Blog Manifesto

Blog Manifesto


This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

self doubt is my second skin.

Fear and distrust are survival instincts.  I am wary of motives and suspicious of looks.  I had to be in order to survive an early abusive chaotic environment.  I had to duck and hide, watch and be wary.  I still duck when there is no blow and wince when no slight is intended.  To excel is to invite notice and I prefer to stay hidden away and safe.


I swim in self doubt.  I drown in it.  I cover myself at night with recriminations for blankets.  It's in my DNA now because it entered so early.  My self was fractured and burnt as a toddler.  My self was derided and devalued through elementary school.


Ah, but I was a fighter.  I worked on building my own foundation.  I dug my own trench.  Poured my own concrete in.  I built my Self up bit by bit.  I refused to go down.  I had faith in myself.

I hugged the few kind words that came my way to my heart and fought my way up and out.  I have a glued together Soul,  with cracks and missing pieces and hard scars that won't bend.  But it is a serviceable one.

Light spills through the cracks.  Missing pieces allow me to fit others in.  And the Scars, they give me the strong will and force of character to do hard things, to handle hard choices and not be broken down when I have to nurture abused and needy children.

I am hard when I have to be hard, and soft when I need to be soft.  and hesitant avoiding danger where none exists. and brave and fierce when me or mine is threatened.

I sweep doubt away daily, like the pesky voice that it is. 



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