Category: books

the realm of impossibilities…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

This is currently where I sit.

I have been given this opportunity and everything about it feels just right. Well, almost everything. There is one (pretty huge) thing that is keeping it out of my reach. Breath catching in my chest, for going on eleven hours now, I keep thumping my mind to *think think*, as if a solution is right there–if only…

If only I could find it, create it, imagine it, dream it, realize it, discover it, _______________________ it.

The irony is that the problem is actually a little triggering.

In an entirely unrelated plan of the evening, I attended a Masterclass tonight which guaranteed some incredibly successful things would happen, if I followed steps A, B & C.

GUARANTEED.

I can assure that such things would not happen. And here’s the thing, it isn’t that I’m being negative here, it isn’t even that I am being a realist– though to be fair, I am a realist. For example, I do not navigate within a world where I could market extremely high dollar content to hurting women for a steep price. I just don’t. Could I create high dollar content? Of course I could. Is my time valuable? Absolutely. This fine line I straddle though, reminds me that in staying authentically true to myself, I cannot attach unrealistic price tags on a journey that everyone deserves.

Is it true that the alternative then would be burnout? Failure? Underachievement? Ruin?

I don’t know…

I clearly do not know how to take that “next step.”

I clearly also do not know how to find the path from today to the opportunity I mentioned before.

I woke up this morning, a little girl on Christmas morning, excited for the possibilities of what was coming my way… now I’m about to lay my head on my pillow feeling torn and, to be honest, quite helpless over both scenarios. Hopeless. Not the dramatic-sigh kind, just the tired cry kind. The sort of hopeless that looks a little bit like a school yard kid asking the teacher why everyone else seems to be able to master swinging high, which you just can’t seem to leave the ground.

This might be where the triggering comes in.

Some people are natural born leaders within a world of deep pockets who can afford to lay down boat loads of green for what they are selling. If that is their genuine path, that’s lovely. My path, and my integrity do not allow me to decide that a rich person’s trauma and struggle are more worthy of my time than a poor person’s, or even a middle class person’s. It isn’t that I am better than that leader, nor they are better than me… it’s that we are different. We are all different.

Different.

Capable. Worthy. Different.

I’m gazing out my window tonight, through the darkness towards that sliver of moonlight. I’m straining my eyes to see dots on the ground, illuminated, and connecting my in the direction of what’s right… to the how.

I don’t need to answer the why, I’ve known that since I was seven years old.

the chicken or the egg…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I was part of a writer’s workshop over the weekend which centralized around the philosophies of Virginia Woolf. One of the chosen exercises encouraged us to take a favorite short tale and retell it with more flowery, poetic, and meandering writing. A later exercise asked us to remember a time when we fell in love with a favorite book. We were to mindfully bring ourselves into the action while describing details about the book, day, moment, emotion, etc…

For the first task, I chose The Little Red Hen, my beloved Golden Book from childhood. When the time came for the second task, my mind was still on The Little Red Hen track. I wanted to record the exercises here for one day- for something. I don’t know why…

~

The crimson feathered hen’s heart ached at the decisions her dearest loved ones continued to make as they allowed her to do all of the work while expecting to reap the rewards. Each of them, the hen included, shared the same dream.

She was drained tired but knew the warm, white bread would be worth it.

Wings in mitts, the hen reached into the brick oven and brought the steaming loaves out, “These smell like heaven!” the hen exclaimed with a satisfied sigh, while the mental countdown began as to when her friends would show up expecting to fill their bellies. Her gentle heart hated to deny them, but she knew it was for their own good. These friends needed to learn the value and sacrifice found in hard work…

~

Was it the first time, or simply a time? Had my mind followed the words a thousand times before, their story not quite sinking in, or were they exploring the tale, brand new? Either way, their meaning settled upon me like a dawning.

Criss-cross legs on the floor. Bookshelf Papa built looming over head, books piled high on shelves and stacked low on carpet, surrounding me.

I wanted to reach into the pages and let the weary hen rest in my arms.

Muted rays of light attempted to flood this space beyond my tiny, tin framed bedroom window, as salt-tears traveled down my cheeks for her, the tired hen. Those friends should help her, and do their share. Of course, they cannot share in the bread! I raged angry and protective, appalled at the injustice of it all.

I would sit in this same spot, with these same pages, for years to come. Even as a middle school girl, loving boys and carrying life’s heavy luggage, this hen held space for me… and I for her. To this very day, one-million lifetimes later, this sweet hen’s story still wounds me. She was so tired and yet they would not see her. She gave and she gave, those around her only chose to take and take and take… Even me really, holding her story and tracing her pages, those deep red feathers giving me far more comfort and friendship than anyone had bothered to gift to her.

I loved her.

I am her.

is it because I foresaw it then, or did the engraving of this hen upon my small-girl-soul direct my path?

some form of something…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

As a classic self-doubter with added combo bonus of overthinking, when I set out to learn about liturgies, last month, I was unprepared. Initially, writing a liturgy was a bit of a challenge that came about in my Mastermind group. While the other women talked about the books they’d read and their own experience with liturgies, I sat scribbling mental notes that looked a bit like Learn how to write a liturgy.

And so, I googled “how to write a liturgy.”

Then I scoured pinterest in search of the best, most straight forward liturgy how-to.

I kept my eyes peeled for some mystery webinar on the subject, which would inevitably pop up in my internet ads, as literally all things I search for do.

I had misconceived that I had to create some formal/fancy form or religious, old-fashioned poetry.

When I found no guidance, I began reaching out (subtly at first, and later full-on-begging) for ANYONE to tell me how this was to be done. I needed help…

But really, I didn’t.

I believed that I needed line by line instruction, and could list out a dozen (plus) reasons why I was not capable of such a task. (things like my lack of education, my disregard for traditional writing strategy and rules. Good grief, I hadn’t even known what a liturgy was before last month.)

My lovely friend sent me the book Every Moment Holy and, as I poured over the pages of beautifully crafted captures of often ordinary moments, I began to see myself in them.

In the cups of coffee.

In the moments of mundane uncertainty.

In vibrant sunsets as well as the eighth miserable day of Pennsylvania drizzle. Slowly, I began to understand this need that I have to operate on a level deeper than merely existing. I began to realize that this notion of liturgy could be my how.

I could chop vegetables for a stew, while being overwhelmed with the volume of pain I felt with each movement, because this body of mine lives in a constant state of such hardship… OR… I could choose to work through this place of intentional gratitude for my ability to make dinner at all, preparing the meal with love. I could choose to soak in the stillness of routine, coupled with the natural engaging of my senses, as I did the tasks before me. Suddenly, the basic chore of folding my husband’s t-shirts had become something so much deeper, and satisfying.

The truth is, I’m just me. Some super brilliant theologian could stumble upon these words and tell me I’ve got it all wrong. To this I may respond two ways… First, I may urge them to move along because everything here is not meant for them, and I feel complete peace in that. Second, while many may feel that my acts of doing the mundane in intentional and connected ways cannot be an act of worship, I kindly disagree.

Here’s what I know:

When my feet sink deep, into collapsing sand as the sea kisses its shore, I am my most authentic me. As the sound of waves crashing thunders throughout my very core, I am my most connected me. While the aroma of salt and life take over my senses, working together to form this entire experience, I am directly plugged into the very thing that fills me up. I believe this is God, and I begin operating on a wavelength so different than everyday life. For me, this is my truest form of worship. It does not need “praise hands” lifted high, or Chris Tomlin written lyrics sung from my lips.

When I am in a still, mossy wooded space, deep in the mountains, I am my most authentic me. With the morning, patches of fog littering the air, I am my most connected me. The gentle gurgle of a creek breathing life, somewhere nearby, can carry me straight into that same wavelength of centered connection.

The collection of these moments keep me going in the harder times, as I believe they are the moments when I was tapped into my Creator… In those times, I am made up up gratitude, love and serenity…

My reality, however, is that I cannot always take to the coastline or the mountaintop. What if I could choose some form of something in my daily moments along the way?

My life is not a liturgy. I am WAY too messed up for that. I am learning that my days however, can contain them…

(In the most synchronistic turn of events, I stumbled upon a 30 day instagram challenge, for the month of November, utilizing the hashtag #liturgyofthelittlethings. Already, just a few days in, this has been a centering practice during these days of anxiety and election overwhelm.)

four…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Growing up a little white girl, among a see of hispanic children was both hard, and it wasn’t. I mean, it WAS hard because I always felt like I didn’t fit in. Adding to that the fact that my mother was a smoker and the kids at school always made it a point to acknowledge that I was a Gringo, and stank. It also wasn’t hard though, because it was what I knew. I had no alternative to compare it to.

Childhood leaves us with the funnest memories, doesn’t it?

When I was a teenager I was living in a fundamentalist group home in (then) rural Idaho. Life was the sheltered sort, with the exception being church and youth group at a local “city” church. A mojority of the normal kids at church, living in their normal homes, going to normal schools and eating normal foods thought us group home kids were freaks. To be honest, their parents also saw us as dangers. It was an isolating and pretty scarring existence.

With this package deal attached to my early life development, there was also the personal feelings (SO MANY FEELINGS) that I had about NOT fitting in. Not feeling a part of things, sure. I had essentially been abandoned by my family and lived a daily life of rejection, so those feelings made a lot of sense.

I also didn’t WANT to fit in.

While everyone was listening to what was hot and trendy, following the current of what they believed kids our age were supposed to do, I teetered there, unsure.

Did I follow along, accept and finally achieve belonging?

Did I go with my gut and follow the less worn path of obscure movie tastes and worn out sneakers?

The struggle was real.

I believed the struggle would eventually subside as I matured into a woman, beyond the angsty years of teenagehood. I was wrong.

That eternal quest to belong equated itself with my sense of personal worth so deeply. Knit by (what I believed, at the time) the rejections, abuses and abandonment thematically designing my life, a melancholy hopelessness settled into everything I did.

I went into group home care in 1988.

I walked through that gate and into the real world in 1993.

I became a wife in 1994.

In 2017 I learned that, on the enneagram chart, I am a four.

Fours have big feelings. Fours are creative and artistic. Fours ache to fit in, but also want to dance to their own rhythm. (and their own, non-trend decided tunes) Fours are (likely) the 90’s emo kids. They are the ones not regularly depicted on screen, in film and television because they happen to (probably) be the real life people writing those characters and creating that art.

I embraced my four.

I connected with other fours.

Knowing these things, having these explanations, it’s like the comfort of filling the gaps I’ve lived with, unwhole, for my entire life. It also forces me to see where my flaws lie. The how’s and the why’s.

I am able to know “ok, these are things I’ll do when I’m at my emotional healthiest”, and “these are indications that I need to work some stuff out, because I’m struggling.”

So many times we’ve humorously mumbled about life not having an instruction manual, or people not coming with a guide.

Guess what? We do.

That is literally what the enneagram does for us.

Plainly put, it is EMPOWERING.

Owning our truths helps us with one another too. For instance, I know that if someone on my team is an enneagram two, they will be prone to saying “yes” and people pleasing. Knowing that, and asking a lot of them anyway would be exploitive and selfish. Additionally, being married to an enneagram nine has helped me realize he isn’t passive or apathetic, he is simply prone to not cause ripples. At his unhealthiest, this can be dark and explosive. Knowing these things helps me love and respect him the way he deserves. It helps me see all of him, and love him.

If you don’t know where you’re at, or want to learn more, I strongly recommend the Road Back to You, by Ian Cohn. Also, in this week’s episode of the Collective Podcast, Abbey Howe is hanging out and chatting random ennea-info with us. Her youtube channel Enneagram with Abbey is super fun and informative. (As is Ian Cohn’s podcast!)

today’s good thing…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Happy Monday!

Today is February 10th, which happens to (oddly enough) be National Umbrella Day. If you’ve been around me long, you know that this girl LOVES all things umbrella. Today was made for me!

The other thing I love, (honestly, more than umbrellas) is the joy that I have in engaging and being a part of this beautiful community of women that has blossomed out of the Collective Podcast. I consider myself so blessed, every single day! Just last night, I fell asleep thanking God for this gift of knowing these AMAZING women. My life is honestly better, because of them.

I am really passionate about supporting others. If you are on my email list then you certainly got an earful, on this topic, in February’s note. (eyeful? earful? Whatever…) The bottom line, in case you missed it, (and why? You really should sign up, you’re missing out!) is that we should be supporting our artists and creatives. The internet is filled with content, like blog posts, photos, inspiration, podcast episodes, videos, etc, of these people who pour pieces of themselves into this content FOR FREE, simply because it is in their blood.

In our blood.

In MY blood.

It takes actual hard work to put these things together, and since they are passion projects, there is no paycheck sitting there, come friday.

Moral of the story, support your creatives! We all NEED beautiful things around us, and we will definitely see a lot more value in our investment if we offer it to them, over the big box, corporate greed. Just a few reminders, and some suggestions…

Here is a link to the Collective Patreon.

Here is the link to Buy Me a Coffee.

These are both ways to support me, without it costing you much.

Listening the podcast will not cost you anything but time, well spent, and it helps TREMENDOUSLY! Subscribing, rating and sharing it is so helpful! We all know women who can benefit from the stories, experiences and community of others…

I also have an Amazon storefront, and JUST added three fun shops for spring and Lit lovers…

Beyond me though, there is the Personal ShopHER Directory of women who own small artisan businesses. Have some shopping to do? Continue looking there first!

These are all AWESOME ways to help support me as I write and continue to move forward, connecting with and empowering women within the Collective community- sure. But, we all know creatives- from indie authors, to painters, photographers to musicians. Dream along with them, and help them create big! Each and every person, in this world, needs a team of strong believers supporting them and helping them out! As we watch the news and feel overwhelmed with the sadness around us- this is one practical and easy way we can make a huge impact for change.