Lynn M. Dixon's Blog, page 6

Endless Stories!

The other day I was listening to a few musical artists on NPR’s Tiny Desk. I decided to listen to Chaka Khan perform her short concert of about 30 minutes of her new and old songs.  Of course, “I’m Every Woman,” hit the spot. It reminded me of one of her other songs from years back. When she was still with the group called Rufus, they had a single called “Pack’d My Bags.”

For a while, that song became my mantra as I listened to the line, “The Universe is calling you.” I knew deep down in my spirit that it was time for me to move on from where I was and I felt that something new was on the horizon. Shortly after that and through a series of events, I found myself leaving Evanston, Illinois and moving all the way to the Deep South for graduate school.

That one song gave me the courage to get out there and see what gifts the Universe had to offer me. So as Confucius said, “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”  I did and I met so many remarkable people along the way. The stories are endless. Whenever I allow myself the time and stillness to reflect on what all has occurred after answering that simple call, the stories flourish forth.

After living in Jackson, MS and completing graduate school, I went over to join other former Chicago teacher friends in Atlanta as we partied hearty. Again, unbeknownst to me, I continually gathered a host of stories from events, conversations and venues. I was always taking mental notes.

Then duty called and I joined my mother in Memphis, Tennessee after my father’s passing and we spent a decade there. Through work experiences, family reunions and most challenging, trying to fit in as a Yankee in the Land of Dixie, the stories continued to pile high.

When the Memphis stint was over, me and my mother returned to Illinois, but this time we landed in the South Suburbs of Chicago with the help of a precious aunt.  We taught together at the same college, as we had done in Memphis. The encounters with new people, new students and those around us added to my treasure chest of stories and the memories filled up, but not to the brim.

We, (my mother and me) eventually moved on up into the city and this time we landed on my really old stomping grounds, in the Hyde Park area. I was always chasing after a job, some employment and some means to maintain a roof over my head. So, I ended up working as a temporary office worker on all sides of the Loop in the many skyscrapers on the Chicago Skyline. All I have to do is close my eyes and the recollections of the multiple adventures come pouring in like soaking rain.

I could go on and on, but I must include the ultra rich four years that I spent in the New England’s Boston area. I purposefully did a literary walk while again working temporary office jobs and I took trips to many of the writers’ homes there, such as Emerson, Alcott, Eddy and Dickinson. It had been a dream of mine and as a free bird, I was allowed to do so.

As Chaka and Rufus advised me in the song, “Pack’d My Bags,” I did. I jumped out there, took risks and thankfully I did land on my feet. Whenever I am pressed to come up with a story idea, I usually sit by the lake or I am in the water. That is where the rich ideas come rolling in like a tidal wave. I will never run out of story ideas. I did not have a lot of cash on hand but I had the curiosity and the courage to go and see what was cooking. Eugene Fodor wrote, “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.”

Lynn M.
August 31, 2024

Summer Joy!

The end of summer is up ahead,
There are still a few waters to tread.

For those who are going back to school,
They should daily use The Golden Rule.

Time to put away the summer gear,
And prep for autumn. It’s almost here.

While rolling up sandy picnic mats,
Recall those special pictures and chats.

Though seasons change, there remains a joy.
Just think back and simply sigh, “Oh boy!”

Lynn M.
August 17, 2024

What is Success?

As I watch people scramble and strive to find success, be relevant or become the next big thing, I think of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s answer to the question, ‘What is Success?’

He answered: “To laugh  often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch. Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!”

If people could calm down, exist and enjoy life a little more, the world would be a more harmonious place.There would be less back-stabbing and desperation while some silently scream “Look at me!” They would not have to continually look over their shoulders wondering who is trying to take something from them nor seek to take something that others have worked diligently to gain.

I had a former supervisor who stated that we should slow down, plant a shrub and just be. A character in one of my summer readings called Summer at the Chateau told a London visitor that they in Provence, France believed that life was to be lived and each moment to be savored. He told her, in essence, that it is not a case-study that should be solved. They strove to enjoy the sunrises and sunsets and the companionship of good friends, good meals and the general warmth of love from their trusted, dear ones.

Emerson’s definition of success should be revisited at least once a year when the worldly things boggle our minds with the material gains. None of it really matters because at the end of our lives none of these things will accompany us on our next journey. So, yes, we should laugh more and care less about what others think about our life choices. If we have been betrayed, then the joke falls back on the betrayer. They missed the opportunity to enjoy our great company.

When judging  negative persons, children are often the best measuring sticks for who is authentic and who is a fraud. They can read the room like no other. Listen to them or watch their reactions and they will surely let us know when an unsavory figure is among us. 

Emerson reminds us to look for the best in others. There has to be something good there though we may have to look a little deeper into some than into others. (Just saying.)  We have to give our best to the situations where we find ourselves. We may not be able to change things but we can leave our imprints behind knowing that we have left it in better shape than we found it. And hopefully, someone did breathe a little easier because we have lived! Selah.

Lynn M.
August 10, 2024

Traveling through Books!

I am on my third book for the summer of 2024. I am reading Summer at the Chateau by Annabel French. I have already left London with Lizzie Summer for France to visit a chateau that she unexpectedly inherited from her great Aunt Sarah. Her journalist boss agrees to let her go and settle the property, if she turns the adventure into a story. She also needs to get away because she has recently been jilted at the altar by her boyfriend, Will. After arriving in France, she finds the expensive chateau in shambles and it looks nothing like the place she visited every summer as a child and teenager.

She thought she would swoop in and put the property on the market within a short time and return to her journalist job in London, but that is not the case. She finds a goat living inside, an open roof with rain leaking on her head and when I bookmarked the page to pause my reading, Lizzie is on her way to look for a hotel in the pouring rain because the chateau is uninhabitable.

Before starting this novel, I first read Dancing in a Distant Place by Isla Dewar. It was a random pick from the public library, but it turned out to be a win-win read.  Iris is a school teacher and I automatically related to her because I also taught for many years. She gets a call saying that her husband Henry has been killed in an auto accident. In the midst of her grief, she discovers that Henry had been living a secret life. He had been lying about going to work though he left the house every day. He had lost his job long ago and took to gambling.  He had gambled away their home, their insurance policies and was even taking money out of his mother’s purse, though she refused to admit it to herself.  The setting for this story is in Scotland and once Iris understands her dire situation, she takes a job in rural Scotland as a headmistress of a small school. The job comes with a small house which is just what she needs to shelter her family, which includes her two teen children.

It turns out to be a highly eventful year because she is the youngest Missie (the village’s name for the teacher) that they had ever had. There are several laugh-out-loud moments as she stands up to the village’s gossip when they assume that two of the locals are her lovers. Her city-oriented teen children also do not cope well with the Peyton Place-like atmosphere and her son acts like his father Henry. He pretends to be going to high school but is really drinking in the local pub and sleeping with his friend’s woman who is much older. Needless to say, Iris is appalled when it all comes to light while her daughter sings songs of doom and depression. They finally move on to Edinburgh at the close of the novel with a few lifetime friends in tow.  Dewar is a superb storyteller!

When I left Edinburgh, I went on to London in Penelope Lively’s How It All Began. Charlotte, a senior citizen, is assaulted one day by a teen mugger and it leaves her with a hip injury. Her daughter Rose and her husband Gerry step in and she stays with them for a while as she recuperates. She doesn’t want to be bored so she continues to tutor one of her Adult Education students at Rose’s house. He is a handsome young man from Bangladesh and he and Rose are smitten with each other and they start meeting at parks and museums. That one incident threw a few people together who would not have normally met had their routines stayed the same.

Author Lively uses an interesting technique to show how one mishap can cause a host of unlikely events to take place. Many had to alter their schedules on that one day and an affair starts between Marion and Jeremy; Marion is swindled by a businessman she met while accompanying her uncle, Lord Henry to Manchester and Lord Henry is fooled by an opportunist that he met while the jumbled schedules played out. I traveled through London and even took a train ride to Manchester with Lord Henry and his niece Marion to a conference. Things finally sort themselves out with some heartbreaks and some rearranging of situations but it all mirrors real life.

So, now I will spend some more time in France with Lizzie to see what happens to her. Will she return to London to her job as a journalist with a fantastic story in hand for publication?  Will she sell Aunt Sarah’s chateau? Or will she fix it up and decide to stay in France? I will have to scroll ahead and see as I travel through books during this summer of 2024.

Lynn M.
August 3, 2024

Too Much?

When the news, the politics, the social media posts, the trolling and all else has us feeling exhausted, we should remember that every generation also had its seasons of sighs from being overwhelmed. William Wordsworth’s poem The World is Too Much with Us was penned in 1807 and it reminds us that nothing is new under the sun. Here are the words:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.“

So, in 2024 when it all becomes too much, here are a few suggestions:
Unplug. Disconnect. Turn it off. Let the whirlwinds twirl St. Elsewhere. Breathe. Eat. Pray. Read. Write. Paint. Play good music. Dance. Breathe fresh air. Silence the phones. Journal. Nap. Choose how to participate or react or better still, do not re-act at all. Simply act by pushing the pause button and let the dark shadows float on by. And, then re-engage when the stamina has been raised and you feel that you are fortified enough to do so.

Lynn M.
July 27, 2024

Can You Dig It? Issac Hayes

As I was writing a recent piece, a phrase popped into my mind. It was, “Can you dig it?” A true blast from the past. Of course, it was said and sung by the illustrious Issac Hayes on his Shaft album from 1971. Most writers can attest to the fact that we never know what will bubble up to the top from our subconcious minds when writing streams of thought.

So, here is a brief focus on Issac Hayes and The Stax Movement. There is so much material in that abundant well, but I will take a few strikes at this Tennessee oak tree. It allowed me to remember the music that shaped me and after having that experience, I have revisited his music. Once back there, I could not stop listening and I marvel at the genius, the depth and the musicology of times gone by. The youth of today do not know what they are missing.

His hit, “Do Your Thing,” came out right as I was graduating from college. Of course, I am dating myself but it is a good thing and a great time to have been in the mix. It was a background mantra that gave me the confidence to go out into the world and work my plan.

It was being played on every radio channel and everyone who was anyone had the albums, Shaft, Hot-Buttered Soul and Black Moses. It was the year that I started teaching high school at age 21 and oftentimes, the students were almost as old as I was, so I did have to learn to do my thing. I learned to take charge of my setting and rule the classroom so I could succeed on my job. His soulful renditions helped give me the courage to put my newly-acquired tools to use.

Issac Hayes was also able to let us know that men have a vulnerable side in songs like, By the Time I Get to Phoenix. Otherwise, many could be fooled by the macho, non-caring side that many of them show to the world. Mr Hayes revealed his soulful side in songs like Going in Circles, Walk on By, They Long to Be Close to You, Never Going to Give You Up and a host of other songs. Some were written by great songwriters such as Burt Bacharach but Hayes put his own spin on them and added deep feeling.

He said in an interview from 2005, that he was one of the original rappers because before we were able to hear his melodious voice, he would “set it up.” He told a story about the situation and then took his listeners on down to “Soulville.” His brillance, his passion, his instrumentation and his vision had all of his listeners spellbound and unable to leave until they heard each song to its very end.

If in need of some good soul-healing music or in need of some clarity on the basic issues of life, go to YouTube and listen to Issac Hayes’ Shaft, Hot-Buttered Soul or Black Moses along with other hits and be transformed into another space. Put on the big speakers and go on a journey that will truly put you in the zone!

Lynn M.
July 21, 2024

Tyre’s Girls- A New Novella

Leah and Rachel are young women now and they continually bond though they live on opposite sides of the country. Tyre and Phoenix’s influences are apparent in their lives as each chart’s her path forward. They interact along with others in their circles as they put the tools learned from their parents to use.

Lynn M.
July 14, 2024

It is Enough-Leah & Rachel!

Here is an excerpt from the novella It is Enough! It reveals the growing bond between two sisters who live on opposite sides of the country. This selection is a precursor to an the upcoming novella called Tyre’s Girls which focuses on their sisterhood.

“Leah and Rachel went on to the show, got popcorn and had great seats. It
looked as if many of the other parents had the same idea because
Rachel saw many of her classmates at the cinema. They had good seats
and at one point before the actual show started, Rachel needed to go
to the washroom.
“I will take her,” Leah told Phoenix.
“Will you girls be okay?” Phoenix asked. “Yes, I saw where it is.
You can hold our seats, Auntie Phoenix.”
Phoenix laughed when they left and said, “Little Miss Bossy. Gotta
love her, though,” she thought to herself.
They walked out with Leah carefully holding Rachel’s hand. They
went into the washroom when Leah noticed a change on Rachel’s face.
She pulled back on Leah’s hand and partially hid behind her skirt.
She bent down and said softly,” What’s wrong Rachel?” Rachel
pouted and pointed to a girl going into one of the stalls.
She whispered to Leah, “She is always mean to me at school.
She says mean things and she always tells me that I think that I am
special.”
“But you are special, Rachel. You are special to me, Papa Tyre
and Auntie Phoenix,” Leah consoled her. At that point, the girl saw
Rachel and Leah purposely said, “Go on, Rachel. I will be standing
right here.”
Rachel went into the stall. Leah eyes met the other little girl’s eyes
in the mirror as she washed her hands. Leah put her hand on her hip
and gestured at her eyes and then pointed to Rachel’s stall.
The little girl did not quite know what it meant, but she felt fear.
Leah said, “I’m her big sister!” the other little girl nodded as if she got
the message and left out in a hurry.
Rachel came out of the stall and saw that the coast was clear. Leah
acted like she was cleaning her hands after doing a dirty job and said,
“I don’t think you will have any more problems with her but if you do,
write me and let me know!”
Rachel gave her big, protecting sister a hug and they sashayed up
the aisle to their seats in their matching dresses, specially designed by
Phoenix.”

Lynn M.
July 6, 2024

June 2024!

 June, June. You’ve gone too soon,
Had a strawberry moon!

Kids splashing in the pool.
As they try to stay cool.

Adults out there walking,
Sorting things while talking.

Sailboats cruise; jet skies glide,
On shore, some sit aside.

Frolicking in the sun,
Having much happy fun!

Lynn M.
June 29, 2024

New Writing Methods!

Normally, I write in longhand. I always have over the past years. But recently, I wrote on the keyboard. I thought I could never write on a computer though I know many writers regularly do use that method. In fact, several great authors typed out their thoughts before the advent of the computer. In some journalism schools, I believe that creating on the keyboard is an expectation. 

A former student once told me that she wrote to music. I was amused and I never forgot it. Case and point? Recently, I wrote to music. I put on some piano music with a variety of classical musicians such as Bach and Beethoven. There were no lyrics to interrupt my train of thought, so my fingers flew across the keyboard as if I too was playing the piano. 

 For other scenes, I put on artists such as Aretha Franklin, Frankie Beverly and Maze, Issac Hayes, Tina Turner, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston or whichever artist I needed to help me create a particular scene. Once I was in the musical zone, I could gain traction and finish my ideas much quicker. 

When I write, I place myself in the room with my characters and pretend to be a fly on the wall. I quietly observe and watch the action and drama play out. I ask myself, what would he or she say at that point? My task is to try to record what I saw, heard, or felt at that time. I listen to the musical artists that can assist me in painting the right mood through words. 

The other day I saw Lenny Kravitz interviewed by Toure’ on the Masters of the Game. Lenny said that his job as an artist is to catch the messages from the sky and put them down on paper. Those are powerful words, yet a difficult task. 

 Few people realize that lyrics, poems, songs, and book ideas flash like blinking lights. The ideas come in a flash, and they can leave just as rapidly. If they are not immediately captured, they will vanish forever. 

They are like dreams that seem so real, but the moment we open our eyes and return to our daily world, we cannot remember what happened. Everything that appeared to be crystal clear while in our dream state is suddenly gone. Poof!  

When writing, if music helps set the tone, then great. If writing on the keyboard gives that extra flow, then that method of creating should be used as well. Whatever helps artists get those thoughts out of the air and onto the page, then so be it. My new experience of writing by using the keyboard allowed me to gain speed and it added to the magic as my fingers glided across the page. 

Lynn M. 
June 22, 2024