Stories that matter…

Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author

Stories that move our hearts often stay with us for a long period of time. This week one of those kinds of stories emerged from a small community in our province about a young girl who had been shamed for wearing a traditional Indigenous ribbon skirt to a school event prior to the Christmas break. Her auntie had made this beautiful piece of clothing intended to symbolize her strength, womanhood, and her First Nations identity.

This young girl set off for school excited by the beauty of her skirt and pride in being able to wear this sacred piece of clothing. Shamed by a school employee for not wearing the right type of clothing, this child returned home defeated and confused. Her auntie used social media to share what had happened at school and to reach out to women to share the meaning and power of the ribbon skirt.

What transpired was really a movement where many Indigenous women posted and shared photographs of their own ribbon skirts from around the globe. These garments are works of art and the pride with which they are worn was evident in the photos that were shared. What mattered to me the most about this story was that the focus was not on the “shaming incident” at the school but the positive way in which so many women reached out to share their pride in their heritage and in the power of the ribbon skirt.

Listening to an interview with this girl, her enthusiasm and excitement from all of the posts her family received, it was hard not to smile and appreciate the positivity that was created. Pride in her First Nations ribbon skirt and sense of belonging with other girls and women from around the world became the message of the story.

When it was time to return to school this week, her family and members of her First Nation community organized a march back to the school all wearing their ribbon skirts or ribbon shirts. Accompanied by the performance of a drumming group and the attendance of chiefs from surrounding First Nations, this young girl returned to school with a renewed sense of pride in who she is and accompanied by the positive power of her community.

My thoughts have returned to this story many times since I heard it. Messages of positivity, forgiveness, and reconciliation were delivered with pride and a power that resonates.

Stories matter.

From Sourdough bread to six feet apart

I cannot do all the good that the world needs. But the world needs all the good that I can do.
Jane Stanfield

Photo by Monserrat Soldu00fa on Pexels.com

The end of a year is typically a time for some reflection on what is behind us and planning for celebrations as we usher in the new one. Since we can’t engage in typical New Year celebrations, many of us are spending more time than usual in reflection.

2020 seems to have been a year full of contradictions. A global pandemic that initially brought us together and then seemed to polarize and pull us apart. Countries demanding restrictions to keep everyone safe and then struggling as conflicts emerged when resistance and resentment set in. Neighbours rallying to cheer on health care workers at the end of shifts to large gatherings where protestors demonstrated against masks and science.

From sharing the best sourdough bread recipes to open defiance of public health guidelines. Where friends and family in isolation found comfort and connection in Zoom meeting rooms to phone hotlines set up so you could report anyone who violated the rules. While staying six feet apart, we learned to respect others around us in order to keep them safe to annoyance at anyone who seemed to think and behave differently than we did.

As vaccines are rolled out around the world, and lack of patience and exhaustion with our isolated world threatens to take hold, my wish for the new year is for more kindness. Kindness to everyone regardless of their point of view. Kindness to those in our lives who have managed their personal risk differently than we might have. Kindness which will be healing and help us transition into the world when this pandemic ends.

Farewell to the year 2020 – may the new year bring safety, good health, and above all, more kindness in each of our hearts.

Embrace connectivity this holiday season

Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova on Pexels.com

Remember, happiness isn’t defined by how much you spend on gifts and celebrations. It is what you do, how much you love, how caring and supportive you are, and above all your true compassion for others.
Christine Ibbotson

As this festive Christmas season envelops us, reaching out to those we care about even if we are unable to visit in person, is more important than ever this year. Embrace connectivity in whatever format, reaching out in spirit across miles, cities, streets, and even to those who live to next door to us.

This year we will celebrate the holidays in new and different ways. Traditions have had to change, and with Covid restrictions, we have the opportunity to focus less on consumerism and more on those we love by taking the time to communicate with them in many different ways.

Best wishes for a wonderful, safe, and healthy holiday season!!

Celebrations and lessons learned upon reaching a goal

You can’t hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can’t catch a fish unless you put your line in the water. You can’t reach your goals if you don’t try.
Kathy Seligman

Have you ever attempted to do something that you were certain you would not succeed at, and you did, in spite of yourself? This was where I found myself six weeks ago, musing about the fact that I had entered my name to participate in the flash fiction event, Flash Nano 2020. Even more amazing was the fact that I actually completed it. 30 prompts = 30 flash fiction stories. Whoa!!

I realize that for many writers, November is the month of National Novel writing contests and events but the flash fiction genre has captured my heart and mind for the past year so when I learned about Flash Nano, it made sense to at least try it. I must admit self-doubt almost prevented me from even signing up so upon reflection that is likely the first lesson that I need to pay the most attention to. It is all too easy to talk yourself out of things rather than into them.

Once that negative self talk is corralled, then we need to battle with procrastination and inertia. There are likely many great reasons why we don’t accomplish certain things but there are equally as many that speak to us about why we should. Pushing through procrastination is really about pushing past our fears. For this event, I had no one but myself to account to. I did mention I was doing this writing practice to my writer’s group but they would have all understood and likely been supportive if I had come up with some credible excuse as to why I decided not to follow through.

But the lesson of moving forward despite that fear, has value that carries over to other areas of our lives as well. This was an activity that I chose partially in an effort to try to incorporate discipline into my writing life, to learn to push barriers aside, and to learn the craft of the genre that I am writing in. Writer’s are solitary creatures but when we gather there is often a shared sense of connection. That’s why we gather, right.

Satisfaction. Personal accomplishment. Goal achievement. All these outcomes from this particular activity also served as teachings, lessons learned, and opportunity to develop confidence to push forward. An opportunity to create, to write, to reflect, to engage with other writers. It was truly win win. When we decide to set out to achieve something, there is tremendous value in seeing a project through to the end. And if you can do it once, then I am convinced that the next time will be just a little bit easier.

Now I just need to figure out what is going to be next…Take a moment to celebrate all of the goals you meet regardless of how big or small. We all deserve that quiet moment to reflect on our accomplishments and to experience the joy of completion.

Stay healthy and safe!

We’re not quite there yet…

If we lose love and respect for each other, this is how we finally die
Maya Angelou

Watching the news last evening my heart skipped a couple of beats as I watched the first woman in the United Kingdom become the first recipient of the vaccine for Covid-19. That is until, the next stories aired, which were about anti-mask demonstrations in my province, seniors dying in nursing homes, and the usual nonsense from the outgoing President of the United States who continues to wreak havoc.

So how do we get through the next number of months until most of the globe receives the vaccine? Surveys indicate that a sizeable portion of our population will not participate in this process and that larger numbers of people in our community will fall ill before those who want the opportunity to become immune to this virus actually have a chance to do so. How does this level of dissonance play out?

What are the chances I wonder, that people will begin to respect each other long enough to reach the finish line in this global race that we are in together? My fervent hopes are that reason and rationale will be restored, misinformation will disappear from social media and other sources, and that for what is likely only several months of next year, we will once again pull together by staying apart to keep each other safe.

Stay healthy and well!!

Creativity: Getting tiny sparks to burst into flame

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.
Elizabeth Gilbert

Doubt. Negative self-talk. Despair. We have all likely experienced those moments when we are certain that our creative wells have run dry and that we have no more words to offer up to the world. When we are beset by those times sometimes referred to as writer’s block, how do we regain those sparks of creativity and find the kindling needed to encourage them to burst into full flame?

Last month, I attempted and (actually!) finished a writing event during National Novel Writing month. Flash Nano, an event created by Nancy Stohlman who asked participants to sign up to receive a writing prompt every day and to then write a story of up to a thousand words. Each morning last month, I found myself trying to bend my mind around some unusual ideas, very quirky prompts, and then proceed to create a piece of flash fiction.

I must admit that as the month progressed, I actually eagerly looked forward to what that morning email would bring. And although it’s wonderful to now have a file folder with thirty flash fiction stories, some of which I will definitely invent the time to edit and polish while others will linger in that folder forever, my biggest takeaway was learning more about creativity. Specifically, how I became attuned to the role creativity plays in my writing life.

This was a private experience for me, I did not post my stories to social media sites, or share them with others. It was instead a journey down a path that led to internal examination and discovery. Each morning I found myself considering many divergent ways in which to approach a story based on prompts that sometimes didn’t even make sense to me. This creative discovery process was something I have never fully appreciated or spent much time in reflection about it.

Through this discovery journey, I have come to understand that many aspects of daily living are in fact creatively inspired. It seemed that from one day to the next, my sense of creativity was heightened and I began to notice how this permeates all aspects of my life. From what clothing I would choose to wear that day to what foods I decided to prepare and even extending to what type of exercises I would choose to engage in. Creativity is afoot even if we think it is not.

And the best part of this entire writing exercise, was that the more time I spent working on these ideas, the quicker they came to me. By the last week of the flash fiction event, my writing came more quickly and with much less struggle. It almost seemed as if the more creative sparks I experienced, the more these ideas became like pieces of kindling. And for all of the ideas that I didn’t actually use, I have set the remainder aside in a notebook for some day in the future.

Hope you are experiencing the warmth of the creative path in your life! Stay healthy and safe!

Scarf bombing and other unique ways to help others

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others
Plato

Frigid, cold weather conditions have settled in for the long haul this winter in the Canadian prairies. While many of us take for granted the warmth, safety, and security of our homes, there are many individuals in our communities who do not share this reality. Helping organizations like shelters, food banks, and outreach programs are challenged by funding constraints at the best of times, but have become sidelined by a myriad of competing societal concerns.

A recent article in our local newspaper included photographs of warm, homemade, wool scarves tied around the trees in on our downtown parks. This organic Canadian practice known as scarf bombing began in 2016 as a way to provide warm articles of winter clothing to people living in shelters or couch surfing. Intended to surface the serious challenges of being homeless in a harsh cold climate, these scarf bombing events signal the need for all of us to rally and find ways to provide support to others who need it.

Food security issues, safe harm reduction programs, and homelessness have never garnered wholesale community support. But during these difficult times, it seems as though our ability to care for the most marginalized members of society has taken a backseat to caring for ourselves and our immediate families. As we debate the value of lockdowns vs. keeping parts of the economy open, and whether or not we should follow the directions of public health officials, there is even less empathy within our society for those who have long been existing on the fringes.

Our best way forward through difficult times is finding ways to be intentional and creative in how we care for those in greater need than we are. Whether its picking up a pair of knitting needles, placing canned goods in little boxes on the street corner, or calling a non-profit to find out what they need, it’s worthwhile to find out how you might be able to help. Any act of volunteerism has the potential to make a real difference in someone else’s life as well has having the amazing side effect of helping us to feel better.

We don’t have to look very far to see need, it is swirling all around us. If we can gain momentum in caring for ourselves as well as others, perhaps collectively we can replace the negative rhetoric that is taking space in our lives with something much more meaningful and positive. So whether or not we choose to scarf bomb, donate canned goods, or write kind messages for seniors isolated in a care home, it’s possible to help ourselves become stronger by helping others.

Stay healthy and safe!

Finding refuge in flash fiction

Flash Fiction will change you. It will make you a very different writer.
Nancy Stohlman

Having previously attempted the world renowned practice in November of writing a novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo), and found that I was unable to sustain the motivation to finish, this year I stumbled upon a different type of November challenge – Flash Nano! This writing challenge is the brainchild of Nancy Stohlman, author of the recently published craft guidebook to flash fiction, “Going Short – An invitation to flash fiction”. Nancy provides daily writing prompts with the challenge and expectation the writer is to write a flash fiction story of 1,000 words or less every day.

Sounds simple, right? It’s not but it is an amazing challenge and the by-product is learning more about oneself as a writer as well as some of the nuts and bolts of the craft. And…even better, it has been a wonderful distraction from all of the chaos across the globe especially the political farce playing out south of the border and the looming escalation of viral infection.

To date, I have received seventeen prompts and written seventeen stories. Today I will tackle number eighteen and the best part of receiving these emails is that I now find myself spending more time during the day on this writing practice and I am also discovering it has enhanced my creative inclinations in other aspects of life throughout the day.

We likely all know what types of activities or strategies work best for each of us to stay engaged, creative, and energized. But maintaining consistency with any undertaking seems to have been elusive for me over the past few weeks as the outside world has become somewhat overwhelming. It has also been more difficult to simply find joy, excitement, and just plain fun in an activity. This one has helped check all of those boxes for me.

This has been instructive on several levels and surprising as well. This one activity has helped me focus on setting goals, applying effort to achieve them, learning and developing new skills, persevering when you think you don’t want to do something any longer, finding fun in the process, and learning to tune out all of the negativity that is knocking at the door. Writing practice has been a part of my life for the past couple of years and this month it has been amplified and elevated.

It has been awhile since I have looked forward to completing a task every single day. Perhaps this is one of the defining features of the disruptive force this pandemic has had in my newly sculpted post retirement life. Having made it through my own personal life transition, the farthest thing from my mind was to anticipate the collective transition that we are all going through. This writing practice has taught me a few personal lessons that I hope I am able to sustain long after we pass through this dark tunnel of time.

Hope you are finding things in your life that nurture you and create positive energy, excitement and just plain fun. Stay healthy and safe!

We Shall Remember Them

The world doesn’t belong to leaders, the world belongs to all humanity
Dalai Lama

This year, Canadian Remembrance Day ceremonies will take place virtually across the country. Our time honoured tradition of pausing for a moment of silence during the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month has not been cancelled due to COVID.

This past week on one of our local radio stations, listeners have been sharing stories from across our province, of relatives who served in either the First or the Second World War. It has been illuminating to learn about these personal stories telling of the psychological and physical impacts that have shaped families, and our communities. It drove home the need we all have to take the time to learn about this part of our past to help us to understand the freedoms gained that most often get taken for granted.

As we watch the unfolding drama and conflicts taking place around the world, now has never been a better time to try and develop appreciation for times when others made personal sacrifices for the greater good.

Lest we forget.

Leave those ghosts behind

The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so we can live our dreams.
Oprah Winfrey

One of the challenges of these times is to remain balanced and to focus on the positives in our present and to spend some time planning for our future. It is all to easy to long for days gone by and to succumb to rumination about all that we may be missing out on in our lives because of the pandemic.

As the weather has become colder and the virus spread intensifies, it may seem even harder to focus on our goals, future hopes and dreams.

Seeking opportunities to develop skills that we ordinarily would never take the time to learn may take us down a path that has the potential to land us in a more positive place down the road.

Becoming more mindful of our health of both ourselves and those around us may have unexpected benefits in the future.

Learning unique ways to stay connected with one another may teach us to become more intentional with our connections and relationships.

Using technology to learn new skills may force us to move in directions that open up a realm of new opportunities and possibilities.

Taking time to develop a practice, routine, or set of activities that make us feel better about our selves and others is something we can carry forward and build into our future day to day lives.

Our world has been consumed with busyness and missed moments because there isn’t ever enough time to focus on goals or our aspirational dreams. Instead of living in regret for what we are missing right now, we could take these moments to reframe all of what is happening in our present reality as gifts which may enhance new learning. It’s time to release those ghosts in our past that have served as barriers and to embrace what may now be possible for our future.

Stay healthy and safe!

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