Breathing Underwater

For Christmas this year, among other lovely things, my daughter gave me a journal. On the inside cover was this inscription: Her heart and brain do not weigh her down, but are set aflame; they singe her skin, they make her radiant. She is your mother.  She is you, years from now. Let your definition of beauty begin with her. They are lines from a poem called Mother Courage . She wrote it for me, for my 50th birthday, and performed it as a spoken word piece in front of an auditorium full of people to spectacular applause. It was stunning. It took my breath away and it made me cry. Proud and touched, I posted it on my Facebook page, where it was shared over and over and viewed nearly 2,000 times.  It remains the best gift I have ever been given. But if I'm honest, I'm not living up to her words. My heart and brain have been weighing me down. I am not radiant. I do not feel beautiful. I feel tired and worn, dull and heavy - in every way. Yesterday, ...

Today's blog post is inspired by the word 'Joy,' submitted by my friend Suzanne Vance (one of the most joyful people I've ever known).  I actually groaned when I pulled this word (randomly) from my prompt jar. I haven't been feeling terribly joyful lately. In fact, I've felt like I've been teetering on the edge of that black hole we call depression for a while. But my self-imposed rule (in order to train myself to write about whatever topic is thrown my way) forced me to work with the word I pulled. And as I promised I would, I sat down and wrote. When doing timed writings, the whole point is not to think about what you're putting down on paper. The goal is simply to write; to keep the pen moving and not stop for the duration. If you suddenly find yourself with nothing to say, you simply write, "I don't know what to say" a few times... and inevitably, something will appear. It might not be related to what you started with, but t...