Rhena Writes

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  • Good is God (all the time) and YHWH is breath.

    Daily writing prompt
    What are the most important things needed to live a good life?
    View all responses

    A good life is a series of good moments, one after the other, strung together like pearls on a necklace. What makes a moment “good”?

    Being present to myself is a decent starting place to a good moment.

    Is it only good moments that are worthy of a spot on this necklace of life? Or, when I look back on each moment, will some shimmer more brightly than others? Can I consider the dull and tarnished moments as “good” as the others? Yes, I can.

    Because in all of those moments — even the dull, mistake-riddled ones — I was myself.

    Being present to this moment, to myself in this moment, means not looking back at the previous moments with self judgement — not weighing out and judging one as being “good” and another as being “bad.” Those moments existed. And I existed in those moments. That is enough.

    I this moment, I am sitting at my computer, attempting to answer this question. When my mind wanders off in flights of fancy, I pull it back to my breath.

    My breath is always with me. As long as I’m alive. And so I can always return to it. A good breath is any breath at all because it means that I’m alive. A breath is a moment. And a breath is the sound YHWH, which means that “I am” is on every breath. And that means that God is on every breath. And God and good are really the same words. And all breaths are good and therefore all moments are good moments. And a good life is just a series of good moments strung together like pearls on a necklace. And so it is that this is a good life. And so it is that the breath is the most important thing needed to live a good life. Breathe.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • I spend most of my time with the person who knows me best…myself!

    Daily writing prompt
    Who do you spend the most time with?
    View all responses

    And I enjoy the time that I spend with myself, which is great because I’m always with myself. And I’m always learning new things about myself. I’m my own best companion because I have my best interest in mind at all times. I enjoy checking in with myself, validating my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, fulfilling my own needs, learning from myself. No one else could possibly be as interested in myself as I am. I never ghost myself. I always try to put myself first, to center myself. I trust myself.

  • My name is my own.

    Daily writing prompt
    If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?
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    With a name as awesome as mine, I’d rather be named “_____” than to change it.

  • The impossible chocolate bar.

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe your dream chocolate bar.
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    I am a study in contrasts. Or perhaps extremes is the word I mean.

    I enjoy an Aero bar. Which is a bit confounding as it’s the pockets of air — the absence of chocolate — that make it appealing to me. Or perhaps it’s the combination of that which is there and that which is not that makes it unique.

    Or that here, in the States, it’s hard to come by British candy bars. Perhaps it’s that the Aero bar is a treat here in the land of Hershey and Mars.

    Certainly, my other favorite chocolate (are we meant to just describe one?) is the chocolates that I’ve only had from Narita Airport. And these Royce chocolates aren’t airy at all. They are dense and rich and I can’t really eat more than one or two in a sitting. OK, who am I kidding? I could eat an entire box but I restrain myself because I know it won’t be until another trip through Japan that I’ll be able to enjoy them again. (Needless to say, these chocolates, are, like most things these days readily available on-line, but I choose to ignore this ready availability. Convenience kills flavor and my enjoyment. This is about the dream chocolate bar and I prefer to live in the fantasy.) They are a velvety smooth ganache. Simple and elegant.

    They are, in other words, at the other end of the spectrum from the Aero bar.

    Would it be possible to combine these two into one chocolate bar? The pockets of air with the heavy denseness of the Royce chocolates? Perhaps.

    Or perhaps the idea behind a dream is that it is imagining the impossible. Perhaps having conceived of the idea of the dream chocolate bar is as good as having experienced it.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • No. I do not remember my favorite childhood book.

    Daily writing prompt
    Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
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    I do remember reading books. And I do remember specific books. I do remember the smooth crisp pages of, for example, Goodnight Moon. I remember sitting on the edge of the bathtub within a hand’s reach of a roll of toilet paper as I cried through certain pages of Where the Red Fern Grows (if you know, you know). And it was at a rental beach house where I similarly cried over Bridge to Terabethia. I can remember the school librarian’s particular way of turning the pages on picture books and the resonance in my dad’s chest as he read to me on the green chair in the living room. I know that it was The Trumpet of the Swan that one of my grade school teachers was reading to us when we got to go outside to listen to the story on one of the first suitable days of spring. But, for the love of me, I cannot remember the plot of the book at all. I know that I pictured the bathroom in the house I grew up in next to in the part of Stuart Little when Stuart retrieves his mother’s wedding ring.

    I’m fairly certain that it was reading Stuart Little that set me off on reading The Rescuers and The Borrowers. There’s just something about tiny creatures repurposing small household items for their own purposes. I’m sure it was that particular appeal of tiny objects that made The Toy Shop Mystery and The Doll House Mystery also enchanting.

    Apparently, EB White was quite popular because I definitely remember reading Charlotte’s Web. Although I think that I really only remember the details of the plot now because I’ve read it aloud to my children as an adult.

    But I don’t remember one in particular book as my favorite. It’s all just as well. It’s the way I truly do not have a favorite child.

    As is made apparent in yesterday’s blog post, (which was in response to the prompt to name three books which had an impact on me) I’m more widely read now that I’m an adult.

    Over the past week, I also wrote about jobs that I’ve had (Would a job by any other name smell just as sweet?) and how I unplug (from said jobs or from the internet?).

    The other three posts from this past week are quite short, but writing them spurred some breakthroughs for me about myself, life, mental health, and how to think about certain struggles.

    The first makes the case for centering myself, loving myself, and being my own best friend.

    The second is about the joy that arises when I trust my future self.

    Lastly, I thought about fear which, as an anxious person, is quite a feat in and of itself. But in the writing, I discovered a personal hack for cutting fear off at the knees in Starve Fear, Feed Joy.

    A one minute audio blog of a native English speaker, spontaneous, unplanned, and bare bones.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email like this one to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Three …er… Seven Books

    Daily writing prompt
    List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
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    I’m sitting here trying to narrow it down to three books. Because after all, what book that I’ve read hasn’t had an impact on me one way or the other? Isn’t that the point of reading? To be changed by it?

    I’m also sitting here thinking about choosing three books that will make me look cool, or smart, or “in the know”.

    And then I’m thinking about the three books I’m currently reading on paper, e-reading, and listening to.

    They are, in paper, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson. I always appreciate books that take apart the so-called accepted conventions of the academic world.

    On my e-reader: Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie Rendon. I’ve just started this, but Marcie Rendon is one of my favorite authors. Each time I’ve started a new book in her Cash Blackbear series, I feel as though I’m getting caught up with an old friend.

    And, finally, I’m listening to Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence. I’m just getting into this book. I’ve also been working more seriously on my language learning right now and this book is the perfect companion to this kind of work — providing motivation for putting in the time and effort to something that doesn’t necessarily feel immediately useful.

    Because certainly in this moment, those are the ones that have the greatest impact on me. Or perhaps it’s the last three that I completed?

    Which were, on my e-reader, the Dreamblood duo logy by NK Jemison. (This includes The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun.) I wrote about this book in a previous post about dreaming. I definitely will be re-reading these in hard copy form. I find reading books I can engage more deeply with the text than on an e-reader.

    In hardback book form: Where Rivers Part by Kao Kalia Yang. It’s a stunning memoir written in her mother’s voice. It made me a better parent and mother.

    This is from a few months back, but Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals really made an impact on me. Specifically, it helped me make sense of what it meant to be sick with breast cancer.

    OK. This is more than three books, but books happen to be something I’m excited about. Check out my early posts with more Book Recommendations. If I wrote about them, they impacted me in some way.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Starve Fear. Feed Joy. (A story/ prose poem sort of a thing.)

    Daily writing prompt
    What fears have you overcome and how?
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    Fear is a hungry beast. I find it’s overly easy to feed its gaping maw. What do I mean by that? I mean that the society and culture that I live within is a veritable buffet of delights for fear to endlessly consume. Fear, in its turn, has a bottomless stomach and is always ready to grab a clean plate and begin its trip through the hot bar. And the cold one too.

    I’ll feed it unnecessary purchases of bits and bobs I’ve seen advertised as being able to make me happier, prettier, younger, even wealthier. Fear will consume them all. And I? No happier, no prettier, no younger and perhaps a little bit poorer. And still Fear’s belly rumbles with hunger, demanding ever more time, attention, quick fixes, superficial dalliances into this and that. “You’re missing out,” he whispers into my jewel-laden ear. And I succumb. And still he devours more.

    Fear holds my attention with its adrenaline and thrills, its glitter and shine, its shadows and mirrors. Caught up in the echantment of his own illusions, he pulls back a curtain to reveal his greatest weapon: death.

    But, alas, Fear has overplayed his hand. For Death reminds us, “I’ll meet all of you regardless of how you spend your time. You’d do just as well to invite Fear into your heart as you would with his twin, Joy. It’s all the same to me.”

    And so I pass Joy a clean plate from the buffet of earthly delights: a long stretch, a deep breath, the breeze shifting the juniper branches, a sip of clean water. And together we eat our fill. And then some.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Letting my future self off the hook.

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.
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    Sometimes my present self makes pretty heavy demands on my future self, expecting her to be perfect and in control at all times, expecting her to have thought through everything, every eventuality and every possibility.

    But sometimes my present self lets my future self off the hook. It’s not really hard to do. She doesn’t even exist yet, after all. We have no idea what she will be capable of or what difficulties she might have to face. So my present self just lets her be, allows her to emerge how and when she needs to, taking over for us.

    When I can do this for her, when I can let her off the hook, give her the benefit of the doubt, it brings me immense joy. And she feels it too.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • I refuse.

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
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    When I see that my device is one hundred percent charged, I know it’s time to unplug it. To make that happen, I remove it from the charging station.

    I’m not sure I understand the question.

    Because my next thought is that I “unplug” from the internet when I’ve see that I am not trusting myself, that I’m relying more on the internet (for information, entertainment, distraction, etc…) than myself.

    But I think that generally when someone talks about “unplugging” they are talking about from work, from the “rat race”, from the world of competition and comparison. To me, it’s always time for me to unplug from there. Today, I went to pick up some sandwiches from this one shop. The people working there are always nice and helpful. But I invariably get almost pushed down or knocked over or brushed past by customers rushing to get in the line to order or in the door. Needless to say it’s in one of the wealthier neighborhoods in DC and it’s where I always see some of the worst of human behavior. It’s not so much even a meanness; it’s an obliviousness.

    Every time I witness this level of thoughtlessness, it’s a reminder to me to disengage from that kind of life. In other words, unplug. There’s nothing for me there in that lifestyle. And yet it’s pervasive and so it requires a constant unplugging.

    I’m trying to write something here. I’m trying to convey an idea. It’s already late in the day, much later than I usually write. And, yet, I don’t think it’s going to happen today. I don’t think the BIG POINT is going to happen. As much as I enjoy writing here in my blog, I have other things I’d like to do that I enjoy as much or more. Of course, the idea that I “must” reach a point, that I must write a certain number of words lingers and circles around me. This spurs me onward to continue to sit in this chair, at this desk and to attempt to write, to get these ideas out and into the world.

    But I refuse to push past anyone, least of all myself, to get to the end of this post.

    I refuse to take part in that sort of fast paced, stressful world.

    I refuse to listen to that voice goading me onward that I must and I should and for the sake of doing.

    And so I don’t.

    I unplug.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Self centered and self loving.

    Daily writing prompt
    What quality do you value most in a friend?
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    The quality that I value most in a friend is that they prioritize themselves and take care of themselves first and foremost.

    I think that people who are deeply invested and interested in themselves make really good friends because they know themselves well enough to be able to communicate their needs well. They give only as much as they are able and don’t expect more than that from anyone else. A relationship not a guessing game with this type of person. The reason why I understand this is because I used to be the kind of person who overextended herself due to a lack of self awareness. I thought that I had to always say “yes” to everything and everyone in order to be a “good friend”.

    I’ve learned, however, to start to look for and qualities that I’d like to see in other people in myself. In other words, I have to be my own friend first before I can rely on other people. If I’m not curious about and interested in myself first, how can I expect anyone else to be? If I don’t care enough about myself to understand my own needs and then figure out how to meet those needs myself, then no one else can.

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    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 daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!