Wildly Disparate: Inspiration, Spark & Passion!

As a writer, I’m always fascinated to see where my inspiration comes from. This morning as I was walking to and from my church for Third Hour prayers, the birds were chirping and the promise of fall was floating in on the crisp breeze. Walking to church, I was thinking about my friend, Urania. But walking home from church, I was thinking about my blog. About what to write next, because my life is so full and so much has already happened since my last post on Sunday. Will people get bored if I just rattle on about a variety of unrelated things?

Back at home I open my email and there’s my answer, an email from my new friend, Terry Bernadini (below, right) whom I met at the Creative Nonfiction Workshop (read about her on my post of October 1.) Anyway, Terry has started a blog, and guess what she named it? Wildly Disparate! Don’t you love it? Her first post will take your breath away. (Turn your speakers up!) I just bought a greeting card with this anonymous quote on the front:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

Anonymous. Wish I had written it... it's how I felt about Terry’s blog post. I’m adding it to my links today.

And now I feel like I’ve been given permission to write about wildly disparate subjects today, so buckle up.

Walking up my driveway I noticed that my crape myrtles are finally finished blooming. I’m glad I took this picture of them a month ago when they were so full. I added the shot to our realtor’s pix that she took yesterday. We’re putting our house on the market TODAY because we found one we really really love… just around the corner, actually. Anyway, if anyone knows someone looking for a four bedroom (two downstairs) three bath house in midtown Memphis, tell them to call Linda Sowell or go to http://www.sowellandco.com/ and scroll down to 279 N. Avalon Street. It should be listed later today. Read a great article about Linda here.

Linda (that's her at left) has helped us buy and sell several houses in the nineteen years we’ve lived in Memphis, and it’s always fun to catch up on news about the kids, etc. (We’ve both got adopted children… all grown now.) I’ve always been a bit in awe of Linda, because she seems to have it all, to do it all. She’s strikingly beautiful, slim, fashionable, owns her own (very successful) company, and raised two well-adjusted kids. But she can also be a girlfriend. Like yesterday, when we moved a shoebox off my bed so she could photograph our bedroom, and I showed her my new shoes and she said, "Oh, would you mind if I got some just like them?" and I felt so complimented. (And they are soooo comfy ... for my trip to Greece... yikes! We leave on Friday!)

(Remember the line in "The American President" where the president's daughter says to her dad, a widow getting ready for his first date since his wife's death, "Compliment her on her shoes, Dad. Girls like that."?) My other shoes for the trip are Crocs... style name is "Athens" - how cool is that? Couldn't download a pix, but you can see them here, in Chocolate and light blue.

Anyway, yesterday Linda told me that each time she’s met with us over the years, she’s always noticed that I’ve got a homemade meal on the stove and plans to take my daughter to a soccer tournament the next day while juggling church activities and whatever my current entrepreneurial pursuit happens to be and that she always loved the way it looked, my life. Aren’t we women an interesting bunch. Each of us living the lives we’ve carved out for ourselves (or that were handed to us) with our own beautiful styles, our own flavors. And yet always wondering, just a bit, what another woman’s life might have tasted like.

It reminds me of a Mary Chapin Carpenter song, especially the line that says, “We’ve got two lives, one we’re given, and the other one we make.” So… Linda, Daphne, Terry, and all my girlfriends out there working in your homes, raising children, working in your careers, trying to figure out how to make your life “work” …. and looking around to see how other women are doing it... this song’s for you!

The Hard Way

Show a little inspiration, show a little spark

And show the things that drew me to you and stole my heart

And tell me something I don't know instead of everything I do

And look at me as if I mean something to you

Our hearts are beating while we sleep, but while we're wide awake

You know the world won't stop, and actions speak louder

Listen to your heart, and what your heart might say

Everything we got, we got the hard way

Show a little passion, baby, show a little style

And show the knack for knowing when and the gift for knowing how

And have a little trust in us when fear obscures the path

You know we got this far, darling, not by luck, but by never turning back

Some will call on destiny, but I just call on faith

That the world won't stop, and actions speak louder

Listen to your heart, to what your heart might say

Everything we got, we got the hard way

Caught up in our little lives, there's not a lot left over

I see what's missing in your eyes; you're searching for that field of clover

So show a little inspiration, show a little spark

Show the world a little light when you show it your heart

We've got two lives, one we're given and the other one we make

And the world won't stop, and actions speak louder

Listen to your heart, and your heart might say

Everything we got, we got the hard (everything we got, we got the hard way)Everything we got, we got the hard way(Because the world won't stop) hang on, baby...