~~~
this is my splash into brene brown’s perfect protest.
+ Her Barefoot Heart

it is late. dark. i am driving his truck, a vehicle that wraps itself up around me, making me feel small, making it hard for me to see where i am going. i start up the hill, and there is something right in front of me on the driveway. not a limb blown down during today’s rain, but an owl.
the owl is not threatened by the truck, has no pressing obligations.
the owl slowly turns to face me and remains standing there for several minutes, long enough to make sure i see it clearly. then it makes another quarter turn, stretches out its wings and flies its massive body into the woods to my right.
i am immediately calmed, confident, sure that seeing this substantial, gorgeous animal at this particular time, in the midst of several distressing situations, is no accident.
i hear the familiar voices. voices that are ever-ready to assure me that seeing this owl is not by design, but merely a random act of nature. “you read way too much into everything,” they tell me again.
then i ask Her: “what say you?” and without a moment’s hesitation She answers “you know why the owl was there.”
that’s all she says. she doesn’t scoff or scold. she answers swiftly and succinctly, her voice clear and confident. i’ve called on her several times over the past few weeks, and she never hesitates, never needs to think about how to answer. it’s as though she’s been there all along, ready. waiting.
“day 237”. “day 464”. “day 729”.
those are things i long to write at the beginning of my daily journal entry – and i want those numbers to represent consecutive days. you see, i’m trying to create less of me. writing a minimum of 1000 words daily so that eventually i’ll spill more and waste fewer words. walking daily to burn calories and create less of the physical me.
i will walk the same route day, adding an extra hill or bend every week, knowing that with each repetition, i will see the same things differently.
i will write in my journal – the one adored with the three graces – each day, knowing that with each entry, i will say more in less words.
that’s just the way it is . . . or so i’m told. now i’m committed to finding out for myself.
today is day 3, and though i promise not to bore you with every single walk, i did want to share some of the amazing things i saw on walk #3:

my path. see that little butterscotch-colored dot a little less than halfway up? that’s my walking mate, phoebe. a welsh corgi who has a funny way of herding.

made me think of my friend julie daley who’s winding up a trip to ireland. a budding dolmen, perhaps?

a late-blooming gardenia.
and this exquisite companion that came along to color my way:


after dropping j3 off at the airport last night.
instead, i did this:

and this:

because sometimes it’s just easier to bring order to the chaos of physical space
than to bring order to the chaos of emotional space.
~~~
p.s. i have the best husband: he sifted through the 2532 screwdrivers that had found their way into my space; he decided which ones i might really need/use one day; then he adopted the rest. but most especially, i thank him for leaving my 3 hammers alone.

except for when i’m really tired, it seems like just yesterday when i first met him.
today is my son’s birthday. kipp is his name; slug is my pet name for him. slug, from the book atlas shrugged by ayn rand – the hottest coal that keeps the fire roaring to keep the train’s engine moving. yep, he is my slug.
he is a true renaissance man – one who loves hiking and skydiving and reading and snowboarding and playing guitar. he’s a wicked good actor and writer, and if you mapped his various areas of intelligence, his brain would light up like our neighbor’s house at christmas.
he makes halloween costumes you just wouldn’t believe and just recently, his idea for a startup company took first place at startup weekend. he’s kind and articulate, and he usually smiles (which is great cause those braces weren’t cheap).
unlike his mama, he’s hardly a picky eater, and unlike his dad, he enjoys post-movie conversations of deconstruction and philosophy. like his dad, he likes fine art and georgia tech, and like his mama, he likes handmade journals and stories. like both of us, laughter is his religion.
he is handy with a camera, and hopefully he’ll pick it up again one day soon and start taking more pictures because he has a way of seeing that stops me dead in my tracks. like the time we rode under telephone wires . . . he looked up at the kudzu creeping and skipping its way across, and said simply “nature’s reclamation.”
wallace stevens was once his favorite poet, now he’s going through a billy collins phase. he’s a good companion to his dog, even letting otto have a pet roomba (the robotic vaccuum cleaner) because he knows border collies just need to herd things.
he is my son, and i frequently wonder what i did in a former life that landed me fortunate enough to be his mother.
happy birthday, kipp.
i love you.
eating grapes
eating mudpies
cords on blinds
eating hot dogs
a wooden playpen
swimming in a pond with cows
cabinet doors without latches
summers without air conditioning
hanging wallpaper with my husband
eating peaches right off the tree
my high school guidance counselor
a mugging on the sidewalks of new york
roller skating without protective armor
riding in cars without carseats or seatbelts
telephones with no voicemail or answering machine or call waiting
bike riding before helmets, gloves, kneepads, and gears
an F on an undergraduate biology test (i was in love – i’ll tell you about it one day.)
and now: my brother going to afghanistan.
he leaves tomorrow night, and i’ve tried hard not to waste our time by missing him while we are together. but every now and then i kinda’ practiced, kinda’ opened that door to my heart just a teensy little bit to see if i could survive him being a world away.
why will i miss him?
oh, just let me tell you (some of) the ways:
he can keep secrets.
he always – and i mean always – has my back.
his soft spot for animals is about the size of the milky way. maybe bigger.
he’s so damn good on the golf course, i had to learn how to strut.
he has a deep insightfulness that sometimes takes my breath away and always keeps me thinking.
he tells the truth.
he is funny – i’m talking knee-slapping, side-hugging funny.
he wouldn’t know pretentious if it up and bit him on the nose.
he loves me just the way i am, bossiness and all.

my brother, of course
a.k.a. j3

some days the galaxy conspires with me.
either that, or i’m so self-absorbed i see whatever i’m looking for.
whichever way it is, i’ll enjoy it, appreciate it, and tell you about it . . .
to sneak up on the day, i opened the book An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor who captured my attention and affection with just the title of her first book, Leaving Church. anyway, the book fell open to page xvii where barbara writes about being asked to go speak to a church in alabama. when she asked the priest what he wanted her to preach about, he said “come tell us what is saving your life now.” well, that must’ve ignited something cause when i sat down to write in my journal about 30 minutes later, i pitched a written hissy fit. a good, old-fashioned out-and-out hissy fit. then i tweeted about it, and wound up twalking to some gals i’ve either never twalked to before or don’t get to talk to that much. @happinessinside twasked what my plans were for the day, and when i told her i did have plans for the day, but i just didn’t know what they were, she asked if i was perhaps on the cusp of writing my story today. which tells me she was lurking closeby.
~|~
@efloraross, asked if i felt better to which i said that starting the day off with a hissy fit gives a whole new meaning to the term morning constitutional. then later i gave her advce on dressing for preschool interviews:
@efloraross: Taking DD to tour another preschool today. Guess I’d better brush my teeth and put on some makeup, huh?
@whollyjeanne: for preschool: yes. for high school: no.
@efloraross: A bra would probably be in order, too.
@whollyjeanne: ditto for what i said about makeup.
she’ll no doubt be consulting me daily about what to wear.
~|~
@mrsmediocrity said she has volumes filled with her hissy fits. (she’s usually much pithier, but she had trouble waking up this morning.)
~|~
@nicholebernier said: “Venting 301. The FDA recommends it.” now i want you to click on and visit her web site. go ahead. i’ll wait. did you see that she’s working on a book about a woman who leaves behind a diary? well, naturally, i couldn’t let that slip by, so i asked her if elizabeth d ever had hissy fits in her journals to which she replied: “There’s nothing good about a journal unless you can pitch a few fits & tell where the bodies are buried. Probably early 2012.” (you’ll note that she didn’t answer my question about elizabeth d recording her hissy fits, but in answer to my question about when her book would be out, she did tell me that i’m gonna’ have to wait over a year on her book. which is okay cause i’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. i mean go back and read about it. and look at those pictures while you’re there.
~|~
@abccreativity told me: “i love starting my days like that! those hissy fits sparked big life changes for me.” and that got me remembering a tweet from my friend @angelakelsey the other day when i showed a picture of my still-new zafu made of brocade with dragons spitting fire and said i got it on account of wanting to sit on my dragons. “@wholllyjeanne,” she said, “the best part about dragons is the fire.” then she said, “write, speak, paint, photograph, quilt, sing the fire.”
now that made good sense then, and it made good sense to remember it today cause we all know that throwing a hissy fit is a lot like exhaling fire.
~|~
before long, i spied a tweet from @Wendy_Tokunaga mentioning a new lit review called The Sharp-Tongued Woman’s Review, and since i seem well on my way to becoming a class-a sharp-tongued woman, i visited the site and helped spread the word a bit cause i sure liked what i found there. (you oughta’ take about 5 minutes and read meg’s schneewittchen.)
~|~
the morning was capped off with a tweet from @elizabeth_stark with a link here. i once again copied my friend @angelakelsey and took down the sticky note on my computer saying “comma” and replaced it with one saying “write like a mf.” which is what i really want to do anyway, you know.

today, instead of straining myself to make complete sentences, i’m going to just share a (blessedly) little word jewelry. little sparklies i’ve picked up here and there along the way. feel free to bauble amongst yourselves . . .
itinerant: nomadic, wayfaring, roaming. (un huh. yep.)
vug: small cavity in a rock. often lined with crystals of a different material. (the meaning sounds better than the word sounds, don’t you think?)
upsilamba: from Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading (which is something i’ve been thinking about doing a lot lately.) (beheading, i mean.) (with or without an invitation.) a fanciful word meaning “a bird or catapult with wondrous consequences.” (which is what we would be enjoying right about now were i not so self-disciplined.)
gnostical turpitude: also from Invitation to a Beheading. a vague crime that apparently has something to do with a disregard for matter. the only reason for invoking this decree is to force conformity. it is a crime committed by those who insist on being different, who refuse to assimilate. (yes, i have already paid my fine.) (okay: fines.)
antevasin: sanskrit word meaning one who lives at the border. (if you happen to go there and if you happen to spot my brain, tell it i said hey and maybe point in my direction, will ya?)
opsimath: one who begins learning later in life. (i’m still waiting to be an opsimath.) (or should i say, i’m still waiting to opsimath?)
tiferet: hebrew meaning beauty, a reconciliation of opposing forces. (check back tomorrow to see it used in a sentence or fourteen.) can represent the place where spiritual and physical realms meet. (it’ll be used in a different context tomorrow, i assure you.)
eu: good. (i tell you what: when we say ewwww around here, we do NOT mean good.)
koru: the unfurling as of a fern; new beginnings; good things. (here’s hoping we’ll see a post filled with a little more koru here tomorrow.)

show me a “hello my name is” sticker, and i’ll show you a full-blown panic attack.
call it fear of commitment.
call it fear of pigeon-holing.
call it fear of too much revelation.
whatever you call it, i loathe creating my own nametags. loathe it, i tell you.
i recently (during blogher 2010, to be more specific) decided to go to blogher 2011. so there i was minding my own business, filling in the blanks when up came the dreaded what-do-you-want-on-your-nametag question. stopped me dead in the water. for 45 angst-filled minutes, i labored over whether to use my first name (jeanne), my twitter name (@whollyjeanne) or my full name (jeanne hewell-chambers or just jeanne hewell, depending). (no, not impending or even considered divorce, just a stage in the evolution of moi.)
well, i eventually hammered out something – and i’d tell you what i decided, but i can’t remember and it wasn’t included on the receipt, so i’ll be just as surprised as you are when i see you in san diego next august.
now let’s zoom forward to last night when i was roaming around in the blogfield and stumbled onto this recap of blogher 2010. notice anything? there, just under the chocolate and above the whipped cream. i’ll give you a hint: her nametag has HER PICTURE on it.
true: she’s the bloggess, and everybody knows that she’s a rock star while i’m a forming-pebble, but geez. i’d have those 45 minutes of my life back to spend angsting about something else if i’d’ve known i could include a picture of my blogging self.
i’m over it now. have already made my diy nametag packing list and am resigned to schlepping an extra suitcase for my portable printer, ink cartridges, markers, glitter, rhinestones, synonym finder, baby name book, and various other creative supplies. so hey, if you get there and want a nametag makeover, look me up. i’ll be the one wearing a red carnation . . . which, with my luck, will wilt just enough to cover up my specially-created handmade nametag.
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