With a little help from my friends…

Sometimes you get into something, a new town, a relationship, a blog site, and it becomes clear pretty quickly, it’s not a good match.  And so it was. not. a. good. match. with. WordPress.

Better to realize one’s mistake and move on before things just get more unhappy.  At least, I think so.

So, with the advice of a few good people Fran Loosen, Beth Kanell, I’ve been inspired to make the change to Blogger. Thanks Fran, and Beth, and Karen L. who sent me to Beth (who lives in Vermont) for help (thank god for the obliteration of distances with FB, email, and blogs!) So here I am, hoping this will be a place I can stay for awhile.

As author, poet, and blogger Beth wrote to me, as she generously offered to answer any “Blogger” questions I might have “We’re all in this together, right?”

Who knew that writers, or at least women writers, or at least the ones I’ve met, are such a generous-spirited group of individuals?  I am wowed, and so grateful.

I will post my first three essays that were up on WordPress here too, so they can all live in the same place.  You’ve already read them (maybe). I want to keep my "kids" together.  

As I post, I keep getting questions answered.  This quote by Anne Lamott was posted in my Maui writers’ group this morning, which answered the question I had about what I had to offer.

 #s 6 & 7, from a list of what Anne's learned so far…

6. "Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born". (my bold italics added)

7. "Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and sometimes nearly-evil men I have known were all writers who'd had bestsellers. Yet, it is also a miracle to get your work published (see #1.). Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, will fill the Swiss cheesy holes. It won't, it can't. But writing can. So can singing.”

I'm not really thinking about publishing. It's the part about writing and singing I like.  This morning visiting with a 3 year old named Jack, I played my ukulele and sang a Malvina Reynolds song called “Magic Penny”. Jack enthusiastically played along  with a set of shakers I gave him.  Afterward he said, “Sing it again!”  My first request for an encore!! Yes!

Anna Ty Bergman answered another question, by posting Sugar's own words (though I also appreciated Anita Kline’s and Arpita Brown’s take on the same question) of what she meant when she said “Be brave enough to break your own heart”.

Sugar wrote: ”You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart." - (comes from this column #64 in Rumpus Advice from Sugar).

You should really read the whole column from which this quote was taken. I read it this morning and totally remembered why I had fallen in love with Cheryl Strayed.  Ridiculous levels of wisdom and compassion.

So today I’m just feeling grateful.  1) that I am brave enough to make the move, 2) that there are answers to some questions, and 3) that although late (better late than never) I have made contact with my own writing self, and all of you.  Thank you!

xo,

Gayle