Krista Nelson's Blog, page 2
August 28, 2012
Roman's Eternal Internal Sunshine
While I was vacationing in Cancun, I met with an extraordinary group of women. They were all Obama supporters. They were enjoying a Cancun vacation and joined me in the middle of the day for a campaign meeting. There may have been 17 women gathered, but they were all so dynamic it felt like twice as many. All of them were from the United Sates and eager to talk about what they could do to move our president forward.
They wanted to know what I had to say. I had this new book and I had been a delegate in 2008. I read to them from Crowning The King, my memoir about my experience attending the 2009 Inauguration.
I read two chapters, Roman’s and Sunday Morning Church and it went well, but I realized later that they could have easily read those chapters to themselves and that perhaps when people gather for a book reading they could get something more than the reading from the author. I went to a Santana concert a few weekends before traveling to Cancun and while Santana gave us his music, he gave us a little something extra. He talked to us between musical numbers. In fact he talked to us about Barack and how he was going to vote for him in November.
From now on I’m going to follow Santana’s example because his concert was certainly among the best I ever attended. I’ll read from the chapter Roman’s, but I will take a moment to talk about Roman and the importance of Roman’s eternal internal sunshine.
I don’t know Roman as well as many others do, but I do know something. I know that Roman lights up a room. The first time I met Roman he told me that he could take me to a place where the sun always shines. Now if we were in some kind of pick up spot I might have thought that this was a pick up line. We were among friends and Roman was enjoying himself as much as anyone was enjoying him. He knew a place where the sun always shines and if you were willing to go with him, you could be in that place with him. Now I’m not saying that Roman never has a bad day, but he knew that sun shine was a state of mind and that to walk in the light was a matter of choice.
The traffic may be bad, the weather may not have arrived as you expected, money is short and the news is always grim and once again someone is saying something doubtful about the chances of the best candidate in the history of American politics to win his deserved second term in office and that's when I’m asking you to turn on your Roman sunshine. Make a choice to feel good, feel determined, feel convinced that our president will have a second term. And when you’re feeling good like this, tell someone about it. Tell someone what Barack has done for you and what you can do for him. And if you don’t know what you can do for him, I’m here to tell you.
It begins as all things begin, with your thoughts. Listen or read my Inauguration story and remember your own Obama stories. See the next Inauguration as fact. See it happening. See what you did to help make it happen. You voted on November 6th. You made some phone calls before that or you knocked on a few doors, you volunteered or supported volunteers that made the calls and knocked on doors to move the President forward.
In My Secret Barack: Crowning The King I write about how happy we all were to have Barack Obama as our President. Feel that way now, right now and make a determination to make one more donation, talk to one more person, buy Crowning The King and give it to someone who needs to remember how it felt to join the crowd and stand for long hours at an Obama rally or how it felt to get that Obama poster or catch a glimpse of him in his official motorcade. Feel good now and move Barack forward with that Yes we Can feeling; the Roman’s-sun-is-always-shining feeling.
They wanted to know what I had to say. I had this new book and I had been a delegate in 2008. I read to them from Crowning The King, my memoir about my experience attending the 2009 Inauguration.
I read two chapters, Roman’s and Sunday Morning Church and it went well, but I realized later that they could have easily read those chapters to themselves and that perhaps when people gather for a book reading they could get something more than the reading from the author. I went to a Santana concert a few weekends before traveling to Cancun and while Santana gave us his music, he gave us a little something extra. He talked to us between musical numbers. In fact he talked to us about Barack and how he was going to vote for him in November.
From now on I’m going to follow Santana’s example because his concert was certainly among the best I ever attended. I’ll read from the chapter Roman’s, but I will take a moment to talk about Roman and the importance of Roman’s eternal internal sunshine.
I don’t know Roman as well as many others do, but I do know something. I know that Roman lights up a room. The first time I met Roman he told me that he could take me to a place where the sun always shines. Now if we were in some kind of pick up spot I might have thought that this was a pick up line. We were among friends and Roman was enjoying himself as much as anyone was enjoying him. He knew a place where the sun always shines and if you were willing to go with him, you could be in that place with him. Now I’m not saying that Roman never has a bad day, but he knew that sun shine was a state of mind and that to walk in the light was a matter of choice.
The traffic may be bad, the weather may not have arrived as you expected, money is short and the news is always grim and once again someone is saying something doubtful about the chances of the best candidate in the history of American politics to win his deserved second term in office and that's when I’m asking you to turn on your Roman sunshine. Make a choice to feel good, feel determined, feel convinced that our president will have a second term. And when you’re feeling good like this, tell someone about it. Tell someone what Barack has done for you and what you can do for him. And if you don’t know what you can do for him, I’m here to tell you.
It begins as all things begin, with your thoughts. Listen or read my Inauguration story and remember your own Obama stories. See the next Inauguration as fact. See it happening. See what you did to help make it happen. You voted on November 6th. You made some phone calls before that or you knocked on a few doors, you volunteered or supported volunteers that made the calls and knocked on doors to move the President forward.
In My Secret Barack: Crowning The King I write about how happy we all were to have Barack Obama as our President. Feel that way now, right now and make a determination to make one more donation, talk to one more person, buy Crowning The King and give it to someone who needs to remember how it felt to join the crowd and stand for long hours at an Obama rally or how it felt to get that Obama poster or catch a glimpse of him in his official motorcade. Feel good now and move Barack forward with that Yes we Can feeling; the Roman’s-sun-is-always-shining feeling.
July 12, 2012
What's in a Name?
I was recently told by a voice behind an Obama Support page on Facebook that I had chosen a very poor title for my book. The voice told me that we don't care much for kings in this country. That got me thinking about the word King and why my book was called Crowning The King.
This is the topic of my new blog on GoodReads. While I stand ready to convey what was in my mind when I selected the title, I am hoping that by discussing it here I arrive at some new discoveries as well. So often we know something is right, like a name for a child or the title of a book before we have had a chance to explain the rightness of it.
Who knows, I may find in my discussion of the title that the use of the word King is all wrong.
.....I doubt the truth of that.
This is the topic of my new blog on GoodReads. While I stand ready to convey what was in my mind when I selected the title, I am hoping that by discussing it here I arrive at some new discoveries as well. So often we know something is right, like a name for a child or the title of a book before we have had a chance to explain the rightness of it.
Who knows, I may find in my discussion of the title that the use of the word King is all wrong.
.....I doubt the truth of that.
