Sorry no blog post this week.  I’ve been away and will be back next Tuesday to let you know where I was (I’m sure you can guess from the photo,) what I did, and about celebrating a big event!

Have a wonderful week!

 

 

These days, on Sunday mornings around eight AM, and before most people are stirring, I take a short drive to the grocery store to do my big weekly grocery shop. Even at that hour, in the cold of winter or the heat summer, in pouring rain and blustering wind, at every street light that I stop at, stands a homeless person holding a cardboard sign asking for help because they don’t have a job and are homeless.

I suppose it’s because I’m a woman, that I’m mostly drawn to the growing number of women on those corners. There’s the one who wears old camouflage clothing, was on crutches for a while, then had a leg brace. A few weeks ago, for the first time there was one who looked to be in her forties and had a hard, mean look about her. She glared at me and held up a sign that said she needed to buy gas for her car so she could get to her job. I haven’t seen her since. Last fall there was a very young women with only one leg, who looked like she might be a wounded warrior from the looks of the shiny prosthetic she was wearing. Too often, our young veterans return from war wounded, are fixed up with these devices, and because of other problems like PTSD and/or drug addiction, find themselves without work or a place to live.

We can make up a gazillion stories about these women, but in truth we don’t know their stories unless we stop and talk to them. So why do some with jobs and warm, cozy homes think of them as useless when they quickly walk or drive by without even a glance?

When I wrote this poem in 2006, I was concerned by the growing number of homeless people I was noticing. I was called to try to put myself in the shoes of an aging woman who many called crazy, but was not, was down on her luck, and had led a difficult life.

my name is sally

i’m sixty-three
found two dollars
in change not enough
for coffee a sandwich
tomato lettuce
tuna on rye
i’ll wait
a few crusts here
and there collect
coins in my cup
watch for the cop
no loitering
sleeping
in doorways
on grates
it’s winter
i’m tired
almost out
of aspirin my knees
the pain so sharp
it’s hard to move
fast when i see
big john
he scares me
yells and shouts
tries to grab
my hair
when he’s
drunk
i lost my comb
the other day
when i fell
into the street
cars kept coming
no one stopped
it’s cold
need
a place
in sun
no wind
tonight
it could
snow

JZR

9/13/06

I’m over at Girl Talk today talking about fear and seeing myself in the mirror. http://www.gildaevans.com/mirror-image-by-joan-z-rough

 

And you’ll find my guest, Mary Gottschalk on my blog  talking about the bio-ethics of aging.  Check it out at here.

I love words.  I love speaking them … pronouncing them slowly and deliberately as that they roll off my tongue. Each of their letters brings sound … hard, soft, sometimes silent … to the whole, giving the word its own unique vibration that I quickly recognize and most often know the meaning of. If I don’t, I hurry to look it up so that I can start using it if it appeals to me. As a writer I use lots of words. I use them to get my thoughts across to readers whether, they be those who peruse my blog, or those I send personal messages to.  I try to use them correctly, but sometimes I take liberties … try to use them in different ways.

Take the word “Audacity.”  I’ve always used it as most dictionaries describe it,as in the Cambridge Dictionary’s meaning, “Unusually strong and especially rude confidence in yourself.”  Like in the sentence, “She had the audacity to fall asleep on the couch while I worked hard cleaning up the mess she had created.”

I love saying audacity aloud. I love each sound put together to create it. I especially love the “ssss.” It catches my attention. I automatically connect it with daring, being gutsy and adventurous. I liked the way President Obama used it in his book, The Audacity of Hope. He didn’t mean it in a rude or aggressive way. He used it to bring forth the the courage to HOPE, which we all struggle with. Especially when our country, the world and/or our own personal lives feel more than screwed up and we can’t catch a glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel we inhabit.

At the beginning of each new year, I consider a word or words that I adopt just for myself. It’s always something I need to work on during the coming 365 days. It is there to help me move through every aspect of my life, both difficult and easy. I practice it.  At the end of each year it hopefully becomes part of my everyday  practice for as long as I’m up and running. Last years word was “simplicity.”  It was a complicated year for me and when I got overwhelmed, it was there to remind me that I could simplify the complicated and my overwhelm would go away. It is part of my lifestyle now. Keeping my life and needs simple, allows more for others. It addresses my concerns with the way we treat our planet and the division we are experiencing within our own country, never mind the whole world.

I don’t know what the coming year will bring, but hopefully it will be a good one.  If everything goes well, I’ll be finished with the first draft of my memoir within a month or two. I’ll begin looking into ways of getting it published.  And that is why  “Audacity,”  is my chosen word for 2014.

I do not want to be or come across as disrespectful, rude, or aggressive.  On the contrary, I’m planning to practice audacity to help me overcome my shyness, lack of confidence, and the “not good enough” thoughts that follow me around, especially when I need to step forward and ask for help or when I want to draw attention to what I’m doing. I hope that trying to be a bit audacious will kick the butts of those thoughts …allow me to come out of my protective shell as in, “I had the audacity to make friends with my vulnerability and walk, head held high, into the world.”

The whole publishing thing, whether it be self, traditional or whatever, provides me with fits of fear.  Will my book be good enough?  Do I have what it takes to publish and promote it myself without giving up on it? I’m not a salesperson. I run from every slick, silver-tongued salesperson who wants me to buy a car, life insurance, or some other too-good-to-be-true thingamajig that they claim will allow me to live forever or more happily. i don’t want to be like that, but how do I go about promoting something important to me without being obnoxious?

In order to do the job, I will need some fearlessness, courage, confidence, grit, nerve, and daring sans the silver-tongued rudeness. I could have chosen any one of those words I just used for my special word, but none of them cover all of the bases for me.  Audacity on the other hand makes me feel hopeful. It’s got a bit of zing. It’s playful. It almost sounds like a song. It says to me that it’s okay to be confident and vulnerable all at the same time. I hope it will spice up the way I do things … just a little.  It’s something I should have looked into long ago but never had the nerve. Now that I’m becoming a bit more seasoned with age, it’s time to try something new.

What are your New Years traditions? Do you make resolutions or choose words or a word to guide you through the next twelve months?

 My wish for all of us is that  2014  be filled with JOY, DISCOVERY, and HOPE, spiced with a tad of AUDACITY.

P.S.  Check out my “Be Grateful, Stay Sane” post on my Facebook  or Twitter pages today as I begin my way through at least a month of home renovation and upheaval.