A Phenomenal Woman

Posted by random olio

I am sure a lot of people are writing and sharing about Maya Angelou today, yesterday, and in the coming weeks. She deserves the fanfare. A stellar woman, with so much poise, brilliance, and badassness. The Internet is buzzing with her quotes, thoughts about her life, and how she inspired millions upon millions of people in the course of her life. I love, love, love her last tweet:

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God. 11:43 AM – 23 May 2014

I wonder what was going through her thoughts, if she was coherent, if she was so closely talking to God. Regardless, she shared such wisdom with the world, and we are all the better for it.

One of my all time favorite Maya Angelou poems is: “Phenomenal Woman.” In case you have not read it, it still brings tears to my eyes. I think I first read it in college. It was one of those poems that I instantly memorized and often has come back to my thoughts. I often wonder if it was the first time that I actually thought about the idea of a woman being “phenomenal.” Sad, but true. Here is the first verse, but I encourage you to click the above link and read the entire poem.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say, It’s in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

I only hope that we can continue to raise our girls to know they are phenomenal — whatever their age, background, or disposition. Here is also a past blog post with another favorite Maya Angelou quote.

Pink shoes, bling, and your favorite sweater

Posted by random olio

Ah, I like me a good book. One that invigorates, makes me think of my life in new and different ways, and of course it is a bonus when I do not want to put it down. Shauna Niequist does it again with “Cold Tangerines.” I recently wrote about her book, “Bread and Wine” and shared her Blueberry Crisp recipe. (If you have not tried it, I can assure you that you are missing out.) Both books are memoirs that weave God and faith into them, but not in over the top ways. She shares about life’s triumphs and challenges through the lens of goodness. I loved this analogy she shared comparing bling to how we should live our life each day:

“Today, humble Today, presents itself to us with all the ceremony and bling of a glittering diamond ring: Wear me, it says. Wear me out. Love me, dive into me, discover me, it pleads with us.” Page 10

As someone who is abusive to jewelry, constantly breaking clasps or earrings, I love, love, love this. I am constantly telling Chris that I do not know how I did it but there is a large-sized chunk taken out of my ring, and I do not remember what I must have hit to dig out such a crater. Call me absentminded. Oh well. If we were to approach life in the way I am with jewelry, my grandma would call me a bull in a china shop. Not a bad way to look at it, as it means we are living to the fullest. No dainty white gloves, tip toeing through each day.

I will leave you with another quote from Niequist that inspired me:

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don’t want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift, who will use it up and wring it out and drag it around like a favorite sweater.” Page 234

Two nights ago I went to see a preseason Blazers game and saw such interesting individuals walking around the Moda Center. One especially caught my eye because she was dressed in the brightest neon pink from head to toe. In my opinion she looked hideous, not so much from the color, but what was not covered from her outfit. However, even though I made that judgement, a large grin spread across my face, because I thought: “She is wearing hot pink shoes, and does not care. You go girl.” Wear pink, sing with the windows down, and make God laugh, or whatever makes your heart sizzle.

Groundedness and gratitude

Posted by random olio

I recently read a book that has made it to my top ten list for 2013. It is a memoir of food, life, and recipes. I find that I am often a magnet for good food writing. Which is funny because I cannot cook for the life of me. I am a baker, but do not expect me to whip up a dinner, unless you want to go with raw foods. So when I read “Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes” by Shauna Niequist, not only was I inspired by her outlook on life, I found pages and pages of recipes that looked easy, unpretentious, and like the yummy comfort food that makes you want to snuggle on the couch with your significant other and nibble away.

Niequist intersperses God and her faith a bit throughout the book, but not in an over the top way. She made me think, ponder, and appreciate life and food so much more. She uses the word “groundedness” in this quote and I love it. Don’t we often look for what is next? For something more? Just last weekend I was looking at a painting of mine and said to Chris I want to give that painting another life. It is time to paint over it and move on. I do not do that often, as I love most of the artwork I have done, but there has always been something about this set of paintings that I have wanted to change. I am grateful for the time it served in our home, but time for something more.

“I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude, both. I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s weaving a future I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.” page 59

Does Niequist mean this about that next job we want, or that person we want in our life? Who knows. Maybe it is our next meal that we are craving because we have such an insatiable desire for food — its tastes, flavors, and our craving for it. That could be, as she talked often about her addiction to food. Whatever it means I feel she has encapsulated such a wonderful idea. To cultivate gratitude and groundedness. To know that what we have is enough, even as we stay open for something more.

We cannot be overly grateful, and yet, in order to grow and not stay complacent we need to yearn for more. Gratitude and groundedness seem like just the right balance.

Proof that you are loved.

Posted by random olio

I recently finished reading a book called: “Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander. It is an interesting book. I wanted to share one of the quotes from Alexander’s book that most resonated with me:

“You are loved. Those words are what I needed to hear as an orphan, as a child who’d been given away. But it’s also what every one of us in this materialistic age needs to hear as well, because in terms of who we really are, where we come from, and where we’re really going, we all feel (wrongly) like orphans.” Page 170

The author was adopted and at one point in his life had tried to find his birth parents, only to be told they were not interested in meeting him. He felt like an orphan all over again. Yet, in many ways whether we have lost our parents or not, if we do not feel loved, the result feels orphan-like. I had a professor in college that used to tell me: “You are loved, loving, lovable, needed, wanted, and useful. Right now.” She somehow always knew when I needed to hear those words. There were times in my life (college being one of them) when I did not hear the words “I love you” too often. Yet, those were the words I craved the most. We crave them when we need them the most. When you know you are loved, when you feel it, you do not question it. When you do not feel loved, you feel alone, on your own, and sometimes out in the wilderness.

It would be easy to say that you should know who you are, love yourself, and only then can you love others. That might be true, but before we can truly hold the comfort and confidence of who we are, we have to know, understand, and feel what love truly is, and what it feels like. Each individual understands what being loved feels like, some of us might have had the experience span our entire lifetime, and it might have been more intermittent for others, but we could not have continued living without understanding and knowing how being loved feels.

I often wonder if those committing evil acts today truly understood love? If they did, would they take a different road? If anger, misunderstanding, and revenge were replaced with love, the world would be a very different place.

What do you think?

What Is Your Favorite Curse Word?

Posted by random olio

Happy Monday! What a wonderful weekend of fun in the sun. While the rest of the country has had triple digits these last few weeks, it was in the 60’s in Portland. Now, with the sun and warmer temperatures, I can say summer is finally here and I am a little sunkissed!

Many years ago my sister got me interested in “Inside the Actor’s Studio on Bravo.” While I have not watched it in recent years, the show is in its 18th Season. On the show, James Lipton, the host interviews actors in front of an audience of students as part of a craft class. At the end of each interview he asks the actor the following ten questions:

What is your favorite word? Synthesis
What is your least favorite word? Moist
What turns you on? Crawling into bed with clean sheets, a clean house, after a full day.
What turns you off? Parents hitting or yelling at their kids in public places.
What sound or noise do you love? Quiet
What sound or noise do you hate? When parents do not calm their crying kids on airplanes.
What is your favorite curse word? F****
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Novelist
What profession would you not like to do? Pooper Scooper
If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Your vacation has just begun.

I decided to answer the ten questions as though I was being interviewed by James Lipton (like that will ever really happen). It is fun to think about, and they are different questions we might not usually think about or answer. After getting this far in writing this post, I did a Google search for “James Lipton’s Ten Questions” and found quite a few individuals answering his questions themselves. Who knew his ten questions would become so famous!

How would you answer his ten questions?