The Journey

Six years. My dad has a saying, "The time is moving so fast, people don't have time to age." :-) I get that. My lil home here in cyberspace started six years ago today. And, it's still under construction. As I am. As we all are. Still here? You're still a work-in-progress.

I won't be long tonight. (Don't all rejoice at once. Heh heh.) More than anything, I wanted to say thanks for sticking around; for reading each post, or most of them...even a few. When I started this blog, it was so that I'd have an outlet. #writeorsuffocate. I still keep journals. They've metamorphosed into prayer journals. But, this place in cyberspace is kinda special. It helps keep me disciplined in my writing. To be honest, I've started to breathe easier. So, the writing here has helped. :-) The journals do have their place, of course. For Him, a place apart.

Funny. An insurance agent asked me recently about my prized possessions - Jewellry? I told him nope. I do have a favourite pair of earrings going 20 years now... The stuff I treasure are more of sentimental than monetary value. Like the journals I've been keeping since I was 14. If those go, I told him, they couldn't be replaced anyway, so let's move on. He agreed. We moved on.

So, back to the outlet. This has been great. And, it continues to be great. I get to write whatever the heck I want. You've seen the posts - or not. If you're new to this blog, welcome. Feel free to scroll though the years. It's important to me that I write whatever I want. So, the subject matter and content - and, occasionally, style - do vary. From Buju to Baby Shower; from McLuhan to Marley. In the end, I would have written what was on my heart and mind. And, out of 220 posts, I'd say one - no more than two - left me a bit bothered about whether I'd said exactly what I'd set out to say.

On the cusp of the seventh year, I am thankful. I am thankful to God for this blessing to create and write. I am thankful for my life. I have been wondering how, my life being spared, the next year of writing will be shaped. What new experiences will inform my writing; whether there will be more passion about certain things; to give or not to give even more of myself and share a few testimonials, all for the sake of lending a hand. As I've said many times, one of the best things someone could possibly say to me, having read my writing - be it prose or poem - is how well they can relate. Relateability. (I keep using that spelling...)

Don't you ever wonder why it's so important for someone else to know they're not the only one who's going through a particular time of despair; a certain trial; a rough patch that seems unending? That someone else has, too? I've wondered about that. Why is it important for someone to know a certain bad situation is not unique to them? Why does it matter that Tom, Dick and Harry have made it through this? Or, are going through it as well. Good for them. This is me, and I know how it feels and they couldn't have felt this way and things could never have been so bad and so on and so forth. As I thought about it, all I came up with was hope. It's a simple answer, really. Hope that if someone else made it through, maybe you can, too. If someone else is strong enough to continue enduring, maybe you can, too. Relateability makes my heart glad, because it says, someone read my work and saw themselves in it, and were encouraged or inspired by the how I came through/am going through a similar mess; bore/is bearing a comparable cross. And yet, I'm still here! And how.

We all have something. No one has "got it all together". Some don't say much; some find an outlet and some, well, with them it's TMI. Point is, one doesn't have to be an expert in any field of study to offer a hand to hold. It's a human thing. I'm big on hand-holding in a time of despair or anxiety. Hold my hand. No words. I've found it to be comforting. I suppose that's the other thing with relateability (a tweep assured me it is a word). Hope is one thing; the other thing is comfort. Perhaps that's one way of looking at it. I'd also like my writing to be seen as offering my hand to hold.

This paragraph is dedicated to family and friends who've held my hand - figuratively and literally - on this journey.

Now, the writing doesn't have to say, "There, there," to be comforting. Even if it simply evokes a feeling of, "You know what, the way she writes? All is not lost in today's world. I'm inclined to believe everything is going to be alright." That'd make my heart glad.

The recent passing of a few famous people has reminded us that the journey of this life does not go on forever. Robin Williams' passing saddened me - for a number of reasons. Lauren Bacall's evoked tributes that reminded the world of her love for Bogey. (I also finally figured out the lyrics to Key Largo. Don't ask!) And, today, Roger Clarke, Jamaica's Minister of Agriculture, passed away in Florida, as he prepared to travel to Jamaica. Walk good, Roger Clarke.

As that line from Wear Sunscreen says, "The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself."

Here's to more creating, more writing, and more glad hearts on the journey.



Claudia
www.cyopro.com
www.twitter.com/cyopro

"Holes"

Holes

There are no holes in my arms.

Like the girl - early twenties?

Pants - if you could call them that -

Maybe the Lululemon yoga sort

They had to finally recall

Too sexy; too sheer; too revealing

Shares fell after that.

Her pants - as she stooped to get

Something from her bag -

Slid below the crack. Way below.

So far down, I looked away

For shame for her.

Did she not feel cool air

Against that vanilla-pale, soft, smooth skin?

Then, as I stole another glance -

Or, maybe it was just that her move to stand

Caught my peripheral vision -

She stood

She rummaged

Pants still half-way down.

As she rummaged through her bag

Just moved to the top of the table

Her hands came into view.

They bore holes - large, healed, gaping

Waiting?

From the back of her hands to her forearms

Wherever there could be a vein.

Holes.

They held my gaze for more than the polite two seconds

When I finally looked away

I cast my gaze upon nothing in particular

Pretending I could taste

The iced tea I was sucking through a straw

Too large for that.

She found what she'd been searching for

She must have

She abandoned her bag

- Not caring, it seemed

Whether any of the hundreds of

Food court patrons

Would prove themselves untrustworthy -

Reached into the upper part of her pants

Pulled them up just a little

Before going for a refill.

It was on her return

I saw her face

Too young

Too old and long a story

Too weak

Too worn

Too familiar

Too easy to get sucked back in.

No fight

No more

All gone

What's the score?

Doesn't matter

All lives used up

Way too late to start over

Again.

As I looked around

And sipped my iced tea

I somehow managed to be thankful

There are no holes in my arms

That you can see.

- Dnafcnatgada

Claudia

www.cyopro.com

www.twitter.com/cyopro

A Few of My Favourite Things - On Writing

August - the anniversary month for this blog. The 28th is the actual date, so I guess I'll wait until then to properly commemorate. Heh heh.

I had a few things in mind for these August entries. However, after much thought, I've decided to place them on hold. Essentially, they had to do with particular journeys. Why mention them? Well, consider this a placeholder of sorts. I do hope to share them in this medium at the appropriate time.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite quotes and memes that have inspired me along the writing journey. Many quotes and writings and tips and so on and so forth, may be found in books, on the Internet... It never ends!!! It's very easy to spend more time reading all that, than actually writing. Of the myriad, it's not often that a quote touches me right here - resonating with my own feelings; echoing the rhythm of the lines (poetic and prose) in my blood. It helps to know that the treasure lies not only in the destination - which is subjective, really - but also (if not more so) in the journey. And what a journey this is turning out to be!

Okay, here goes:

"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way." 

- Ernest Hemingway

"Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell."
- Tahereh Mafi

"Don’t cast sidelong glances, and compare yourself to others among your peers! (Writing is not a race. No one really “wins.” The satisfaction is in the effort, and rarely in the consequent rewards, if there are any.)" 

- Joyce Carol Oates

"Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, “Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that is the whole art and joy of words." A glib saying. When the time comes to u at which u will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the centre of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words." 

- C.S. Lewis

"Writing: a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it." 

- John Green

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

- Maya Angelou

"A thousand nations of the Persian empire will descend upon you! Our arrows will blot out the sun!" - Persian  "Then we will fight in the shade." - Stelios (300)

"You think your work is crappy, but it's not. Show it to someone. You're better than you think."
- Claudia (Moi) :-)

"S/O to those who keep getting back up; whose vulnerability has been mocked, but...meh; whose courage yells at adversity: #YouAndWhatArmy??!!"

- Claudia

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."

- Jeremiah 17:7-8, Bible (KJV)

Via @i_Author

Via @DeinaFurth

Via @AJAsh

Via @ShaunFrankson

Via @MyNextDance

Via @anilawhitney

Via @BSHMNetwork

Via Google

Via @Archnahr

And, a fav fav:

Via @Quotes4Writers

Claudia 

www.cyopro.com

www.twitter.com/cyopro