Great training for writers who want to learn to “twist” their readers all around. Masterfully written. No special effects. Just a few characters. Scary. Short. Make a social or political statement.

Last night — Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

A woman sits up in bed wrapped in bandages. She wants to know if she will look more presentable when the bandages come off. The nurse and doctors cannot guarantee she will become less “hideous.” She’s already had ten surgeries to alter her appearance. Folks turn away from her in disgust because of her disfigurement. You don’t see anyone’s face.

They remove the bandages s.l.o.w.l.y. The nurses recoil in horror. She is still “ugly.”

The camera pans over her. She looks like Marilyn Monroe! The camera pans over the doctors. They look like half-people/half-pigs.

She tears down the hall unable to face her own face which no one else can bear to see.

They bring her back and say she will be going to live with the other disfigured folks. A guy from that group arrives to take her there.

He looks like a model.

Makes you question our notions of beautiful and ugly, fitting in, shame, etc.

Have you ever felt like an ugly duckling? Someone who did not fit in? I spent decades feeling that way, not being able to accept my reflection. Thought I looked too “ethnic.” Wanted to be blonde with straight hair instead of brunette with curly hair.

Crazy! Thanks G.

The article titled “Survival of the Nicest” in the spring 2013 issue caught my eye right away. Runs contrarian to what I’ve been raised to believe about my fellow humans.

Beginning something new can be really hard for people. They get scared they will fail, so they don’t even start. The right answer syndrome is the most likely culprit. Years of being trained to only see one answer acts as an anti-catalyst. People don’t want to be wrong. They don’t want to fail. They don’t want to feel embarrassed.

We all need encouragement to try new things, to go for new adventures, to try all the things we want to do but that often get relegated to life’s back burner. I had a boyfriend encourage me to sing when I’d been told I had a terrible voice. As it turns out, I didn’t have a terrible voice. His encouragement changed my life. Make that, saved my life. It had a ripple effect across my entire being – from my enthusiasm to my attitude to my self-esteem.  Thank you ex-boyfriend!

I had the Encouragement Booth several years back at Ashland Day. I loved hearing what people wanted to do and then encouraging them to do it.

I read a recent article in a magazine that said innovative ideas were drying up and they didn’t know why.

Well, this is why. If you train folks to not take chances, they grow up to not take chances. Constant testing makes folks right answer-centric. What you end up with is a world that idolizes high test scores, thinking it’s a proxy for intelligence. Many forms of intelligence exist in the world. It’s about time we recognized and embraced and encouraged all of them. I believe everyone has a special intelligence they need to be encouraged to use.

Can you imagine our world if we all took chances? If we all went for it? Read the tweets on twitter – many of them are from folks who want to do something new, something else, but they can’t seem to rev up the inner engines to do so.

Just discovered that September 12th is National Encouragement Day, which is some form of kismet because the day I did the encouragement booth was right around that date and I didn’t even realize it. I’m going to gear up for National Encouragement Day on the local level. Maybe get some arts groups together to hold an open house? Writing groups?

The day is the creative brain child of the Encouragement Foundation in Arkansas. Click on the name and it will take you there.

I’m excited just thinking about it.

What would you like to be encouraged to do? Please share below. I want to encourage you … Or, perhaps mention your forays into the encouragement world — who encouraged you to take a chance?

Thanks, G.

Once up, I turned around to see who I could offer hope and inspiration to and there were many. If we all did reach out our hands, the world could be a loving place for all. Way too much suffering goes on in the world because folks do not love themselves enough. They do bad things to other people because of their own pain. It continues down through the generations until no one knows how it even got started or that they have the power to stop it.Can we please change that model, already? It doesn’t work. It’s hell on earth. What’s the point of it all?

The article “Subterranean Cathedral” stopped me in my skimming tracks. James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch heard about the vast, abandoned underground spaces that lie dormant under New York City and approached the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to turn it into an underground park illuminated with their invention of redirected sunlight. Fascinated with how they will do that. The forgotten world reminded me of the 1987ish show Beauty and the Beast. In that show, The Beast and a bunch of other folks lived under New York City.

So, these two go-for-it risk-takers settle on the historic former Williamsburg Trolley Terminal unused since 1948 and create a Kickstarter campaign asking for $100,000 to develop a proposal. They got it and a whole lot more. I’m going to investigate Kickstarter for my cool creativity non-center center. I had forgotten about this tool.

If you visit their site “The LowLine“ you can see the before and the proposed after. Gorgeous renderings of NYC’s first underground park.

Creative hats off to these two imagineers with the courage to to take on something this novel and big. We need more people like James and Daniel to come up with these fantastical ideas. Too many people won’t even try to do something. They talk themselves out of it, thinking (even hoping on some level) it isn’t possible.

I’m convinced everything is possible.

What impossible thing would you like to pull off? Please tell us if you like …

Thanks, G.

It reminded me to live my life unscripted as much as possible.

For example, last night I went to a stacked Town Meeting knowing I was going to speak against the crowd. It was for more money for an athletic complex that has gone way over budget because they stuck with the plan when they hit significant financial issues early on. Many voters felt like they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. We’ve spent millions and they wanted another million and say they will come back again for even more.

It’s interesting because art, music and theater can’t get a penny. But for sports, they’ll rip apart the books looking for the money or bond against monies dedicated to other things. Just can’t figure it out.

So, I went there with something in mind to say, some things I wrote down. Then I decided to just bag it and get up there and speak.

Honestly, it’s much easier when I just bag a script and speak from the soul. The one time I completely wrote out what I was going to say, I got up there and “forgot” my next line. I started to scramble through my notes but the writing was so small I couldn’t see it. I got all disjointed and actually said nothing for a good minute while I collected my thoughts.

That’s when I vowed never to write anything out again.

I know we are supposed to go on job interviews and rehearse and rehearse. But at some point, you need to trust that you will know what to say, to trust that your inner spirit will speak with you. It also requires you to listen to the conversation and what people actually say, to respond to that and not some conversation in your head. I’d love to see improv classes taught beginning in elementary school!

How about some of you, do you fly without a script or carry one with you?

G.

Now I view it as a way to keep you so pre-occupied with something stupid that you don’t have time to shape your own life. Do good grades mean you are smart? Care about humanity? Ready to make a contribution to society?

Thoughts?

Been on this campaign to do good in the world. I’m defining good to mean standing up for doing the right thing, spreading the good word about creativity, getting my words into the world, alleviating suffering when I can, being someone you can count on to keep their word, organizing activities in my community.

My recent projects:

a) Organizing a moonlight walk at a fab parcel of land my town just bought. This will be in October. The night is so undervalued, yet so beautiful and quiet. I’m looking for places to hear my own thoughts these days.

b) Standing up at some recent town meetings about monies being “given” to one favored group that should have been returned to the people for them to make the decision. Let me tell you that I took quite a verbal whipping for doing so. But my philosophy is that it makes me stronger. My skin has gotten quite thick, yet I’m not cynical or jaded for the most part. O.k. maybe a little bit.

c) Writing my first “self-hope” book. This should speak to a lot of folks dealing with depression or the ubiquitous, “Why do I get up in the morning?”

Any of you doing meaningful stuff you’d like to share? Thanks! G.

She cared about people, about changing the world, about community, about doing good, about writing from the heart, about living every minute she was alive.

God, we need more people like her. To think there is one less, gets me all choked up.

If you haven’t read her last essay written for the Yale Daily News, here it is. It’s called The Opposite of Loneliness. Every word, phrase, sentence speaks to me. Another example that one does not have to be old to be wise.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/

Thanks, Giulietta

March, April and most of May flew by while I worked with others in town to save the Devil’s Den from execution. It’s been mutilated but it’s still with us. In time, erosion will smooth out the gouges left by heavy equipment that didn’t give two hoots about nature.

But as fast as it has gone by, it’s been a terrific three months. I’m surrounded by other folks that care about history and nature. Folks that take time out of their busy lives to do something that matters to them.

All of this attention to time reminds me of the Jim Croce song, Time In A Bottle. He died on September 20, 1973, in plane crash when the pilot flew into what someone called “a black hole.” A week before he died, the song played during a scene in a  a made-for-tv movie called She Lives! That and his death sparked renewed interest in his music. Time In A Bottle reached # 1 in December, 29 1973, three months after he died.

You can hear the song below.

It always seems ironic, when an artist writes a song about time and then dies young. It’s as if s/he knew his/her life might end soon, so they wrote about it.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day ’til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

My question to you this week, if you could save time in a bottle would you?  And please interpret this anyway you like.

Thanks! Giulietta

Yet, words of wisdom from another person often make our journey on earth much easier. They may have already experienced something you are going through now. Or, they’ve lived longer and know what worked for them during the more trying times of life. While some advice may not be right for you, other advice may be.

Can you please dig deep into your life memories and share the one piece of advice that’s helped you most in life and who gave it to you? Think of this as a giant advice column for the folks who will read it.

I will go first.

About 18 years ago, I was taking a walk on my corporate lunch break with L. – a colleague I didn’t know very well. We got to talking about my angst at work. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and said, “Quit your job without another one. It will liberate you.” I’d been trained to go from job to job. To fear being unemployed. To believe it spelled economic doom. It took me 9 months to get up the courage to quit. But I did. It changed the trajectory of my life in a powerful way. I had a much better job in less than a year doing something completely different. Then, when I needed to move on from that job, I didn’t think twice about leaving it.

If I hadn’t made the leap, I shudder to think what economic corner I’d be cowering in right now. Thank you L.!

Your turn … Thanks, G.