Women and minorities got caught holding our breaths, waiting for our next “Savior.” In doing so, last night’s midterm results, wherein the GOP took control of congress, were a punch in the gut this morning.

I can’t recall voting in a mid-term election before yesterday with the vivid detail I imagine I will later recall this one. I know I did, but never before were the results as devastating. In the past I was guilty during a general election of just checking a box because I recognized a name or knew a family. Not because the state of our government and our country doesn’t matter to me, but because I didn’t feel I knew enough or that I was smart enough—maybe I felt I didn’t have enough “skin in the game,” so to speak.

I’m slowly adjusting my thinking. I did a bit of political writing before the 2012 election. I expressed my frustration with both parties and revealed that I didn’t identify with either one. As a result, an essay I wrote is included in the upcoming book, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics (http://womenandpolitics.us). That essay was adapted from a post I wrote which was featured and got some traction on BlogHer. “The Enlightened Middle Majority and Why The Sides Are Alienating Us,” was later honored by BlogHer amid the 2013 Voices of the Year in the Op Ed category. It was written as a follow-up to another BlogHer featured post, “My Friends Think I’m the Only Liberal They Know. I Don’t Know What I Am.” And when Yahoo! Voices existed I was excited to be counted as a contributor with an original piece entitled, "Am I the Only White Person in America Offended by Racism and the Tea Party?" My post was bound to be controversial, which is why they selected it. Your clicks and comments would have been much appreciated, but I chickened out. I didn’t promote my Racism/Tea Party post, and thus it fizzled into the ether.

But what if a discussion about bigotry and the blatant factor it is in the utter constipation that has become our government had taken wing? What if my post had inspired a conversation that led to some sort of progress back when John Baynor and Barack Obama couldn’t keep their distaste for one another away from rolling cameras? What if it had gone viral? What if it had the power to activate voters and voices and breed new politicians at all levels of government? What if it had the power to activate women to say, “Hey I’m pissed, too,” possibly preventing the erosion of women’s rights we’ve suffered since 2012 and before? ...What? It's possible. Women earned the right to step into that booth and vote their hearts and their minds and their truth less than one hundred years ago. Many exist who wish they could control what we do behind that proverbial curtain, or wish we didn’t have the right to vote at all. They are the ones preaching absolution through political action. And they are the ones who won last night.

Instead of the beautiful, progressive growth Obama’s election felt like at first, and could have validated in our society, his presidency has spurred a vapid effort to quash women and minorities. Women’s rights supporters yield ground every day, week, month to Tea Party supporters and conservatives. Because we don’t gather each and every Sunday, because we aren’t as organized, because we aren’t in each other’s faces, talking about our truth week after week, and maybe because we have a perceived “Savior” on the horizon, we lose. Even though conservatives lack a clear frontrunner, they won because they’re organized. They came together despite their ideological differences, and they took action toward one goal: to overtake our government. Brandishing those words is scary, but that’s what happened. The most worrisome issues will likely pass in committee. And the two thirds of registered voters who hit the snooze yesterday and in the years before won’t even notice.

It astounds me that we’re still having a discussion about same sex marriage, for instance. Since Obama’s reelection, progress that was made in the fight for women’s and gay rights has slipped, and now it will only slip further. Many in the middle likely felt they didn’t have an alternative to re-electing President Obama in 2012, because of our fear that what happened yesterday would happen, the events of which underscore the flaws in our two-party, push/pull/dig-in-your-heels system (and which don’t begin to call out the squiggly delegate maps that have completely skewed things to give advantage to those who already have plenty).

Leading up to the 2014 Midterms, we had no vocal leader, inspirer, activator, and it showed. While we sat waiting, political analysts and publishers weighed the odds of how and when they’ll get the most votes or sell the most books. No leaders stepped up to fan the flames, and thus they died. We’ve been waiting for Hillary to announce her candidacy for president. And because she hasn’t, we didn’t. We didn’t engage. We didn’t take lessons from the conservatives’ handbook. We didn’t have signs on our gathering houses reminding our flocks to get out and vote; the words not said reminding every parishioner of the message and the stakes and the end game and the promise of life everlasting…if they vote properly.

And I’m guilty. I personally did nothing in advance of the 2014 Midterm election to organize or to engage all those I know – all those who nod with me, who whisper, “me, too” – to vote. I see now that many of them didn’t. It was chilling to wake up to the reality of what each and every one of us allowed. And why did we allow it?

Because the shame of rape and abortion and domestic violence still keeps us silent.

A Facebook friend posted that a man grabbed her ass while waiting in line last night to vote. If that isn’t an ugly, frightening metaphor for precisely what happened to women and the marginalized during this election, I don’t know what is. (She wasn’t silent. I applaud her for calling the scum out.) We gain ground, but then because we are silent in between the “big” elections the rain pounds and the mudslides begin. We think it’s only the presidency that matters. We think we need a leader to show us the way. Because we’re marginalized, we think we don’t know enough or we don’t matter enough or we can’t make a big enough difference. And we’re guilty, and we’re silent, and we don’t want anyone to know our secrets. So we do nothing. We say nothing.

Little people can accomplish so much when they band together and take action. Doing something gets results better than passive activism, which takes place when we click and forget. Like the #YesAllWomen social media campaign in response to Elliot Rodgers,’ as it turns out, not so bizarre acts of terrorism against women,  (source: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175850/), we’ve shown what can happen when you and I have the guts to have open conversations in a real and meaningful way. But unlike religious conservatives, we’re not following it up with political organization and action that can lead to the sort of change we say we want to see in our society. We’re too busy dodging the title of feminist, while our clicks lull us into a false sense of security. So that when action is needed, we hit snooze rather than wake up and show up at the voting booth.

Did the #YesAllWomen Twitter swell prompt the trolls to come out in force? Yes. Did it showcase some frightening, pervasive patterns among young women and girls who didn’t get it? It did. A completely screwed up mindset (yes, rape culture) exists toward women, and we need to change it.

Like French Montana’s acid rap Pop That and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, etc., etc., music beats into kids’ brains through their ear buds (source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/cakeshep/10-songs-perhaps-just-as-rapey-as-blurred-lines-f7az). They get “news” and images of what’s truth and what’s important from places like TMZ. The TMZ network “reports” in a “newsroom” style discussion. Speculation and humor inspire clicks rather than actual facts. Next to inflammatory headlines, a perpetual sidebar of ads with degrading links for bigger breasts, flatter tummies, and smaller waists degrades our body image – in our own minds, our value withers. A smorgasbord of mental drivel pops up for kids to consume and consume some more — it’s no wonder girls’ and boys’ brains are full of “rapey” themes that confirm their worth only if they’re skinny enough. It’s no wonder they begin to think rape and domestic violence is totally acceptable. Nay, cool. My generation grew up ashamed of our thoughts if they were “impure.” Our youth today are conversely ashamed of too chaste ones, of not being ghetto enough. We middles who don’t speak up, who didn’t show up, who because of shame and because we’re afraid they’ll think it’s okay don’t speak to our kids, are up against an almost insurmountable hurdle.

On the other side of the spectrum are messages that tell us we’re going to hell unless we find redemption and vote the right way. On not-so-super-Tuesday, a creep can grab a woman’s ass waiting in line to vote, but once he casts his vote correctly and shows up to testify on Sunday, the keys to the gates of Heaven are his, so who cares?

The great motivator for silence is shame. We’re ashamed of our sexual histories, of our choices, even when choice was taken from us, as in the case of rape and domestic violence. As in the case of recent domestic violence victim, Janay Rice, we can’t help but be aware of how victims are mistreated and blamed. There are thousands of blog posts and articles weighing in on why she married Ray Rice after the beating we all got to witness and speculate on, thanks to victim mishandling and the leak of a security video by the NFL. Which brought about another round of hash tags, #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft.

I declined a friend’s offer to share a post I wrote in response to the #YesAllWomen campaign, “#YesAllWomen: Abortion, Rape and Why Shame Can’t Keep Us Silent” (source: originally posted on BlogHer, http://www.blogher.com/yesallwomen-abortion-rape-and-why-shame-cant-keep-us-silent). Though I hoped it would contribute to the discussion, I wasn’t prepared to lead it, and the post decidedly did not appear on my own website. I told myself it was because I work so hard to focus on the positive. My #YesAllWomen post was anything but positive. It was about my own experience with rape and why maintaining women’s reproductive rights is so important to me as a woman who ended an unplanned pregnancy, and who later chose life and became a single mom at only twenty. Later still, I battled six years of infertility with a constant question running in my head of whether or not I was paying for my sexual history. I was not. There were physical and emotional reasons. But I never spoke to anyone about my feelings because of the shame. Even now, as a relative grownup, I’m not sure I’m ready for my small town to lump me with, “you libs,” or weigh in on whether I’m going to hell or whether I’m crazy. But I feel worse this morning about what my silence – yes mine, and yours –cost us last night.

In follow up to my #YesAllWomen post, I also wrote this poem of sorts, because in addition to two grown daughters, I have an eleven-year-old son at home:

My fellow Enlightened Middle Moms of daughters and sons: we have important voices and we need to use them. Because we sat passively by and allowed it, last night we were raped at the polls. This morning and every morning that follows we need to tell everyone about it who will listen. Silence equals permission. Not being silent can shut down an aggressor, as told in “The View From the Victim Room,” an amazing Modern Love piece by Courtney Queeney, a woman who refused to be silent after she was beaten by her boyfriend (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/fashion/the-view-from-the-victim-room-modern-love.html?_r=0). We mustn’t give permission with our silence any longer.

Whether or not you agree with my thoughts and beliefs, I encourage women, the marginalized, and mothers especially, to do the following:

·      Whatever your medium, use your voice

·      Hold your politicians accountable

·      Consider becoming a politician yourself

·      Gather & Check In: Participate in thought-provoking, productive conversations about the state of our country and      
       anything else about which you feel passionate

·      Don’t chicken out!

·      If you are concerned about reproductive rights, consider going public about why

·      And for God’s sake, talk to your kids

·      Talk to groups of kids

·      Talk to and engage each other

Speaking out is how progress occurs. This is how we call out bullies and tell them we're not having it anymore. Talking about rape and how objectification has impacted our own lives is how we teach young people—both boys and girls—that it’s wrong. Open discussions around the dinner table about current events are how we help kids identify the mixed messages with which they are inundated. Rather than preaching at them, asking kids questions and listening with open ears to what they think and sharing both our own experience and our own questions is how we can encourage kids to share and discuss their own uncertainty at home. If we don’t, they’ll figure out how they’re supposed to feel based on what their friends on SnapChat or Instagram have to say on a given day. Communicating is how we elevate awareness and let others know they're not alone if they feel the same, or afford those who disagree the opportunity to give thoughtful rebuttal. And parents, exhibit for your kids that we can disagree respectfully and still be friends. It gives kids power. Power to stand up to a bully or to a rapist, power to vote their truth, power to own how they feel. Power to no longer keep silent.  

Just as spirituality doesn't belong only to the Christians, however, neither does politics or the responsibility for our collective future belong only to those who identify with either the Democrats or the Republicans. And it certainly doesn’t belong only to the menfolk. Every ideology thinks they're the only ones going to Heaven. Despite that, conservatives have successfully banded together as a scary, up and coming political party. In the case of politics, each ideology thinks they’re the only ones with the right answers for our country. When the best, fairest, most progressive answers most certainly share bits and pieces of each one.  

I believe that political ads have grown more distasteful and polarizing to cause those of us who don't identify with either party to turn away and not be active. Maybe their purpose is to compel us to cover our eyes and our ears—to stuff our mouths with our fists and just pick a side, any side.  


Even before 51%: Women and the Future of Politics is released, I'm grateful that being involved with the pending publication has empowered me to discuss things that are important to me, that fall neither to the right nor to the left, or that at any given time fall to both. From many of your nods and responses, public and private, knowing I'm not alone is gratifying. Even disagreements are gratifying (source: http://www.cuteconservative.com/blog/2012/05/03/to-the-enlightened-middle-majority-its-time-to-be-honest/), because it means we're alive and it means we’re having a conversation.

51% validated me as a writer and as an essayist. But I believe the publisher’s decision to wait – one can only assume for Hillary to announce her candidacy for president – based on the goals and import of the content versus the goal of selling the most books, has been a terrible missed opportunity. Whether or not the book ever comes out, or whether I’m still in it after publishing this essay, I still have a voice and a responsibility to speak out and to frickin’ VOTE. We all do, whatever our beliefs.

I may be “just” an Enlightened Middle Mom, but my thoughts matter. I’m fighting for my daughters’ and my son’s and my nieces’ and my someday grandchildren’s future. I’m fighting for girls to believe they have the right to say no, and to make reproductive choices that are right for them if no isn’t heard. Or if we give our yes to the wrong guy and biology wins over pharmaceuticals, or even if we make a youthful mistake. I’m fighting for boys to believe and to understand that they are worthy of waiting for that yes, and to recognize yes as the gift it is.

And yes, as a young unwed mother whose daughter saved her life, and later as a married woman who struggled with six years of infertility, believe me, I recognize that life is a gift. I’m all about life and possible. But the potential for life is not more important than my life. And as I said in, The Enlightened Middle, “…children deserve so much more than to merely exist.” Let’s do a better job of taking care of the mothers and children who are already living and breathing, starving, neglected and abused in our country before we cast stones about when life begins and what every single speck is worth – as long as it’s the right demographic and nobody has to pay for the prevention of its existence, for the termination of it, or for its care and feeding.

Any amount of controversy or flack we must endure will be worthwhile if we can give voice to those who have felt drowned out by the extremists bumping chests and posturing for attention. You know, the ones who are now strutting about the yard crowing.  Even those of us who can’t pick a party deserve to be heard. Because this is still a free country. Or at least, it was.

Instead of rolling our eyes and changing the channel, or worse, waiting breathless and wordless and action-less for our “Savior” to announce, let us pay attention. Let us hold our politicians and ourselves accountable. I have the same right as anyone else to not sit idly by, but rather to pay attention, to care, to question, to express myself and to vote my beliefs. And you do, too – starting today.

I hope to incite folks who are as frustrated and as guilty as I am this morning to never let this happen again. Inform yourselves. Feel responsible. Whatever your beliefs or whatever you think you know, research and question. Look inward and review objectively the state of your own families over the last fifteen years or so, your truth, the state of the world as you know it. If we don’t speak out, we make no progress. Let us uncover our ears and take off our blinders. Let’s forgive ourselves, and rather than keep silent, let’s wear our shame close to our hearts but boldly on our lapels. Because uncovering our mouths and using our keyboards is where our power lies. Let’s get involved. Our hard work and sweat and heartbreak have benefited many who aren't looking out for us in the least. Let us look out for ourselves. Whoever you are, wherever you sit, I invite you to participate in the conversation. All the Enlightened Middle Moms out there need to join in a collective dialogue. We need to share our stories of rape, of abortion, of single motherhood, of all of it, as in my case, and speak openly about why reproductive rights are so essential to our survival, and not only during an election cycle. We have a lot of work to do before 2016 to halt this slip back into black and white era Pleasantville politics, and it needs to start today.  

Hillary doesn’t have an exclusive on leadership. Progress could have been made had we all stood up as leaders. If we continue holding our breaths, we continue to yield ground in the fight for our reproductive rights, for gay rights, in the fight to no longer be marginalized, to no longer be held down by the thumbs of the 1%. Whether the former First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State does or whether she doesn’t become the first Mrs. President, we are, each one of us, responsible for taking the lead in gaining back the ground we’ve lost. Today I believe that Hillary is the most qualified and prepared individual to lead our country. I wish like hell she would thumb her nose at the Democratic Party to run as an Independent. She could be that much stronger with those of us in the middle leading the charge than she will be with us tagging along behind. 

AUTHOR NOTE: This post has been edited to include the embedded video of my LTYM performance, which may require a trigger warning for some. It deals with #SingleMom, #StepMom, #Infertility, #Suicide but it's also victorious and full of HOPE for #SuicidePrevention. #ItGetsBetter. Don't be alone. Please reach out and share your powerful story in the comments, below. Or call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK(8255).

I once participated in a yoga session in which we learned to balance our chakras. My hands took their turn on each of my eight chakra points, as guided by our instructor’s soothing voice. I felt calm and at peace. At the end I noticed that one of my hands was very warm and one of my hands was cold. I asked the woman whether this meant something, and whether it was normal.

She nodded, knowing, her whole being smiling at me. “You felt it. One of your hands was giving and one of your hands was receiving.”

Once I hit publish on a post, I wait. Sometimes I get a comment or two or maybe several after a few days. Sometimes I hear crickets. I’m writing for myself, to process my own life experiences, yet I hope to help a few people who need my particular brand of reflection or awareness along the way. Sometimes when I hear crickets, it’s a little disappointing. Even so, I’ll still write, whether or not I get feedback that tells me I’m making a difference in the lives of others. I’m happier, more balanced, more fulfilled, more forgiving and more loving to those around me. Writing makes a difference in my own life, and therefore it’s worth doing, because I’m worth it.

Because of writing and blogging, I had the privilege last May of being part of one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done professionally.Listen to Your Mother hit 32 cities across the US over two weeks in celebration of mothers and Mother’s Day. I joined thirteen other women from the Chicago area, northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan to give some pretty remarkable Midwestern mothers a microphone. Here's my performance. I hope you'll watch the others, too.

Why was being a part of this show so remarkable? Because it stretched me, it challenged me, and it validated me as a mom and as a writer in ways I could only dream of before. I played Anna in The King & I my senior year in high school, and began singing solos when I was five years old--I LOVED doing those things. 

Listen to Your Mother was vastly different and so very much more than either performing or writing/blogging—it was a powerful, magical and mystical intersection of both. And I had no idea of its incredible power until I stepped on that stage.

I had to audition. That was similar to singing solos and having the lead in a musical. I had to perform. That was similar, too. My words and my story are things I’ve been sharing online for over two years now, with beautiful, heart-warming response via comments, shares and emails from many who have followed and been touched by my journey. What if I'd Said "Just Drive?" started right here, as a blog post for a #JustWrite exercise via Rebecca T. Dickson. I'm so grateful for her support and the kick-butt inspiration she offers so many writers, me included.

Performing my own writing was risky. It was gut wrenching. It was exhilarating. And yet it was like being enveloped in a warm, protective blanket of love and acceptance, much like my recent trip to a Laura Munson Haven retreat in Montana (by TRAIN, which I wrote about here). 

Our first reader, Donya Kolowsiwsky, had never done anything like it in her life—talk about a stretch! Despite never having spoken into a microphone before, she knocked her three-ring circus intro out of the park! Our second reader, Carrie, shared a story of infertility and victory through adoption that touched and enthralled us all. I was third to read. I stepped on that stage, completely naïve to what the two women before me had just experienced. I’ll try to explain, but I won’t do it justice:

My two predecessors set me up for only success, and every one of us that performed after made for a flawless show. I felt allied with my fellow cast members and with the audience like a golden shimmer of aspens—connected and breathing and responding as one organism. We were joined by a shared root system of struggle and joy and existence, warm and rich, clinging tight to the nourishing loam of our stories. It filled the room and pulsed back and forth like the warm blush of sunset. I received the audience and they received me. Our connected energy rose with laughter (as during Robyn Welling's hilarious, How to Scar Your Kids for Life), fell with heartache, and bloomed with understanding, as during fellow single mom, Sheli Geoghan Massie's, Prego at Summer Camp. I didn’t want my turn to end in eight minutes. I wanted to do it again, and again, and again. I close my eyes and I can feel the energy still. The unexpected and unprecedented gifts we gave and received in a ninety-minute show on a warm evening in May, will stay with me for a lifetime. I hope you'll enjoy watching the other touching, hilarious, and sometimes tearful readings from our show.

From national producer, Ann Imig’s, humble beginnings with one show in Madison, Wisconsin in 2010, to 32 cities across the US in 2014—if you don’t know what Listen to Your Mother is about, or if you didn’t get enough, you can spend hours watching this season’s and past seasons' videos. You’ll find all those who have come before, giving in exactly the ways you need to receive them on the Listen to Your Mother YouTube channel. Go watch, follow their blogs, and leave a comment now and again to let someone know how much their words matter. And check out our national sponsors, BlogHer (from where I received the Voices of the Year honor in 2013), and Chevy.

Northwest Indiana producer/director, Lovelyn Palm, selected my story as part of Listen to Your Mother this year. I am grateful for her faith in me and in my story, and I feel so lucky to have met this remarkable mother of NINE, as well as our entire cast. With Lovelyn’s support and blessing, I want to do this for my community. I will complete the application process later this year in the hopes of producing and directing Listen to Your Mother in southwest Michigan in 2015. 

If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, either as a sponsor, as a reader, or as a necessary and vital member of the audience, please subscribe to my email list to the right. You do not have to be a mother or a working writer to audition and participate. Stories come from sons, daughters, husbands, moms themselves, motherless children, and childless mothers. Listen to Your Mother is a beautiful celebration of motherhood and story in all its forms. And it’s a giving franchise, as well. A portion of ticket sales for our sold-out Valparaiso show supported the northwest Indiana Food Bank. Given the chance, I will choose to support the Boys & Girls Club of Benton Harbor, where I’ve enjoyed the honor of speaking to young girls about their future.

Whether or not I’m successful at bringing the show to my hometown, I look forward to next year and the years to come. I will be a part of this remarkable, uplifting, entertaining celebration again and again, even if it's an essential place in the audience.

1) What am I working on/writing?    
I have a LOT going on! I expect to release my first GANE Possible Publication, Beating the Statistics: A Mother's Quest to Reclaim Fertility, Halt Autism and Help Her Child Grow from Behavior Failure to Behavior Success late this spring. I'm always working on my memoir, My Grandfather's Table, for which I hope to secure a publisher who will go along with my plans to release it by my 50th birthday. That gives me two years. Hey! It's important to have goals! And of course, there's co-editing on the #JudyBlumeProject, which is ongoing and hopes to one day become an anthology in honor of Judy Blume's iconic and prolific contribution to libraries and homes across the world. In addition, I work as a part-time communications and media consultant (and future spokesperson) for UprightFarms.org, which is a small vertical farming startup, and which melds beautifully with my #MOREin2014 -- VARIETY & Veggies, GANE Empowered Wellness philosophy. We're currently doing all the behind the scenes work on getting our website and social media up and running in the very near future, but you can view our testimonials reel online now. As a freelance ghostwriter I've been published in a design industry magazine, and I've encouraged and advised numerous people on how to own the title of writer and pursue writing themselves. As such, if you feel called to writing, but need support in sharing your writing or finishing any writing goal you choose, I’m co-facilitating a local, face-to-face writing workshop with writer and editor friend, Ami Hendrickson (see her bio below, she's among the next participants in the BlogHop). *Every* writer dreams of spending a summer writing the Great American Novel--or maybe you want to write a screenplay, dust off a manuscript that's been sitting in a drawer, write a query letter, and actually SUBMIT it, or write a short story or memoir. #Write2TheEnd is an eight-week program that began in mid-June. We're finalizing our fall offerings now. It’s something you don’t want to miss, and it’s another really good reason to sign up for my email list. --->

2) How does my work/writing differ from others in its genre?
Genre? That's one of those scary words that can frighten off those of us who aren't too confident about our writing. All this writing and blogging nonsense began for me back in San Diego when I was so miserable I couldn't stand myself. After wallowing the first year we were there, I decided it was time to build a life for myself. It all centered around my novel-in-progress, Bluebirds, which I've been working on intermittently for six years or more. I haven't abandoned Bluebirds, and I still work on it from time-to-time. But it was proving really hard to write because I found myself trying to fit in too much memoir. Thus, My Grandfather's Table was born--a story of contrasts that flows between the nurturing, love, and nourishment that was freely given me as a child, against the shame and sadness of untold secrets that I believe led to my struggle as a young single mother. It's my quest to forgive and to love myself through food instead of punish myself with food. I need to exorcise the memoir bits in order to just tell the beautiful story that I believe Bluebirds is meant to be someday--because my Gramps continues posthumously to tell me so through birds. 

3) Why do I write what I do?
I've covered that with question two, but overall, it's honestly to keep myself sane. As women, as mothers, we often judge one another. Through sharing my writing, I feel so blessed to have experienced the fellowship and support of other writers, which has led to so very much more than I’d ever dreamed possible. Between my trip to meet and learn from Laura Munson at Haven, and being a part of Listen to Your Mother, this is shaping up as an incredible year. I don’t believe I would have auditioned for Listen to Your Mother without Haven. And I don’t believe I would have tried without the support of my wonderful midlife women blogger friends of Midlife Boulevard. This is what they mean by tribe: I had fought the compulsion to write my whole life, pushed it aside as something frivolous and silly because I lacked a college degree. I had to seek out coaches and like-minded individuals and surround myself with their support, energy, and encouragement in order to feel justified in pursuing writing as a career. Because of my history, because of shame, because of allowing myself to be defined by perceived failure, before, I wasn't enough. The sky truly is our only limit, otherwise it's the self-limiting beliefs that hold us back from realizing our own greatness. Why NOT you? 

You are enough and you and your story matter; you have the ability to impact yourself and others in ways you can’t yet imagine. GANE Possible: make your life what you’ve always wanted it to be…and bring someone else along for the ride. Why do I feel compelled to share my story? To be better for myself, for my family, to follow in my grandfather's footsteps and fully embrace and engage in this life I'm so blessed to have (especially if, like my grandfather, I live to 100!), and to help others do the same.   

4) How does my writing process work?
Ugh! My writing "process" isn't one I can highly recommend if production (organization? what’s that?) and completion is your goal--and yet I've built three websites and produced a TON of writing over the last three years. I need to give myself credit for that! I probably write more in the Evernote app on my phone, standing naked and dripping wet in the bathroom, than I do actually sitting at my keyboard. I pray it’s the water that inspires my cancer spirit and not the cracked pink tiles that line all. four. walls. of the loo in the rental we currently occupy. I'm very encouraged by my #Write2TheEnd habits/progress this summer. I've just completed my first draft of Beating the Statistics, a mini, wellness-focused memoir, which I'd hoped would help me break the finishing and publishing ice. Having this awesome cover done by Julia Mattice at Tice Designs has helped inspire me to keep working. I have many projects of my own in process, as well as volunteering, consulting, and freelance work. Taking time to focus on my own writing is always a challenge. When I do, I have a ready list of notes in Evernote from which to copy and paste. I can then take off with fingers flying and often produce thousands of words at a sitting. 

Mine was definitely the "pantser" method before. I'm benefiting greatly and producing more by adopting pieces of the plotter method, which is Ami's very large and essential piece of #Write2TheEnd, thankfully! ***WRITER/ BUSINESS TIP: Knowing and acknowledging our own weaknesses and joining forces with those who fill our gaps is a brilliant strategy I highly recommend! It's worked for my husband and me over almost twenty years of marriage, even though my creative "process" exasperates him!*** My new office is complete enough that I've moved in, so I'm getting better organized. It was difficult working from home where there was no separation of work hours and family or (barely existent) leisure hours. I look forward to getting settled into a routine after school starts this fall, and having designated work time and space. I will have to figure out where and when my writing time is most productive. This summer, it's been first thing in the morning before my son wakes and BEFORE social media, standing at my kitchen counter. Perhaps this fall I will devise a hanger for the doorknob to my new office that says, “Gone Writing.” 

And now, I'm pleased to introduce my #Write2TheEnd partner, Ami Hendrickson, as well as Sabrina Lovejoy, and Joan Stommen. They are the next batch of writers on this transformational and inspiring Blog Hop all about writing. 

Ami Hendrickson is the ghostwriter for several internationally recognized master horse trainers and other notable experts. Books she has been involved in creating include: Clinton Anderson’s Downunder Horsemanship; The Rider’s Pain–Free Back, written with neurosurgeon Dr. James Warson, named by American Horse Publications as one of the “Top 3 Books of the Year;” Geoff Teall on Riding Hunters, Jumpers and Equitation;Beyond a Whisper, with behaviorist Ryan Gingerich; and Photographing and “Videoing” Horses. She is the editor of the Trainer’s Certification Manual for the United States Hunter Jumper Association (USHJA).

Ami is also an award-winning scriptwriter. Her screenplays have received recognition in the Cinequest Screenwriting Competition, the Great Lakes International Screenplay Competition, the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriting Competition, and others. "Valentimes Day," a short film written for the SONY 4K Challenge as part of the 2013 Napa Valley Film Festival, was a featured selection in the 2014 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival.  "The Interview" won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the Out of the Box Playwriting Competition in 2012.  

A  tireless mentor and cheerleader, Ami has helped scores of writers from 13 year–olds to septuagenarians get their first byline. She is always looking for ways to help writers make the most of writing time, jumpstart creativity, and pack more firepower into the writer’s arsenal.  When she discovers something that works, she is quick to share it.  She especially enjoys speaking to writers and conducting writing workshops. She graduated with distinction from Andrews University and holds degrees in English and Education. 

Some of Ami’s favorite things (in no particular order) are: riding her horses, losing herself in a book, drinking good coffee, eating chocolate, smooching her husband or snuggling her daughter during a movie.  She and her family live with their “vast menagerie” on a 100+ year–old farm in southwest Michigan. Find Ami via her website, www.AmiHendrickson.com, and her blog, Muse Inks. Read her post here.

Sabrina Lovejoy is most comfortable writing about what life has taught her. From becoming a single mom several days after her 18th birthday to her more than 20 years in corporate America, her hope is that her experiences encourage women to keep pressing towards their finish line. While fully aware that we all come from different backgrounds, Sabrina believes there is nothing that she’s been challenged with that someone, somewhere, hasn’t already experienced and overcome (Ecclesiates 1:9 “...there is nothing new under the sun”). She believes the journey of women would be easier if they’d more frequently seek those that know how to get from calamity to clarity. And, while that road has already been paved in many different ways by some of the most amazing women, writing has allowed Sabrina the opportunity to add her own bricks here and there.  

Sabrina’s blogging journey started in 2009 with a blog geared towards encouraging single moms in corporate America. Later, she decided to lean more towards sharing the life lessons she wished someone had shared with her. In 2013, while pursuing a career as a Life Coach and disappointed with her own corporate journey, Sabrina founded a 30 day challenge entitled “Career Success through Self-Awareness”. Due to its success, Sabrina has begun the process of creating resources for women new to or frustrated with the corporate climb.
 
Sabrina’s blog, Much Needed Advice, is a compilation of her journey as a writer. Read her post here.

Joan Stommen has always been a writer. Her shelves are full of letters, essays, journals, newspaper clippings and lessons used as a writing coach. Retiring in 2007 after 33 years as an elementary teacher, she returns a few days a week to sub and stay active in the writing and learning process.

She’s a National Writing Project Fellow, a former staff development instructor for various school systems and taught writing instruction to teacher candidates at Kennesaw State University. From her college newspaper to various publications, she’s written news stories and columns for over 40 years. A native of Michigan who now lives in Georgia, she enjoys 5K’s, Zumba, hiking, gardening and reading.

In addition to compiling stories of her Dad’s war experiences, she contributes to national blogs and websites and writes the Gramcracker Crumbs blog  (www.gramcrackercrumbs.com). Initially started with her 5 grandchildren in mind, she now writes about the aging process in Senior, Single and Seventy, fitness, education, family and, after the death of her husband, about Becoming a Widow; befitting her tag line “the bits and pieces of my life.” Read her post here.


Yours in Wellness Always,
--Kim Jorgensen Gane, (c) 2014, all rights reserved

Dear Sheryl (I can call you Sheryl, right?):

You were a keynote speaker at BlogHer ’13.  You celebrated the influence and the power bloggers have.  We cheered for you.  You asked us what we could do if we weren’t afraid.  You impacted the words and homes of over 4000 women bloggers in attendance and countless others who listened after, now that we're talking about whether or not to refer to girls as bossy. (I'm not into banning, however. I'm more for empowering. I'm in the #OwnBossy camp, myself--why fight a battle we can't win? Let's reframe the word, and grow girls who know how to lead effectively.)

Yet just a few short months later, you’re using your Facebook muscle and multitudinous mulah to pi$$ on bloggers by making it very difficult to get traffic to our posts—many of us for whom not a penny is made from blogging.

I don’t get it.

You have our attention.  But I’m afraid it’s not in a good way. I mean, when is enough, enough?

I’m glad I'm a procrastinator and didn't immediately buy your book in the post BlogHer '13 glow.

My love affair with Social Media began in earnest when I was living in San Diego.  Three time-zones and an entire country separated me from my daughters, my mother, my friends, my posse.  Facebook was all I had when on many days I felt as though I lived in a foreign country.  I was the too large, too short, not blond enough Midwestern Interloper who often didn't garner enough interest for people to remember my name, or that we'd met before.

Enter Twitter: Facebook's racier, hipper, #twerkier cousin, who it turns out a) teaches a writer-type to be more judicious with her words, and b) much more quickly breeds (do it organically) contacts, promotes fantastic writing and business tools, promotes opportunities for learning, and promotes one another. But Twitter isn't known for conversion rates, that is, converting from delivering free information to putting dollar$ in your pocket.

And then there's Google+.  Social Media powerhouses like Guy Kawasaki, also a BlogHer ’13 keynote speaker, and the woman behind the man, Peg Fitzpatrick, encourage folks to use the platform, and thus it looks more and more appealing all the time.  Here's the rub: like it or not, Google is the algorithm ruler of Internet Kingdom, and if you wish to have any kind of a presence, be any more than a microblip on the a$$ of humanity, have any kind of influence--staying power--apparently this is something equally, if not more, necessary.  Yeah, yeah…we’re grudgingly on board.  Maybe soon to be gratefully so, with the introduction of friends, Lisa L. Flowers' & April Welch's, Google+ Newbie Group, where your questions are actually answered. You might want to ask to join.

You know where I mentioned INcome?  Despite the odd day when I may spend as many as 16 hours at my computer, I haven't actually found a way to make income happen on any of those magical pathways to...all I'm NOT accomplishing.  I’ve had a couple posts picked up by Yahoo!—and made four whole dollars.  I need balance in my life.  It’s time to work smarter. Because it turns out actually BE-ing obsessively on social media doesn't put ca$h in your pocket unless you're willing to sell your (soul) web space to the devil, or you agree to write meaningless words on topics that don't matter about companies with deep pockets that lack any manner of good social intentions. 

I haven't yet mentioned Pinterest, but since it's where I share all my favorite gluten free and GANE Empowered Wellness: GANE Possible resources, including recipes, brands and products, it more than earns mentioning.  Again, however, I've yet to turn all that pinning into income for Momma to help pay for expensive gluten free grub for my growing tween. Good gluten-free gravy, what in the world will I do when he does meet teenagerhood?!  

So, Facebook, fan of yours though I was, I need to start EMPLOYING all the articles I've read and teleseminars I’ve watched.  I need to maintain some sort of Social Media Free Zone.  I need to actually produce, choose one of my umpteen projects, finish a book, APE it, or query and SUBMIT, rather than merely hope someone Stumbles upon me (SO not ready to go there).

I hope you understand.  And I hope you will still be there for me, ready to help me pass the time waiting for my kid in line at school, or when I need a good laugh, or when I miss my cyber friends too much.  We'll still hang out.  But my smart phone will spend less time in my hands. They'll be too busy typing words that matter.

So, all those ad$ you’ve schnockered businesses into paying for?  That’s not where I’ll do my shopping, thank you very much, or ever have quite frankly, which might actually explain a lot.  I’ll likely do that on Pinterest, or most habitually via a Google search, where a much higher conversion to dollars spent actually occurs--because I'm looking for it! And maybe that will prove true for image-driven Google+, too. 

I, and many of my multitude$ of #MidlifeBlvd, highly-influential-demographic blogger friend$, have all but abandoned our pages, and many of us will not PAY Facebook to sponsor, boost or otherwise promote our posts.  You have made more than enough money from all the ads (for singles? I’m married.  To play GAMES?!  Who has time?) we can’t avoid.

And most of all, I require human, face-to-face interaction like I require air to breathe.  I'll teach humans and small businesses that deserve a shot how to use and derive benefit from social media all day long, but to me there is no substitute for doing that in a way that allows me to look them in the eye, maybe even a la Google Hangout one day soon.

Which is why my website saw an overhaul in the first quarter of 2014, when West Coast Posse—my effort to make a dent in the B.S. gang$ta attitude toward women that is so disturbingly prevalent in popular and social media—became GANEPossible.com.  

My focus is positive. It's on my local community, which I love so much that my family and I came back to Michigan after being in San Diego just less than two years (even though it’s friggin’ freezing again right now!).  I will do community outreach, I'll speak, and I’ll host healthy cooking demonstrations.  I feel we are on the cusp of some very important wellness messages spilling over, and that's a difference I hope to promulgate. I’ll be networking with other businesses both in person and online to achieve that end. I've adjusted and readjusted my strategy, and am working hard to complete my first book which I hope to have published at the beginning of May 2014. 

My belief is that small businesses need to band together.  We need to collaborate, share with and promote the gifts we all possess--we need to support one another.  We are so much more powerful together than we are on our own.  I know this from my beautiful Midlife Boulevard friends.  I know this from when my husband and I owned our restaurant and I co-created the Benton Harbor Marketing Initiative (BHMI) among downtown Benton Harbor, Michigan, businesses, back around the turn of the century—and look at what Benton Harbor has become since!  

Patience and supporting one another is how we will survive and thrive, despite what the government, the economy, healthcare or Crackbook decides to do, TYVM.  I am no longer afraid.  And I will be an influencer.  I hope you’ll get back on board, Sheryl, and stop making life so hard for the bloggy buddies we almost were in 2013.  

A la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, maybe we will soon hold up our glittering bags full of time and better-invested effort and say, “Big mistake.  BIG!”

I’m so sorry, but I have a feeling that in the end, 2014 might hurt just a little for ya.

Signed,

--Kim Jorgensen Gane of
GANEPossible.com

I wrote an end of the year wrap up post similar to the one I wrote last year, but it didn't feel honest, sincere or meaningful.  It actually felt a lot like recycling, so I didn't publish it.  

What is honest?  FEAR:  I’m scared $#!+less, every stinking day.

So when, thanks to blogging buddy, Blogger Idol 2013, THE Lois Alter Mark, whom I intend to meet IRL in 2014, I discovered the book, “Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave,”  

The stakes were so, so very high, that I became so, so very careful.  Afraid to fail, but just as afraid to succeed.  Certainly afraid to put myself out there to be judged, and yet I yearned for the accolades again.  I yearned not to be ignored and stigmatized as a single mom.  I didn't feel welcome in the church I'd grown up singing in.  In fact I was stricken from the membership rolls because I wasn't tithing.  Tithing?!  I had to return bottles and cans from my dad's office for the deposit to buy bread and milk and eggs to feed my child!  One heaping paper bagful was $4, give or take ten cents.

Life was hard.  Life was a state of constant fear.  And I began to believe that would be my reality forever.  Even after I married, it still proved our reality, because together we seemed to suck the joy out of everything.  Life was so hard as we worked to recover from our respective single parenting and divorce, we knew only hard and we kept living it.  I see it in our daughters still sometimes, which is what makes me ache to prove to them, to prove to my husband that life can be joy-filled.  Not easy necessarily, but that a time will come when we can relax and ENJOY all our hard work.  Maybe just a little?

That's been our story:  Hard.  Work.  Plodding.  It's what has defined us.  But it hasn't served us, and it sure as hell hasn't made us rich--the harder we work, the more we seem to struggle.  Whatever we've each "done wrong" which determined that we don't deserve joy and happiness is what we've allowed to define us.  That's been our story.  Single mother, divorced father, job losers, failed restaurateurs....  ENOUGH!  I think this is the year that we will choose how we define ourselves.  At least I intend to!

Patty has a chapter in her book about surfing the Great Lakes.  I don't think it's an accident that it was my hometown, St. Joseph, where she took such a plunge.  In winter!  She says, "Michigan folks must be made of heartier stuff than New Yorkers."  While I don't know about that, I do know we are hearty, indeed.  We take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.  We're right smack in the middle of one of the longest, coldest winters in decades.  If I could see that lake through the blizzard we’re currently weathering, I wouldn’t be able to imagine for a moment surfing it.  But as Erica said from Third Coast Surf Shop, where Patty & Patrick rented their surfboard, "I'm from here, I can surf in the summer."  

Patty asked me on Facebook whether I really live in St. Joseph.  I proudly display a picture by Mark Parren of our little red-roofed light house as one of my cover photos.  But Patty probably didn't recognize it because it was likely encased in a feet-, not inches-, thick sarcophagus of glacial ice at that time of year.  So, yeah.  I've been on a quest to overcome my fear of success as well as my fear of failure over the last two years, but I don't feel the need to surf Lake Michigan in winter to prove it.  I sure as hell, however, want to meet the woman who did and lived to write about it!

Patty quotes her surfing coach, Patrick, as saying, “Strength and courage has always been there, you're just uncovering it in different ways."

I think strength and courage can hide behind hard work.  Taking a licking and perseverance doesn't equate to happiness and fulfillment.  And in 2013 it barely equated to food on the table.  I make an effort to regularly be positive, or I keep my fingers to myself.  There’s enough negativity among social media outlets.  But that’s the truth.  As wonderful as it was in many ways for me personally, 2013 was our scariest year yet financially.

I have to admit #SomeNerve has made me feel a little feisty, a little defensive perhaps about my choices over the last two years.  Patty describes Barry's near-death experience on a plane.  This makes me think of our near death financially, which has spurred in me an "ef-it" attitude about what I choose to do to contribute to my family.  I simply can't abide the idea of waiting tables or tending bar or being someone's administrative assistant.  Been there, done all those things.  

Maybe some would say I've had a responsibility to do those things to bring in cash--that I should have done whatever it took to pay the bills, but my husband was already doing that.  We can't both be miserable and unfulfilled and disbelieving, what then would that do to our son?  And maybe I can have an influence on his actions and desire toward living a fulfilled life rather than just plodding through—he has taken up photography, and I think I might have inspired that just a little.  And I've felt a deep calling to do something very different from what I’ve done that didn’t fulfill me in the past.  

Fear of death is a big one for many people, but I have longevity in my genes with a grandpa who lived to be 100 years old.  Patty’s book has inspired me to want to work harder not to screw that up.  And if I have half my life left to look forward to, I want to make the most of it, and I want to help influence the happiness of others.  The saying, Life is Too Short...not to grab every moment.  Yet, while we're raising kids, we spend many of those years in a kind of standby mode.  We hover and we put all our energy into our children, and often very little into ourselves. 

When I look back on my life, much like someone having a near death experience might, I can see that all the pieces have come together in this moment.  I can pull together all my life experience to have an impact on others, and that's what I want to do with the second half of my life.  That's the beauty of growing older:  Perspective.  Hindsight.  That's what I hope to take advantage of, and what I’ve been diligently self-teaching over the last two years.  

I said to Patty the other night as we were Facebook chatting, that overcoming fear is the path I've been on for the last two years, and her book articulates it so beautifully. Wouldn't it be wonderful to help people to be brave well before they reach midlife? Why does it take so many of us so long? I haven't answered that question yet. But I keep trying. We allow so many other things to define us, I suppose, maybe this is when we finally begin to seek to define ourselves. But why the hell can't we be nurtured and encouraged to do that all our lives?  Why isn't happiness and fulfillment always reason enough to do or to choose something?

Maybe it's because I've already been a mom for 27 years by the end of this month, but I've stood by long enough.  Now I wish to put as much energy into raising myself and others up as I have and will continue to spend, raising my kids.  And just as my husband continues to plod and to work, I will continue to seek that summit.  Which of us will get there first?  I hope it's me, so I can show him the light.

Previously West Coast Posse was largely directed at women.  You’ll note that I’m kind of in the middle of an overhaul here, and I've seen so many men, my own husband included, defeated and in pain over the last several years of economic uncertainty and job loss, that I feel compelled to bring everyone with me along on this glorious ride of self-discovery & fulfillment.  And I believe deeply that my grandfather's influence, his way of embracing people and life and food and gathering and celebrating every moment, can be key in seeing that to fruition.  I hope you’ll see evidence of that as my “GANE Empowered Wellness: GANE Possible” section develops.  That will be my #SomeNerve Challenge, by the way:  finishing that book (don’t worry, Bluebirds is still developing its wings), living it, promoting it, speaking about it, fully embracing the philosophy of MORE, doing cooking demonstrations (some together!) and teaching others to embrace MORE in 2014.  And I don’t think it’s an accident that my husband loved feeding people when we owned our restaurant—loved feeding the guys in the firehouse—or that we’ve since learned to do it in ways that help us maintain wellness, despite the stress we’ve been under.

The world needs MORE of us to feel happy and fulfilled--and you matter!  Yes, I'm talking to you!  If my path, if our path to get there can influence yours in a positive way, even when it’s bumpy, even when it’s scary, even when a positive attitude is at its most difficult to reach, I hope you'll hold on tight and come along for the ride.  

This time next year, when I’m creeping up on 49, I know the hindsight will be worth it!


This is posted as part of a Blog Hop over at Midlife Boulevard.  Our topic was: There's Nothing Wrong with Aging.

If politics remains a taboo topic in polite conversation, then racism in politics represents the equivalent of suppression, of something whispered behind closed doors in the dim light of one flickering candle.

I must believe an overwhelming majority exists today versus the brave few who, more than one hundred years ago, risked their lives to hide slaves under their floors.  If I didn’t, I couldn't live in this America, amid an undercurrent I can’t escape.  I think about it daily, and only more so during the last several weeks of looming and actual government shutdown.  Grateful for our momentary reprieve, I'm keenly aware that if we allow it, our country will soon be held hostage by insipid and racially motivated bipartisanship all over again.

We’ve come too far to watch our neighbors get away with not-so-thinly-veiled racism that has occupied the news over the last several years, certainly that which cloaked the recent government shutdown.  It isn’t acceptable in polite society, or in any society.  We are all human beings who must coexist on this planet.  I guess this is where Enlightened Middle Mom falls to the liberal side of things.  I don’t care what consensual adults do with one another in their bedrooms.  I want everyone who inhabits this earth to feel like they have as much right as I do to be here, certainly the same opportunity to be a school teacher, police officer or even president.  The hardworking middle deserves to be rewarded every bit as much as the entitled few.

My fear is that we haven’t seen anything yet.  If we continue to rubber-stamp this attitude, I fear a woman president will be subject to even more hatred and division than we’ve seen over President Obama’s terms thus far.  I saw hate delivered to the beautiful and deserving Nina Davuluri, as she was crowned Miss America.  I saw loathing and rape threats thrust at Lindy West, recipient of the Women’s Media Center’s Social Media Award in New York this month, because:

Freedom of speech extends to everyone, even those in possession of phones with higher IQs than their own.  The freedom to write about what we feel, to start and contribute to important conversations is an American constitution on which I place tremendous value.  And it’s more accessible than ever to anyone and everyone with a computer or a phone.  But allowing discrimination and hatred toward blacks, toward homosexuals, toward women of all kinds to pass without calling it out, is deeply troubling.  It’s no different than bullying that goes unchecked on the no-man’s-land of playgrounds and social media screens across America.  Just as we must encourage our children to stand up for victims when they witness bullying, to prompt the vast majority of others who find themselves ambivalent in that middle place to tug on a shirtsleeve and say, “Hey, not cool, man.  Let’s go,” we must set an example that calls out those who speak racism and hate, even when they do so in code or in microblog.  

Racism is something we all must check within ourselves.  Depending upon our upbringing or on the region in which we’re raised, conquering our fear and inherent tendencies toward racism or hatred might be nonexistent or it might take great effort.  It is an endeavor worthy of our sincerest efforts, more than perhaps any other.  

Not talking about what we’ve witnessed over the last several years won't get us anywhere.  Our silence won't help the future of minorities and women in politics.  Platitudes won’t tell the Tea Party that their thinly veiled propaganda absolutely will not be tolerated come the next round of budget votes.  We’ve bought a paltry few weeks before we once again endure the same threat to our economy and our place in the world.  

Those of us in the Enlightened Middle Majority might not be perfect, we might be works in progress where our own attitudes and mores are concerned, but we need to trust our inner voices and rumble a lot louder if we hope to further progress.  We can't keep holding our breaths waiting for the next guy to stop the ruckus.  Together with the likes of Senator John McCain, the “Sister Senators” and the rest of the bipartisan coalition that banded together in the interest of ever elusive progress, it will be up to the moderates, our voices and our midterm votes to prevent future economic catastrophes like the recent shutdown we witnessed.  I don’t know about your family, but mine can’t take much more irrepressible division.  

We have it on good authority there are more of us who have had enough than there are of them. 

It is midnight, with a looming government shutdown, and we are at an impasse over needed but flawed Healthcare Reform.

It seems like the appropriate time to address a response to my “Enlightened Middle Majority” post that I was shocked to find the week before I attended BlogHer’13 as a Voices of the Year Honoree in the op-ed category for precisely the post in question.  I deeply wished I’d Googled “Enlightened Middle Majority” long before the night I did so as a lazy way to link to my post.  I had to read Dani’s post of The Cute Conservative twice (maybe thrice), because the first time all I kept thinking was, "She said I'm a gifted writer!"  She called for me to be honest, so this is me, being honest:  Dani describes herself as a “bona-fide journalist,” who likely has a college education, and I'm *just* a mom, so I confess I was deeply honored by her assessment.

In light of recent events, I submit to Dani, however adorable, generous and gifted a writer she may be, that it is precisely the GOP’s denial of the existence of the Enlightened Middle Majority that cost them the last two elections. 

It is the failure to acknowledge that we are a powerful force that may well lose both the Republicans and the Democrats the next one.  If “the sides” continue to devalue and ignore us, and continue the unreasonable, childish, divisive nonsense of President Obama’s reign (and I include him in that assessment—we did not vote him King and high ruler, we voted for him to represent we, the people), future elections could be unwinnable by either side.  

AUTHOR UPDATE 10/15/13:  And apparently it's something we're talking about.

I believe 2016 is the year a woman can not only win, but it might be the year she should run as an independent [thinker].  Too many of us only continue to become more disillusioned with and disappointed in anything the Republicans or the Democrats traditionally represent.  Both sides need a time-out equally, because together they have been completely self-serving and ineffective and they’ve collectively left our country even more disabled than it was post-Bush.  

I am the girl who regularly felt like the only conservative in the room when she lived in California, and who often feels like the only liberal in existence back in her hometown.  I once balked at the idea of an open political debate, but I’m always free to vote my conscience once I close that proverbial curtain.   I remain frustrated and pissed off, and come time to vote again, I will remember, and my keyboard will continue to ring loud and clear.

This good, God-loving girl is deeply grateful to have come out of a public school system that had a fantastic English department, from which I actually managed to learn, despite not doing a lick of homework.  Had I done some of it, had I taken advantage of the one community college opportunity I did have, but walked away from because all I wanted to do was get out of Dodge and away from my stigmatized family, I often wonder what I might have been capable of, or had the confidence to purse, much earlier in life.  I couldn’t get back to Dodge fast enough, and my son will likely be a 4th generation graduate from that same public school.  Due to cuts in education and the stresses to the system I described in my “Enlightened Middle Majority” post, he won't likely receive the same preparation for written communication that I enjoyed despite myself.  I don’t know how colleges will decide whether or not he deserves to attend when this year his school has eliminated grades in favor of rubrics and matrixes and individual ”growth” assessments.  I guess it’ll be determined exclusively by who is lucky enough to afford it, which is looking like an only scarier prospect by then.  We still haven’t been able to help our second grown daughter.

I respect the position the Cute Conservative holds dear that comes from her religious upbringing, and would equally enjoy sharing a happy hour barstool and a couple hours of lively debate with her.  As long as we establish that being more pious doesn’t make her more deserving of God’s love than me, and it doesn’t mean she believes in God *more* than I do…only that she believes in a building and in a book, and in her interpretation of God, or the Universe, or whatever.  What I hoped to express in my post, something on which I think we agree, is that we can both live in this world, love God (or not) and love our country; neither of us any more or any less deserving of representation than the other.  

I am a complex creature.  We are all complex creatures.  For any number of reasons, many of us hold positions and beliefs that can be claimed by either “side” at any given time, but to answer her question, yes, I am passionate about the things in which I believe, just like she is.  

My frustration remains with the loudest voices being those to the farthest of any side, via the sensationalism that our media perpetuates for ratings.  Most importantly, from my first featured post, “My Friends Think I’m the Only Liberal They Know:  I Don’t Know What I Am,” “I’m deeply concerned about my ability to determine what the truth really is and to whom I should listen. If the Republicans are full of crap, and the Democrats are full of crap, and the media is full of crap, where in the world does the truth lie, and who the hell is shoveling it?”  (And who the hell knew anyone would read it?!)

Dani asked whether or not I am opposed to drilling for new oil.  I was opposed to and offended by the ridicule and Rudy Giuliani’s offish behavior that lead to the chant at the 2012 RNC that diminished something important to me—which lead me to feel that they could never hear me, would never listen.  

I presume I am like the vast majority of Americans, who are in favor of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but I’m not willing to passively drink the drill-baby-drill Kool-Aid.  I am fully aware that the oil lobby pushes something we can probably most all agree on as a divisive issue meant to distract from our efforts toward biofuels, conservation and green jobs.  Hello.  They’re jobs.  And they’re not fracking up our earth.  To be fair, here is an excellent article on “The Truth About Fracking.”  As long as the “gassholes,” as Kevin refers to the frackers, are required to handle the waste water with better than best practices as some of the natural gas companies are forward-thinking enough to do, I’m becoming open-minded, and I most assuredly don’t want the feds fracking up the issue.  I’m from Michigan, heart of the Great Lakes, and I don’t believe it belongs here, where companies may or may not feel compelled to protect the precious resource the greatest collection of fresh water is to the entire country.  And I wonder often how green jobs could possibly be a bad thing, except for the fact that they don’t make the already most profitable industry in the world more money (and incidentally, according to Kevin, neither does fracking, so who really are the “gassholes” drilling up that debate)? 

Dani responded to the issue of abortion in her post, so here we go yet again.  And honestly, her implying that perhaps I’m less worthy of God’s love because of the position on abortion I share with many women and men, is the only problem I had with her otherwise thoughtful rebuttal.  

I try not to be a sheep.  I try to think and reason and live my life with awareness.  In the comments of “My Friends Think,” I said, “Why must everything be so black and white?  Liberal vs. conservative, welfare vs. being cut off completely, Christian men vs. "all" women.  Of course I understand that [it isn’t really men against women, but because we mostly hear from men on political issues,] liberals behave like they can swing the women's vote by saying conservatives are taking away abortion, and conservatives try to keep everyone in their corner by saying, ‘Watch out!  Pretty soon every woman will be entitled to a free abortion and she'll be doing it every other month because she'll be using it as birth control and you'll have to pay for it!’  Geez!  Can we just STOP already?”  And then in the comments for “Enlightened Middle,” I said, “But here we are getting mired in the issue of abortion once again [and again, and again].  We must ask ourselves, who benefits from constantly pushing the issue back in our faces?  Take abortion off the damn table.  Then see what happens, then see what we talk about and what, as a nation, we can accomplish.”  

Because--let me annunciate this very clearly so we can all understand, girls and boys--abortion was debated and decided, it’s an amendment to the constitution.  My life is not less important than the potential for life, and Christians simply don’t have the right to make that decision for me or for my daughters or for my nieces, based on their book’s and their place of worship’s religious morality, because not everyone shares it (I so wanted to capitalize that).  And who says their morality is best—oh, I know they do, loudly, even as funding that feeds many children and mothers that already live and breathe on this earth is again and again threatened.  None of us will really know until we get *up there,* if there is an up there, which I happen to believe there is.  I happen to believe that I will be judged as an imperfect human being that was created in his image on my life as a whole, not on one high moral position on this one issue, or even whether or not I, myself had an abortion.  

It might surprise Dani to know that I was once a thoughtful, smart, capable Midwestern girl with a good Christian upbringing—and then my Christian family fell apart and the bottom fell out.  I was raised singing in my church my whole childhood.  My grandmother held court in the front pew every Sunday, and was one of the driving forces that built the church of my youth.  She was also one scrappy lady.  When I became a single mother at twenty, my church had nothing to offer me.  No compassion or empathy was bestowed by anyone, except my grandmother.  She had forced her eldest daughter to give up a child for adoption.  She was glad that things were different for me—that I had a choice.  While my church may have smited me, this didn’t stop me from believing in God, and in fact, were it not for my strong belief in God, neither my daughter nor I would be alive today.  I hope I have taught my children to appreciate God in the world around them; to be kind, to be respectful of others, and especially to honor themselves, because I didn’t honor myself for many years.  

My first child saved me from myself and put me back on track and I have always put all of my children first.  But my life and everything I believed in, including myself and my Christian upbringing, was absolutely shaken for a long while.  I could never presume to make such a choice for any other woman.  And make no mistake; it is an issue of supreme importance to women, because it is about our bodies, our business, it is our lives that are changed and impacted most by choosing whether and when to have children.  Women and children live in poverty in vastly greater numbers than men, which has been the case all over the world and throughout history.

“The Church” is an EXclusive club rather than an INclusive one:  follow their doctrines; look alike, think alike, or risk being ostracized if you’re different or if you fall.  Home schooling is a largely Christian choice because it blocks perceived liberal teachers from the opportunity to infect Christian children with their wacky views.  Then they wonder what went wrong when a *good* Christian girl leaves the baby she didn’t understand she was having to die in a dumpster because she wasn’t taught sex education.   How many good Christian girls have crossed state or county lines to have secret abortions, and how many good Christian boys have paid for them?  Look at the devastating rate of suicide when, God-forbid, a promising Christian boy or girl turns out to be gay. 

Above all, I stand by my call for more common sense than I perceive here in politics and for peaceful, respectful discourse like I pray I’m delivering, to replace posturing and bullying, particularly when so much of that is greed-based.  That’s my problem with the whole system…perhaps it isn’t as much the two parties, as it is the lobbies that have made it nearly impossible to gauge what’s truly best for our country.  

We are a nation of hungry and seemingly no one has enough.  It’s all about beating the other guy and grabbing the *most* market share, and if possible, kicking the other guy completely out of the sandbox.  So yeah, I’m a let’s share the sandbox kind of girl, but I don’t think that’s being weak.  I think it’s being sensible.  There truly is enough sand for us all, but we need to position ourselves properly to claim our share of it.  I don’t need a bigger share than the next guy…I just need enough to take care of my family—which right now is a pretty scary proposition with all four of us adults currently unemployed.  I don’t think the next guy should have to give me some of his if I haven’t worked for it, but neither do I think he should be allowed to hurt others to get his.  Sadly, that’s precisely what goes on in the name of progress.  People are being hurt.  Our country is being hurt.  

Here’s another example about which I’m pretty passionate:  Infertility means that our species can’t reproduce, which ultimately equals extinction.  In recent years when we do manage to reproduce, 1 in 75 children between the ages of 6 and 17 present with some form of neurological deficit (encephalopathy, aka “autism”).  According to the people that live with them and know them best of all, the vast majority of children considered on the autism spectrum are not born that way; something in our society makes them that way.  I see a big problem there, and it’s a problem that isn’t being acknowledged by the powers that be, or adequately addressed with healthcare reform.  Look at how our system is taxed by aging and retiring Baby Boomers and be afraid, because we haven’t seen anything yet.  I live in a small town, there are far more rest homes here than it seems our small area should need.  When so many children become adults who can’t hold jobs, who tax the system further, whose parents are financially wiped out and completely used up from caring for them their entire lives, when marriages are further stressed and broken because of it…we don’t have a huge problem brewing, it’s here.  Where’s the acknowledgement?  Where’s the accountability?  

Big Changes need to occur where Big Food and Big Pharma and their cohabitation is concerned (ie, Food and Drug should not be one entity), and I don’t see that happening fast enough, because not enough people are talking about it, are even aware of it, and many still think it doesn’t apply to them.  

I want Big Food and Big Pharma held accountable for the toxic load of crap they have together foisted on our society, on women’s reproductive organs, and on our ever-increasingly damaged children.  I want to hear more people screaming about it in the streets, more parents crying foul and advocating for their broken children.  But many of them are too damn tired, and many others aren’t quite sure they know what they know because they’re bullied and badgered or bribed with coupons and left to feel inept, unworthy and guilty by judgy doctors and other parents and *studies* that are sponsored by government and Big Pharma.  The same guilty that made my Christian upbringing sensibility feel that maybe I deserved infertility.  I didn’t .  No one deserves infertility.  It is merely another condition of our broken society that needs healing, and my son is here to tell you that Obamacare isn’t the answer.  

I am in favor of further examination of healthcare reform before needed changes are adopted, for starters, because as it sits now, I feel it aims to take away my choices as a parent and as an American.  The math is beyond flawed when I will be fined because I can’t afford to purchase insurance.  I don’t even know what that makes me, besides pissed off and disappointed…besides vocal and willing to stand up now and be heard and my numbers counted because that’s where I think the Enlightened Middle Majority comes in.  Many of the answers aren’t black and white where issues like the environment and the future of our children that are already walking on this earth are concerned; they aren’t merely Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Christian, man or woman—they are American--which leaves us in a big fat crap shoot where tomorrow and the next election is concerned.   Enlightened Middle Majority to me means that with various issues I could be found leaning to either side of the aisle, that I can’t identify with one or the other, because, just like a marriage or a good debate, neither party can possibly be right all the time...and when they only want what they want when they want it, regardless of what’s truly right for America, it’s time for all the mommas of the world, Dani (mother or not) and me included, to deliver a serious time out to determine where in the middle the truth lies.

Large corporations (too many of them foreign-owned) are calling the shots and they’re calling them based entirely on greed and an agenda to get their guy elected.  Both “sides” are punishing Americans when things don’t go their way.  That’s a scary, scary situation in my book, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, and that’s precisely where the Enlightened Middle Majority will no longer passively graze, oblivious.  We need to come together and be heard and be willing to fight in the most sensible and respectful and aware of ways--for America.

Dear Judy,

In Grade 4, I was Sheila the Great.

I’m not kidding.

Despite my fuzzy hair and brown skin, I was convinced you had me in mind when you wrote the novel.

I was also Margaret and Tony and Peter.

I started a newspaper at my school in grade 4 because of your books.  I dreamed of being a writer because of your books.

And because at first I wasn’t sure how to do that, some of my earliest writings are letters to my grandmother that were copied almost verbatim from various pages of your novels.

Yes, I plagiarized you at the age of 10.

I apologize.

But I’m not sorry because those letters were never sent and 30 years later, my mother delivered them to me along with a host of other childhood silliness and the joy and tears that resulted from reading my words – your words- are worth any sanctions you may have to take.

What you gave me was a gift; an outlet.

I was a first generation Canadian kid with Jamaican parents trying to find my way through the school system. I didn’t understand cliques or bras. I didn’t know what questions to ask until you came along.

You gave me a guideline to being normally abnormal that has guided the rest of my life.

When my mother bought me “Letters to Judy: What your kids wish they could tell you.” I was insanely jealous of the fact that these kids had written to you and that you were responding.

I was far too in awe to have thought of sending my thoughts as well.

So now that I have the chance here’s what I’d like to thank you for:

Are you There God It’s me Margaret : It led to an awkward conversation between a father and daughter when I snuck up behind him to ask what a “period” was and “how I could get one.”  Good times.

Forever: The sneaky way you didn’t announce that this book wasn’t like the others, allowing me a full fifteen minutes of jaw-on-the-ground reading heaven before my mother came bounding up the stairs after getting a tip off from another parent. I’d also like to thank my mom for always hiding the “not until you’re older” book  in the same spot allowing me to continue my reading on the sly.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing:  For giving me insight into the world of a boy, giving me something great I can share with my sons so they can get to know you too and siding with me in the acknowledgment that baby brothers were put on this earth to test your sanity.

Thank you for Iggie’s House that had a character that looked like me, and for Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Blubber, Then Again Maybe I won’t, Tiger Eyes and all the others that kept me up way past my bedtime, flashlight in hand.

All those years ago when I thought there was no one who understood me, you popped in with characters that have stayed with me my entire life.

I’m so glad to have the chance to finally write the letter I couldn’t all those years ago.

Your pal,

Heather

aka Sheila the Great


Heather Greenwood Davis is an award-winning feature writer with more than 20 years of journalism experience.  Her stories have appeared in numerous publications including most recently the June issue of "O" The Oprah Winfrey Magazine.  A yearlong trip around the world last year with her husband and two sons (ages 6 and 8) led to the family being named National Geographic Traveler Magazine "Travelers of the Year."  Stories of their travels and lessons learned also appear online at www.globetrottingmama.com.

Heather thanked US for the chance to purge her soul, but we couldn't be more grateful to her for sharing her memories of growing up with Judy Blume.  I couldn't be more grateful that she permitted me to share it with you as a guest post on my blog, and it ain't over, folks!  We welcome you to do the same or to participate via your own blog!  UPDATE:  Find out everything you need to know to participate ON THE #JudyBlumeProject PAGE!!

Copyright © 2013 Heather Greenwood Davis.  All rights reserved.  Reprinted with permission from the author.

An army of supporters waits with them, each of us going about our own lives.  I am writing this post, because I agreed to do it, and because there is nothing more beautiful than a woman mothering through her pain.  There is nothing more beautiful than a wife who is there for her husband for all the moments before and all the ones after a traitorous piece of her is cut away.  There is nothing more beautiful than a woman who comforts and cries with and prays with her children and reassures them, even as she reassures herself, that everything will be OK.

I was still living in California when my first close friend underwent the same surgery, double, that my friend today must endure; must survive; must press on through for all the days that follow.  I can’t fathom what might be beautiful about those days in between—only perhaps the other side.  After the scars begin to fade, and the hair grows, and the beauty and blessing of mothering lives once again in her children’s classrooms, reading and making crafts, and checking papers, instead of mired in each moments’ survival. 

My job will be to find ways to help make some of those days beautiful for my friend and her family, even as I continue to be the mom, the wife, the writer and businesswoman I’ve come to expect myself to be. 

Now that I’m back home where I belong, the beauty of my dear friends, all of us different ages, but with children the same age; changed on the surface and deep inside though we have in two short years, is that we’re still here.  Even if we can’t comprehend the choices, or fully appreciate the experience without having had it ourselves, we’re still here and we’re still friends.  We still have each other's backs, and we still hold one another's families in our hearts and in our care when one of us is down.

My friends, my posse, still forgive clumsily chosen words; we still vote for and cheer one another on, hold each other up and help each other succeed.  We still give the benefit of doubt in most cases, and accept apologies when offered.  We hope for only the best in life for our friends, and we’re there to help them survive, overcome and learn from the all too common snag, or plod through a monumentally difficult time. 

And through two years in California I made new and equally beautiful friends that now span the country, and who will remain so forever.  And through this process of releasing my inner author and sharing my soul with *the world*, I’ve made a myriad more friends across tundra and oceans.

Whether an instant of soaring brilliance, or in the worst of life’s moments—even if it’s spent unproductively, staring at a blank page, and praying like I’ve never prayed before, for mercy, for deft hands, for beauty and grace, and for another day to hug my friend, gently, or just to be there if she can’t stand my touch, even if it’s not a particularly beautiful day—there is no place I would rather be than among these beautiful women who became my friends through a MOMS Club playgroup.  We’ve seen children born and children married, and we’ve watched our brood of fifteen kids grow through everything in between. 

This week reminds me what is beautiful about being a woman that has nothing to do with weight or height or skin or hair or breasts; and none of it is more striking than the beauty of women friends. 

[And what a difference 48 hours makes.  Update: my friend came through her surgery bravely and valiantly, and so did her family, and so did I.  Amazingly, she came home the next day.  She is where she belongs, recovering with her family and friends surrounding her.  And my first friend gave us all hope when she received news recently, as her hair begins to grow back, that her doctor considers her in remission.  On to the next step:  Fight like a Girl, my beautiful friends!  Fight like a Girl!]

Thank you to August McLaughlin for inviting me to participate in her second annual Beauty of a Woman Blog Fest.  Please check out what are sure to be more fantastic posts over on August's page, where she'll be linking up a bunch of us to celebrate the beauty of women tomorrow, February 22, 2013.

This post that I wrote quite feverishly the afternoon that I was waiting to hear about my friend's surgery absolutely suits the spirit of @HeatheroftheEO 's #JustWrite exercise over at Extraordinary Ordinary.  It's all about capturing moments.  Happy ones, heart wrenching ones, poignantly beautiful ones...those that give you pause, that make you notice life and appreciate all it has to offer, the good and the bad.  It's one of the best writing exercises I've participated in, and I highly recommend it.  Be sure to follow the directions, because that's what makes it ROCK so beautifully.  

I'd have to say that 2012 has been one of my best years, and I know without a doubt that it's due to something that changed within me. 

You've heard it before, and I'm going to say it again:  ATTITUDE.  Yes, it turns out, Attitude is Everything, and we ALL have the power to get there.  Now don’t stop reading because you think you’ve heard it before…give me a chance to explain:

When life gave me lemons (ie: living so far away from the place and the people I love), I Made Lemonade.  I Decided.  I Took Control.  I Took Action.  I Took Risks.  I DID SOMETHING.  I started to blog and I took creative writing classes, and I started my website, West Coast Posse, and I submitted an essay that was accepted and will be included in a BOOK this year!  Not only that, I'm writing my own book, and if I must, I will self-publish it this year.  I started this book YEARS ago.  It sat on my computer, it moved from computer to computer, but suddenly something switched inside of me, and I began actively pursuing ways to make it happen.  And.  It.  Will.  I will complete and publish, Bluebirds, the novel I know I was always meant to write, in 2013.

Now I'm a pretty determined chick, and I've done this before.  When I couldn't get pregnant, I Took Control.  I Took Action.  I DID SOMETHING.  When modern medicine failed me, I doggedly pursued and researched ways of improving my chances.  I questioned.  I changed.  I adapted.  I kept my goals of having a baby in my mind every waking moment, and I doggedly pursued my chosen path.  The path that spoke to me in whispers.  I was quiet, and I listened.  I didn't allow anything to shake me.  I kept at it, and kept at it, until I met success.  After six long years and one miscarriage, GlutenNaziMom was born, and so was GlutenNaziKid.  He'll turn ten years old in 2013. And in 2013, GlutenNaziMom, the website that I started four years ago, will actually become something.

I wanted to be a stay at home mom.  It felt like the right thing to do, and I have loved it.  Not every moment.  But overall, there’s nothing better I could have possibly done with the last 9.75 years than to see two daughters through adolescence and to see each of them, in her own way, get married (both in the last quarter of) this past year, and to see one spectacular little boy successfully navigate fourth grade. 

Being a SAHM has put a lot of pressure on my husband.  It’s cost us financially, but so did me working and being unhappy in one unfulfilling job after another.  I couldn’t see how to do both, but I’ve felt this niggling at the back of my mind that I was the key.  I was the key to my family’s financial freedom; to my own sense of purpose and fulfillment.  I’ve written my entire life, and it’s something I’ve gone back to again and again.  But I lacked the confidence to test the waters before.  They remain largely untested, but instead of ignoring the niggling, I’m listening.  I’m listening to that little voice inside of me, who’s been telling me for years that this was something I needed to do.  I’m not standing outside the fence, watching the merry-go-round of life happen to everyone else.  I’m not being a victim of circumstances that brought us back home and unemployed, I’m USING everything that’s happened before, everything that I know, every person I’ve met along the way, and I’m putting all the pieces together to make something happen in 2013. 

And I couldn’t have done it without each one of you.  Without every positive comment that gave me wings, and every negative comment that made me try harder, I could never have kept striving, kept believing, kept writing.  DOING SOMETHING, whether it elicits positive response or negative, is so very much better than living in a void, than doing absolutely nothing but waking up every morning and taking up space—than sucking the Light out of the Universe.

So I’m giving back.  You bet your sweet bippy, I’m USING what I know and who I know, but at the same time, I’m promoting others.  I’m sharing the love and the knowledge and the insight and the LIGHT and the belief that what I’ve learned in my forty-six years on this earth, and what you’ve learned in yours, can help others; can make life better and the future brighter for those who choose to Listen and to Take Action and to Start Something in their own little corner of the globe.  What’s Your Calling?

I now know that for each of us, We Are the Key.  Inside every one of us lies the power to stop complaining and stop sniveling and stop spreading doom and destruction and misery; to stop passing blame, but rather, to use everything we know to share and to inspire and to make THIS the year everything turns around.  Fiscal Cliff, be damned!  I’m not holding my breath and waiting for the government to fix my existence.  I’m going out there and making it happen for myself, for my family, and for anyone who wants to Decide—who wants to Choose—who wants to Take Action and come along.  If we each look inside and make it Our Responsibility and Our Purpose, and spread that Attitude and Intention to our neighbors and around our blocks and around our towns and around Our Nation and maybe even the WORLD—we Each Have the Power to Make 2013 The Best Year We’ve Ever Known!