Why not April Cools Day?

Click on the picture to enlarge enough to read those blasted tiny words on the right.

Stream of consciousness blogging. I had this near-creepy picture from a site for free images. I knew I'd find a use for it someday. April Fools Day is that day.

I went through the alphabet to pick a word that rhymes with "fool." Drool came to mind first, then ghoul, mule...I was sidetracked. So I went back to A and started over until I settled on "cool."

The mannequin's hair reminds me of wool roving. How I even know the term is because I've wasted the vestiges of my youth perusing etsy too much.

As with many blog posts, I started out intending to do a Facebook status update. Then I thought, "Well, it will get likes, but those are cheap and tawdry because they may be liking the picture, which I didn't create, instead of the caption. I'll not be able to separate the true likes from the cheap likes. Also, I haven't posted on the blog in a while."

So this is appearing on both blog and Facebook, as I seem to have very little crossover in readership between those two platforms (look at that, I sound like the social media self-proclaimed experts, spouting "platform" like it's part of my daily vocabulary.) If you're seeing this on the blog, you're seeing the behind-the-scenes of its posting. See, better to read the blog than skim Facebook.

Do you still send paper greeting cards? Do you spend way too much time picking the one that says just the thing you want to say, only more perfectly? And then do you hover over the blank inside, agonizing over what to write in your own words? This is how to start writing: You do free association. This is how this blog post was written.

The difference between courage and confidence—and which is better

The other night at the dance studio, a co-teacher and I were discussing his professional dance partner, an immensely talented young woman. She can sing, too. Boy, can she ever. I've seen videos of her performing, and I am blown away by her stage presence and full-bodied voice. So I was surprised when he said she's not very confident about her singing. You'd never know from watching her.


I am timid about a lot of things. Networking. Selling. Asking for a favor. Meeting someone new. Accepting charity. Cooking for a crowd. Driving with my husband in the passenger seat. Diving into the deep end.

Despite that, I've done all of those things out of necessity. I've also done things that scare other people—without hesitating. Jumped out of a plane. Ziplined at 140 feet up across seven miles in a pine forest in Alaska. Given countless speeches in public. Danced in the middle of a mall in broad daylight. Eaten snake, frog's legs, boar, and fermented duck eggs. Stood up to a bully. Abandoned everything familiar to move 8,000 miles away from friends and family, without job prospects or a plan.

I am not a confident person. That makes everyone else seem so sure of themselves next to me.


But I don't need confidence to do things I need to do. I bet you have a few things on your list that you'd really, secretly, want to try. If you ever get the nerve up.

A timid person like me would risk my own life to save another's. Because it needs to be done. Because it's courage that will propel me forward, not confidence.


See, that's the difference between confidence and courage. You can't afford to wait to develop confidence. Not with the things you've got to get done. It's in the getting them done that your confidence blossoms.

Courage, though, is already in you. Maybe you're too cowardly to admit it. What a paradox.

You are more than what your function is right now

Dear Mommies of Young Children, and You in Identity Crisis,

Sometimes it feels like parts of you are in danger of being erased. I remember how that felt. I know how lonely it was to not have my entire self known and acknowledged, to have a huge chunk of my history blocked out because I had immigrated and morphed into a mommy. Or because I had succumbed to the day-in, day-out existence of a desk drone. Sound familiar?

Fourteen years into marriage, I left my husband and set up an apartment. I had married at 23, and hadn't ever lived on my own before. I hadn't even balanced a checkbook or paid household bills. It was exhilarating to learn to do those grown-up things. Fortunately, I was confident and competent on the job and able to support myself. It was just my at-home self that needed an extreme makeover.

All my feelings of newfound independence and wholeness came to be embodied by the objects that I assembled to create a haven for myself. I confided in my marriage counselor that I was unwilling to give up the apartment when my husband and I fully reconciled five years later. I was frightened that I would be swallowed up again in the misery of not being known, of being treated like someone's appendage. What she said proved true: Once you are strong, you won't need these outward reminders. They are props.

This is what my experience has shown me: You are not in danger of losing yourself. You will always have, and always be, everything that is you. You will carry it inside you, your past innocence, your present angst, your aspirations for the future. Later, even when you think who you were and wanted to be is long gone, long forgotten, because nobody has, for years, cared to see you for who you are—even then you will still be you, beautiful, exceedingly wise, aware. An even more amazing version of yourself. You will share bits of you like buried treasure, only with the deserving, only when you choose to, only when they are listening and not talking above you. You will not need to be constantly affirmed by external sources, not by souvenirs of your past—not even by your spouse, nor your children, as fiercely as you love them. You define yourself.

Love and blessings,
Scrollwork

This is a post that began as a comment on Joy Page Manuel's deep, thought-provoking blog, Catharsis. Read her post here.