Mother – a poem for my mom

I wrote this poem for a class (Women’s Lives Into Literature) last year about my mom. Today is her birthday, so I thought I should share. I hope you enjoy it.

Mother

It is no wonder

That the first God that we see

Is often our mothers.

We come into the world

Solely dependent upon them.

If she is a good one,

We feel loved.

If she is a bad one,

We crave love.

As we get older,

We separate.

She is no longer

All knowing

Ever present

All good

In fact,

She is often wrong.

We are often at odds.

I don’t know when

I began to despise

My own mother

But

I did.

We were so close

In age.

We grew up together.

But we grew apart.

Always at odds.

I don’t recall the moment

That we stopped fighting.

But we did.

One day, I looked up and we were friends

My mother and I –

I was very surprised.

She wasn’t.

When my daughter had brain surgery,

And began having seizures

In the hospital,

I was there alone.

I sent a text to my mother

To tell her.

I would swear that only fifteen minutes had passed

Although that’s not possible

She was 45 minutes away.

But it was like

She had a super power that day.

When she walked through that hospital door.

Just to be with me

To be a support

And we sat on the couch in the room

My mother and I –

My daughter sedated,

The room quiet

My heart thankful

That this woman

Gave me her strength

And that I could receive it

And as a result

Be strong.

Tenisia Davis – August 2017

Book Review – Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Before starting this review, I have to start with a disclaimer. I love Stephen King. He can do no wrong. Having said that, I did not start this book with high hopes. While I love Stephen, I know nothing about Owen. In September, I attended a presentation by Stephen and Owen in Naperville, Illinois where the authors discussed writing the book and read a few excerpts. I didn’t pick the book up to actually read the 699 pages until this past Sunday.

You can read the book blurb here

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In the near future, mother nature presents an epidemic that effects only women when they go to sleep. They develop a cocoon that shrouds them. If the cocoon is disturbed, the women wake up zombie-like and go postal on the poor man who disturbed them. This epidemic becomes known as the Aurora virus.

There are a host of characters…almost too many to count. But a few of the main characters –

a woman named Eve/Evie who has something to do with the epidemic, is immune to the sleeping sickness and is a sort of supernatural being who steers events
Clint – a psychiatrist at a women’s prison where a lot of the action takes place. If Eve is the woman in control, then Clint is the man working to set things right
Lila, the town Sheriff who tries to stay awake with coffee and illicit drugs
Frank, the town dog catcher who is mighty angry!

As with any King novel, there are many characters with back stories and conflicts to get through before we get to the meat of the novel. What happens to the world with no women to temper the angry and often violent impulses of men?

In the small town of Dooling (most of his novels are set in a small town), chaos and violence ensues before we get to the final showdown.

While there are plenty of supernatural and spiritual elements – a magical tree, a woman named Eve who communes with animals and an alternate world with only women, this book is also a commentary on fake news, rampant tales of sexual violence and assault and police shootings. In a way, the book puts men on trial. And they are found guilty.

There is no clean and happy ending. But too much has gone down for that. The book does end with hope. And sometimes, that’s all we have to go on.

New Year – Renewed Spirit

Just a few days into the new year and I am so excited about 2018!

2017 In Review

During the year, there were birthday celebrations, my anniversary and a few family gatherings and weddings. So besides the news and Donald Trump’s tweets, I can say that last year was great and filled with food, family, love, reading and writing. All of my favorite things.

The year ended with me writing over 50,000 words during Nanowrimo (a first for me) and winning an all expense paid trip to a week long writing workshop in Paris, France!

My husband and I hosted Christmas this year so there was lots of family over; I went to the movies with my mom (Christmas tradition) and my baby got to spend time with her great grandmom.

I spent New Year’s Eve with my family and had the kids write about their year in review and their goals for 2018. My son impressed me so much. His word for 2018 is responsibility!

2018 Intentions

I’ve read a lot of posts on social media from people who seem to frown on New Year’s resolutions. The thinking is that people throw out resolutions with no real resolve to follow through on them. I think its great that people post their intentions for the year. Even if they don’t see it through at least they gave some thought to their goals/plans for the year. Perhaps accountability can turn wishful thinking into accomplishments.

I have started setting my intentions daily, weekly and monthly. Last year I found that participating in challenges (health, gratitude, writing) really helped me to focus and continue to stay motivated. Of course, there were times that I didn’t follow through but I stayed in the game and kept playing until the end. So whatever helps me to stay on course, that’s what I’m going to do.

I wanted to do 3 writing retreats this year and two of them are already a go. I have a few other plans and intentions for my family, writing and health as well. My vision board is now my screen saver and in addition to my normal planner (Erin Condren Life Planner), I have ordered the Daily Greatness Journal (which seems like a pocket life coach) so that I can continue to be great! Finally, because I just couldn’t find the exact planner that I wanted I have started to create my own. I’m just playing around with it now but I should have a good one by the end of the year. So next year, I won’t have to buy anyone else’s planner.

I hope that 2018 has great things in store for you! Any special intentions, resolutions, plans and/or goals you want to share?

Trust Your Journey

I once saw a quote from a meme on Instagram before that said to “trust your struggle”. And I filed that in the motivation section of my mental Rolodex.

The past few months have been yet another lesson of adjustment for me where I am repeatedly reminded to Trust My Journey. I left my previous job and became a contractor thinking that I would make good money and could concentrate on writing my “great novel” only to discover that I wasn’t making enough and I really didn’t enjoy what I was doing. So I had to scramble around trying to figure out a new plan. All the while, also dealing with life as a wife and mother and full time graduate student in this new city (2 years and still new to me).

I spend a lot of time being a resource and helping other people but when it comes to my own struggles, I tend to not talk about it (I do write about it) and find ways to keep myself lifted up. When you are a “caretaker” for others, there are times when you need a “caretaker” but you don’t always ask for help. Last Friday, one of my best friends posted on my Facebook wall and said to “Trust Your Journey”. I thought it was nice.

Today, though I realize how necessary that reminder was/is. There are so many valuable experiences, skills, connections and necessary people that we pick up along the Journey that are necessary and valuable to our lives.

Now, I’m not just saying that because this week I was published in my school’s annual publication, had a small feature in our monthly newsletter and won a scholarship to a week long writer’s workshop retreat in Paris, France!! All expenses paid!!

But I was reading an article today about Viet Thanh Nguyen who received the MacArthur genius grant for his novel, The Sympethizer. In the article he talks about how there was no over night success. It took him “20 years to learn how to be a writer”. For him, those 20 years paid off in a big way.

Of course, I’m not there but along with the intrinsic rewards that I get along the way, there are all of these other meaningful journey enhancing moments that keep me moving forward. Little by little. Step by step.

So let my reminder serve as a reminder for you. Whatever your dreams/goals are and whatever the obstacles/challenges you face, trust the journey. And enjoy the ride

Preptober & a couple of accomplishments

Nanowrimo will soon be here. Being the pantser that I am, last year I just started writing on Nov 1st and my efforts fizzled out just after 8700 words.

So this year, I’m trying to plan my way through (as much as can be done for a pantser like me) and I’ve rediscovered the Evernote app. I’ve been writing things down and organizing my thoughts about my plot and characters and I’m slowly working my way to an outline.

This year, I’ll be writing in the Ulysses app because I’m still not over the learning curve for Scrivener. I think Scrivener is beautiful but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Ulysses is much easier (for me) to just jump right in.

I will also be published again for my school’s annual publication, Mosaic and I’ve written a small feature in my school’s monthly newsletter Write On!

I’m working on my courage to submit to a few places in the next 6 months. But for now, I am just gonna concentrate on this one story (I’ve changed the title 3 times already so I’m hesitant to even put it here) and winning Nanowrimo 2017.

How have you prepped for Nanowrimo? If you’d like to be writing buddy’s, I’m “Underthera”

Nanowrimo 2017

So I last year, I started Nanowrimo in November but I only wrote 8764 words before I quit. So I’m giving it a go again this year, but this time I am using the month of October to plan.

I am more of a pantser than a planner and that works for the small projects that I have done for school but I want to try to plan and outline more for this project. This Work in Progress has been in my head for awhile. I have written a few of the characters already in other projects because they hang out in my head just waiting for me to get it right. Hopefully, this is the time!