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.

Guess Who Seth Godin Calls “The Best Storytellers” #365StrongStories 21

“Who are the best storytellers?” After a serious binge on this particular podcast, I knew this was the host’s pet question. As ever, he indicated to the guest that he wanted a “creative” answer that would challenge the assertion that marketers are the greatest storytellers. (Only on a marketing podcast does anyone assume “marketers are the best storytellers” is the most interesting answer). Seth Godin, the man behind All Marketers are Storytellers and so many other brilliant books, broke the mold (as usual). According to Mr. Godin, the best storytellers are:

Mothers.

The host spluttered. He dissolved into nervous laughter. He tried to explain Seth’s answer for him and talk about how mothers are empathetic and caring. Then he trailed off about how he wasn’t going to get all “soft and fuzzy.”

Seth didn’t go there. Instead, he described mothers as people who devote 15 to 20 years crafting a human being. They don’t use tools or hacks learned at a conference. They merely set standard and live a life that leaves a story behind.

On behalf of the mothers out there - those of us who know we’re storytellers and those of us who haven’t discovered that yet - I thank you Mr. Godin, from the bottom of my maternal but not-so-soft-and-fuzzy heart.

The greatest story you’ll ever tell is the story that you live and devote to someone else. This is the foundation of my approach to telling stories that connect.

Get My Free Storytelling Guide

The Gift of the First Reader, #365Strong Stories 20

Story has been trying to find me all day, but I’m too tired to draw together myself together and let narrative arrange my scattered pieces. And so, I flip through the books that crowd my office couch hoping someone else’s words can conjure the magic that eludes me.

Just don’t pretend to know more about your characters than they do, because you don’t. Stay open to them. It’s teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It’s that simple.

My copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird was a used one, apparently. It’s so easy to lose track of how books find us these days. Generally, it’s enough that they find us at all. The harder thing is finding time for them, of course.

The pen that underlined that passage was black and inky, just like mine. I assumed the marks were my own until I noticed how straight the lines were. When juggling a nursing child or reading in bed by flashlight, all a mother can hope for are bold zigzags that don’t obscure the text too much.

And as exhaustion-warped as my memory is, I know I’ve never read that paragraph. A stranger had absorbed this book and let it go long before it made its way to me.

These days, I have little time for characters. My writing is focused on the “you” of the reader and the “I” that strives to tell good stories.

I do, however, try to make as many tea parties as I can. And I am as kind as I can be to the dolls at the table, and under the table, and even those who gouge the small of my back when I roll on them in the night.

Tonight, when I’m too weary to be the writer, I can be grateful for Lamott’s story and the book’s mysterious first owner for teaching me to be a better mama.

The iPad Time Machine, #365StrongStories 19

Must. Download. All. The. Ebooks.

You’ve been in this click-happy place. Perhaps when you’re feeling vulnerable in about your parenting skills or the size of your email list?

A few years ago, when “oooh! free stuff on the internet!” was cool and noteworthy, many of us were guilty of sacrificing our Gmail addresses for a dozen reports a day. (We didn’t realize we were paving the way for the billion dollar data storage industry, but I digress.)

At our house, the antiquated iPad is now streaked with tiny fingerprints, but it used to be the storehouse for all my entrepreneurial dreams. I imagined I would absorb all that material and suddenly awake to find that I too had broken the six figure barrier! You can guess how that’s worked out for me…

Anyway, when I was searching for an ebook to keep the kids interested in the car this weekend (I was in one of those moods when an app or a tv show would be proof I was failing as a parent), I stepped into the iPad time machine.

And I discovered storytelling. PDF after PDF about storytelling and business. Thing is, I don’t remember being particularly interested in storytelling back in 2012. I certainly don’t remember shunting any of those docs onto the iPad for future inspiration.

Though I’ve always been a writer who loved to immerse herself in fiction, “storyteller” felt too big. I hadn’t finished a novel, after all. That wasn’t what was holding me back from diving into storytelling though. It was something much more personal and painful:

I didn’t know, like, or trust my own story enough to believe it was worth telling. I was judging my ability to be a storyteller because I had passed harsh judgment on my own story.

In the last few years, I’ve come to believe that everyone is a storyteller. I know that stories are what enable us to make sense of our lives.

And I’ve had a chance to heal and fall in love with my own story too.

Finally, I’ve come to understand that my work is to help emerging thought leaders explore, own, and tell the stories that will change lives.

Because a good story comes full circle, this one does too. I've written my own ebook on storytelling.

This isn't some relic created  in 2012: it has been crafted for this moment in time and crafted for you, the emerging thought leader who doesn’t have years to waste on fears that your stories aren't worthy.

Download it now and read it now. Your 2019 self will thank you for it!

The Story You Have the Right to Tell, #365StrongStories 18

The words had stuck in the storyteller’s throat, and so she went to her teacher for counsel. “They have asked me to tell a story at the Celebration of Kindness and Justice. They wish me to speak for those who have suffered.” Her mentor was wrapped in furs and cradled a steaming cup. “An honor to be sure, dear one.”

“Not an honor I sought!” I have no stories to tell. Give me one, please, Teacher. You saw what it was like. You know what I must say.”

“Saw what it was like?” the old woman’s husk of a voice cracked. “My father ran the ships that carried them. I saw what it was like to be a spoiled rich girl. I saw what it was like to hate the freedom fighters and to consider emancipation a betrayal of divine right!”

“But you don’t believe that now, of course!”

“I don’t have the right to any beliefs at all. I lie in my bed and pay the granddaughter of the woman I once owned to bring me my every meal and wash my crumbling flesh. I’m too old to wonder how the story has changed.”

Our storyteller learned her craft from this elder - all the myths and the sagas and the legends that had built their little country. It was true, teacher and student rarely discussed what went on in the marketplace or spoke of rumors from the castle or across the sea. But the storyteller had learned that every tale had to speak to the joys and sorrows of the day. How had her teacher forgotten?

“The story that ends the forgetting,” she said as she rose. She could not leave the dark chambers fast enough now that she realized what she had to say. “Thank you, dear teacher. I must go!” She would not spin a tale that was not hers, but she would use her moment at the center of the circle to invite in the people who had lived and earned the right to tell it.

Winter Called: It's Coming, #365StrongStories 17

The wise have long been counseling the headstrong heroes. Warriors have fallen with a final warning on their lips: Winter is coming.

Of course, Game of Thrones viewers have known something nasty was on its way. Over several seasons, we’ve watched the threat from the North take shape. All that stands between the innocent citizenry and zombie army is one last great wall.

Today, the leadership at our house got the call: Winter is coming this way too.

“I want a cell phone! Kids at school have them!”

(You can try to imagine that this was gently and logically delivered, but you’d be living in a fantasy world more mystical than Westeros.)

Everyone who watches plugged-in parents of small children have seen this coming. Technical forces whose power we don’t completely understand have us under siege. And they’re coming for our kids.

We’d been warned. We’d been talking about how we’d prepare. But there was always a more immediate dragon to slay and we assumed winter wouldn’t come to us ‘til she at least knew her multiplication tables.

It is not time for the great battle. Not yet. Queen Mama and King Dad still have a mighty arsenal excuses - all of which begin and end with “you’re six!” And our words still have more power than her demands.

We will join forces to maintain our girl’s childhood. Finally, we know it’s not just rumor and paranoia. It’s just the first concerted attack of our wall.

I’d love to say we were better prepared.

Football = Conflict, #365StrongStories 16

Football = Conflict, #365StrongStories by Marisa Goudy

When you're committed to writing a story a day but mothering and football occupy the day, you're in luck.

Conflict makes a story and football is nothing but conflict. (So is motherhood, but that story takes more nuance to tell).

So, the story of the day is simple: football.

And, the good news is, this conflict had a happy ending.

That's One Sick Story, #365StrongStories 15

The flu’s plot line is straight from the storytelling textbook. (Note: not all stories that fit the form are inherently interesting. That's your job.) The mundane world (health) is jeopardized. The hero must quest for the remedy (chicken soup, time, drugs). A mentor is consulted (mom, healer, doctor). Either order is restored or catastrophe strikes.

If you’re writing a comedy, be sure to describe the fever dreams, the crazy clerk at the pharmacy, and the sheet volume of tissues and Friends reruns.

If this is a tragedy, you must explore “I never thought this could happen to us,” and perhaps sum it all up with a meditation on the flu vaccine, the limits of modern medicine, and God’s will or the complete absence of the divine.

But, when you’re in the midst of it - or, in my case, holding a two-year-old whose new mantra is “No fun. Tummy hurts” - there’s no comedy yet and you wouldn’t even entertain a tearjerker ending.

One of the toughest truths of writing about real life events: you can’t tell a satisfying story until the major conflict is resolved or the hero realizes something new.

And it’s damn hard to write much of anything when you’ve got a thermometer sticking out of your mouth or you're trying to stick one into a squirming toddler.

A Modern Entrepreneurial Hero's Journey, #365StrongStories 14

---

Last fall, I wrote my way to the edges of my own mastery when I realized I couldn’t confidently complete the sentence “a good story is…”

As a lover of both fiction and creative non-fiction, this was disconcerting. For a writing coach, this was terrifying.

For months, I turned inward.

I was writing more than ever, but I wasn’t producing many full sentences. There were lists and notes and lots of arrows slicing across the page.

This was the stuff of discovery, not publication. And yet, something magical was happening.

The hero's quest is realized when she brings home the healing elixir to serve the greater good. And so, it was my mission to understand and then teach what makes a strong story.

First, I had to understand why I cared so much. Only then would I know how to help anyone else understand why stories and storytelling matter.

Stories are how we understand the world.

Stories are how we transmit ideas.

Stories are the building blocks of consciousness.

In compelling stories of growth and transformation, the hero may be may start the story as an innocent, but she is not without skills. (Rey flew the Millennium Falcon, didn’t she?) Instead, the journey is an awakening of latent powers and wisdom.

That’s what this journey into “what makes a strong story?” was for me - a chance to realize that I’d been a storyteller all along.

Ultimately, what I gained, in addition to confidence, was the ability to be a guide. And so, as I did what all modern entrepreneurial heroes do: I created an ebook.

(Do I see the irony that my heroes are Jedis and my great quest involves a subscription to LeadPages. Yes, but that’s a whole other story).

I wrote this guide for you, dear reader, and I would like you to read it. I want you to read it because I know you're a storyteller too (even if you haven't discovered your powers yet) and because I want you to tell your own Strong Stories too. 

Send Me My Free Guide

After the Fire and Fight, #365StrongStories 13

She still had the scars on her hands. The sensation in her fingertips would never be what it was. That was alright. She wanted to remember. She still burned with shame for what she’d done to set that fire. Even worse, she mourned that she’d fed the flames and brought the whole place down.

If only they’d understood what she was really trying to do. Yes, it was destructive and foolish and horrifically self-righteous. But she could see the future laid before them. Why was it that no one else was driven mad by the thought that they’d committed to living a life in the shadows?

Yes, she had burned downed the barn. Truly, she had done it because everyone needed a chance to see the moon.

But she’d given up all radical action. She was a mother now, not an arsonist. She had her own home now - but she’d never have a barn. And she had taught her children that it was perfectly alright to interrupt dinner and run to the window if someone spotted a waxing crescent in the wide evening sky.

Trading fire and fight for endurance and patience had been exactly what she needed to do. It was her penance and it was her obligation to the passage of time. And yet, her daughters would always wonder why the moon made their mother smile but she left any room that danced with candle flame.

How to #KissAGinger, #365StrongStories 12

A couch in a basement.

Two couples. (Well, “couples” feels like a particularly weighty word since all four were seventh graders).

And two pieces of licorice.

It was the gross shoelace kind of licorice that you only eat because there’s no chocolate around. It’s the kind of “food” wise people avoid.

I was not wise. I was twelve. And I would take any pathway available to get to my first kiss - even a long red strand of gummy sugar.

Enough with childhood. Enough with the wondering about what it would be like. Enough with the fear that no one would ever pick me.

Mission accomplished. And the next day I called the kid’s best friend to deliver the “can you tell him I don’t want to go out with him anymore?” news. (Because that is what you did when you were twelve in 1991).

Did I mention that the whole reason we found ourselves on this basement couch was because we both had red hair? Apparently, “making a cute couple” was more important than actually liking a person. Granted, being freed of the the terror that I would die without being kissed was even more important than our friends’ idea of “cute.”

It’s #KissAGinger day, so I salute the young man on the other end of that strand of licorice. I do hope that the next ginger you kissed gave you a better time.

As Jonathan Swift wrote in In Gulliver's Travels:

It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity.

Indeed. But you have to get me tipsy before I’ll tell you the story of what it’s like when gingers meet over pints in Dublin, not candy on Cape Cod!

What My Grandmother Couldn't Teach Me in the Kitchen, #365StrongStories 11

One day, back when I was a college student, I entered the kitchen to find my grandmother looking at an uncooked turkey that sat on the counter.  She looked at me and asked, with that most beautiful twinkle in her eye, “Marisa, if you were to come home to this turkey, what would you do?” Without a trace of irony I replied, “I’d put it back in the fridge.”

Nanna’s laughter made it clear that this was not the sort of answer she was seeking.  She wanted to share a moment with her granddaughter, passing on culinary knowledge.

I was concerned that the family might get food poisoning if the bird stayed out too long.  It didn’t occur to me to be interested in cooking anything. Even spending time with Nanna was not enough to convince me that preparing a meal was more worthwhile than reading a book.

Thing have changed. Sorta.

Ok, so I’ve never actually been solely responsible for the cooking of a turkey, but I have roasted a few chickens in my time. And tonight we might have feasted on frozen pizza and mac n’ cheese, but they were served with a side of peas and mixed greens so no one is getting scurvy here.

I read precious few books before bedtime these days, so “I’m reading!” isn’t the excuse that keeps me out of the kitchen. Admittedly, however, it’s not unusual for me to hit the freezer when I’ve got a launch coming up.

The good news is I had a Nanna who’d love me anyway. And I have a husband and kids who do too.

What We Mean When We Say Motherhood Is "Incredible," #365StrongStories 10

“Moms, how come you never told us?” Back when I was high on whatever cocktail Mother Nature serves new mothers to enable us to survive the stress of being responsible for another human life, I wrote an open letter to the Baby Boomer moms.

Sweetly self righteous, I thanked them for teaching us to take on the world, but I took this generation of women to task for holding back an essential piece of information.

“How come?” I asked like some daft hen staggering about under the influence of yummy postpartum hormones.

“How come you never told us that motherhood was this incredible? You never mentioned the spell that was cast when you first looked into our infant eyes. You never described it as the greatest love story never told.”

The mommies who came before us didn’t get around to waxing poetic about every magic sparkle moment of motherhood because… motherhood.

Finally, I know that that word really means. Incredible is defined as “difficult or impossible to believe.”

All of the joy and rage and numbness and passion that get mixed into the mother-child bond… it really is incredible.

Yes, parenting is difficult and impossible to believe. I cannot fathom how I - and all the rest of the moms I know - can be a kind, smart, creative individual who practices any level of self control when forced to live with this kind of sleep deprivation and these draconian limits on personal and professional time.

And yes, to balance this all out and to show that I am mother that I purport to be on Facebook, the tremendous love I feel for these girls is incredible too. But tonight, the new mommy glow has long since worn off and just wish everyone would figure out to sleep through the night and wake up pleasantly in the morning.

The Lottery Myth, #365StrongStories 9

“Did you buy our tickets, my dear?” He kissed her temple as she leaned close to him. Just back from the marketplace, she had stopped to see her husband in his workshop. The crucible where he heated the sand to make his delicate glass bottles and globes burned hot, and she moved behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders while he worked. “I did. I chose all our lucky numbers.”

“I like it,” he said, still distracted by his work.

“Do you? I just want the whole thing to be over. No one can talk of anything else. The rich merchants are leaving the royal gatehouse with sacks full of chits. As if they needed anything more! And the poorest people, I hear, are not buying bread because they’re spending all their alms money on one single ticket.”

As he prepared the materials for a gold vase commissioned by one of those rich merchant’s wives, he murmured, “Ours is not to judge how people spend their money or do anything else. Haven’t you told me that before?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “But I still don’t understand it. Why would the prince decide to share a portion of his fortune with just anyone? Is he looking for entertainment, watching the people stand in line and boasting about what their lives will be like when they live the life of a royal?”

“I do admit I prefer imagining a life of plenty to worrying over next month’s profits.”

“Me too, me too. I just keep wondering, do you get a portion of the man’s misfortunes as well when you go to collect your winnings?”

Ladybugs Give the Best Parenting Advice

“Roots down. Down into the belly of mother earth.” Brows drawn low. Mouth folded into a perfect prune of indignation. I long to push aside her tangled hair and smooth those deep grooves in her her forehead, but I don’t dare. Those lines etch my own face. It’s agony to see them taking shape on a six year-old.

“Again,” I say, stunned by the calm in my voice. “Again. We do roots down. And we reach into the belly of the earth where all the quiet energy is.”

It seems to take several lifetimes to get her to rise and plant her feet into bathroom tiles.

(This is why I do all this healing training. This is what all that damn meditation is for. This time, I swear to myself, I will not lose my shit.)

“Now, branches up.” At this point, little sister has joined the fun. At least someone is reaching their arms to the sky with me! “Come on, big girl. Reach up to the stars and ask the angels to help you.”

We get there. It happens. She reaches up her arms and she’s almost ready to smile.

It’s time to find all the love in her acorn heart when…

I’m not even sure what happened next. This was only yesterday, and I all remember was a second flash flood of tears washed away our carefully planted tree. It doesn’t matter. The Moira tree was back on the floor and I was wondering if it was ethical to give her a blanket and let her cry herself to sleep curled up next to the bathtub.

But then I remembered what all this spiritual practice is really for. It’s for helping you spot miracles when you’re ready to spit nails.

A ladybug. A ladybug on the sole of my slipper.

Through her tears, Moira noticed it. She smiled at the sweet summer spirit that was taking refuge with us through the long winter.

Legend has it that ladybugs were sent by Mother Mary to save the fields from plagues of aphids. At our house, ladybugs are sent by my mother who passed in 2010.

For at least a few moments every day, I mourn that I don't have a mom to help me figure out how to mother. The grace comes in the moments when I see how wrong I am. Helping my daughter navigate all those big feelings... it's not all up to me. There is literally support coming out of the woodwork.

It's an Epiphany, Baby, #365StrongStories 6

The story has it that on this Twelfth Night of Christmas a trio of wisemen reached the end of their starlit path and offered gifts to a baby with a great big destiny.

Of course, back then, the only one who was counting Christ’s days was the young woman who marvelled that it had been twelve days since she looked into her little boy’s eyes for the very first time.

This is the Feast of the Epiphany. For those of us who will not celebrate with a mass or observe any of the Christian customs wrapped up in this visit from the Magi, it can simply be a day of revelation.

What have the first six days of the year revealed? What’s become clear now that the gifts have been given, the calories consumed, the credit card statements received?

I’m looking back to the myth for inspiration and counting to twelve with Mary. I am recovering the wonder of holding a twelve day old baby when every sigh was a message from the divine. I’m reclaiming the stillness you experience when you witness a new life unfolding.

And, because it's a day to receive gifts, I'm politely asking the universe to remind me of all the bliss of cradling a newborn without any of the sleeplessness or the spit up!