The Moment a Princess Becomes a Queen, #365StrongStories 26

The woman drew her spine straight though no one would accuse her of slouching. She glared at the shoulder blades of the retreating clerk but soon sighed deeply and settled her face back into its usual expression of benevolent calm. It wasn’t this dreadful man’s fault that the news he carried was so bleak. She had never known an officer from the merchants’ bank to come bearing anything but vague threats and insincere apologies.

In truth, she had inherited an impoverished realm but wasn’t given a single clue about how to rescue it. For more than two generations the family had eked out an existence on the afterglow of remembered opulence alone. But even that dance with delusion had ended, finally and without ceremony. She smiled wryly to think that there wasn’t money for ceremony anyhow.

Regardless of what the bankers said, there would always be enough to keep them fed and clothed. Mostly, she didn’t care if they had to move to the castle gatehouse because the roof of the Great Hall finally caved in. Though she hadn’t realized it at the time, she had made that decision long ago.

Before she ever wore her father’s heavy crown upon her head, she married a good man who would always be able to provide the essentials of life. But, of course, she had always been raised to expect more.

Nothing but the finest dreams and most gossamer promises were good enough for the young princess. She had been permitted to marry a man for love and was still allowed to keep the expectations of a bride who had made a strategic match based on riches and position.

Only now that the princess’s fantasy had dissolved into a sovereign’s reality did she see the weakness in the story of happily ever after. Now, she had her own daughters’ legacy to consider. And what about the ancestral ghosts that would lose their home if this palace was allowed to slide into the sea?

She took off her crown and looked at her reflection in the rosy gold. Her mind made up, for the first time in her life she looked into the eyes of a queen.

Thank You For Marrying Me Even Though Was Trying to Change You

I  scrutinized the handwriting. Yes, most certainly mine. It must have been inscribed to the last boyfriend. Everyone knew I took everything much too seriously during that particular affair.

Christmas, 2005

My Darling - for another chapter in our beautiful, healing journey.

All my love, Marisa

But, no, it said 2005. That was the year we were engaged. It was also the year I struggled with Lyme disease, the Epstein-Barr Virus, and an emergency appendectomy. Apparently, it was also the year my then-fiance managed to love a woman who thought marriage was about turning every hellish personal experience into an “our.”

My husband of ten years - the engineer, the craft beer connoisseur, the once and future mountain biking enthusiast -  I gave this man a book about Chinese medicine for our second Christmas.

Granted, he does believe in acupuncture. Meaning: he'll make an appointment when he can’t walk. He also believes in back surgery and flat out ignoring the pain and devoting himself to making everyone else happy.

Thank goodness he also believes in accepting dumb gifts with good grace because no one remembers 2005 as the year I cried under the Christmas tree when he said “why did you buy me some book about Asian herbs that nobody is ever going to read?”

I came across this forgotten volume while cleaning my office today and I have to share this story now so I can laugh quickly and get over the embarrassment of it all.

Oh, the foolishness of youth and new love!

Oh, the way I tried to make my life partner into some idealized earthy crunchy mate!

Oh, how glad I am that he didn’t change just to suit me because, as it turns out, I’m generally more interested in sipping a finely made IPA than I am in balancing my yang energy by ingesting foul tasting plants whose names I can't pronounce!

The Exhausted Heroine's Inevitable Death, #365StrongStories 24

There comes a day when the heroine is no longer exhausted. After an arduous journey, she simply vanishes. In her place, you get a crabby lump of protagonist. Creativity, passion, and proactivity have all given way to listless desperation. The new character is simply named “Exhaustion” because no one has the energy to argue or come up with something better.

It’s nearly impossible to write a story about Miss Exhaustion. She’s drained of dreams because everything is so dreamlike. She doesn’t think she has the resources to make a single useful change. She prone to conflict, but it’s all petty and dull stuff that everyone has heard too many times before.

And yet, Exhaustion loves story.

She binges on Mad Men instead of listening to thought-provoking podcasts. She lets the kids watch a movie. And then all the cruddy straight to video releases in the series too. She rereads paperbacks that comforted her in high school and every chapter is a surprise because her memory is shot by this chronic, crushing fatigue.

Exhaustion find it impossible to write a story. Her own story isn’t worth a second glance. But at least she has gratitude for all the authors and showrunners and exuberant children who fill the days and nights with narratives that give her hope to awaken to another day.

When did you stop telling stories that mattered to you? #365StrongStories 23

I’d been born a storyteller. Fearless. Impassioned. Believing that it was just as easy to write a story as it was to read one. But then…

I fell in love with a more ambitious, committed writer. Praising a story became more important than writing one.

I got caught up in the scholarly race of college. Analyzing literature became more important than creating it.

I landed a job in academic library administration. Managing the collection became more important than adding to it.

I built a series of website and copywriting businesses. Marketing strategy became more important than getting to the core of the stories I was always meant to tell.

For almost half my life, I nudged my stories at the back of the line.

I told the stories I felt I was supposed to tell. The stories that served and supported others. The stories that seemed useful. The stories that I prayed would be practical and profitable.

Funny. Very few of those stories were worth a damn.

Writing for the sake of writing. Writing for pleasure, passion, expression… That was a nice hobby, confined to the journal page. It seemed like the greatest decadence, a suspect and selfish act, to craft stories of my own.  Growing up, it seemed, meant putting aside the stories that really mattered to me.

I know there are countless creative women - and men - who stand beside me and say “me too.” I know that I am amongst the fortunate who has found her voice and can say aloud “not any more.”

Bring on the selfishness, bring on the devotion, bring on the act of being in service to the page - even when someone hangs on my elbow and reminds me that I need to keep my mind on other stories too. If I’m really a storyteller, I can balance and juggle and spin all these tales together into work that makes life sing.

... And so can you. I believe that every strong story told for the greater good begins with devotion to what you really need to say - it's the first step to telling a story that connects.

Every Family Story Is About One Thing, #365StrongStories 22

“Mama! Why are you crying about that letter from Tatu?” My perceptive first-grader recognizes my grandfather’s handwriting. Sending clippings from the Wall Street Journal, prayers and pictures of saints, and packets of stamps for my husband’s inherited collection, Grandpa is our most faithful correspondent. Today, it’s a half-page ad from the New York Times. Grandpa would like to buy me an audio course on storytelling, if I’m interested. Even as I tell the story now, the tears well up again.

Marketers and people who help you build online visibility like to expose your pain by asking “what do you do when the only person who reads your blog is your mom?” It’s rather a rude question and, since my mother died in ‘09, I especially loath that line. Perhaps now I’ll merrily substitute “your grandfather” and forgive the speaker for being so glib.

You’ll hear different perspectives on “what makes a good story.” Conflict and tension are two of the more common answers. To me, one thing makes a story compelling and meaningful: transformation.

A good story is one that changes the reader in some small way.

A story about how nice it is to get gifts from my grandpa isn’t exactly wrought with tension. Admittedly, I wondered if it were fair to ask him to spend his money on one more piece of content I barely have the time to consume. But that evaporated quickly. If you’re a 37 year-old woman with a letter-writing, blog-reading grandfather who thinks of your business and your passion while he peruses his daily paper, you say “yes, please.” You then compose a very nice thank you note complete with pictures drawn by the great grand daughters and you gratefully make the time to listen and learn.

Instead, let’s focus on transformation.

The story of any family is one of constant change. The endless rising and ebbing of generations. The perpetual fluidity of roles that only children get to ignore.

Now, when we’re navigating a crazy supermarket parking lot during a Saturday visit, I’m watching for Grandpa’s footing as much as I’m making sure the kids don’t dart into traffic. We have all been transformed, but then, that’s where all the meaningful stories come from.