Find Your Joy
JOY ~ The Journey of You February 12, 2010 |
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Hello my luvs,
My weekly newspaper column is called "Serendipity" in some papers. (The others don't give it a name; I think "World's Most Delightful Column" is catchy.) When I started writing my column in 2001, I never could have imagined all the good things that would come my way because of it.
Serendipity is defined as "the phenomenon of finding valuable things not sought for." When I launched this joy letter in the fall of 2008, again I had no inkling of what would come.
So let me tell you this week's story. (As Winnie the Pooh said, "It's a long story; even longer when I tell it.")
I applied for a job. (I know. Ugh. What was I thinking.) Well, I was thinking that I love travel, people, and can get by on very little sleep. I also was thinking that a tad more steady income, insurance benefits, and a job that would offer a schedule to allow me to be me -writer/speaker/listener - would be nice.
Well, I didn't get the job. I choked. This writer/speaker could not string together a single sentence. It was beyond bad. It was so awful I drove right home and wrote my column about it. (I really should censor myself before I hit the send button.) The link to my column is somewhere down below.
The next day, I had a speaking gig and a photo shoot. Fun clothes, fun people, fun stuff. My hair and makeup team (Allure Salon, Kimberly and Chou) spiffed me up and didn't charge me a dime for their time because they wanted me to feel pretty. That is joy.
The contrast of wearing a tiara, bling, and a boa versus a navy blazer, tiny button earrings, and sensible shoes made me realize that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing: being the Joy Fairy. I made peace with myself and the trainwreck interview. The Universe was telling me to pursue my dreams and quit worrying about health benefits.
And then the phone rang. Speaking gig. And then another. Speaking gig. AND (goosebumps) a call from Deb McKew of WordsinPlay, a writer in New Hampshire who I have never met but she receives this joy letter, inviting me to teach joy workshops at her creative souls (writing, poetry, photography) retreat ... IN ITALY.
Italy. Serendipity. I love my life. The retreat is May 2011 so I will fill you in later, but my point (and I do have one) is screw up; beat yourself up; get back up. Get over it and be open to the next amazing thing that you did not seek but is seeking you.
Words to Ponder~
Lawrence Block |
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| Lyrics to love |
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....come on and just roll with it baby...
"Roll With It" ~ Steve Winwood
Songwriters: Dozier, Lamont;Winwood, Steve;Holland, Brian;Holland, Edward Jr;Jennings, Will
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| Just being silly |
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Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado" celebrates its 125th anniversary. The blurb from London's theatre district says it's a "hilarious tale of love, marriage, and executions."
Which of course evolved into the nursery rhyme: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the execution. Off with her head." That didn't rhyme so over time the baby carriage line came into favor.
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| Giggle |
If you start out on the altar busting a gut together, odds are good at making it through the long haul.
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| Picks this week |
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Flick Pick - Valentine's Day (have not seen it) or my old fave Serendipity
(I have a friend who refuses to watch any John Cusack movies. "Why do chicks like him? I just don't get it.")
Book Pick - how about a sappy quick-read Nicholas Sparks' novel? ;)
(How many guys read sappy quick-read Sparks' novels?) |
| Birthday Love |
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HAPPYHAPPYJOYJOY BIRTHDAY WISHES TO:
Abe Lincoln
George Washington
LAURA INGALLS WILDER (She got her start writing a podunk newspaper column too)
LYNDA FULLER PETERS
JAYNE SANTOS
MITCH LECLEIR
TERRY PHILLIPS
DAR HINRICHS
PRINCE HEARNS
(Send in your birthday. Each month a name is drawn for a JOY prize delivered via snail mail.)
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| Quote Junkie |
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Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so?
Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live.
Before they know it, time runs out.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Stop getting ready. |
| Sage Advice |
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Orville Wright didn't have a pilot's license.
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| Inquiring Minds |
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TV in the bedroom - yes or no
Responses came flying in - and wow - nearly everyone says YES to TV in the bedroom, except Cindy G who says, "who needs one in the bedroom when I can fall asleep on the couch;" or Pat L who says, "TV in the bedroom? Absolutely not! (unless you're sick)."
Thanks, it appears I'm not alone, but certainly in the minority with no telly in the boudoir. Overwhelmingly, reply was a yes. Ain't that America.
(Ann Kaser says no to TV in the bedroom, unless you can watch Johnny Carson.)
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW:
Does anyone really eat those little candy hearts with words imprinted on them?
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| My true love |
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Thanks, Allen & Ruth. :) |
| Gigs |
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February 5 - Joy on the Job; Rockford Memorial Hospital, Perinatal Network
February 8 - Spreading Joy; Center for Learning in Retirement
February 12 - Spreading Joy; Park Tower
February 20 - Write Your Personal Story, Elgin Community College
Kelly's newspaper column - Columnist tries out for new gig
Kelly's blog for healthyrockford.com - Rub my head
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| Just do it |
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Louis Braille was blind from age three. His idea - the raised dots system of reading - didn't catch on during his lifetime. Now those dots are called Braille and known the world over.
Don't do it for money. Don't do it for love. Don't do it for fame.
Do it for you. |
| I got the music in me... |
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For those of you who hate Hearts & Flowers Day, stand up and scream at the top of your lungs, "Valentine's Day Sucks!"
Indulge BRIEFLY in your favorite melancholy music. Perhaps "a real hurtin' song, about love that's gone wrong."
Okay, stop singing the blues and get your perspective back. Don't let a day on the calendar steal your joy. Right here, right now, you are mighty fine (mighty and fine); don't ever forget it.
Play some air guitar with Eddie Right Now ~ Van Halen Right now, it's your tomorrow.
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| Wit |
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(Thanks, Melissa Lewis)
A BEAUTIFUL MESSAGE ABOUT GROWING OLDER:
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I forgot what it was..... |
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| Word Nerd |
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A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.
Eytomolgy:
The American writer Sylvia Wrightcoined the term mondegreen in her 1954 Harper's magazine essay, "The Death of Lady Mondegreen."As a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O'Murray."
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- Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
- Oh, where hae ye been?
- They hae slain the Earl O'Murray,
- And Lady Mondegreen.
The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green." She dubbed these misheard words/lines mondegreens. Mondegreens abound in pop culture. You can buy page-a-day calendars of misheard lyrics: Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy (Jimi Hendrix, ...while I kiss the sky).
The girl with colitis goes by (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds;Beatles) = the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
merrily merrily merrily merrily, life's a butter dream (you mean that's not the right lyric?)
(Thanks, Weenie Word Nerd, Pat Liddell)
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| Did you know... |
"Serendipity" is listed by a U.K. translation company as one of the English language's ten most difficult words to translate. Other words are gobbledegook, poppycock, whimsy, and spam.
The discovery of many things have been attributed to serendipity: Silly Putty, the Slinky, and Viagra. |
| Girls just want to have fun ... |
| ...from the Brodhead Wisconsin Independent Register:
Red Hat Daytrippers
Red Hat Ladies please meet at Bethlehem Lutheran parking lot at 10:30 a.m. We will be going to the Olive Garden for lunch followed by an afternoon movie.
Remember your valentine exchange.
If inclement weather, please meet as usual at Silver Dollar Saloon.
Yeah!Regardless of weather, I vote for meet as usual at the saloon. My column runs in the Ind Register - Maybe sometime I can daytrip and hang at the Silver Dollar. Can someone loan me a red hat? |
| Poetry is good for the soul |
Sonnet 30 - Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
(Repeat it-
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.)
This Paper Boat
by Ted Kooser
Carefully placed upon the future,
it tips from the breeze and skims away,
frail thing of words, this valentine,
so far to sail. And if you find it
caught in the reeds, its message blurred,
the thought that you are holding it
a moment is enough for me.
"This Paper Boat" by Ted Kooser, from Valentines. © University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Reprinted here without permission. Writer's Almanac printed it with permission.
Who could need more proof than honey-
How the bees with such skill and purpose
enter flower after flower
sing their way home
to create and cap the new honey
just to get through the flowerless winter.
And how the bear with intention and cunning
raids the hive
shovels pawful after pawful into his happy mouth
bats away indignant bees
stumbles off in a stupor of satiation and stickiness.
And how we humans can't resist its viscosity
its taste of clover and wind
its metaphorical power:
don't we yearn for a land of milk and honey?
don't we call our loved ones "honey?"
all because bees just do, over and over again, what they were made to do.
Oh, who could need more proof than honey
to know that our world
was meant to be
and
was meant to be
sweet?
"Joy" by Julie Cadwallader Staub. Again, swiped from Writer's Almanac daily online newsletter. |
| Made me laugh |
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The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment:
Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.
The next day, the kids came back and, one by one, began to tell their stories......
There were all the regular types of stuff: spilled milk and pennies saved.
Then the teacher realized, much to her dismay, that only Ernie was left.
'Ernie, do you have a story to share?'
'Yes ma'am. My daddy told a story about my Aunt Karen. She was a pilot in Desert Storm, and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory, and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a pistol, and a survival knife.
She drank the whiskey on the way down so the bottle wouldn't break, and then her parachute landed her right in the middle of 20 enemy troops. She shot 15 of them with the pistol until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife till the blade broke, and then she killed the last one with her bare hands.'
'Good Heavens,' said the horrified teacher.'What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from this horrible story?'
'Stay the hell away from Aunt Karen when she's been drinking.' |
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| What love is... |
Thank you to Paul Pavlik:
There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I would marry you.'
One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.
He asked her, 'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.
Her boyfriend left in tears. Days later, he wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear. Before
they were yours, they were mine.'
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Sweet dreams, baby.
joyfully,
xxkelly
Disneyland in April - the Biology of HOPE!
Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor
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| parting shot...
What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?
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Kelly Epperson
kel_epperson@yahoo.com
PO Box 2324 Loves Park IL 61131
Member AATH - Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor
Member NSNC - National Society of Newspaper Columnists |
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| JOY |
New book, 365 Days of Joy, is in the works and coming soon. $20
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| When LIfe Stinks, It's Time to Wash the Gym Clothes (collection of newspaper columns) $10
Shirts ~C'est Bon and JOY*US $10 |
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