a new housemate.  Her rent is free so long as she does the housekeeping for me and this is an answer to many months of prayer.  She is a blessing to me and in return, I'm able to be a blessing to her.

She moved in yesterday and Zeus doesn't know what to think.  Yes, Readers (if there are any of you left after my hiatus), I know the biggest question your inquiring minds have is wondering how Zeus has been these months.  Let's face it, he's a celebrity!  :0)

With so many aunties that come to Pittsburgh to visit us, he does not know her.  He knows Auntie Pam and Auntie Deb, he knows Auntie Dijah, he knows Auntie Des who will be staying with us later this month from Seattle, and of course, Auntie Jane, Auntie Leslie, Auntie Kelly, Aunt P...  the list goes on and on, but he doesn't know her and mom didn't run around like a crackhead scrubbing the house down like normal when we have guests so he's a little confused.  Too afraid to go to sleep because he might miss something, he sat dozing by the bedroom door instead of sleeping in his basket-bed.

I'm a little confused, too, as I keep wanting to run around and clean up after everyone. That Sicilian in me that sets the alarm off in my brain, "We have a guest!"  I had to stop myself from doing dishes this morning and praise God she was leaving as I got up because I really wanted to feed her breakfast... And even though I didn't scrub the house down, I did overdo it cleaning before she arrived... and, well, cleaning most of the weekend.  I mean, I had to scrub the toilets and you would've, too.  I couldn't let her move in with them dirty.  And I had to wash towels and blankets, change the sheets in the spare room, clean out the fridge... there are just some habits that never go away.  I pulled something or activated something and my back hurt so bad yesterday I had to pop muscle relaxers and pull out the lumbar machine again.  I hope I can get through a day of work before dying of pain.  As long as I sit at my desk without moving, I think I'll be okay.

Anyway, I think I'm back blogging, at least for now.

I've Discovered My Platform

I'm reading Your Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins.  I've follow his writing blog for a little while now and LOVE it!  He's so simply - to the point.  Anyway, as a creative person, I love too many things and haven't been able to figure out my platform, my product. 

I love books, love reading and tried the book review blogging, but find that that just isn't my thing.  I discovered that after graduation when I noticed a pile of read books waiting to be written about.  The pleasure of finishing a good book was diminished as that pile waiting to be written about seemed too much like homework.  So no, not my thing.

Then there's this blog, my personal blog.  It, too, isn't my thing.  Some thoughts just aren't meant to be shared and I'm replacing this blog with Penzu.  I'm not cancelling this blog because I do want to focus on my writing and editing services, but there won't be much activity on here, at least not for awhile.  I'm trying to find a good domain name to begin offering my writing and editing services, but my name is taken so it's been a challenge.  I trust that it'll come to me, though, because I believe God gave me this gift and that He's got plans for me to use it.

The most prevalent of interests has been health and nutrition and how the Bible is filled with Scriptures about God's desire for us to be healthy.  The more I read and study, the more convinced I am that it is no consequence that I was asked to take over the health and nutrition blog writing for my church.  The more I read and study, the more convicted I am that Christians (myself included) need help to live healthier lives. 

Just for the heck of it, I searched the domain name healthyforchrist.com and discovered it was still available!  Say what?!  I really couldn't believe it was still available and only paused for about two seconds before I purchased it.  Several years ago, I had an idea for a health and nutrition website, but with school, I ended up letting it go.  I haven't kept my nutrition certification up to date and haven't maintained a healthy lifestyle myself, so that website idea was forgotten about... until recently.  Now, as the proud owner of http://www.healthyforchrist.com/, I have found my platform.  I hope to create a website that will help people to live healthy lives for Christ.  This will include mind, body, and spirit as 1 Thessalonians 5:23 reads.  For now, it's just a web page with links to my health and nutrition blogs, but keep checking back, and please follow along so that you, too, can be Healthy for Christ.

Quote for Creatives

This blog started out as somewhat encouraging to those who read it.  It seems like I have since been using this as a forum to complain, which is so not what I want this to be.  I blame the Prednisone, haha!  Legal crack, remember?  It's as bad as drunk-dialing!

Anyway, I thought with school ending that I would write more.  That really hasn't been the case, so then I just post whatever craziness is in my head because I am clueless as to what I want to write about.  Totally clueless, but I came across this quote I just love.  Those of you who are writers (or creative for that matter) will love it, too:

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories - science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

~ Ray Bradbury

Nuff said.

My Hiatus from Thinking

It's been forever since I've posted.  My book review blog Beloved Books isn't any more active.  As much as I think about blogging and writing, I've been on hiatus from anything requiring me to actually use my brain.  I graduated on May 5th with a 3.87 GPA from Geneva College with a BS in Community Ministry.  For those of you non-Christians, it's kind of like Social Work for Christians.  :0)

Anyway, working full-time and taking classes part-time for the last 5 years took its toll on me and I have done a whole lot of nothing since graduation.  I've watched a ton of Netflix on my new Nook tablet, played tons of video games on my Android, and have managed to finish reading a couple of books (that I haven't blogged about because that requires thinking...).  Zeus is happy mom is home so much, although he has been caught giving the evil eye to my electronic devices.  When he isn't glaring at them, he's trying to lay on them or knock them out of my hand with his nose. 

It has all been perfect timing, however, because I've been up to my ears in summer staff hiring paperwork.  I think we've had about 50 new hires come on in the last month.  My title at work finally got changed from "Support Coordinator" which only managed to confuse people to "Human Resource Generalist."  I had to find a title that would include the many other projects passed on to me because HR is only a piece of my job (although a very large piece!).  So I have had to think since graduation, but anyone who works with me can probably tell I'm on this brain/thinking hiatus.  Normally the one who knows everything, follows up with everyone, and gets back to people right away, I am living in a fog.  People are actually having to follow up with me, which of course makes me feel like a big slacker.

I have kept up with my Healthy for Christ blog.  That also requires me to think because I'm usually researching whatever I write about for the week. 

Speaking of writing, I started attending a writing group that I'm SOOO excited about!  These people are
A.) Writers!  and
B.) Working writers! 
People that are actually published and continually working on getting published.  Like, some of them have even gotten paid and stuff (no joke)!  In Virginia, I wrote almost daily and hung out with writers, active writers, and it was really good for my flow, you know?  With school over, I needed something like that here.  I was apprehensive to find a writing group because let's face it: there are A LOT of weirdos out there that call themselves writers, but I am happy to say I love this group.  Making writing part of my daily life again is one of my goals for this summer. 

My other goal is to just focus on getting healthy again.  I really need to eat better and take better care of my body.  I am being treated for rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, but I claim neither of these diseases.  I'm in week two of a class called "Treasures of Healthy Living" and I couldn't be more excited about it.  This class is taking us through Scripture to show you how God wants us to be healthy.  He designed us to be healthy, He calls us to be healthy, and He has given us all the tools we need on this earth to be healthy.  The Bible is our instruction manual for being healthy, but as Christians, we never look at it that way.  So, I know I will learn a lot through this course and think I want to teach it next semester.  We'll see how it goes.  By Labor Day, I want to be off of at least 4 of the 7 prescriptions I take on a daily basis.  I want to get healthy again, and as I slowly come out of my brain/thinking hiatus, I hope to be writing about my health in the months to come.  :0)

Keep On Writing!

I have thought about this blog more times than I can count.  To actually write a blog (let alone go public with it) has been a great feat for me because although I love to write, I haven't really written in years.  When I left Virginia, a place I grew to love, a place I grew period, I became so disconnected with myself and life that words that once flowed ceased.  The things I did write were so forced, so redundant.  The stuff I was writing was just plain awful until I quit writing altogether.  I spent my time instead working, working, relocating, working, relocating again, working... There was nothing left in my heart to write about.

During those years, I often longed to write again.  I can't explain the pure joy of putting words on paper, especially when they just fly from my pen.  When I am in the flow of words, there's no place else I'd rather be.  Even today, I can read stuff I wrote ten years ago and get a happy feeling.  I believe it has something to do with releasing all the thoughts, feelings and emotions that verbally I cannot express.  Writing has transformed my life in so many ways.  It stirs me cognitively (is that a word?) and I can think clearer in all areas of my life.  It gives me energy to accomplish great things and mundane things.  I feel connected with not only who I am, but with the Holy Spirit who guides my pen.  My life is just more satisfying to me when I am writing.
So why in heavens have I not written on this blog in so long?!  Like I said, I think about it every day and wish I were writing something, anything.  In fairness, I am writing a nutrition and health blog for my church, but I hope in the future daily grind of my life, I remember what I just wrote above and choose to keep up with this more personal blog.  Stay tuned!!

The Beginning

I start this blog in mourning. But though I have lost many loved ones, it is not them I mourn these days. I mourn the childhood of three little girls. For these precious girls, I mourn not only the childhood they lost, but the rich and abundant life they should have had in their adulthood. I know with every fiber of my being that God has been and continues to turn this horror (for abuse of a child is absolutely horrific) into something greater than I ever could imagine. For though I rarely trust anyone enough to open my heart, I mentor young girls in the foster system with no hesitation. For them, my heart is open before I even meet them. With them, I discover a love that I never had. Each of these girls takes a piece of my heart and soul without even knowing it and were it possible, I would open my home to all of them. 

God has placed in me a passion and a burden for these girls that I spent the early part of my adult life running from. I didn't want anything to do with the abusive life I and my older sisters were subjected to. I didn't want to face the anger and the pain that were buried so deep in me, disconnecting me from the woman God intended me to be. Not knowing my Savior, Jesus, I sought healing and redemption in all the wrong places. A student of life, I read every new age, self-help book I could get my hands on. If peace and happiness were offered, I absorbed it with profound desperation to free myself from the misery I ran from. I majored in Psychology to understand myself (and others). I investigated religion after religion (but never Christianity) hoping I would find the peace I sought.

I hated God, blaming Him for the wretched life I lived, the intense self-hatred that consumed me, but He loved me still and pursued my heart while I cursed His. One day, I felt His presence so strongly I could no longer deny Him. I began seeking Him and found the love I sought my lifelong. I found Jesus. 

Within months of giving my life to Him who gave His life for me, my passion and burden for these girls was revealed. While many things have inspired me and inflamed me only to burn out quickly, this has stayed, growing stronger and stronger with each seminar I attend, each book I read, and each girl I mentor. I have found my life's purpose. 

Through the ashes of my childhood, I have found the thing I was created for. I ask you, if you have not figured out God's purpose for your life, what are you running from? Is there a pain so great in you that you are consumed by it? If so, I wonder, is it perhaps the thing you have been created for?

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, 

who have been called according to his purpose."  

Romans 8:28