Rhena Writes

Author: Rhena

  • Can you spot the moments of unnecessary self sacrifice?

    Daily writing prompt
    What sacrifices have you made in life?
    View all responses

    Let’s play a game. See if you can spot the moment of sacrifice.

    This morning, I was in the kitchen making my tea and toasting an English muffin. I had music on the speaker and also a podcast in my headphones. My son, pen in hand, was working on something on the coffee table.

    “Mom, how do you spell ‘doesn’t’?” he asked from across the room. He made a few guesses and eventually I went over to sit next to him to show him how contractions work. I used to be an English teacher and this kind of thing is in my wheelhouse.

    I showed him “doesn’t” and then was going to show him “isn’t.” He flopped over and moaned. He did NOT want to learn about contractions. He just wanted the one word.

    It was fine. He stated his boundary and I realized that I also wanted to have my tea and English muffin. So I turned back on my headphones and returned to the kitchen.

    A few more questions rolled in. “Mom, how do you spell favor? Mom, how do you spell echo?” At first I’d help him try to sound the words out, elongating different sounds to help him guess more accurately. But eventually I decided that I needed to just turn back on my headphones. He was fine. He might end up with a few misspelled words in his project. That wasn’t the end of the world — his nor mine. Of course, the questions continued. He said my name a few times and I didn’t respond. Finally, I turned to him, “I’m listening to something right now so I can’t help you spell.”

    He started pleading and arguing, “Music isn’t important!”

    I sat down to have my tea and muffin. He continued to ask for help from across the room. Then he tried a different tactic from shouting at me and came over so that he could speak more quietly to me. Eventually, I explained to him that I had been helping him before, with “doesn’t” and he said he didn’t want that help. I have things I need to do now.

    “Mom, how do you spell ‘crate’? Is it K-R-A-T?”

    I shook my head no.

    “How do you spell ‘crate’?”

    I continued to try to ignore him. Eventually I sat down near him on the couch so that I could write in my journal, as is my morning routine. He continued to ask me questions.

    Did you notice it? The moment of self sacrifice? Or maybe I should say moments.

    Often, self sacrifice is considered a good thing and perhaps especially so when it comes to when a parent sacrifices themselves for a child. But looking back at this morning, I can see how confusing my back and forth waffling must have been for him. On the one hand, I would say, “I’m doing something here” and then I could answer his questions. In the moment, it feels like I’m sacrificing what I want (tea and an English muffin) for him, his betterment, to teach him something. But what he is actually learning is that I have weak boundaries, that my basic needs (nourishment) are not as important as him spelling the words correctly.

    For a few moments after I told him that I was listening to something, he responded, “music isn’t important!” Indeed, I felt the tug of guilt to respond to him. Instead, I stayed quiet, listening to my music, teaching him, in the process that, yes, music is important.

    Once I sat down on the couch to write, he continued to ask questions. At first I tried to stay focused on what I was doing, but I was struggling with not answering him, “I am writing and I need to concentrate on that.” After that, there were a few blissful moments where I was writing and he was working on his project. I could see him trying to figure out how to spell “crate” without my help.

    I wish that I had allowed and trusted that my actions would speak for themselves. Had I just continued to write, quietly, I think he would have eventually caught on that, yes, writing is important. His writing is important. And my writing is important.

    And also that spelling each individual word isn’t that important. Don’t let it hold up his writing. He has a deep well of resources and knowledge inside of him that he can tap into without having to always ask me to do it for him. As do I.

    ***********************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • Romantic? Poetic? Profound? What is the truth?

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
    View all responses

    I’d like to write that my wedding rings are the oldest thing I’m wearing today, but it’s been a few years since I’ve worn them. That would be the romantic answer. But the unromantic reality is that my fingers started getting bigger and they swell up from time to time and I was worried my rings would get stuck. I’ll take them to a jeweler to have them expanded at some point. So ask me again in a month or so and maybe the answer will be that my wedding rings are the oldest things I’m wearing. But for now. Nope.

    So maybe it’s my skin that’s the oldest thing. But I heard recently that people shed on average five million skin cells a day. They are rapidly regenerating. I’ve witnessed this recently as radiation killed off the outer layer (layers?) of my skin. Yes, it was about as painful as that sounds. But just as soon as I was able to get in to see the doctor, it started to grow back.

    Maybe it’s the mask, like the one that the Fugees rap about. Maybe that’s the oldest thing that I’m wearing. But the truth is that I’m not even wearing one right now, in the privacy of my own home, on my own blog. In fact, one of the reasons I started this blog is so that I can have a place to not wear the mask.

    Maybe it’s something even more archaic. My DNA? Those double helixes of code deeply embedded in my cells. My soul? My ancestral burdens? But all of that? Even these ancient inheritances can be remade in each breath, in a single moment. From this one to this next. Epigenetics. Beginner’s mind. A prayer.

    I’d like for the real answer to be poetic or romantic; profound or philosophical. Deeply spiritual.

    But the truth rarely is. And the truth is that the oldest thing I’m wearing is…

    my underwear.

    ******************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Even though I post about daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Becoming unraveled with this question: leader or follower?

    Daily writing prompt
    Are you a leader or a follower?
    View all responses

    A few months ago, my husband bought a two-player cooperative video game called “Unravel Two.” Soon after, my son asked me to play it with him. I’m not a huge video game player. I’ll play the occasional round or two of Mario Cart and I think I might have an animal crossing account that hasn’t been opened in years. I sometimes like to watch the kids play something, but if it’s something they’re really excited about, I’d rather hear about it from their perspective.

    So sitting down to play with him was a novel experience for me. And for him.

    It’s a charming game centered around two small yarn creatures who are attached to each other with a string. They have to work in tandem to swing from place to place, build bridges, jump and climb through various scenes. It’s a bit like parkour. When we sat down to play, the duo was in a park and had somehow gotten so tangled up in what looked like a bike rack that we had no choice but to start the scene over. As a knitter, the whole thing was very relatable. As a non-gamer, it was, well, not.

    My son tried to teach me what buttons to push when and I managed to muddle through some sections. Thankfully, my character could also jump on his back sometimes and we could piggy back our way through bits and pieces. But that didn’t work for everything. Sometimes, he just took my controller and pushed the buttons to move my avatar. But there were times where both the little red one and the little blue one had to be moving simultaneously. Sometimes one had to lead and the other had to follow. Connected, as they were, with this yarn umbilicus, both had a role to play.

    My son was immensely patient with me. Probably far more patient than I sometimes am when I’m trying to get him to do something in person. This is in an of itself a lesson to me about leadership and much more.

    So what’s the answer to the question?

    I’m a leader following myself.

    *************************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • WordPress, will you love me if I reveal my five favorite fruits?

    Daily writing prompt
    List your top 5 favorite fruits.
    View all responses

    Will you ship crates overflowing with these delights? Will you sign me up for a monthly club?

    Of course I must begin with the Queen of Fruit: mangosteen. I cannot forget her king, durian.

    Their princess: the jackfruit.

    What is the custard apple’s role in this food court?

    Or what of the “regular” apple? Humble indeed. The one that we say about, “if an apple doesn’t seem appealing, then you’re not that hungry.” Honey crisp. Gala. All the pink-ladies-in-waiting, gauging hunger, keeping doctors away. And what about how it must share its name with that of a ubiquitous multinational corporation. Perpetually being autocapitalized and then accused of stepping above its station.

    Is that five now?

    But what about banana-blueberries-pomelo-avocado- longan- mango-raspberries-kiwi-cherries-pomegranate-grapes-lychee-tomato-persimmon-pear-kumquat-strawberries-canteloupe-pineapple-watermelon-peach-honeydew-rambutan-starfruit-black berries-oh, how can I stop?

    Why such a hierarchy of fruit?

    Do you love me now, WordPress?

    . 

  • Writing this post is one small improvement I’m making in my life.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
    View all responses

    An underground lagoon of water inside a cave. On hot days, it is cooling. On cold ones, it’s a hot spring. Either way, it is eternally refreshed by a constant stream of clean, fresh water. High above the pool, there is a space in the rock ceiling through which sun and moon light alternating stream through. The sunlight feeds the mosses and ferns that grow on rock outcroppings on the walls.

    This cave can be accessed from a tunnel. But at first, the tunnel was very small. I’ve had to dig out the tunnel bit by bit to get to the pool. I shoveled and scraped a little bit here and there, carried out the dirt and stones back out of the back of the tunnel. I had to carry it some distance from the entrance lest it built up too high and the whole thing caved in. One day, I could finally see the pool clearly. And so I kept going. Each day, the work of widening the tunnel and carrying out the garbage became easier and easier. I could even say that I enjoyed it a bit, even though it was work.

    Finally, I could reach the pool. I swam and rested. I drank the clear water. I floated and let the water hold me. It flowed around me. I could stay in here forever. But I won’t.

    The world above would miss me if I stayed here.

    And in any case, the pool is infinite, ubiquitous, ever-present. All the work I put in wasn’t for nothing, after all.

    When I started writing this blog, I didn’t set out to write every day. Even once I found the daily prompts (or they found me, perhaps?), I didn’t set a goal to respond to them every day. And yet, here I am, having just posted to this blog fifty days in a row. I didn’t ever set this as a goal. Still, it feels like something of a milestone which, in turn, feels like an appropriate moment for reflection.

    Or not.

    I had this sort of idea in the back of my head that at some point, maybe today, I’d write a “what I learned from blogging for fifty days in a row” post. Or “what happened when I blogged daily.” Or “the benefits of posting everyday.” My understanding is that those are very SEO friendly terms … or something. (The word “understanding” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.)

    But none of this has been about pleasing any other person (much less an algorithm, search engine, or even, I’m sorry to say, readers). It’s been about me. Making myself content. Giving myself space. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s been about digging towards that pool of my own creativity. And there’s still possibility there.

    So. Will I be back tomorrow?

    I really don’t know. Because the other thing this has been about has been to give myself permission to just be in each moment, to do the things that feel most nourishing to me, to always look for opportunities to extend myself grace. Who knows what tomorrow’s daily prompt will bring?

    I’m just focused on the grace, the space, the nourishment of this moment, this breath.

    ***************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • Those who ignored, disregarded,counted me out

    Daily writing prompt
    Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
    View all responses

    Many upon a many a time … I was sharing something that I was excited and passionate about. Many upon a many a time, I was ignored. Or disregarded. Or told I was wrong and told that I’d never get it right. Maybe there was laughter, the cold kind. Sometimes there was a simple turning away. Sometimes there was a red pen, the words, “no it doesn’t”, an interruption.

    I’m not going to pretend that those moments didn’t hurt. They did. A chilly shot of the realization that this person couldn’t give me what I needed in that moment. But brief hurts were necessary to learn what I needed, to learn how to ease the pain or, better, replace it with joy. I had to learn how to warm myself up.

    Now I’ve learned that it’s those people who missed out.

    I learned, from them, how to care for myself, how to validate myself. And perhaps most importantly: how to see myself.

    The idea that “I can’t rely on anyone else” sounds cynical without the follow up of, “I can rely on myself.” And that’s what I’ve learned to be able to do. It’s not just relying on myself for material needs but for emotional needs too. I can’t harbor ill will towards these people. It was their actions that revealed to me just how awesome I am, after all.

    One day last, I was in the waiting room of the cancer center not too long after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I knew that a mastectomy was possibly in the cards for me. Another woman, a bit older than me, walked past me to her seat and I noticed that she had one breast. The top she was wearing made it very obvious: it was a stretchy knit with horizontal stripes. In other words, she wasn’t doing anything to disguise her mastectomy. She looked healthy and strong. She looked like she was just going about her daily business.

    Over the months since then, I’ve thought about that woman often. And I still feel, at times, a little bit uncomfortable with my new body. I worry that I’m going to make other people uncomfortable or that someone is going to ask me questions that I don’t feel prepared to answer. Still, I have to go out in the world. And so I think about that woman in the waiting room and how I didn’t even have to exchange words with her. Just her presence, being out in the world without apology makes me feel like I can do it too.

    Today, as I was walking my son to school, I noticed another woman doing a double take when she saw my chest. I started to reach for my shirt to straighten it out and make it less obvious. But then I remembered the woman in the waiting room, just going about her business and also that I had more important things, like chatting with my son to do. Thinking about the woman who was surprised by my uneven chest as I was walking home, I thought that the look on her face probably mirrored mine when I saw the woman wearing the striped shirt in the waiting room. And so I decided that perhaps the woman who was looking at my chest this morning maybe also was recently diagnosed or has a loved one who was diagnosed. Maybe me being out in the world without a breast reconstruction, without really trying to hide my lopsidedness, looking relatively healthy and strong … maybe my presence gave her a little spark of hope in a dark time. Just as the woman in the waiting room passed her candle flame on to me, I hope that I’m able to pass it on to other women.

    And so we carry on. One light at a time.

    ************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • Free your mind…

    Daily writing prompt
    What does freedom mean to you?
    View all responses

    …and the rest will follow. — En Vogue, Free Your Mind

    Emancipate yourself from mental slavery

    None but ourselves can free our minds.

    –Bob Marley, Redemption Song

    After reading the daily prompt, I was thinking about different song lyrics that spoke to freedom. A few crossed my mind and I decided I would put them in my post, but first I wanted to listen to the music in my music player. If nothing else, to double check that I had the lyrics correct. But also just because I like these songs and wanted to listen to them.

    I opened up my music player on my computer and everything looked different. Well, not everything, but just enough that I couldn’t figure out how to search for specific songs, something that I’d done just a day ago. Unfamiliar. I was lost and frustrated. I wanted the system to work the way that I was used to, the way that I had expected it to. And it wasn’t.

    I was internally raging at the designers who made this music player, who changed it so often as to make it impossible for me to keep up who made it so NOT intuitive.

    And behind that, I was raging at myself. Annoyed that I wasn’t able to keep up with rapidly changing technology. Regretting that over the years I’ve sold off all of my CDs. It was so easy back then when I could just find the album I wanted and pop it in the CD player. Past me should have tried harder to keep everything the same for future me. Arrrgh!

    I know. It’s ridiculous. Take a breath.

    Because now me actually doesn’t want to have stacks and stacks of CDs to store and maintain. (No matter how satisfyingly familiar the clack clack of jewel case against jewel case sounds, no matter how much I relish unfolding the liner notes.) Present me really, really enjoys the convenience of being able to pull up music.

    No. This internal rage was something else. It was me demanding that I “get it right.” I’ve listened to both songs, Free Your Mind and Redemption Song, perhaps dozens of times in my life. And yet, still, part of me felt that in order to write about them properly today, I needed to listen to them again. In other words, my lived experience is never enough. Even for my own blog.

    Where does this come from?

    Something that someone once said to me popped into my head. I was in high school and I was wearing a new dress. This person came up to me and said, “I liked your dress until I saw that it had pockets.”

    At the time, I didn’t realize what an odd thing that was to say. And I suspect it’s because when day after day, people are commenting (overtly and covertly) on your clothes, the way you look, how you sound, and your body in general, one comment more comment doesn’t particularly warrant attention in the moment.

    But now-me can see how truly strange it is that someone might comment on someone else’s clothes in this way with an air of taking offense that a dress might have pockets and that said-pockets might be used and useful.

    This was far before the “it has pockets!” meme. Perhaps it is was this meme that made me realize just how “out of pocket” that comment was. (Yes. I did just have to write that.)

    So how does all of this relate to freedom and what it means to me? Some days, it feels like I’m caught under this massive pile of these sorts of comments and experiences that make me question myself. Comments from teachers and professors that infer that I’m not trying hard enough or that I’m not enough; implicitly messaging of the society that I live in that disregards bodies that look and behave like mine; the culture of comparison and competition that seeps in everywhere. It takes a great deal of my mental, physical, emotional energy to overcome these comments and expectations.

    But increasingly, I’ve been able to see where I’m getting a helping hand. People who wear dresses are suddenly on-line espousing the benefits of pockets and are genuinely excited about something so simple. This provides the ammunition I need to shoot down the “I like the ‘I liked your dress until’ comment.” Or better yet, to just ignore it. Focus, instead, on how much my daughters enjoy pockets. I’ll read a line from a book and it will feel like the writer reached out and lifted one of these expectations I’ve been living under. (As with Cole Arthur Riley’s reminder, “I am no one’s burden. I am no one’s savior.”)

    Or, yes, sometimes it’s a song. As with En Vogue’s Free Your Mind, “Before you can read me, you got to learn how to see me. I said.”

    In the end, it comes down to me. It’s, in part, up to me to write myself down so that there’s something there to be read, something to be seen.

    In other words, as Bob Marley asks, “Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?”

    ***********************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • I’m the public figure.

    Daily writing prompt
    What public figure do you disagree with the most?
    View all responses

    The public figure I disagree with the most is myself.

    That is, my outward facing persona is, frankly, phony baloney.

    She’s always trying to guess at what other people — the “public” in other words — thinks and wants and needs. She’s always trying to please them, these other people who are not her. Are not me.

    I, my real self, I disagree with this type of people pleasing behavior. Sometimes, I feel like I’m just along for the ride: cringing every time she says or does something that she thinks will make someone else happy or at least not displeased.

    I’m tired of her ignoring me, the way she goes out into the world making decisions that effect the both of us without consulting me. Sometimes I’ve resorted to berating her. Why did you say that? Don’t you realize how stupid you made us sound? You just shouldn’t be speaking at all! Or wearing that… or thinking that… or doing that weird thing you always do with your hands or face or walking with that strange, strange posture…!

    But all of this disagreement? The end result is that we are both sad.

    We are one, after all.

    So what do I do?

    Begin again.

    Breathe.

    I am human. She is human too.

    “What do you want?” she asks me.

    “I want you to see me,” I tell her. “I want you to do what pleases me.”

    I listen. She listens.

    We agree.

    **********

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • Career fast track.

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your career plan?
    View all responses

    I am on the fast track to becoming an elder.

    I’m not entirely sure I had any choice in the matter. Wasn’t this always the plan?

    Mere years away from getting to sit down in a proper chair for family photos, being served first at dinner, being offered a hand up and down.

    Before you know it, I’ll be saying cryptic phrases like, “well, no dog ever howled at the moon without a good enough reason”

    In turn, the youngsters will whisper that I’m wise, senile, annoying, hilarious, cute, or just plain ol’ old.

    I won’t mind.

    The backs of my hands will tell my age: roadwork of veins, puddles of pigment, papery pools. “Ah, yes, this is a liver spot, this is an IV scar, another where I cut myself with a butter knife.”

    I will sing and strum and pluck guitar string and perhaps my eyebrows. And I will hand out clippings from house plants and warm slices of quick breads, fresh out of the oven.

    Is aging a career?

    I will slide gently into myself even as I rise through the ranks.

    Boss of self. VP of me. CEO of this whole damn corpus.

    ************************

    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Oh, and have a great weekend! God helg! (PS I’m learning some Norske.)

  • Is all the world a stage?

    Daily writing prompt
    What was the last live performance you saw?
    View all responses

    Last weekend.

    I went to a local street fest and they had some bands playing. I saw one of them and they were entertaining. Anyway, it’s always nice to be able to hear live music. Sometimes, I wish that I lived some place where there were more buskers and street entertainment. But, alas, sometimes I have to create my own live performances.

    The band played a lot of the classics — like Sweet Caroline and Journey — and I think I remember some Dua Lipa in there? They reminded me a bit of when my daughters were younger. They’d put on performances in our living room all the time — singing and dancing, mostly. They had an imagined backing band and stage names. Sometimes even costumes and something to stand in for a microphone. And performance is still a part of what all my kids do sometimes. Imaginative play is a performance after all, as is the storytelling that they do at the dinner table or around the kitchen when they try to bring some sense of meaning to what’s happened over the course of their days.

    There were two American Sign Language interpreters at the performance this weekend. Honestly, they seemed to be having the most fun of anyway, including the band. I read not too long ago that sometimes ASL interpreters work in pairs: one hearing interpreter who sits with the “audience” and signs for the other interpreter who is deaf and for whom ASL is their first language. This allows for a richer, more detailed and nuanced interpretation.

    I don’t know if this is what the pair of interpreters was doing this weekend. It’s possible that they were both hearing and taking turns simply because it was a long performance. I wasn’t focused on them for long enough to figure it out. I just noticed them because they looked like they were enjoying themselves so much. Was this part of their “performance”? Were they interpreting the band’s aural energy? Does ASL interpretation “count” as a “performance”? I’m not sure about any of this. But I do know that their presence only added to the live performance for me.

    The last time I went to a theater performance, live, was to see The Brothers Paranormal, a few years ago now. It was stunning.

    On Tuesday, I had a guitar lesson. It certainly felt like I was giving a performance. I was even on camera. (ha! The lesson was virtual.) And my teacher asked me to sing along with my guitar playing which made me essentially feel like I was patting my head and rubbing my tummy and walking and chewing gum all at the same time. But, honestly, it got me singing in front of her, which is kind of a big deal to me. I was so focused on the guitar that I couldn’t really worry about what I sounded like. I mean, I didn’t really sing through the whole song, but I say a few bars here and there. Does that count as a performance? I’m going to say yes. Yes. It counts as a live performance. And maybe even my own guitar practicing does too.

    It was the bard himself who wrote, after all, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” Which is my cue for my exit.