Monthly Archives: February 2021

When the only “No”, comes from your Mind

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A couple of weeks ago, I received a notice that my site hosting plan was soon to expire. Last time I renewed it was three years ago. The three year option was the overall lowest monthly cost once broken down. I am, after all, frugal nearly to the core. It also keeps the “Should I stay or should I go now” song out of my head.

So, when the notice came up once more to renew, the accountant in my head, wanted to know if it was worth the money. This is where the debate begins between the heart and the head.

Ever notice how your head talks in the negative and your heart in the positive? Not always I guess, but on average it seems to go that way.

For example, my head interprets numbers and stats with questions like: “well Sal, you didn’t exactly write a lot in the last three years. How much did each of those posts cost you? If you broke it down per reader, would you be better off just sending a letter? Why would you even think that people would want to continue to read the stories if you do continue to write? Are you willing to pay and write even if no one reads?’

And why is it that the questioning voice is always the loud one? The heart responds with answers that are quiet and can’t quite be quantified.

I’m trying to think just now, who that negative voice is that I’m fighting with. I mean, if this naysayer in my head calls me by Sal or Sally or Sally Jean or Minnie Lou or any other personal name, how come it has power to call me out by name, yet I don’t reply to this negative Nelly by any name? Another post to figure that one out I suppose.

So, the meeker, softer voice chimes up that it’s not about money, it’s about sharing. Sharing my thoughts and stories and thus, getting shared responses in return. The payoff is in the connection to whomever decides to read, yes it isn’t many, but the few who do are more dear to me than anything I’d buy with said funds. And yes, to stay connected to them is worth any amount of money.

For days, the naysayer continues to rant in a loud voice that it doesn’t make sense or add up. Just let it expire, you can still write or text people, you can use the money to actually go see them. The justifications are there from the naysayer and when the negative voices are loud enough, it’s not hard to jump on board.

As the internal war rages on periodically throughout my days, my heart isn’t ready to give in, so I think that maybe I need a mediator. I’ll text someone or put it up for debate on the blog. The naysayer scoffs and reminds me that those are the ones who encourage me, of coarse they aren’t going to tell me to pack it up. So, I think about reaching out to people who don’t read my blog, but the naysayer rejects them as well on the grounds that everyone will be supportive to something creative if they aren’t paying for it. The naysayer accuses me of only fishing for compliments or false accolades. Alright I begin to think, if I cannot find anyone to give me good reasons not to continue, then why is my mind saying no. This is where the light turns on into that dark space without a name.

My heart starts to feel the responses, the encouragement already voiced directly to my face, through mail, text and replies to posts. Shoot, my Aunts alone are enough support to keep me going. “Hello, my brother even chimes in for support these days”, I say in thought to the naysayer.

Then, in the quiet hours of one morning – the time when it feels like all truths are spoken – I remember something about learning that you don’t break through out of your comfort zone and into new amazing spaces by listening to the negative voice in your psyche. In fact, the louder that voice is, the more likely it is that you should take the step or leap of where your heart is directing.

Before the simple basic facts could get clouded by partial truths. I got out the credit card and paid for another three years. It’s still the cheapest option if broken down by month. and I won’t have to have this mental argument again for another three years.

I jumped in the shower and since the naysayer had been silenced on this topic, a new justification came to mind. Suddenly, I was saying to myself that if I had something to share, and it was a small semi-private space where people could pop in and look around and we could chat, then that was worth way more money than I was spending. Essentially, that was exactly what the hosting site was. A spot along the dusty road where mostly my relatives and a few friends swing by as they have a cup of coffee or tea and give a nod of acknowledgement or a few words. Every so often a stranger even stops in. Sure, it could be that they didn’t recognize the sign out front, but still it is interesting when they pop in. “Where was this argument when I needed you against the naysayer”, I think to myself. I suddenly feel like George Costanza from Seinfeld who could never think of the proper come back response until it was too late.

Partial truths can create a bucket of doubt, but when that bucket gets kicked over, those doubts drain away pretty quickly.

Besides, for now, I’ve said I would put up a story every now and then for distraction/amusement/thought or just to pass some time, so may as well put it where it can be shared.

Thanks for the support to get the through those mental arguments.

Love,

Sally

Digesting the Book

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I’ve still been listening to that same book that had me pause and write last weeks blog. I’ve listened to two thirds or maybe three quarters of it, but currently have it paused for a few days. I’m at a lovely point in the book that I’m not ready to let go of. I know change is about to happen in the story but it’s like having the perfect bite in a meal, you know you’ll keep eating, but it seems unlikely that you’ll get another perfect bite, and you just want to savor it for a few moments.

The book is about the ordinary man – the one who it was told – “he had a story, but didn’t know what it was”. So, he does have quite a story, but it takes him walking across country to remember what it has been, see who he is now, and where he wants to go with it.

He has recently retired from a job that paid the bills, but never excited him. His wife has been mad at him for nearly twenty years and there is no real communication there, so his days are mundane.

Then one day, he gets a letter from a gal that worked in accounting at his place of employment long ago, saying she is in hospice with cancer and she just wanted to say thanks for being a friend. So, he tries penning a response and starts walking to a nearby post office box to drop it in and can’t get himself perform the action of actually mailing it. He walks past many until he needs to stop for nourishment and the clerk at his stop, relays a story of her relative who had cancer and survived. He then has an idea land upon him that he will walk the nearly 600 miles to where she is, and in doing so, this will keep her alive. He phones the facility of where she is, and tells the gal who answers the phone (his old friend is unable to take the call), that he is walking to see her and she must wait for him. He does not pause to go home and get his phone, proper walking shoes, more clothes or anything. He just begins before something or someone in life convinces him he cannot do this unimaginable thing.

This is where I think that the book captures the imagination of many people. The concept, where life presents itself, and while you are totally unprepared, you start to do the thing that you feel most compelled to do – struggling, but figuring it out as you go. Then in your change or direction, comes the change also of those connected and encountered by you.

Listening to this story has been for me, a bit like hanging a crystal in a window. It looks fairly benign on its own, but as the sun hits it, you find yourself looking at parts of your space (my mind/heart/emotions in this case) that you don’t normally focus on as the colors refract out and draw your eye to spots normally overlooked or not focused upon.

I feel the connection of having someone dear, but not so near, dealing with cancer and what to do and how to support them. I feel the connection of the big and small moments you get with strangers when you go off your normal path and allow those interactions to happen.

So, I’ve taken a few days to enjoy where the characters are right now in the book and to also enjoy where I am and recount the struggles, joys, old and new friends and travel I’ve had too.

I’ll likely listen to the remainder soon. And who knows, maybe this wasn’t the spot where I took the perfect bite, but it will still have been worth savoring either way.

Hope your week was filled with moments to savor too.

Love,

Sally

Update on the interviews and book selections: Neither interview had read in a while – I guess I need to change the question to include podcasts, movies or other materials to widen the scope. #1 said if she had to choose, she liked romance and there was one called -Ride The Wind – that she would recommend. Oh, that reminds me of a story with my Grandmother that I’ll have to share one day.

#2 recalled that he liked suspense and recommended – Into the Light

Three more interviews this week, so we shall see what these prospects come up with.

Looking at People’s Stories

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I was listening to a book in the car on the way home from work this week, and there was a line in the prose where someone described the main character as, “he has a story, he just doesn’t know what it is”. I paused the book to contemplate that line and have been chewing on it ever since.

The character in the book wasn’t young, although I do believe that quote was from a coworker in his earlier days in life. Young or old, the truth of the statement was still holding true. He was moving through life, but he wasn’t living his story.

It got me to thinking about the people I have been meeting or know and about their stories.

There would be a few, I feel, that are living a good life, but waiting for their story to unfold. Like they are only in the prelude to their own storybook and waiting for the actual story to begin.

There are some I know of, that maintain an old story and can’t seem to move on from there. Think of the high school quarterback who felt those were the best days ever and still lives to replay those moments as much as possible. Or those with trauma that can’t move on from the constant reliving of their horrible moments. It always saddens me when we live through millions of hours and minutes, but let a few moments define oneself.

There are those that are limited by the stories they tell themselves – this is likely a truth in varying degrees for many of us. I know that I have that “unworthy” voice who sneaks in at random times for me.

There’s ones that are in a tough chapter of what is happening to them or their family, but it’s a chapter, and not their true story.

If coarse, everyone also sees a different story in people based upon their relationship and interactions with them. I can remember sitting with a friend in the hospital and having her family walk in and immediately seeing my friend change into the person that her family had categorized and logged her as the person they knew in their lives. It was like a box was immediately constructed that she was put into – and she morphed to fit into it. I remember leaving and wishing that her family could see the version that I saw – but then, I didn’t have the same years, events and family dynamics in my version that they did. I guess, she has the same story, but like any really complex book, people read and relate to it differently.

I’ve thought about how I see people living in a state of fear, and know that it is limiting their story – or quite possibly keeping it hidden from them. I haven’t listened to enough of the book to know if that is the case for the character in this novel.

It got me thinking of the people that I have struggled to connect to in life and why. If I thumb through that file, I think that almost universally, I can’t or don’t connect to them because they only ever show one story of themselves or a constant versions of the same story over and over. Or, they don’t share their stories at all.

That is the crux of it right there, I believe. You have to share the story for it to spark the thought, emotion, connection, for someone else to pick it up and hold.

Everyone’s story, is if coarse up for interpretation and is filtered through your experiences, knowledge and connection to the others narrative.

For me? I feel like everyday is a story. Shoot, I hear one line in a book, and I have to stop the book because in my head, that one statement is a story. Is it my story? No, it’s a line, on a page, in a book(which is me) filled with many stories of which many are ongoing and still evolving.

And so, this weeks distraction story would be a prime example of how my senses (ears this time), pick up in one little thing and it pulls at me to stop and mull it over and feel it out and figure out why it caused me pause. Pretty soon, I jot down the ideas and hit send before that other voice in my head says I shouldn’t.

Thanks for being a part of my story.

Love, Sally

Side note: books recommended to read from my three interviews this week, 1. Nothing, she hasn’t read in thirty years – Really? Really? I’m afraid to know what my face reaction was (thank goodness I was wearing my mask. 2. “A Yellow Raft in Blue Water” – about three generations of Native American women and their journey through life. 3. “The Secret” – according to number 3, it provides positive ways to look at everything in life.

Until the next post, I hope you hear, see, experience a good story.