Category Archives: memes

#Reverb10 is a movement to encourage folks to tackle a daily prompt with the intent of reflecting on their year.  If you’d like to get involved, it’s not too late! You can backtrack to previous prompts or simply jump in where you are. If you’re interested, you can see all my #reverb10 posts here.

Dec. 9: Party: What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

Nearly every party I attend these days has me arriving to discover that I am an odd wheel. Everyone I know in this part of the world is coupled up, and 95 percent of them are popping out kiddos, which is great and lovely and all that jazz. But when you’re not on that particular life track, it can sometimes make it hard to have fun at parties where literally everyone else there is.

That being said, there was one party this year where that wasn’t an issue, and that was my friend Brittany‘s Halloween party. It was a pirate-themed murder mystery party, and nobody’s real life mattered because we were all assigned pretend lives to lead instead.  Everyone came in costume, and Brittany was kind enough to lend me a legit outfit she’d picked up at the KC RenFest a while back.  The party itself was great fun. One of my tasks was to call one of the other girls a tart whenever I saw her, and my character was having a lurid affair with a commodore who was engaged to the governor’s daughter while also carrying on a flirtation with the girl I had to call a tart. In the end, we three girls realized he was playing us, and we banded together and told him off. In real life, the commodore happens to be one of the nicest and most devoted-to-his-spouse people I know, so he was a little bewildered at the way his night ended up.

The commodore and the ladies who broke his heart.

The thing I remember most vividly, though, is my costume.  Let me tell you, I now have an immense amount of respect for any actress who spends a shooting day tied up in a corset because it is not comfortable.

When I went over to try it on, I was having trouble figuring out how to get it strung up properly, so Brittany turned me toward her, grabbed the strings and yanked, elliciting an “Oh god,” from me as I felt my internal organs get more acquainted than they’d ever been meant to. She’d have made an excellent lady in waiting back in the day, because she had no mercy. Despite the wheezing noises coming from my throat, she pulled tighter and tighter until I was properly corseted, and then she showed me how to hitch up my skirt to show a proper amount of leg for the saucy pirate mistress I was meant to play.

The night of the party, I had the unfortunate experience of running up the driveway to snatch one of my dogs, who had somehow escaped into the garage as I was trying to close the door. To add insult to injury, I was in boots with a solid four-inch heel.

So, imagine if you will a saucy pirate maiden in the middle of an American suburb, emerging from a silver Prius and clomping her way up the driveway, scooping up a little blonde long-haired chihuahua and carting her back into the house, careening back down the driveway holding her ribcage and muttering, “Oh, dear lord…” whilst gasping for breath (all the while knowing that she can’t pass out as she has no Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom to revive her), tumbling back into her Prius and then speeding away, and you’ll have an accurate picture of what happened at my house the night of Oct. 23.

If that wasn’t bizarre enough, earlier that day, I’d found myself posing for a picture in front of a DeLorean. What can I say? Sometimes life gets tired of being typical.

#Reverb10 is a movement to encourage folks to tackle a daily prompt with the intent of reflecting on their year.  If you’d like to get involved, it’s not too late! You can backtrack to previous prompts or simply jump in where you are. If you’re interested, you can see all my #reverb10 posts here.

Dec. 3: Moment: Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

I’ve had quite a few moments like this in the past year, to be honest, which makes me an incredibly lucky person, I think.  But I’m going to choose one that happened just the other day.  I feel a bit silly writing about this, as it seems so melodramatic, but there’s also something really simple about it that seems worth sharing.

A couple of nights ago, I was doing a new workout for the first time (Jillian Michaels’ new core workout, if you’re interested), and it was, to put it simply, difficult. And despite that, I made it through, doing the advanced version of the moves, pushing myself when I felt like collapsing to the floor, and generally being as badass as I could be.

I got to the cooldown, and went into Child’s Pose, and, though it wasn’t for the first time, at the moment my forehead hit the floor, I was overcome with pride and amazement at how far I’d come. You see, at the beginning of the year, my forehead never made it to the floor. The most simple of poses, the point driven home in its name — Child’s Pose — and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t relax; I couldn’t rest in the post.  And in many ways it was a metaphor for much of the rest of my life. I’d already made a good amount of progress, both in fitness and in letting go of a lot of the negative emotions I’d been holding onto for years, but I wasn’t done. I still couldn’t get my forehead to the ground, and I still couldn’t just be.

And for whatever reason, whether it was the come-down from my London trip and all it entailed or the weight of reflection as an amazing year comes to a close, when my forehead hit the ground, I burst into tears. And a little voice in my head said, “OK, this is a bit ridiculous,” and another voice — a stronger one — said, “Maybe, but I need it, and I can laugh about it later.” So I sniffed my way through the cool-down, just allowing myself, for once, to feel how far I’ve come. And I felt alive and strong and proud. And it was good.

Dec. 4: Wonder: How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

I think wonder is something you actively cultivate by seeking out new experiences, whether it’s travelling to a new place, learning a new skill, or simply trying to look at an aspect of something to which you’ve never paid attention before. It’s the sense of remaining childlike in your reactions to things. It’s so easy as an adult to become complacent in your life, to go through the same motions every day, to never expand your gaze. One thing my yoga instructor encourages us to do is to look past the point where our eyes naturally fall.  So, during a back bend, for instance, you stretch your gaze down to the baseboard, even if your body can’t yet bend that far.  During a twist, your eyes look over your shoulder instead of in line with it.  And I try to carry that into my everyday life.  I try to look past what’s immediately evident to find something beautiful and wondrous in what, at first glance, seems ordinary. And on the days where I’m failing to do that, the universe sometimes intervenes and knocks me on my head.

For instance, on the second leg of my plane ride home from London, the one that took me from Houston to Kansas City, I was feeling pretty melancholy about returning to my normal life. I looked up from the magazine I was reading to gaze wistfully out the window and was smacked in the brain with the most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen.  It was as if the entire sky had become a rainbow.  The city below, dark but glittering from the lights of the buildings, gave way to the most brilliant shade of red, which faded to a burnt orange, followed by a golden yellow, tinged with a hint of green where it bled into a cobalt blue where the sky was still holding onto daylight, and finally, to the dark indigo and violet signalling nightfall.  I’ve really never seen anything like it. I stared out the window, grinning like a child, and realizing that perhaps everyday life isn’t so hopeless after all when something that happens every day, the simple act of day giving way to night, can produce something so entirely wonderful.

Dec. 8: Beautifully Different: Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

I’m really not sure how to respond to this one, so I’ll cheat a bit and talk about the ways in which I hope I “light people up.”

I always want to be an encouragement to people. Whatever the dream, whatever the goal, whatever the task at hand — I want to help people find ways to do the things they want to do. That happens in both the mental and physical realms, and one can’t happen without the other. So, I make an effort to help people firstly believe they can do something and secondly find concrete ways to work toward that something. I’m lucky in that I know other people who want to encourage in a similar manner, and I try to gravitate toward those folks. I know it was once a rare thing in my world, which leads me to believe it’s a rare thing in the world at large, though I’m grateful it’s no longer rare in my own slice of it.

I’ve learned to embrace my quirks, as well as the unique path my life has taken. I don’t try to suppress any part of myself anymore. I did that for a long time, trying to fit into this tiny, uncomfortable box of what was normal and acceptable and desirable by society at large. Embracing who you’re meant to be instead of what others mean you to be is difficult but liberating in the most fantastic ways.

Lastly, I try to let people laugh at me. I don’t think I’m a particularly funny person — I was never a class clown — but I do have funny things happen to me, and I try to let go of the embarrassment of those events and instead share them because what’s the point of experiencing them otherwise? I do my best to turn any pain or frustration into a way to send some joy back into the world. It’s how I make the potentially annoying aspects of my life, like being perpetually stuck in the first act of a romantic comedy, work for me.

I don’t know how beautiful or even different these things make me. But I do think that allowing yourself to be different helps you see more beauty in the world every day.

I’m a little late to the #Reverb10 game, but I was out of the country (a phrase I use whenever I can because I love the way it sounds, even though I know it’s incredibly pretentious, but worth it because it brings back all the lovely memories that come with the fact that I was, in fact, out of the country).

The idea is to respond to a prompt each day in December with a notion to reflect on the past year, so, if that’s something that strikes your fancy, visit the site to join in! I’ll be combining some days until I get caught up, but I think the first prompt warranted its very own post.

Dec. 1:  One Word: Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

REINVENTION
It’s been a year in which I’ve pushed myself beyond my comfort zones.

I embarked on a health & fitness journey which, by definition, does just that. I’ve reached levels of strength and coordination I never thought possible, despite my history as an athlete. I’ve begun to get comfortable in my own skin, and while that aspect of the journey may end up being the most difficult, it’s at least begun.

I wrote directed a short film, which, even though simple by design and in the final product, had some ambitious elements.  I also put the film out there for people to see, and I hosted a screening of it for family and friends.  And for anyone who’s ever shared something they’ve created, you know how scary that can be.

I took my youngest sister to a foreign country I’d never visited, and to another I hadn’t visited in a decade. I flirted (albeit briefly) with a Frenchman. I conquered the Underground and, eventually, le Métro. I declared that it is traditional to, at least once a day, embark in the wrong direction when trying to find your way to any given landmark.

I discovered hot yoga, tried it on a whim, and fell in love with it. Somewhere along the lines, I stopped feeling like someone who wasn’t really meant to be there but was giving it a go anyway. Somehow, I became aspirational for beginners in the class.

And then I returned to London, on my own, as a gift to myself for my golden (and 28th) birthday. I met a friend from Twitter for the first time. I navigated almost completely without the use of the guidebook to which my nose had been glued on the first trip. I did foolish things with enthusiasm. I wore magenta tights. I received kindness (and a few hugs) from someone I admire, despite my being a bit of a kook, and because of that graciousness, I owned my kookiness perhaps more than I ever have.

And so, in 2010, it appears that I have reinvented myself as someone who puts herself out there, even if it’s uncomfortable, or risky, or requires me to be more adventurous than I feel. I’ve let go of my ego as much as I can and given myself permission to appear silly or foolish, because, in the end, if it creates a story worth telling — one that can make someone smile or laugh or think — then it’s worth it.

In 2011, my word to be MANIFEST, as a representation of my collaboration with the universe to make the things I’m meant to do or be or create happen.