Not How the Story Ends

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones

At any given moment you have the power to say: “This is not how the story is going to end.” ~ Christine Mason Miller
*

I used to post vignettes on Facebook about my encounters with homeless people on the street. Tiny stories about once a month. In St. Petersburg where I lived, I saw them whenever I went downtown, which was often. They hung out at a park in the heart of the city, where all the buses came & went. I carried a wad of one & five dollar bills in a zipper pocket of my purse so I could easily reach when they asked. I’m a bleeding heart, but the thing is, I didn’t mind. They kept me present. Not with comparison of how fortunate I am. I remind myself of that daily. But with a vow I made 20 yrs. earlier to look them in the eyes. To remain aware of the humanity in all people.

This week I unwrapped a paperback copy of Merriam-Webster dictionary from the plastic bag that’s held it two years. There’s a story with this dictionary. About struggle and desire for a story in a man named Elvin that I met on the street. And his request I turned down, never had a chance to fix. A loss that kept me from unwrapping that dictionary for two years.

I’d just made a promise to myself that if anyone said they were hungry, I’d buy them food. And as happens often, the Universe gave me a chance to show I meant it.

I was distracted, intent on my destination. I saw the man approach, noted he looked clean. But it was moments after Elvin said he was hungry and I handed over my usual $2 in response, that I realized what I’d done. I turned, ran a block to catch up. He was turning away from a couple who’d said no. Do you want a sandwich? I said, pointing to the fabulous sandwich shop next to us. His eyes lit up. What kind of sandwich, he asked. Any kind you want, I said. ‘Even turkey? With mayonnaise and cheese?’ he said. I remember my heart breaking a little in thinking mayo & cheese such a treat as he face showed.

He looked at me before he answered whenever the gal asked for specifics – cheese, mayo, grilled, side. When he said he’d take it to go, I asked if he might want to eat it there. Hoped my question told him it was okay. I’d seen homeless chased from the shop, even with money to buy. I waited as he considered, was pleased when he decided to stay. And here’s where the story turns.

I saw him to his table, said I had to go. He thanked me, then, ‘What do you do?’ When he heard I was a writer, he said he wanted to write his mother’s story. ‘She’s the only one I know who’s never been in jail.’ Imagine the volumes in that line. I slid into the chair across from him.

I learned he has brain damage. The side of his head caved in by a hammer. That he got $600 disability, $500 of which went for a small room in a house that’s too far from town (read, where the agencies are). He came to St. Pete ‘cause it was ‘bad news’ in the town where he’d lived. Just grabbed what he could carry, left one day. He had one gray t-shirt. You saved your life, I said. He nodded. We made a date for the next time he’d take the bus to town.

When we met, he showed me the tiny pocket notepad he had for writing. I handed him a bag with a big notebook and package of pens. He eagerly took notes in it as I gave him a small lesson on free writes and prompts to help him get started. And asked intelligent questions about writing. I talked to him about what he wanted with this story, told him I’d help get it published. He declined when I offered a sandwich. We went for a coke down the street instead.

I learned he’d lost his cellphone. That he took the offer of a ride to the beach and while in the water, the guy stole his phone & left him without a ride. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I knew better. I just wanted to go to the beach so bad.’ He didn’t utter one bad word about the thief. I told him how much I liked him, and totally meant it. He said he liked me, too. We smiled with our new friendship.

Here’s the thing. Elvin asked for only one thing from me that day besides a coke. A dictionary. I confess at that moment I didn’t know how to keep the relationship between us even. I told him I didn’t have one, but I could give him a copy of a synonym finder I had. He seemed OK. We made another date for the next week.

And I bought a dictionary. I labored over getting the right one. Paperback that he could hold with one hand, since one of his arms didn’t work well after the hammer blow. Big type ‘cause his eyesight’s affected, too. He’d said he wanted a job. I called agencies for how he might find one.

I arrived on the minute of our date, flying in with a prayer I’d not be late. Elvin wasn’t there. I waited, walked the block, went to the park where the buses come & go several times. Sat until a gal from the sandwich shop came out, said ‘my friend’ left right before I arrived. I was distraught. I called his father in that ‘bad news’ town, left a message for him with my phone number. The phone number something I’d withheld “for safety.”

Elvin called me twice after that. The first time he apologized for leaving, asked if I could help him. I told him I didn’t have money to give, but I could drive him to the agencies, drive him home if he came to town. That I’d take him to the best Goodwill, buy him some clothes. He said OK, but he wasn’t there next time, either.

The second time it was a phone message. He was finding another place to live closer to town, he said. He’d be in touch when he settled.

I’ve thought about him ever since. I wanted to know him. I wanted to help him write his mother’s story. Wanted to see it published, like he wanted. In my mind it would be a bestseller. I wanted the chance to be in this beautiful person’s presence.   Because in that brief time we had, he constantly amazed me and made my heart open wider.

And that said, the truth is it was never equal between us. Me, a white woman of privilege. Him a black man with challenges I can never truly know. The distance between us maybe too big for where I was and where he was at the time, despite intentions. I will never know. I left a message for his father only once after that.

I walked the arroyo this past weekend with a friend. I couldn’t help thinking how the water flows like storylines in a book. . .or in a life. Which way do you go?

And how the entire ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park transformed, turned back to health by the re-introduction of wolves, a species once eradicated as a threat. How other species flourished when the wolves came back, and a ravaged river returned to it’s former glory. How our country was replaying this story, but with human beings as the threat.

I unwrapped the dictionary after holding it a hundred times these past two years, unable to pull it out. I think shedding that bag was my declaration. This is not how the story is going to end.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what do you think, how will your stories end?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I still hope to see Elvin one day, despite now living 1789 miles away.

Another way to change the story.
The Writer’s Block Myth – A Guide to Get Past Stuck &
Experience Lasting Creative Freedome.

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Space in the Real World

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Heloise Jones

‘Like angels and birds, poems flew to me unbidden as I transitioned through fear in the dissolution of my marriage and faced challenges as a single parent of a young child. Perfectly rhymed chronicles of my heart and thoughts spontaneously sprung from my pen. . .’
*

This won’t be perfect. I’m sure I’ll be back to edit. Because I learned I transferred money in the wrong direction between banks, and I’m scary overdrawn. Which means I run to the bank before I wordsmith. Ouch. A too-full mind missing details as I create a new life once more. Time blocked for writing and biz making, then pulled away by surprises with works put out less than perfect, needing rewrites & edits. Writer Life. Real Life, too.

Last week I shared poet Maya Stein’s query: ‘If you were to write 3 poems this week, what would be their titles?‘ One of mine – What Space Looks Like. Space is definitely up for me.

Every other week I get a postcard from my grandson in Taiwan. We don’t Skype so these are my tiny snapshots of his growing up I’ll never see. I send him cards, too, but haven’t figured how to get beyond the little sentences about his storytelling contest where so scared he almost scratched his butt, or petting silka deer at the beach who like him. A huge wave of missing his sparkly love and laugh washed over me with this week’s postcard. I wrote two back to him. And opening the linen cabinet, the blue towel caught me.

My son’s towels were always blue. It may sound crazy since he left home decades ago, but I always have that blue towel in my linen closet. It holds the space of me and him together. Like the stack of cards on my shelf does for my grandson. As I read the news, I can’t help wondering what holds the space of relationships for immigrants & refugees separated from their families. I know it must hurt their hearts like it hurts mine.

Someone who knows said her calendar is her freedom maker (read, space maker). It gives her permission to stop, step away from work and live with presence in ways that give balance. Because I’ve always been a work-til-the-task’s-done person, I’m still working on the calendar part. But I realized guilt and shoulds swallow my space as much as any thought of not having time. They’re linked. So this week I practiced no guilt as part of claiming space in rebuilding my life.

I met a friend who’s passionate about tea. He created a little tea-room in his bodywork office complete with low table filled with tea pots & small cups + cushions to sit on. I love his gentleness, and how happiness surrounds him since he married his longtime partner last year.

He had three containers lined up, told me to choose. I smelled each. Picked the one that made my eyes light up. It’s complexity excited me. I didn’t know what to think. The leaves were beautiful, too. A mixture of shades in brown, black, sage, & green that touched the artist in me. He told me it was an award-winning oolong he brought back from Taiwan when he toured tea farms. It’s the most expensive tea I ever bought, he said. He shared how tea farms are passed to sons, except this particular farm which passed to the daughter. Because she has the nose, touch, feel of everything tea. Her father still works for her.

We shared our delight and evaluated the infusions. He marked the seconds of ea. brew for future reference. We’ve got to do this tea together, again, he said as I was leaving. And this wonderful man, after sharing his prize, was gracious in thanking me for the gift of tea I brought him. I felt wholly filled with space.

Then a friend surprised me with a $25 birthday gift toward a massage at Ojo Caliente mineral springs. I said Yes to the day she had free. Ojo is part of what we do together. Started 23 yrs. ago when I lived here. Every other week for four yrs. we drove an hour across the NM countryside for a soak. It was on the calendar. What made this really big is for the first time in six years I have friends with me on my birthday. After 18 yrs. celebrating my Santa Fe friends’ birthdays each fall with a lunch or other gifts. We laughed. We put it on the calendar once more. Space carved.

There’s a shot I love of Rachel Ballentine, a poet whose observations of the world around her are so sentient I included one in my book The Writer’s Block Myth. The shot is so intimate, it’s almost as if we’re voyeurs. She looks about five. Her dress is plaid with lace trim, the kind of an era when young girls wore such serious patterns in often serious colors. She holds a brush lightly in her hand. So gently held it appears as if it could slip thru her fingers. The angle as if it might be calligraphy she paints. I love that it’s a brush, because she paints now, too. What I love most, tho, is the expression on her face. It’s one of complete Engagement and Peace. It conveys what all writers and artists know about immersion in the creative process.

That creating is often an intimate experience, especially for writers, and conversely the space is huge inside us when we’re in it. Rachel’s picture shows exactly what creative freedom looks like, for big people and small.

It feels as if the world is losing space right now. Not just info overload, or confusion of what’s real and what’s not, but freedoms lost in a veil of lies and self-serving kleptocrats. Protections of animals and the environment dismantled for the avarice of individuals and corporations. Space to contribute and live healthy lives co-opted as fingers point and bullies threaten anything ‘other.‘ A new set of shoulds being created for survival.

Author Nancy Peacock hits home with this: “The artist is always. . .between two opposite poles. This is what makes the artist. The ability to exist in the center of insanity and still bring something forth – of beauty, of importance, a story not yet told, a line of song, a note not yet sung. Making your art is more important now than it has ever been, and this will remain true for the rest of your life, no matter what happens or does not happen.“

This is my belief. Making art and writing are not selfish or frivolous. They’re necessary gifts in the mix of Life on Earth and create space for all of us. Writers and artists are the Voice for those who can’t say it, hold the Vision for those who need it, are the conscience of society. Sounds lofty, but that’s what I’ve come to believe bigtime.

I wrote a book to support writers and creatives. To help them thru the snarlies of life so they stay on their feet to live, work, and create at their best. Writers and creatives and all of us living in the Real World need space to use what we have. Words are what a writer has.

So, what you can do. . .give a book to a writer. Right now. Because I tell ya, I’m not the only one looking for breath and space.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

How do you find space in your life? Write me in the comments below.

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My Three Poems

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Heloise Jones

‘If you were to write 3 poems this week, what would be their titles?’
~ Maya Rachel Stein, poet and creative adventuress

My three:
– Saying Thank You 100 times as if It’s the Name of God
– What Space Looks Like
– We Don’t Have All the Time in the World

Maya and I are friends. We met nearly a decade ago, tho it seems weird to think it’s been so long because we both confess feeling a special bond despite seeing each other only twice. I discovered her poetry through a mutual friend. When I heard she was touring the country to meet some of the 600 people who subscribed for her 10-line Tuesdays (poems in our inbox!), was holding writing workshops in living rooms, that Charlotte was on her list of stops, I called her up. ‘Come to Asheville, stay with me,’ I said. ‘Asheville loves poets.’ I still have friends I made in my living room that day. Peeps I didn’t know who drove hours to sit with us. And Maya. Watching her adventures putting poetry and creative arts into the world, and her very special relationship with Amy. I couldn’t attend their wedding, but as I said in the sentiments I sent, I know there’s fun where-ever they are.

Maya and me. We share belief in the power of words and art. There are a dozen Thank You’s I have for Maya.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I found a poem I wrote for my husband Art on our 24th Valentine’s together. I don’t think I ever gave it to him. Yesterday was our 31st. In the beginning he gave me a dozen red roses. Always. Until I fell in love with the raucous color and dance of cut flower bouquets. Something only rare florists master. We may have gone out to dinner, too. Until I decided the crowds & bad food of restaurant rush weren’t worth the money, either. There were cards and candy, all the other ways Valentine’s defined for couples. In that poem, I snuck from bed, placed foil-wrapped lips on a stick in his toothbrush holder with my heart filled with tenderness. Today, him in NC, me happy here in Santa Fe, I think that’s what Valentine’s really about. Tender hearts. For a loved one, for friends, family, humanity, the planet, for ourselves.

There are a thousand Thank You’s for those 31 yrs. with Art. I put one on the Acknowledgement page of my book:

I wish to thank my husband Art for the space and his willingness to see me through
years of creative pursuits. His insights during the times I needed a different perspective
made me a better writer, coach, and person.

I have multitudes more for tender hearts, our beautiful universe, and moments on this earth.

At the post office they always ask, ‘Need any stamps?’ My usual response is I’ve got plenty. Then I saw Wonder Woman. Of course I bought a sheet. I heard other women bought sheets when they didn’t need more stamps, too. An artist-healer friend in New Zealand wrote, asked for a note with the stamp. It’s been a very tough year or two, she said. ‘I’m sending you four, one of each image,’ I told her. ‘You’ll do something creative with them, and place it where you’re reminded what a Wonder Woman you indeed are.’ In the bigger sense, I believe Wonder Woman is women claiming the space we’ve always held.

I could talk for years about space. My Thanks to Art in my book mentions it – the space to create. Now, the space of solitude to flow with my life rhythms, commune uninterrupted with my imagination. The space out my windows to far horizons and mountains that always imply more on the other side. Like the space I used to feel when I looked out on the ocean. ‘What do you see,’ Art used to ask. The world, I told him. It’s the same when I look at those colors in the shot above. Because color in all forms gives us space.

I was in Santa Fe three days when I ignored my ragged face, the 8* weather, and dressed to go out for a Women2Women lunch. The agenda – introduce ourselves & hand out cards, have good food & good conversations, and hear someone in the community speak. I (very) briefly connected with a gal there. We met for brunch two weeks later. ‘Where do you live,’ she said. I told her the neighborhood. Then. . . which street? what number? Turns out she’s a neighbor and one of her best friends is my landlady. Exactly how I fly in Santa Fe, with magic. But honestly, we really don’t have all the time in the world. We gotta show up, say our Thanks, and find the space between us.

Because Life can shift in a heartbeat. Less that that, a breath. To the good, and not so good. I know because I’ve been there. . .chance meetings, a poem accepted, house on fire, husband run down by a car. Yesterday was a hard day. A brief, gentle dressing down for doing something that comes natural to me. A reminder the clock’s ticking on something very important to me. At the end of the day I felt myself in loosely-glued pieces with thoughts of failure, while every bit of me wanted space to give what I do well: support empowering writers & creatives to move forward, live their best creative life. Because I think they hold our Voice when we can’t speak, and Vision when it’s hard to see. Our conscience when we get snarled and tied up. But at the end of the day, all I could think was author Mary Anne Radmacher’s famous words: “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ ”

I had Thanks on my lips and a deep belief in restored space on the morrow when I went to bed, even knowing we don’t have all the time in the world. Despite feeling small. Because what I know is I’ve cracked the code to help people live their best creative life and that’s something grand. Sometimes it’s just hard doing for ourselves what we do for others.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what would the titles of your three poems be?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .we really don’t have all the time in the world.

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Using What I Have

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word.
He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices:
the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.”
~ Federico García Lorca
(poet, playwright, & theatre director executed by Franco).
*

I typically scan facebook for the patterns in what’s been up for me. The sum today is I slept many hours last night, starting 8pm on the sofa, moving to bed at 11:30, & with waking only once, rising late @ 7am. After weeks of scant sleep + insomnia the night before from which I rose, pulled out my courage & contacted folks for book reviews, and others with a dissatisfaction. My publisher told me launching a book is a marathon, not a sprint. But the fact is I’m sprinting to catch up from the late start in the process, and the move to Santa Fe, creating a functioning home with box-lined walls, plastic bins at the ready in the garage for re-packaging from the cardboard mousies love. Sprinting to regain a rhythm in my life.

The other day I went to a movie for the first time in a year. As I pulled from my driveway, I saw clear through the picture window of my little home to the light & view out the kitchen window at the back of the house. It rather stunned me. I thought, this is why I’m here. To do my work with a sense of space and expansiveness outside me and inside me. This does not require a sprint.

By my front door is a ceramic vase with two delicate oriental cranes on it. I bought it in Jacksonville. It’s not my style and made no sense to get it then, nor any time I’ve looked at it in the ensuing 4 years. But I was, and still am, completely drawn to it. Then this. . .

For a year before I returned to Santa Fe, I subscribed to New Mexico magazine. I’ve moved magazines before. They’re heavy & never worth the cost. But the little voice said ‘throw this one in the box.’ Sandhill cranes and the caption ‘Flocking to NM’ on the cover. I flipped through it the morning I pulled it from the box. Read ‘Preparing for Liftoff’ + an 8-pg. spread on writers and indy bookstores. This note stuck out: “. . .the National Endowment for the Humanities has ranked New Mexico first in the nation for the number of working writers per captia.” Those unseen guides, talking to me even in Jax.

A family member wrote on fb I should quit sharing my thoughts about the world and focus on selling my book. (I’m really nice in my posts, focusing on love of the planet & humanity, empowerment) Two people responded. One said she vehemently disagrees. ‘Your influence as a writer is far greater than any of us less articulate folks. Please use it as your conscience dictates.’ Another said, ‘Yes!!! Love your voice and the strength that fuels it.”

I’ve always been an artist, creativity at the heart of every job I’ve had. I asked my mother when she was dying what she remembered I loved to do most when I was a kid. ‘Draw,’ she said. ‘From the time you could hold a pencil.’ At eight, I made folders out of 2 sheets of notebook paper, the front sheet folded down. forming a flap. The sides taped or stapled. I colored pictures with themes on the front – holidays, myths, animals. I wrote stories & drew pictures to fit the themes. My first experience of writer’s block was in 3rd grade. I sat at a brown lunch table composing a poem, prompted by one I saw in a school newsletter. I thought a poem something I could do. But young as I was, I questioned myself, never submitted it. The next year I wrote stories for a book I planned, complete with Table of Contents. At 18, tho, I turned in a blank sheet of paper to my college professor every Friday in response to our single assignment for the day, Write. That failure kept me from having the GPA to continue school. Took 5 tries to get my degree and find my worldly heart. Two while in an abusive marriage. Five. Persistence.

For months I’ve come out with aspects of my past that I’d kept to myself because, well, I felt ashamed about some of it. + I didn’t want to be identified with stuff that happened years and decades ago. . .when I was a diff woman. But it’s all part of my history that informs my understanding of human-Being. Not my identity, but parts of me that’s shared with others who are battered, broke, stalked, on food stamps, dismissed, have homes that burn, lost children, husbands run down by cars, businesses lost, little income for months on end. Who’ve lived in places very different than they’ve known. Have been thought weird or different. All part of human-Being that when turned into something besides fear, opens to empathy.

I’ve not shared my book on facebook the past few days. I’ve shared this:

Let’s support writers this week. I’m all about it. Because words have power.
Writers in other countries have been executed for that power.

Nearly 20 yrs. ago I joined a circle of writers to regain a Voice I’d lost. Writing and all things authorly have been my passion since. I’ve known I was a writer thru trauma, move after move, & distractions. I know the power of the written word for my insides and our outsides. I know the ways we get waylaid. It’s why I use my Voice now. We use what we have.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

What empowers you?
I’ll tell you a secret: Today I say action with heart.

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Face to the World

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees
 for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  . .
~ Mary Oliver (Wild Geese)
*

I was at my first writing retreat 14 yrs. ago when I first heard the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. It resonated with me because for yeeears I’d walked on my knees for hundreds of miles thru deserts, repenting. My imagination, always wild and vivid, could not lift me from my knees, could not tell me I was okay as I am, that the mistakes I’d made were simply that, mistakes. Something happened last night, tho. I read this poem and a different line stood out, ran true in my soul.

A line that reads “announcing your place in the family of things.” This was a revelation of monumental proportions for me. I sat for a moment, jaw dropped, realizing I’d finally made that hard journey. Shed an old story and skin.

Today the pre-launch of my book went LIVE. The big work was writing a concise, authentic summary of who I am. Not one about the gal who prefers tea to coffee, walking to running, culture to shopping, sunrises to sunsets, quiet to loud. Not the gal who loves nature in explicable ways, and all things creative. Not the one who thrives on beauty and space. But the gal who has the experience and authority to say listen, I may have something you want, even if you’re not a writer.

Who’s still learning. Who gets things done even if she often flies in on the cusp of deadlines. Who put on make-up for the first time in 20 yrs., pieced together a throw blanket and picture in a rented condo, watched the sun as it shifted, and placed blinding light in her face to create a 2 min. video. After trying for 12 hours, the first time in the midst of packed boxes.

Who, instead of having the sojourn she usually has in Santa Fe each fall, wrote a book and hosted a coach & author in private retreat. The author, feeling whole when she left, finished her memoir. And sent this to her huge list of peeps when it was over:

Heloise Jones helped with some of the editing on my book! She truly knows her stuff. She gets down to it, finds the holes and insights to make your story its best. There were many times in our editing process together in which she picked up on a simple line, stopped me and said, “right there, there is the spine of your story.” Then she would crack it all open and give me ideas to bring it home. She really has genius at insight and is fun to work with.

That blew me away.

And biggest of all in the most personal way, the gal who decided to have the courage and kindness to herself & her husband to move across country to live in her Soul Home, Santa Fe, alone.

I will create and give my best self & offers to the world. I’m the gal who didn’t feel she was okay or enough as she is, and tried so hard for years to earn my breath. But I woke the other day in a house smaller than I’ve lived in for decades, without a dishwasher that I’ll miss, happy for way more than a moment.

I use the words love, magic, and angels a lot for a reason. They sustain me and brought me here.

Thanks for being there. Now, let’s spread the word. Whatta ya say? Give a gift to yourself, or someone you know. It’s about our best creative lives!

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what sustains you?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I always wanted to say I love my life. I’m almost there.

That pic above is the view from my kitchen window. West, at sunrise, when Santa Fe colors rise up from the horizon. Can you see the snow-called mountains in the distance?

*
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