I needed to come up with a baby picture to be used as an ice-breaking group exercise at a sales conference I once attended when I was in my 20's. The only one I had was a small 2 x 4 black and white, the one where I was wide as I was tall. “Just look at me, I’m obese. [...]
So here I have it, 66,000 plus words orchestrated to show my life experiences, baring my soul and sharing my bumpy journey through the years, my memoir. I have witnessed its transformation from 75,000 words in tones of discontent, wonderment, resentment, with some anger and perhaps sadness thrown in there for drama’s sake whittled to an essence of bare minimum, [...]
“Breathe, just breathe, c’mon now, here we go. Breeeaathe.” How many times have I told myself this or others have had to tell me? I’m driving in the car, seatbelt fastened, both hands on the wheel, my mind’s dialogue spins fast, my breath is short and shallow. Whether on my way to the next agenda item, feeling anxious or just [...]
Timmy and I never felt neglected when it came to the availability of food. Mom believed preparing three meals a day to be one of her many housewife duties. Watching Julia Child on television was as regular a practice as going to Mass on Saturday nights. “This is not how it turned out for Julia,” she’d say hunched over the [...]
My memoir, “Under the Birch Tree” has been a work in progress for over ten years but it has been only the last year where I have been intent on completing it. It’s time for me to turn the last page and close it up. I have received critiques from two trusted editors/writers. Their feedback really came to the same [...]
Contemplating the opening words of my manuscript. I want to be descriptive, motivating and alluring, yet not too vague. And that's not meant to be an oxymoron, but rather to entice readers to keep reading, planting seeds of my theme in the hopes they will grow and weave their roots throughout my story. TO A TREE “The time has come [...]
It is with the recent passing of the autumnal equinox when I remembered the highest of my summer days. Maybe it is in the passing of one time to another, from season to season, from the end of a year to a new one when I can’t quite yet be excited about what is to come until I have reflected [...]
Some here say to just wait a few minutes and the weather could change in an instant. There’s nothing quite like the seasons in Chicago. Some inhabitants surrender to the intolerance, moving elsewhere, shaking their heads. Not me, though. The seasons in Chicago are like yin and yang, or the Cubs and Sox, the Bears and Packers, the Mayor and [...]
In the sleepless of night, my mind loosens and my thoughts chase. Thinking too much . . . anxious feelings . . . unhappy ways . . . keep me from falling deeper into subconscious. And then in the beyond, where my mind hovers, I hear the rhythms of a train cutting through the darkness uniting with its tracks as [...]
I have been diligent for almost a week in rewriting my memoir manuscript, "Under the Birch Tree." I've acknowledged open doors signaling me that it's time to look up, and not at me feet, and walk through the timing as it is opportunity for progress. It's time to pick the book up once again, leaving behind the work of polishing [...]