Inspired By.

by Leave a Comment

Guilty pleasure confession: I’ve seen it about a million times now, but I love the first Sex and the City movie. [The second movie was horrible – a floppy storyline that was thrown together as what I hope will be a last ditch effort for another $300,000,000.]
Now go ahead. I know you want to.
Groan and roll your eyes and say, “Bethany, I thought you had better taste than to watch those heathens!” all you want, but I’m a sucker for a writerly heroine, any story line related to relationships and romance, and the fashion and glitz of a thriving metropolis like New York City. So, I watched the movie again last night, and googled “Love Letters of Great Men, Volume I.” Turns out, it was a fake book that Carrie was reading at the beginning of the film, until a Mr. John C. Kirkland realized that women round the world were now dying to get there hands on such a book, and so he compiled it. Genius.
Amidst my googling I found this site, and couldn’t resist sharing this note from the lovely Man in Black, Johnny Cash.
A sheet of lined yellow legal paper isolated on white.
Transcribed:
Hey June, 
 
That’s really nice June. You’ve got a way with words and a way with me as well. 
 
The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don’t go out there and sing them anymore, but the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout. 
 
Love John
The beauty of a handwritten note cannot be denied. There’s just something about it that feels so raw and tangible in a way that digitized communication will never be able to emulate. I know that when I’m feeling stuck and disconnected to my writing self, the best thing I can do is close my laptop and grab a pen and my notebook.
So my plea to you, instead of my usual Friday post of lovelinks, is short and simple and sappy to the core.
Write  a letter. To yourself, to your love, to your friend, to your future, to anyone that might need it. Be poetic and passionate enough to scrawl your thoughts, messy and unhindered.
Leave something to be found when you’re gone.

I’m Not the Story Weaver.

by Leave a Comment

I am a writer. Consequently, my general outlook on life is a series of archetypes, themes, plots, summaries, critiques… there’s a lot of pre-writing and re-writing going on in my head, and there’s no switch to turn it off. All the world is a stage, you know.

But it’s the endings I’m not good at. I’m a total sap when it comes to endings. Mostly, I envision that the story actually comes to an end, a resolution. I often realize much further on in my writing and reading that this is a false assumption.

Lately, I’ve begun to wonder about our fascination with the fairy-tale ending. We began by expecting it, and now we’ve become disillusioned with it, naturally.

But where does the fallacy lie in “happily ever after”?

Is there no such thing as happiness?

Or have we made a bad habit of ending the story at the wrong part?

So the prince and the princess get married… and???  What comes after that? What exactly constitutes the “happily ever after”? A fairy-tale prince or princess would never be unfaithful to one another. The prince would never be a deadbeat dad. The princess would never become a bitter, self-conscious old woman that drives her prince and her children crazy. They would never lose the castle, the talking livestock, and the pumpkin carriage in a faulty investment. They would never bicker or become alcoholics or abuse their kids. They would never die of terminal illnesses.

And yet, here we are. We live in a dichotomy of pure joy and pure tragedy. We find love and we find hate. We can’t get rid of the evil stepsisters and the villains; quite often we are our own worst enemy. We make the best decisions we’ve ever made, and then we screw it up.

Maybe it’s the ambiguity of it, the elusive “happiness” that leaves us confused and frustrated and empty when we try to live in the “ever after.” The brokenness wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did, and we can’t see how it could ever be right again. We have no pre-text for what to do when we screw up, so the “happily ever after” plan is eradicated.

Or maybe it’s that we’ve totally abandoned the possibility of redemption.

I yearn for the easy answer, the redemptive ending. I wish I could tie the strings of all our loose ends together so that our lives would never unravel as they so often do. I keep finding myself trying to weave it all together, tightly, to make it mean something, to make our stories and our selves whole again.

I think it’s better if I just stop trying to rewrite the thing. Life is beautiful and gripping and horrific and triumphant and tragic enough on its own.

I’m not the Story-Weaver. I need to just keep reading.

Inspired By.

by Leave a Comment

Writing my guest post for Ally this week really got me thinking about relationships. Not just marriage, but all relationships – to people, to art, to work, to a habit, to an idea. We commit ourselves to a variety of different things, in word and in deed, on a daily basis. Don’t you think? And if you really think about it, your actions, your schedule, speak volumes about what you care about most. If you’re looking back on this week and thinking, hmm… that’s not what I want to be committed to, then you’re not the only one.

You may be tempted to spend your weekend as a continuation of your work week, scrambling like mad to finish a project.

Don’t. 

You may be tempted to avoid any form of work all together and park yourself in front of your television.

Don’t. 

You may be tempted to cling to the period of your life when things felt so much easier than they do right now, when you were a carefree college kid without any real responsibilities.

Don’t. 

Put down your smart phone.

Step away from your inbox.

Turn off the TV.

Let go of the if-onlys and the I-wish-I-weres.

Read a few of these links and be inspired to commit yourself to something good. A healthy relationship. A life full of adventure. A habit of learning and going and doing.

~

She’s Married to Amazement.

I love this quote from Darrell about seeking direction versus wisdom:

“I can seek direction which is circumstantial, or seek the wisdom that will help direct my actions in all circumstances.”

Possibly the most romantic stay-in date that I’ve heard of in a long time.

Rob asks the question: what’s more important, a happy story or one that evokes strong emotion, even if it’s depressing?

Commit to story. It’s A Matter of Life and Death.

Confession: I’m an NPR addict. [Like you didn’t already know that…] This story, like so many that I hear on a daily basis, had me in tears and reminded me of this post I wrote a few months back.

So what are you committing to this weekend, and what are you letting go of?

Happy Friday, friends. [And happy fall.]

Poem : How Many, How Much.

by Leave a Comment

every thing on itI heard a story on NPR this morning about one of my favorite poets, Shel Silverstein. His family is publishing a new collection of his poems this week called “Every Thing On It,” which I can’t wait to purchase.
Did you read Shel Silverstein growing up? His Where the Sidewalk Ends was one of my favorite books as a kid. This is one of my favorite poems from that book that I still remember word for word nearly 15 years later.
How Many, How Much.
How many slams in an old screen door? 
    Depends how loud you shut it. 
How many slices in a bread? 
    Depends how thin you cut it. 
How much good inside a day? 
    Depends how good you live ‘em. 
How much love inside a friend? 
    Depends how much you give ‘em.
 
I also love this Silverstein poem. Do you have a favorite?