Kelly Bennett's Blog, page 80

Countdown to the Argus: There's still time to back out . . .

We didn't sign the pledge. The night before the 2011 Argus, the world's largest timed cycle race, they passed around a pledge sheet stating that everyone named below would ride the Argus in 2014 in honor of our friend, Charles Uncle John who turned 80 this year. 

2011 Argus: Waiting at the Starting Line: Charles's cousin Robert, Kelly, Uncle John (76), & Curtis

Uncle John, along with his sons and Charles's brothers and family have been riding the Argus, for years.

We didn't sign the pledge:

But we're here. . .  We arrived yesterday afternoon. Registered. And tonight after lunch at Uncle John and his wife, Marie's house (along with the whole family and all the riders in the group). The family presented Uncle John with the pledge and photos framed. (Just in case I'd forgotten, I checked: we really didn't sign.) Uncle John had special team shirts made for us all. (Photo coming soon).

                                 A Casual Sunday Ride 109 K Along the Coast with 35,000 of our closest, cyclist friends

We didn't sign the pledge: Curtis and I were nervous as to whether, after not riding bikes for 7 years--I mean not even pedaling casually--we could finish a hilly 109 kilometer ride.

We didn't sign the pledge. Yet, here we are smiling and happy with our Argus registration bag in hand.

Especially as Capetown, South Africa is a far ways to go for a bike ride, we couldn't imagine we'd come back for it.

Starting Line for the 2011 Argus (we're there somewhere.)

We didn't sign the pledge.

Now, 7 hours, 56 minutes, 8 seconds to race time, our riding gear is laid out. The bottles of energy water are filled and chilling. We're all in bed, to sleep....yeah right.

And I am older and less fit that I was then. . .

And my knee is wonky . . .

And the wind is howling . . .

We didn't sign the pledge, so then, why???

Here's the ARGUS 2014 Route Map

Yoga Baby Wants MORE!

At six months, Baby Ben is a yoga savant!

Resting Baby pose is a cinch.

So is Cobra.  And Corpse pose, too.

                                                                             Corpse Pose? Shoot, I can do that in my sleep!

Upward  Facing Dog-no prob!

YOGA BABY is tenacious! When he wants--really really wants--something, he goes after it!

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Do not be deceived by this seemingly "I love Mimi" behavior. Ben is after that cell phone and he'll climb any mountain to get it!

Army Crawl works. But Yoga Baby wants "More!" 

Yoga Baby wants to CRAWL!

I watch as Yoga Baby rises up out of Downward Facing Dog and flows into Standing Dog. He looks down, then forward, thinking so hard, you can almost see the gears turning. “If only I had one more hand to lean on, I could so do it.”

I know exactly how he feels.

The other week, my yoga instructor had us on all fours. Not in any dog position. Instead, we were on our bottoms with our knees bent, arms looped through our legs, to the outside of our feet working toward some Harry-Houdini-Got-Nothing-on-You pose. Erica was urging me to put my head down and lift my bottom up off the ground. And I was thinking about it.

I was thinking: Yeah, right. How exactly am I supposed to hoist my big ole self up onto my trembling arms. . . I was thinking about how stupid I looked. Thinking about how, any second I might pitch face forward.

Baby B does not think he knows. He is going to crawl.

He isn't worried he might fall on his face. He doesn't care how he’ll look tumbled forward. About how he’ll feel when he lands face down. Or what people might think of him. He doesn't have time for doubt.

He is working on HOW!

Any time now, he’s going to do it, too!

In yoga, in life, in our work, I'm thinking I need to work on reconnect with my inner Yoga Baby. Stop spending energy on all that other stuff and work on HOW!

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Do Overs-Found! and A Cautionary Reminder

Be hopeful and/or be warned: Once something is posted on the Internet, it truly is never really lost. Here's Proof:

Post posting my blog post Do Overs, about having posted an earlier highly-illustrated version, then accidentally deleting said post, I received a note from my sis-in-law, Liz:

“Funny thing—when I added your blog url to my feedly today, both DO OVERS were there!”

I'm not sure what "feedly" is, but it seems like something very handy to have! (I did google it hence the hyperlink.)  And thanks to uber-clever and persistent Liz (I write that because while I may not have searched hard enough for the deleted post, Curtis, older also internet savvy, tenacious problem solver brother to Liz, tried to find it too. ) Oh, and while I'm on the subject of uber-clever. I googled it, too, to be sure I'd spelled it correctly and up popped an uberClever website. It's slogan is:

We think when you can’t. When you won’t. And when you just don’t wanna.

If I had had uberClever to help, perhaps I wouldn't have deleted the post in the first place...  .  . .  hmmmmmmm

Here, resurected from the mysterious cyber rubbish bin are both Do Overs for your reading pleasure: 

Oh yes, before i get off on some other tangent, a Cautionary Reminder:

“Caution: Following Tangents & Zealous Googling are forms of resistance! ”

DO OVERS

So I just spent 3 hours on a Friday night writing a blog post--Hours I could have been liming (which in Trinidad speak means socializing with friends aka "partying");

hours I could have spent packing my suitcases for my upcoming trip; doing the ironing--which is piling up; eating; sipping; whining (Trini speak for dancing, what Miley calls "twerking"):

or languidly lounging on the balcony watching pelicans swoop into the glistening Gulf of Paria.

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Even with all those things, and more, I could have been doing, I don't begrudge spending one moment writing that post. Because it was brilliant.

It was a post on Do OVERS and how, in the course of doing over our house, I've come to realize the clarity and freedom that comes from throwing in the town and starting over can bring. "I call Do Overs!" The post took me especially long to write because I included lots of photos illustrating problems my contractor George uncovered which led to us having to gut the whole first floor of our house, including maybe rat gnawed wires, leaks, shoddy workmanship, and hidden surprises. (Be glad, maybe, that you don't have to see that...)

The post began like this (I know because I save this bit earlier.):

Hopscotch players have to be able to jump far and accurately--sometimes 4 or 5 squares at a time. But the real secret is in the hopscotch charm. It has to be heavy enough to stick in a square and not roll. Mine was a key chain with a key.

When I was a kid, playing a game with friends--hopscotch, marbles, putt-putt golf and the like. Whenever one of us made a really lousy play—marble shot, we called “do overs.”

“Do Overs is an opportunity to try or perform something a second time.”

— Wikipedia says

So what the heck? Now that we’re adults…..professionals…DO OVERS aren’t permitted?

Is it because we are scared to chuck it all and go back to the beginning? Take another shot at it? Try another approach?

Or is it because we are too lazy, broke, cocky, afraid of what we'll be left with, of losing what we've got--regardless how flawed that might be?

A fresh coat of paint, new throw pillows, the right lighting mask a multitude of mistakes

I concluded with the realization that with houses, as with our lives, and our stories, often we allow, knowingly and not, frippery--paint and frills, holidays and laughs, flowery passages and pithy prose--to mask fundamental flaws. And how, if instead of messing around trying to make it look all right,  we should call out "DO OVER," strip it down to the bare bones. Clear the Slate. Wind up and give it another go. 

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                             How calling "Do Over" is like a Get Out Of Jail Card. 

So, this amazing, brilliant, and I am sooooooo convinced, inspiring blog post was finished. I'd clicked to tags, add categories. I'd uploaded a cover picture and even pushed "publish."

I was half out of my seat, ready to get up, walk away, be done. But no, Ms. Clever-McSmarty Pants wouldn't let me quit there, so I decided the post would be even more brilliant if I added a photo of the Do Over game (Because it made me laugh and I was having such fun being clever.)

Oh, yeah, and a pithy little quote about "Rites and Rituals", too.

“The do-over was one of childhood’s most powerful rites, for it exerted our dominion over the laws of space and time. The clock was rolled back, the game was restored to its exact status as before before the contested event and play was resumed.”

— http://www.streetplay.com/stories/han...

But then, the picture wasn't positioned quite right, so I decided to delete it and try again. Instead, I deleted the entire blog post.

And even after searching all over my blog site and the Internet for ways to recover it, I can't. So now as brilliant as it was, you will never ever get to read that post on the deepest truth of DO OVERS. Unless, of course, I get up the energy to redo it. And despite the convictions of my lost post, I'm not sure I can. 

Not even Marilyn could convince me. (And I listened several times.) So, in closing, I'll let Marilyn speak for herself on the subject. Since you can't read it from me, LISTEN TO MARILYN.

A Valentine Flaneur & Random Kindness

One day it happens, you begin to make Valentine's and slide into a story, "Once, back when we had gas rationing..."

Back in my day gasoline was 20 cents a gallon... and I used to have to walk 7 miles uphill to get to school...

And then realize the people you are telling the story to weren't alive to remember gas rationing. Your memories--in this case mine--are now officially  "HISTORICAL" (fiction or memoir depending). 

It's Valentine's Day, one of my favorite holiday/workdays. So rather than clicking away as I ought, I'm playing. Last night I wrote out valentines, first thing this morning I sent them, and then made valentines using kindergarten scissors.

(The kind with rubber grips and rounded ends.) 

While valentine-ing, I let myself flaneur (sounds so much less aged than my mind wandered). 

Remember back when you were in school? How exciting Valentine's Day was? During art, we'd make our Valentine holders.

Which was fun, but not easy...cutting all those straight lines, making sure the lobes of the hearts were the same size.

This made me think of Ramona trying so hard to cut out her paperbag owl. 

So I had to pull out my copy and reread a bit...

After-school sessions spent selecting the best valentine for each classmate.

These are the Valentine's we gave in my day. They came in boxes of 24. Which posed huge problems in classes of 27

These are Norman's Favorite Valentines-- And a downloadable kit to make them.

Painstakingly deciding who would get which? Then signing them. . . Do I sign with love? Or your friend? Or just my name?

How, at the designated time we'd scurry around slipping our favors into each others bag or box.

  Did you ever not get a valentine?

 Or receive a surprise valentine?  

 

Lexi prefers hers to be goldfish. (If you've eaten too many this photo will appear blurry.) 

The first gift my hubby, then boyfriend, ever gave me was earrings for Valentine's Day--a risky move considering we hadn't been dating very long. (They are still my favorites--just for that reason.)

He was quite a bit older when we started dating that he is in this photo!

Fittingly, this Valentine week our yoga intention is Kindness. Catherine passed around these Kindness Cards to commemorate it. (Photo coming soon...if you can't wait, click on the ReThink link)

It's part of the ReThink Happiness Movement. 

“The idea is to do a random act of kindness and leave a card saying so. Each card has a number and the recipient can click on the website and register the kindness—then take a turn at doing a kindness and passing on the card and so on and so on... into a hopefully happier, definitely more interesting world. ”

— KINDNESS CARD info

It was the KINDNESS CARD that started me down this road. I bought my first car during gas rationing. On one of my days to fill up (I was an even).

Mine was way cooler with a racing stripe and luggage rack.

After idling my way to the gas pump, I filled up my car and joined the queue to pay up. 

Back then the gas pumps didn't have credit card machines built right in. 

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How long ago was "back then"? It was soooo long ago, our T.V was black and white, programs only showed on 2 channels and every midnight an Indian in full regalia cried while the Star Spangled Banner played and the flag waved.

When I finally reached the payment window, the clerk said: "No Charge"
"What do you mean, No Charge?"

Seems some guy had paid for my gas. A Random Act of Kindness. 

And even though, sometime later I discovered that "guy" had been my grandfather. That feeling of unexpected kindness stayed--a sparkle. 

That sparkle flickered and popped during my Valentine making session. So I filled my purse with valentines and willy-nilly passed them around. Made me as happy as Mr. Hatch.

                                                                      Remember Mr. Hatch?

If you don't, take 11.5 minutes, cozy up, click over to hear Hector Elizondo read this oh-how-I-wish-I-had-written-it picture book. If you do, give yourself a Valentine treat and listen again. Just click on the title

SOMEBODY LOVES YOU, MR HATCH!

Treat someone--and yourself, too---kindly!

Happy Valentines Day! 

Shameless Promotion: Truths Revealed

She--Suzanne Santillan--the sweet, dulcet-toned author of Grandma's Pear Tree-- twisted my arm, held my fingers to the fire, threatened and cajoled and finally I cracked. . . 

Truth time: I did not create any of the clever, brilliant, fun, educational  Teaching Guides, Activities, Crafts, Puzzles, Story Hours Kits you'll find if you click on the Activities Tab. 

Behind the curtain, I work with a dynamic talented team who deserve to be acknowledged and shared and receive heaps of thanks and praise for all their efforts.

 So at Suzanne's urging, I spilled the  4-1-1 on the how, who, and where's of my promotional material on Writing on the Sidewalk.

(One of the few blogs I follow. Although Sue and co-blogger Sarah say it's procrastinating, their posts are informative, entertaining and thought provoking, especially to writers and readers. But now that I think about it, maybe the procrastination they were talking about when they said that was mine...ours????)

Back to Business! About those creative minds behind the Teaching Guides, Activities, Crafts, Puzzles and Story Hours Kit for my picture books: If you're wondering who they are? What they do? And if they'll do it for you? Click over and read for yourself: Writing on the Sidewalk: How to Create Great Promo Material- Tips and Tricks from Author Kelly Bennett (If the link doesn't work, cut and paste this: http://writingonthesidewalk.wordpress...

Heaps of thanks! 

While you're at it, check out Suzanna's book. It won the Golden Moonbeam Award and is dee-lightful!

Be Strong In Your Warrior

One is not supposed to think during Yoga. You know the bumper sticker slogan "Go with the flow"? I'm thinking some yogi coined it. Yoga is about flowing not thinking. I know this because I got to thinking today, during yoga, and when I opened my eyes at the end of practice, I was facing the back wall, while everyone else was facing forward.

 Yoga is about focused intention.

I’ve had loads of practice thinking, mulling, musing, pondering—“dreaming” as Isabel Allende put it in an interview about her writing process which I searched for but couldn’t find. "Daydreaming" as my grandmother used to call it, "procrastinating" as I call it, "resisting" according to Steven Pressfield in War of Art.

I recall Allende saying that she dreams her scenes then writes them. I’ve tried it, and find dreaming my scenes, playing them, working through them in my mind works. But I have to fight against falling asleep. 

I fight the fight during yoga, too. At the end of each practice we lie in “corpse pose”--(pretty self-explanatory: lay flat on your back on the ground like you’re dead. (Makes me think of a sick joke: What did the mortician tell his new bride? Take a cold shower and then...)

However, while playing the corpse, even with the instructor’s warning: “Tell yourself you are practicing deep meditation, you will not move, you will not fall asleep…” I’ll find myself jerking to attention or snorting awake. Maybe more than once, my friend Mimi had to give me a nudge. 

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"I am practicing deep relaxation. I will not move. I will not fall asleep zzzzzzzzz"

I don't know about you, but when I think "yoga",  love-not-war, flower power and "peace, Dude" comes to mind, not battle. Which makes flowing through a series of warrior poses seems oximoronic (if that’s even a word). Today, when Catherine said, as she does every yoga session “Stand strong in your warrior",  the oximoronosity--which self-corrected to monstrosity--of it came to mind.

As I stood, with my back leg stretched, front knee bent, staring past my quivering fingertips, pushing down through my aching legs in one of my mightiest Warrior 2 poses ever, I thought hard about this notion. 

Why would a peaceful practice such as yoga need warrior poses? What do flower power peace dudes have to do with battle?

2 out of 3 of my Warrior Poses were Stellar. 

Okay, so my Warrior Three was wobbly. In my defense, I was thinking . . .

It was not my best yoga day. (“Thinking, mulling, pondering” and “listen and follow directions” are mutually exclusive.) This question of why peaceful yogi-types would spend so much time and energy posing as warriors won. I couldn't let it so. So instead of sticking to the tasks I'd set for myself, I searched the internet for answers. 

Validation came when I came across an article in Yoga Journal  which also challenged warrior pose's role in yoga:  

“Given that the ideal of yoga isahimsa, or ‘nonharming,’ isn’t it strange that we would practice a pose celebrating a warrior who killed a bunch of people?”

— Richard Rosen, a contributing editor to Yoga Journal and the director of Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, CA.

Rosen's conclusion is that the yogi is doing battle against her own ignorance. . . trying to "rise up out of your own limitations." Which is not easy. Battling oneself never is. Is this why we resist? Why we avoid? Procrastinate? (Which, for the record, is so not the same thing as daydreaming. . . )

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“If you attempt to stay in it [warrior pose] for any length of time, you’ll confront your own bodily, emotional, or mental weaknesses. Whatever limitations you have, the pose will reveal them so that they can be addressed....When viewed this way, practicing Warrior [pose] can be seen as fighting the good fight. ”

— Tim Miller, director of San Diego's Ashtanga Yoga Center

Allende lights her way into battle with a candle. In an interview with Bill Moyer she shared how she lights a candle when she begins writing. "It's a real candle, but it's also a metaphysical candle."

“And if I have a candle, for as long as the candle is burning, I write. And then, when it’s over, when it burns off, I can have dinner and get out, and do things.”

Imagine, each of these candles represents pages, chapters, novels . . .

Today has been a battle. A battle to stay the course in yoga. A battle to stop puttering and sit down to work. and the worst, a battle to publish this posting. Three times I've been clicking away and something went wrong. It would have been easy to quit. And there were many things I had planned to accomplish today. Important things. This was the one I focused on while I stared down the length of my outstretched arm. How:

First: admit it. No matter what differences we are trying to make, what we are trying to create, to change, it is a war we are fighting. A war against taking the easy road, playing it safe. 

Second: Arm yourself with whatever will help you focus your intention, be it yoga mat, walking desk, candle. . . 

Third: Attack!

 If you're reading this, I won! And it feels darn good. 

BE STRONG IN YOUR WARRIOR

It's Might Be Scary Out There . . .

I’m getting “in to” Yoga. I have all the paraphernalia. A groovy pair of yoga pants.

Not this kind . . .

This kind. . .

Nephew-in-law, Jake, gifted me with them last Christmas,

Black ankle-high yoga socks with tiny traction bumps on the bottom, a neon green constriction shirt which holds it all in while I bend.

and I’m thinking about growing my hair out into dreadlocks and cashing in air miles for a ticket to an ashram . . .

Eagle pose is like having to go to the bathroom really bad, and are trying to hold it while not getting your foot dirty. . . not pretty or easy.

One of Catherine’s recent ponder points was from “bestselling author, poet, philosopher” Mark Nepo’s book:

THE BOOK OF AWAKENING: HAVING THE LIFE YOU WANT BY BEING PRESENT TO THE LIFE YOU HAVE.

Nepo tells of a guy “Robert” who dumped his fish into a bathtub of water so he could clean their tank.

When Robert came back to retrieve the fish from the tub, “he was astonished to find that, though they had the entire tub to swim in, they were huddled in a small area the size of their tank. There was nothing containing them, nothing holding them back. Why wouldn’t they dart about freely?”

I AM JUST LIKE THOSE BATHTUB FISH?????!! 

But why?

Do I follow the rules, stay inside the lines, rely on learned behavior, swim the same circles around and around and around and around and around—in life and in my work—because it’s best . . .  Or because it’s easiest?

Because it’s smart . . . or because the alternative is unknown?

Because it’s safe. . .

. . . because I’m lazy?

 . . . scared to make mistakes?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

— Albert Einstein

How many times, in how many copies of NOT NORMAN have I written “Think Outside the Bowl!” 

"Think outside the bowll" . . . It’s high time I did.

As they say in the song: "Now that my life is so prearrange/I know it's time for a cool change."

Care to join me? Dare YOU! Dare ME!

It's Scary Out There . . .

I’m getting “in to” Yoga.

I have a groovy pair of yoga pants.

Not this kind . . .

This kind. . .

Nephew-in-law, Jake, gifted me with them last Christmas,

Black ankle-high yoga socks with tiny traction bumps on the bottom, a neon green constriction shirt which holds it all in while I bend.

and I’m thinking about growing my hair out into dreadlocks and cashing in air miles for a ticket to an ashram . . .

Seriously. I am taking yoga. And I do have all that yoga paraphernalia. More than that, I have found a yoga studio close enough to commit to frequenting, and 2 yoga instructors—not sure exactly which is the proper title: Babba? Saddhu? Badji? Hadji? Yogis? Yogi?—I enjoy following.

One, Erica, doesn’t mess around. Erica walks in, smiles, and after OHMMMMMMs are ohmed has us up-down-bend and jumping back-up-and-down-again so quickly and so many times we’re soon puddles and the only thing I can think on during the hour is “Which is left? Which is right?” (I’m left-right challenged.)

The other, Catherine, glides in, sits, looks around, turns on music and begins each morning practice by stating our week’s ‘intention”, offers a reading or other thoughts to ponder, after which we offer 3 cleansing OHMS and then float through EXCRUCIATINGLY long, languid, dog-cobra-eagle-warrior poses during which "pondering" is the only thing that keeps me from crying.

Eagle pose is like having to go to the bathroom really bad, and are trying to hold it while not getting your foot dirty. . . not pretty or easy.

One of Catherine’s recent ponder points was from “bestselling author, poet, philosopher” Mark Nepo’s book:

THE BOOK OF AWAKENING: HAVING THE LIFE YOU WANT BY BEING PRESENT TO THE LIFE YOU HAVE.

Nepo tells of a guy “Robert” who dumped his fish into a bathtub of water so he could clean their tank.

When Robert came back to retrieve the fish from the tub, “he was astonished to find that, though they had the entire tub to swim in, they were huddled in a small area the size of their tank. There was nothing containing them, nothing holding them back. Why wouldn’t they dart about freely?”

I AM JUST LIKE THOSE BATHTUB FISH?????!! 

But why?

Do I follow the rules, stay inside the lines, rely on learned behavior, swim the same circles around and around and around and around and around—in life and in my work—because it’s best . . .  Or because it’s easiest?

Because it’s smart . . . or because the alternative is unknown?

Because it’s safe. . .

. . . because I’m lazy?

 . . . scared to make mistakes?

How many times, in how many copies of NOT NORMAN have I written “Think Outside the Bowl!”

It’s high time I did.

Care to join me? Dare you! Dare me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Potato Chips, Penicillin, Post-It Notes, W-D 40 . . . 2014?

Potato Chips . . . 

Penicillin . . . 

Post-it Notes . . . 

The Slinky . . . 

Goodreads kick-started my 2014 with this quotation from author Neil Gaiman:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”

That quotation haunt-taunted me through these last days of holiday and first days of this new year.

We celebrated the start of 2014 at a New Year’s brunch at friends, Joy & Michael’s new Kentucky home. Curtis and I were newcomers to the group. Lots of “news” at the launch of this year promising much change and challenge. Finding myself alone with one of the guests, I resisted the urge to withdraw into a dice-and-slice frenzy and instead tried to strike up a conversation by asking her if she’d made a resolution. It’s usual to make resolutions on New Year’s, isn’t it?

Big mistake! She doesn’t make resolutions. Doesn’t believe in them. Think’s they are stupid. A waste of time. Did I want to know why? Because we always break them, of course. Resolutions are made-to-be-BROKEN Blah, blah, blah blah-baaaaa. . .

I was feeling sorry for having tried starting that conversation when she added something that made me think maybe my resolution conversation starter wasn’t a mistake.

Turns out that morning on one of the “Morning Shows” (she watches several) the featured guest was some author who’d written some book about this very topic and he said (or so I deduced):

Along with making resolutions we need to “sweep away crumbs in our way” by resolving to stop doing whatever it is that is taking up the time during which we will do what we resolve to do.

 A crumb. A take-away that bonded with Gaiman’s salutation the way 2 Hs bond with an O. Refreshing!

Spray W-D 40 on any surface & wipe. It will clear away even rusty crumbs.

W-D 40 will clean mineral build-up off glass shower doors, too. And kill cockroaches, remove gum from hair, keep squirrels from raiding bird feeders (spray W-D 40 on the top of the feeder and “The pesky squirrels will slide right off.”

But, what do W-D 40, Potato Chips, Penicillin, Post-it Notes or The Slinky have to do with New Years? Resolutions? Or Neil Gaiman’s quote? Why should we even give a crumb?

All of these things along with The Pacemaker, Chocolate Chip Cookies, plastic and who know what other inventions were created by MISTAKE. Failed tries. Miss takes

Take One! Take Two! 

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I’ve tried to remove the cube. Yes, I've tried knives. Scotch. Running cold water on it, hoping to chill the cube enough to shrink it so it would slide free. No such luck.

According to a Reader’s Digest article,  “Stuck glasses will separate with ease if you squirt some WD-40 on them, wait a few seconds for it to work its way between the glasses, and then gently pull the glasses apart.”

When next I’m in WHB, I could give it a try . . .  

Uh oh. . . hang on. That’s how mistakes happen. Breakage. Damage. Possible injury. 

Do I really want to try?

Try, doesn’t mean succeed. . .

Try could lead to fail. . . .

Try could turn out to be a MISTAKE. . .

Consider son Max, then college student’s, attempt to concoct a high-test frat bathroom cleaning product. He tried mixing bleach with ammonia. That experiment ended in a trip to the hospital emergency room and destruction of who knows how many brain cells. Max counts it as a “partial success” as his potentially fatal mistake did save him from more bathroom cleaning. . .

Mistakes. Misses. “F-2” “Missed my Battle Ship” 

Frustrating, embarrassing, harmful, sometimes lethal “miss takes.” 

Safer to stick with the known. If life is good, why rock the boat? Why tempt fate?

“ . . . if you’re making mistakes . . . you’re Doing Something.”

Gaiman went on to add a note to the quote:

" Happy New Year! What kind of mistakes are you looking forward to making in 2014?"

Gaiman’s writing is so varied: CORALINE, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, CHU'S DAY, THE DANGEROUS ALPHABET, ANANSI WARS. . . It seems he’ll try anything.  

Was Coraline  a mistake? If it was a mistake, it’s one that went horribly right for readers and reviewers. Reading it certainly was one of mine. It creeped me right out, then held me spellbound until I finished…

Paul Fleischman is another writer who likes to try new literary forms. He's recently adapted SEEDFOLK for the stage. 

SEEDFOLKS, a collection of linked short stories--one of my favorites for any age, read aloud to adults!

At an SCBWI conference Fleischman admitted to attendees how his “tries” don’t always work. Mistakes maybe, but never a waste of time. For him, trying new things is what keeps writing interesting.

. . . INTERESTING . . .

In words from one of my fav songwriters, Mary Chapin Carpenter, from I Take My Chances:

Now some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate /And for them I would not disagree/ But I never learned nothing from playing it safe/I say fate should not tempt me.

Today, soon after I click “post”, I’ll play that song again, for inspiration. Make that my battle cry of 2014. 

Then, I’ll get to work sweeping out some crumbs of my “play-safe days” to make room in this brand new shining year with New! New! New Attitude.  (And give a shout to the Patti LaBelle while I'm at it.)

I take my chances, I don't mind working without a net/
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get . . . 

Take one. Take Two. ACTION!                         

 . . . YES, IT MIGHT BE A MISTAKE . . .  

It's a New Year!  

 "What kind of mistakes are you looking forward to making in 2014?"

(I’ll let you know if the blue glass cube rescue operation works,AND MORE!)