Poem : How Many, How Much.

I heard a story on NPR this morning about one of my favorite poets, Shel Silverstein. His family is publishing a new collection of his poems this week called "Every Thing On It," which I can't wait to purchase. 

Did you read Shel Silverstein growing up? His Where the Sidewalk Ends was one of my favorite books as a kid. This is one of my favorite poems from that book that I still remember word for word nearly 15 years later. 

How Many, How Much.

How many slams in an old screen door? 

    Depends how loud you shut it. 

How many slices in a bread? 

    Depends how thin you cut it. 

How much good inside a day? 

    Depends how good you live 'em. 

How much love inside a friend? 

    Depends how much you give 'em.

I also love this Silverstein poem. Do you have a favorite?

bookish: Speaking of Shakespeare.

We speak Shakespeare a thousand times a day and don't even know it.

Source: nawasaka.tumblr.com via Bethany on Pinterest

book·ish/ˈbo͝okiSH/Adjective

1. (of a person or way of life) Devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.

2. (of language or writing) Literary in style or allusion.

3. (of art and all manner of lovely things) devoted to the written word as a form of art and as a way of seeing the world.

4. (of SheWritesandRights.blogspot.com) anything of the aforementioned characteristics as they are found on the interwebs and reposted by Bethany, because bookish and writerly things always give reason for amusement.*

P.S. Remember these beauties?

Inspired By.

Today I'm thinking about authenticity. Writers have the ability and responsibility to wield words and create meaning. We can construct whole worlds of fiction and fantasy. We can give artistic flair to the everyday human experience.

And so I think to myself: whatever we do, whatever we say, however we act, should be authentic to who we are. A story, however edited and rewritten, should ring true. So I strive to live a life authentic to what I feel, and what I believe to be true. But, by my nature and because I am human, I succeed marginally at best. I get caught up in constructing authenticity. And then I lose it. I give in to the belief that this is what they'll want to read from me or this sounds better than the way it really happened or if I told them what I really think, they wouldn't take me seriously.

Do you ever do that, rearrange your thoughts around what you believe people will respond to?

Do you blog for the bandwagon? Post about things that you believe will initiate comments and page views and tweets, or do you blog about things that really matter to you, the writer?

Do you edit your thoughts and words at the expense of your true voice?

Do you edit others at the expense of the truth in their own words?

On the one hand, you write for your audience. You write to give them a thought, a moment illustrated, a word of encouragement, a benefit from your experience. But we have to strike that balance between sharing our gift with others and exercising our gift simply because it is what we are called to do.

I'm convicted by the thought that when we write, we should not just write about writing, but about our lives.

As a very wise professor I know recently explained,

Art is not about art. It's about everything else.

My blog is a blog about writing, but it is also a blog for my writing.

We can lose that authenticity and integrity for our work in a variety of ways, whether through writing about writing to avoid writing truth, or editing our thoughts and experiences to garner attention.


Here are a few posts from the interwebs that I appreciate for their authenticity.

The best reflection out of the many that were shared over the past week.

What good is a relationship without confrontation and commitment?

Is it right, or does it just feel right? How my generation deals with morality.

These bloggers are willing to share their true stories. I took the plunge and shared mine yesterday. Share yours. The world needs to witness it.

The Bravest and Most Beautiful Affair. [Heard rave reviews about the author's presentation on the importance of poetery at Story Conference today.]

Speaking of Story Conference, I only heard about it recently, but I'm heartbroken that I can't be there. On the other hand, I still get to connect with this blogging guy and this blogging girl for an early coffee date tomorrow morning. It'll be great to finally meet them in person!

And finally, a friend and I are starting a writer's group in the Elgin/Chicago Suburbs. Are you interested? Join here.

Have a good weekend, friends.



[Image Source: flickr.com via Bethany on Pinterest]

Confessions of a Twenty Something : I'm in Therapy.

I was 21 and had just graduated college. I was two months away from marrying my best friend, but I didn't have a job and neither did my then-fiance. And I was completely insecure in the choices I was making. Should we still get married if we have no money? How can I earn money as a writer? Is that even possible? When should I go to grad school? I love my fiance, but am I capable of being a good spouse to him? Am I ready to be an adult?

How do I cope with all of this anxiety?

And I was beginning to notice things about myself. That if I was at my apartment alone without my roommate around, I was doing one of two things: crying uncontrollably, or laying on the couch like an overcooked vegetable watching reality television. My "anger management" techniques, though inherited honestly from my German-American family, were highly ineffective, unhealthy, and were not conducive to being someone's spouse.

I wasn't writing.

I wasn't looking for a better job.

I was letting the negative things in my life strangle the positive things. I had a college degree I'd worked hard for, but I had no job. My confidence in my writing and my professionalism were rock bottom. I had a great relationship with my fiance, but I was terrified that I would ruin it with my obstinacy and insecurity. I had faith in a God that has consistently been faithful to me, but I felt unfaithful to Him by living in fear of the future.

And I knew my friends couldn't fix me. 

So I went to see a therapist I knew. And we began to unravel a few things.

First: are you sure you want to get married? 

The answer was unequivocally and irrevocably YES. Yes, I did want to marry my best friend. Even if we lived with his parents for a few months while we got on our feet, even if it meant that we wouldn't be able to go on a honeymoon or buy better vehicles or go to grad school right away, I knew with every part of me that we would be honoring God and one another if we chose to work through those things together in marriage.

Second: since I'm getting married, what do I need to do to be an emotionally stable spouse? 

All of us were raised with habits, good and bad. And then, at some point, we realize the unhealthy ones are getting in the way of constructing positive ones. We have to deconstruct the unhealthy habits - admit them, analyze that pattern of behavior, let go of it, and then try - painfully at first - to speak, act, reach out, apologize, forgive and encourage in new ways.

Third: how do I learn to cope with my mother's unstable health? 

There are days when I'm overwhelmed. There are days when I feel numb to it. And because I am the oldest child and the only girl from my family of five, I will always feel responsible for the well-being of everyone else. I will, instinctively, suppress my emotions in an effort to accommodate those around me. I will, instinctively, believe that if I just "keep it together" I will find a way to fix the situation. I'm learning to confess my grief, my doubt, my fear. I'm learning to let my faith sustain me. I'm learning to be honest with myself and with others about how I feel in a given moment.

And I had to my ask myself this question:

Is going to therapy a sign that I'm broken, or that I'm healing? 

We reap what we sow. We have to do the hard work of uprooting the negative in order to make room for positive things to grow. There's a lot of sweat and tears and patience and prayer involved. A lot of talking and crying and brutal honesty. To bear the fruit of a healthy life, I had to find the help I needed to unearth a better way of living. I hope each of you find the courage to do the same.


This post was written in conjunction with the blog series Confessions of a Twenty Something, hosted by Ally Spots.

Words and Strings

Because I couldn't help but fall in love with this passage, I thought I'd share it with you:

"So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days, you can hear their chorus rushing past:

IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme…


There was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations. Shy people carried a little bunch of string in their pockets, but people considered loudmouths had no less need for it, since those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone. The physical distance between two people using a string was often small; sometimes the smaller the distance, the greater the need for the string. 


The practice of attaching cups to the ends of string came much later. Some say it is related to the irrepressible urge to press shells to our ears, to hear the still-surviving echo of the world’s first expression. Others say it was started by a man who held the end of a string that was unraveled across the ocean by a girl who left for America. 


When the world grew bigger, and there wasn’t enough string to keep the things people wanted to say from disappearing into the vastness, the telephone was invented. 


Sometimes no length of string is long enough to say the thing that needs to be said. In such cases all the string can do, in whatever its form, is conduct a person’s silence."

- Nicole Krauss, A History of Love

[Photo.]