Monthly Archives: October 2023

October 30, 2023 · 8:09 pm

And Now What?

My newest book of poetry is now available, While Death Waits.

It has been almost three years since I published my last collection of poetry (These Words Believe in Ghosts).

I wrote almost 300 poems in the time between the books. While Death Waits has only 62 of those poems. I have written about 100 blog posts in that time. Produced 7 seasons of my podcast For Love of Lyrics (season 8 in the works). And my son and I have done 40 episodes of The Creative Moment podcast. Been a guest on Dr. Michael Ingram’s Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio podcast twice. I have also been on Josh Grant’s Diabolic Shrimp show, twice!

I also taught poetic lessons for Move Me Poetry for their Teach Me Tuesday event. I have competed in two slam contests. Attended a handful of open mics in town (they have suspended the open mic nights for now). 

And nothing has really changed.

Why am I sharing this info with you? Two reasons.

The first is I am honored to have done so many cool things. To meet people like Dr. Michael Ingram and Josh Grant. To build community with the poets at Move Me Poetry. 

I have strengthened my poetry by stepping out of my comfort zone by competing in poetry slams and designing lessons. 

I have been able to have deep conversations with my son and share my love of lyrics with people through podcasting.

I have written some cool poetry (yes, this is a plug for my book).

But I wouldn’t have done these things if I wasn’t chasing a dream. My life is richer because of my pursuit of being an author, being a poet people recognize.

But that is also the second reason I am writing this blog post. Nothing has really changed. I am still basically an unknown poet, unknown writer. Chasing dreams is hard. It challenges your convictions. Calls forth doubt like a sudden winter storm that draws out tears like slivers from your heart. The weight of fear and frustration wears me down, so I write about it…

which spurs me forward in chasing my dream of making a difference in this world with my words and leads to opportunities that I would never have if I didn’t chase this dream.

I’m excited to see what will be next… of course, I’ll write about it, so stay tuned.

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October 15, 2023 · 9:15 pm

This house is not a home

I am not going to talk about all the dots life has been sharing with me about this idea. There have been many, some very deep and challenging. Instead I’m going to jump right to the point of this post, and that means we are jumping into deep waters right away.

Our lives are our homes.

A house is just one of the facets of building a home. It is a central spot where we build our homes. But it is just one of the elements to a strong home, a strong life.

Our routines are central to the quality of our homes. This doesn’t mean our lives are just a series of repeated actions, far from it. Routines that build a sense of safety and love allow us to do wonderful things. 

A major routine I have is to wake every child with Care Bear or unicorn energy. Even if they have the morning blues, I make sure they know a new day has begun, and I am happy to wake them. (My boys still talk about how much they hated my energy in the morning… but with smiles now.)

Another routine we have, as many of you readers know, is Sunday morning blueberry muffins.  We also try to have dinner together every night, even with practices, musical concerts, and games.

Even the simplest routines influence the sense of home during the day. For example, I fill everyone’s water bottle in the morning and make lunches when they don’t like the option at school. Every day.

I could go on, but these routines would happen anywhere, any house, under any circumstance, and they have. They happened when I was jobless. When we lived with the in-laws for six months. We were home.

Another aspect of home is the people we let in the front door. The people we let into our lives. Now, this is a tough element to delve into. If someone came into your home and started breaking your dishes, throwing them on the floor, and ransacking the cupboards…Would you just sit there and let them? Or if they started screaming at your children or taking a hammer to the walls? Would you just sit and smile while you watched them? I don’t think so.

Yet… yet, we allow people to emotionally do this to us. To walk into our lives and destroy us in the name of family or friendship. Our home becomes filled with fear, angst, doubt and negativity. We would defend our dishes, but not our hearts? Our home is influenced by the people we ask into our lives. 

I understand the complexity of relationships, especially when the family is used to justify accepting someone’s actions. But I will protect my home, protect my heart from being thrown on the floor to break.

The final aspect of a home is the decorations, the pictures, the figurines, and the books on the end tables. The stories and memories we create are hung on the walls of our lives. A beautiful home is created by living fully with the people we cherish. 

Yes, big moments, like family vacations. But also the small moments of breakfast at McDs or taking snack walks. The walls of our lives should be filled with stories. Our lives are our homes… and a home is where we should feel free to live.

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October 7, 2023 · 8:01 pm

A Simple Sentence

I have had a small phrase tumbling in my head for a few weeks. I’ve wanted to write about it the day I heard it, but life has been pretty busy, and I think it wanted me to experience some dots connected to the phrase before I wrote about it.

This post will center more on the phrase and the thoughts I have about it in our lives. The moments I experienced (the dots) may be mentioned, but sometimes the lessons are for me, not the blog.

At church, a couple of weeks ago, during the sermon, Father said a simple sentence that just woke me up. It was one of those moments when a truth hits hard because you hear it in a new way or from someone different. If you are a constant reader of my blog you might be surprised why this phrase hit me so hard because you’ve read posts that align with what Father said… 

He said, “We are free to love.”

I’m not even sure what the homily was about, my mind and heart just took off with understanding and agreement. Then questions on why we don’t live this…

Let that sit for a moment. Feel the liberating sense of joy bubbling deep inside your chest. Knowing that you can smile, tell someone to have a good day. You can dance to your favorite song. Hug your kids. Hug your parents. Write a poem (or a blog post). Walk under the stars and let the knowledge that you are standing under a million stars. That you were given this moment to love… to love life, to love others, to love yourself.

Why don’t we live this way?

In answering this question let me share just a little bit about one of the dots life gave me, my mother’s memorial. It was a graveside ceremony that my dad presided over. I read two poems at different times during the ceremony. When my dad brought up the moment I became part of the family, I broke down a little. See, my parents did not have to include me. My siblings did not have to include me. It’s a long story, but they chose to love me as a son, as a brother, as family.

The first part of why we don’t live with the ‘freedom to love’ is choice. Now I’ve written about this in a number of past posts. But there is something different about the mindset to the idea  of ‘the freedom to love.’ The choice to love is more of a gift of ourselves than a responsibility we check off of our to do list. And I love giving gifts!

But giving a gift has its risks, which is also why we don’t live such joyful lives. REJECTION and all the complicated emotions and pain that come from someone rejecting our gift, in this case our love.

Not going to sugar coat this. It hurts. It can break us when we love someone with every space available in our hearts, and they walk away.

I don’t have a magical potion that will take that pain away. I’ve been there, I still deal with the effects of some devastating moments. What I know is that giving my love to people that accept my gift is one way to heal. I also know love may be the only thing that grows the more you give it away. we are free to love as much as we want.

We are free.

We are free to love.

To love others, to love life, to love ourselves.

I hope you accept this blog as my gift to you, with love.

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