Hokey Pokey Wednesday: Doing the Holiday Gift Dance

             I’ve made a decision to stop buying silly, useless holiday gifts in the name of love.

            The retail industry is adept at tugging on our heart strings. They embed the message: Show your love through gifts.

            The more you give, the more you love them.

            This is so not true. If love could be measured in money, rich kids would all be happy. Check out the celebrity reality shows past and present (IE: Hilton, Kardashian) and you’ll see that some rich kids grow up miserable and broken.

            Shopping not only eats at my wallet, but also my time. I absolutely refuse to go the mall. But I even resent shopping locally. I just cannot stand the commercialism – and worse – the misleading promise of it all.

            Of course we should give our kids something – but not everything!

             I notice that I’m getting all sorts of e-mails about stocking stuffers now. That’s become the next big marketing push. Heaven forbid those stockings aren't bulging with goodies - even if you've spent hundreds of dollars on a gift already!

            I show my love to my kids every day by guiding them through life, giving them food and shelter, and nurturing them with love. Material gifts are a bonus.

            I’m not saying anything new here, I know. And I’m not going to wage a full-scale war against holiday shopping. Let people whip themselves into a frenzy at the mall. I’m not giving into all that nonsense anymore.

            Buddha said, “Simplicity brings more happiness than complexity.”

             I think that fits this situation well. Too many gifts clutter Christmas.

            Think of babies and animals, happy to play with boxes and wrap.

            I’m heading to my writing group now. This is my gift to myself.

            The greatest gifts are, in fact, things that cannot be wrapped – like helping my son through the maze of colleges and applications. It is the gift of his future.

            And like hugging my son Casey, and telling him how much I love him.

            Spending time with our kids is a gift.

            Shakespeare wrote, “Things won are done. Joy’s soul is in the doing.”

            I don’t think “shopping” was the “doing” he was referring to. Just a wild guess.

Hokey Pokey Wednesday: A Lot's in a Name

           During rush hour on the Southern State, there isn’t much to do except stare at the back of the car in front of you.

   

            Last week we were behind a cherry-red sports car with an engraved license-plate holder.

The top of it read: “Viviana & Hugh.” There were hearts and a date at the bottom.

            “I wonder how that happened,” I said to my son, Michael.

            “How what happened?” he asked.

            “How a Viviana wound up with a Hugh,” I said.

            “Why not?”

            “Because a guy named Hugh is down to earth, reasonable and grounded. He might wear a little bow-tie.”

            “And a Viviana?”

            “Dramatic and flamboyant. A flamenco dancer would be named Viviana.”

            “Who would put that on their car, anyway?”

            “Viviana would. There’s no way Hugh did that, except at gunpoint.”

            “Huh,” Michael said.

           

            Shakespeare wrote:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

            Yes. But would we think of it the same way? Names do have certain connotations. Otherwise, we would all name our children “Jack” and “Jill.” (And even those invoke images of a hill and a bucket, and tumbling after.)

            Names have flavors, like ice cream.

            Some are vanilla – like Hugh.

            Some are strawberry banana kiwi with a little umbrella on top – like Viviana.

            You can also tell a lot about a parent by what they name their child, and you can be sure that subsequent names will be in a similar vein. A person who names their first child “Jade” might name their second one “Ruby.” Someone who names a first offspring “James” will not be considering “Zebulun” for the next.

            I went to a play once, in which brothers were named “Albert” and “Cougar.” That simply did not ring true for me. No way did the same mother name those two boys.

            Consider Frank Zappa’s children: “Moon Unit” and “Dweezil.”  They say a lot about Frank and his wife, don't they?

            I named by sons “Michael Ryan” and “Casey Quinn.”

            I'm not Irish. I just love Irish-style names. My mother thought I used the name “Ryan” because when I was in sixth grade I liked the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope.” Yeah, that would be a stable thing to do. 

            For the most part, people I’ve met have fit their names. How does this happen? I wonder if anyone has done a psychological study about this.

            Maybe our upbringings match our names, if that makes any sense. But I suspect parents raise their children in a manner consistent with our names.

           

            But what do I know? I’m just a writer who thinks too much about these things.

            What’s in a name? For me, it’s the first insight into a character. As a matter of fact, Willow, the narrator of my novel Saved By the Music, first appeared in my head ranting about how much she hated her wishy-washy name, - and how her mother, Isodora, purposely named her Willow to keep her down, like a drooping willow tree.

            For all humans, a name is that first piece of the puzzle that makes us who we are.

 
           For a cat who hears you calling him, it’s supper.

Quote Contest Thursday!!!

Welcome to “Quote Contest Thursday!” A few hours before it is officially Thursday – because I have a busy day tomorrow and want to make sure I get this to you first!

As I’ve mentioned, my prime focus in my writing is the human condition. And what is more valuable to a student of humanity than “truth?”

And so I invite you for submit your favorite quote to win a signed paperback copy of my novel The Girl Next Door – in which truth plays a vital part. Truth in love, truth in life – and most of all, inner truth.

Here’s my favorite quote about truth. Often used, but never old:

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

-William Shakespeare

So what’s yours? E-mail me at Ldymcbeth@aol.com  to win.

For another chance to win, post the information about this contest in your status on any social media (one chance per post.)

Deadline: Midnight, Saturday.

Congratulations to last week’s winners:

Colleen Shea Goldsmith & Angela L. Fox!!!!

Method to my Madness Monday

            I thought I should address “voice.”

            But what can I say about it?

            “Find one” seems obvious.

            But how?

            I’m afraid the answer is obnoxiously obvious as well: “Look.”

            Just as Dorothy had the ability to find her way home all that time but didn’t know it, somewhere inside you lurks your voice.

            The way to go to it is to write. Write and write and write.

            Don’t worry how bad it is.

            Don’t worry that you’ll fall off a cliff by accident and people will find your pathetic efforts on your hard drive and they’ll say, “Poor thing, no wonder she jumped to her death.” This scenario is unlikely.

            Don’t worry that your story won’t get any better.

            The only way that it won’t get any better is if you stop writing it. (Or if you type the same line endlessly, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.)

            Assuming you’re sane and not possessed by an evil presence (bad marriages don’t count), your story will evolve. That’s the only way anyone’s stories evolve. You know that big secret successful writers are harboring? This is it: They write. Until their stories get better. Shhhh. Don’t tell.

            Yes, there are basic techniques. Of course. But voice is possibly the most fundamental. You get what you give. Give time and effort, get voice. Sorry, the voice fairy doesn’t come. And Santa isn’t going to wrap up your story’s voice in a big velvet bow. Even God is pretty adamant: he helps those who help themselves.

            So help yourself, and start pecking at those keys.

          It’s like Michelangelo said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

            You may not see your voice, but trust me – it’s there.

            The thing about writing is that it requires not only dedication, but faith.

            Trust me – it’s much easier to dig your voice out of the rubble that is your rough draft than to conjure it from the nothing that is your blank page.

            And typed words – no matter how mismatched – do rouse the spirits.

            I spoke at a writing conference this weekend. Many of the attendees fretted: “What will the market be like in the future?”

            “Who cares?” I answered.

            They did.

             “How will we know if we’ll ever fit in?” They soulfully asked.

            “You don’t. Just keep writing.”

            The frowning was widespread.

            Writers write because they want to – because they need to. Shakespeare wrote: “Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

            The Chinese put it this way: “A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”

            Sing on, my fellow starlings...

            Sing and soar.

            Hope is the thing with feathers, after all.