Alexis Rose's Blog, page 39

A Million Dollar View

My writing partner is house-sitting for two weeks. It’s a beautiful home on the bluffs overlooking the river valley. It is the kind of house that as soon as you turn onto the hidden street, and climb the hard to spot driveway you feel as if you’ve been transported a thousand miles away to a luxurious vacation spot when in actuality I’m just 20 minutes from my own home.

We are working deligently on our writing project as our self-imposed deadline nears. We are both ready for the next phase of our project, as we’ve been writing together since August. We just need to organize our notes into a coherent, well written, enticing manuscript.

After a few hours of working, I step out on the deck, look up to see a bald eagle soaring over my head, sit down and reflect over the past 15 months.  Releasing Untangled, emerging from the shadows of silence, a year of blogging, speaking to groups, radio interviews, and this wonderful collaboration; I ask myself, Is this real? Is this Okay? Why am I compelled to write? The answers came easily to the first two questions. Yes, this is real, and it is okay to feel a semblance of confidence in my abilities as a writer. But why am I compelled to write?

Writing gave me the courage I needed to address the pain I was feeling. I would write even when I thought I had nothing to write about. At first, I strictly used it for bilateral stimulation. I would write and send what I wrote off to my therapist. I started to find that I was able to write down what I couldn’t say aloud.  At first, I think it provided distance from having to use my voice, but then I found it actually gave me a voice.  When I still couldn’t speak a truth, I found if I read it out loud to my therapist, that I was speaking the truth.

The courage to share my writing with others happened because a friend wanted to understand what was happening to me. She knew I had just been diagnosed with PTSD and wanted to know what it felt like, so she could understand and be supportive. I had always been the master of wearing many masks, and deflecting any conversation away from me, all with a supportive smile for everyone else. But when I couldn’t hide my illness any longer my friends reached out. They wanted to be there, but I couldn’t verbalize it. I was confused, ashamed, scared and thought everyone who loved me would run away if they knew the real me. Since I couldn’t really explain it, I wrote a poem (My PTSD) and began sharing it with people who asked what it felt like to have PTSD.

I write because I will no longer be shamed into silence. But, I also control the volume of my voice. I want to be effective in destigmatizing mental illness, invisible illness, for me, PTSD. I know that I’m a quiet word of mouth writer. It fits my personality. I love the writers who are more vocal, and speak with confidence and often, they know the volume of their voice and can reach a much wider audience.

I’m compelled to write. It fills my cup, it satisfies my creativity and it keeps me connected to the world. I care deeply about what I write and share, hoping that the connection continues to grow. Sometimes that starts with a simple written word, which leads you to collaborate in a house, on a bluff with a million dollar view.

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Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Her Present Needed Her Past

The door heaved open exposing

the dark, dusty gloom of the past.

Walking into, and resting in each room

the light began to pour in from all

the love she feels in the present.

The past and the present began to live together.

Sometimes contentious, but with a newly learned respect.

Intuitively, she knew her present needed her past so she could learn, change and grow.

As a new season begins, she holds hands with her past, lives in the present, and rests.

©Alexis Rose

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photo: pixabay

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Our Jeweled Sanctuary

I am beauty calling you

from the canopy of my lush home.

Notice the bright colors that mark

our different, equally beautiful bodies.

Listen  to the song of my brothers and sisters

as we invite you to find peace, mutual respect

joy and safety in  our Earth, our jeweled sanctuary.

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©Alexis Rose, image: Pexels

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

What’s a house got to do with it?

Most of us remember the nuances of the houses we grew up in. We know the nooks and crannies, and the sounds the house makes when it settles and groans. We know the clicking noise of the furnace kicking in, the whistling sound of the wind blowing through the windows, and how the gate slams as someone makes their way to the door. We can trust our way in the dark during power outages or to sneak food from the refrigerator at midnight because we know where the furniture is and where the stairs begin and end.

I lived in three different houses growing up, the first two in Michigan and the third in Minnesota. Each move brought more carpeting.  I lost the early warning system that wooden floors and creaky steps gave me as the carpet grew wall-to-wall.

The first nine years of my life I lived in Grant. I remember everything about that house. I could draw it in great detail; actually, I could draw all three houses in great detail. I liked this house the best, not only because the floors and stairs were wooden and creaky, but because I shared it with all my siblings at the same time. My parent’s attention was divided between the four of us children. When I was nine and we moved to the suburbs, the attention shifted away from my siblings and the spotlight fell directly on me.

Inside that first house, my bedroom was my refuge because of the windows. My sister and I had beds beneath the two windows looking out towards the front of the house. There was another window with a window-seat on the side of the room that faced the neighbor’s house. During the day, I would sit on the window-seat and read. Most nights as I lay in bed, I would turn my head towards that same window and imagine fire consuming the side of the neighbor’s house; intense bright orange flames licking high into the air. I was young but I was already finding ways to externalize the pain that was coursing through my body.

The living room was large and filled with gray furniture covered in thick plastic that you stuck to in the summer and froze on in the winter. The dining room had a fireplace along one wall, double glass doors leading to a porch, and a swinging door leading into the kitchen. That swinging door would make an earsplitting banging sound when an angry parent would smack it open when coming into or going out of the dining room. The kitchen had ugly dark green linoleum and two steps leading from it that either led you outside or if you turned right, led you down a steep set of stairs into the basement. The basement had a large room where the boys would use their wood burning sets and a corner where my father had his easel set up, a place where he would draw charcoal portraits of the family and neighbors.

Aside from the linoleum in the kitchen and the concrete of the basement, the rest of the house had hardwood floors and stairs. A few area rugs covered the center of the rooms but they did nothing to mask the sound of people walking or climbing the stairs.

The backyard seemed huge to me as a little girl.  We had a few apple trees, cattails growing behind the garage, and a round swimming pool. I remember the wild raspberries that grew against the chain link fence.

I played alone in that backyard for long periods of time. My refuge was behind the garage in a corner along the neighbor’s fence. There I stayed hidden, out of sight from all the windows on the back of the house and the porch. Standing behind the garage, hearing my heart beat like a hummingbird, I petted the cattails that grew by the fence. I picked the tiny purple violets to make bouquets that I would grip as tightly if they were my last friends in the world. I didn’t care that they wilted with the heat of my hands; I just wanted to look at the delicate petals and drink in their color. It was a solitary existence but solitary was far better than any kind of attention that I received inside of that house.

The energy inside our house was super-charged. Tension crackled in the air like electricity, no matter how many of us were inside. If there wasn’t some kind of abuse going on, there was a silence that hung so thick and heavy that I would find myself looking down at the floor, or fidgeting, not knowing what to do with your hands. Opera or classical music sometimes blared from the stereo, a macabre contrast to the silence. At other times the volume of the music would alert us to what was going to happen next; the rising crescendo seemed to egg my parents on and steel us for explosive abuse.

excerpt from chapter 1, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

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Thank you for reading Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

That’s what friend’s do!

This weekend as I was walking with a new friend, she was asking me how I do friendship, what it means to me, and how do I let people into my inner circle of trust. I love these kinds of conversations.

My new friend was telling me about how she and her friend are working through a big rift. Her friend knew a co-worker was saying some really nasty, and hurtful things about new friend professionally, and had even witnessed it happening and did not come to her defense. Her friend said to her, I just don’t like conflict and I don’t want to get involved, besides I wouldn’t know what to say. My new friend was crushed, hurt and couldn’t understand that kind of behavior.

She’s the kind of person, who sticks up for someone when they are being talked about, or something unkind is said to their face. Like me, my friend believes in right speech. That you don’t get to mow someone down with your words, just because it makes you feel better by getting it off your chest. As adults, we can have control over what we say to another person. Now, I’m not talking about the heat of the moment disagreements with our spouses or a respectful, but heated debate about a topic. I’m talking about well thought out emails, verbal assaults, or social media bashing.

I related to my new friend that I had experienced a situation like that in my life too. At a dinner party, a woman said something extremely inappropriate and mean to me. I stood there stunned, confused, and fumbling my goodbyes left in tears. One of the women, who was a good friend, said to me the next day, she thought it was extremely inappropriate and really wants to say something, but didn’t want to get people mad at her. Another woman who witnessed it, said to me, that if it made the person feel better by getting it out, then it was okay. I don’t agree. I would have come to the defense (and have come to the defense) of someone who is being hurt. I reassured my new friend, that if someone was being mean and inappropriate and I witnessed it, I would say something to that person.  I don’t let my friends fall unaided into the hands of “mean-girl” behavior. We continued our walk, I dropped her off at home and went about my Saturday business.

Little did I know how synchronistic our conversation was going to be. When I checked my email later in the day, I was treated to a few vicious paragraphs from someone who attends the same writing group I belong to. She has never had a personal conversation with me. Ever! But decided from reading my book, that she had permission to spray me with all sorts of venomous comments.

This woman offered to give my writing partner and I the name of a niece in New York, who works at a film school after we mentioned in our writer’s meeting that we are ready to begin to pitch our project. The woman wanted to read my book first, which makes perfect sense to me. She liked the book, the story was well written, she did not critique my writing, instead, she began to attack me personally, with comments written by a master narcissist. I felt like I had just received an email from my mother and was shaken to my core. The woman copied my writing partner, (who is also a good friend) so she saw the email too. I immediately texted my friend and said, I’m not going to respond, and then went in tears to my husband to tell him about the email.

After she funneled through a myriad of emotions from the email, my friend proceeded to write a beautifully crafted, respectful, direct response to this woman. She told her how cruel, and insensitive this woman had been, especially when she has never had a single personal conversation with me. Directly calling out her hurtful actions and letting her know, that it isn’t okay to treat another person that way. She was straight forward to the point, and included suggestions on what she could do, to right her initial email. My friend sent me a copy of the email separately so I could see what she wrote to this woman.

After reading the email, I broke down in tears. I’m blessed in my life, to have a wonderfully supportive group of friends. My inner circle of friendship is something I never take for granted. But this past Saturday, to witness a friend immediately coming to my defense in such a protective, loving way with no fear, of what someone may think of her, or if they will be mad at her, or will then be the target of an ugly email was humbling and stopped me from going down a dark road.

Not only did my friend write this email, because her core values wouldn’t let someone treat another with such disrespect, but she also did it because she respects me and feels I deserve to be treated the way I treat others. Remember earlier that day, I had that conversation about this very subject. It’s a strange, synchronistic world sometimes.

After tearfully, thanking my friend for coming to my defense, I told my husband what my friend did for me. His response? “That’s what friend’s do!”

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image source: google images

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

 

Easing into Spring

The whispers playing off the breeze

entice us to look closer 

at the bouquet of color rising up

from winter’s cool hands.

We catch our breath and like

water rushing around the rocks

we ease into spring.

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©Alexis Rose, image: Pixabay

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Self-doubt, is that you knocking? Come in for tea!

A rare, but familiar knock on my self-esteems door.

Come in for tea, Self-doubt and tell me what you think of me.

Self-doubt sips it’s tea and begins to play the old tapes, the drone of familiar chants.

You’re not good enough, not worthy, not well enough, smart enough, you’re a poser.

The fear and rejection hangs in the air between us as it tells me all the reasons

I shouldn’t try or that I should give up.

I listen, with respect, compassion, and a loving ear because I know

Self-doubt wouldn’t come uninvited.

When I’ve heard enough, I thank Self-doubt for the visit and say we’re done with tea.

I show it out the door, shake it off, take a deep breath and

reset my sails into the wind, as Self-doubt fades onto a distant shore.

I may hear this rare, but familiar knock on my door again, and if I do

I’ll invite it in for a cup of tea and listen with a loving compassionate ear.

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©Alexis Rose, image: pexels

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

 

With a Wink and a Smile

Sometimes the climb to the top of the mountain is rigorous and uneven.

Rest and gather strength on the summit.

Look to the person next to you who never strayed from your side

with a wink and a smile set off together for the next adventure.

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©Alexis Rose, Image: pixabay

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Lessons of the Flowers

I take with me the lessons of the flowers. 

I will persevere and grow

silently displaying my beauty and strength.

I will reach towards the sun

hold fast during storms

I will live life fully in bloom. 

©Alexis Rose

[image error]

image: pexels

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

 

Thank You, Two Drops of Ink

Thank You, Two Drops of Ink, A literary Blog, for adding Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph to your bookshelf.  Follow the link, check them out and give them a follow.  https://twodropsofink.com/book-nook/

Today they wrote a great post on the use of commas.  No matter what kind of writing you do, we all deal with that pesky comma placement.