Own Your Talents

I set goals for myself allllll the time.  All are serious in nature, as they pertain to edging me along the way to the life I want to have for myself, but they all vary in size and difficulty.  Examples:

• "Make small talk today."  (I despise small talk.  I'm actually quite good at it, but I prefer silence over forced conversation.) 
• "Don't look at the sidewalk/down as you walk."  (There's so much more to be seen!)
• "Walk slower."  (Not that I would EVER have any wishes to be confused for a slow-walker, but I tend to walk quickly and with an extreme purpose, and this sometimes means that I miss out on awesome things around me.  Coincides with above goal.)
• "Don't drink Coke for three days in a row."  (It's bad for me.  I know this.)
• "Write down one good thing about every day for an entire year in order to change how you view your life."  (YOU GUYS KNOW ABOUT THIS ONE)
• "Make a blog post at least once a month for all of 2012."  (Safari, s'goodi!)
• "Write at least one poem a month."  (I have very much exceeded this, to my own surprise.)
• "Own your talents.  No more hiding."

That last one is a toughie because it's a life-long kind of thing, you know?  It's not like I make it to the end of a day/week/month/year and think, "Phew, that's over!  Glad I did it.  Hope I learned something."  I have several goals that are constant, day-to-day efforts, and I do mean "efforts" in the truest sense of the word.  They can be physically taxing in how difficult they are for me to achieve.  They can bring me to tears when I feel that I've failed.  They can follow me for the rest of my life, because I can fail them, but I don't know that I can ever fully achieve them.  It kind of sucks.  But I seriously do feel that it's something I have to do, because I've made a commitment to myself to honestly be a better person, for the sake of others and for myself.

So, of all of my many faults and shortcomings, one of which I am most ashamed is how long it took for me to own my talents.  I like to think that I have (had?) some sort of talent-dysmorphia.  Body-dysmorphia is a real thing, in which people truly cannot see their own bodies for the way they actually are; they seem them as distorted and ugly and so on and so forth.  I feel like for me, I could never see my talents as things worthy of sharing and things of which to be proud.  To say I am smart, to say I write well, to say things of that nature, is to be a braggart, immodest, lacking humility, vain, self-centered, etc.  I could never share my talents on a wide scale because it would be, in short, wrong.  

It has taken me years to be at this point, where I can say good things about myself and what I can do with only minor flinching (kidding...?).  It's one of the most awkward things for me to do.  But it's okay.  Owning my talents does not make me a bad person.  Claiming myself for who I am does not mean I'm bragging.  Hiding what I do well and putting down any compliments is only doing a disservice to myself and to the God who gave me these to share, to increase the joy of others, when possible.  And I hate thinking that not owning who I am is doing exactly the opposite of what my God intended.

There are so many levels on which I have convinced myself that I ought to be ashamed, and it's exhausting.  It's even more exhausting for me to put those old self-views aside and lay claim to my talents.  But it's the kind of exhaustion that I think will be worth it in the end.

So my goal to claim my talents and own what I do started small.  Publish a couple of poems on Facebook.  And God, that was TERRIFYING.  I had to stop.  It was too much, too soon.  I think I put up all of 2 poems before the panic set in.  Too many people could identify me with those words.  So I tried something even smaller.

I started publishing my poems on my tumbr, where very few people knew me for me.  And that's when the change started happening.  People started liking and reblogging my poems.  I have written about this, which I consider to be somewhat of a phenomena, before.  People genuinely seemed to like what I was writing, for the words themselves, not because I was Erica and they knew me and "had" to like it.  Some of my poems have been exceptionally well-received.  I was so proud of myself, which is not a feeling I am overly familiar with.  Proud of the things that I had been keeping from people who love and support me, and always have, for so long.

I shared a couple of poems with people I know in real life, and I'm finally ready to break through and share not only a poem, but the scanned image of it in its original form in my poetry notebook, which is very personal and close to my heart.  That's as raw as it gets.  But I have to post it in its own blog entry... because as my favorite creative writing teacher told me, no disclaimers to your writing.  I'm cheating by having this blog post as an ENORMOUS disclaimer here.  The poem I've chosen to share is not only one of my favorites, but just had a pretty nice reception on tumblr.  So... the poem will be up here in a couple of days... stay tuned!

Erica in Ireland

I know, I know.  I went to Ireland 4 months ago.  Now is hardly the time to writing about it.  But I didn't want to write about Ireland when it was the appropriate time, because I'm fussy like that.  And now that an appropriate blog post would be Isaac and hurricanes and Katrina and New Orleans and my whole maudlin opinion on such topics, I find myself exhausted at the idea of having to write about that when everyone's already so sick of hearing about such things.

So, forgive me for my tardiness, but I'm actually going to write about Ireland now.  And by "write about", I'm going to transcribe my notebook entries while in that gorgeous country.  I was so determined to writewritewrite about Ireland, and I didn't, until the last couple of days.  What could I say about everything?  What words could I possibly choose to describe what I was experiencing?

In the end, I chose to write about the people.  Here's what I finally poured out through my pen:

May 30, 2012

I think I've been avoiding writing about Ireland.  It's true that we've been going fairly non-stop, and in our down periods, we SLEEP, but there's just so much to say that the idea of sitting down to journal about it is overwhelming.  I wanted so badly to find inspiration here that I've been putting off writing in case I didn't find what I wanted.

Everything is beautiful.  Everyone is beautiful. 

That's the summary of what I'm taking away from this experience.  The land, the people, the interactions, everything-- beauty.

Claire O'Presco-- young woman who grew up working in Ireland's bogs with her great-uncle.  If she was good, she got to go inside and watch the weaving.  Graduated with a BA in textile arts.  Reassembled a 100-year old loom and now works as an artist making scarves, bags, stuffed animals, etc.  Loves her job.  All animals she makes have their "own little personalities."  Never wastes a scrap of wool.  So loving.  Close-cropped asymmetrical hair, dyed, reddish-purple-brown, fuzzy untweezed eyebrows, glasses.  Beautiful.

Eugene-- OPW worker at Boyle Abbey- closes gates at 5:15 but doesn't leave until 6.  White hair, white beard, blue-blue eyes, small gold glasses.  No wedding ring.  Loves the Abbey.  Loves it so much.  Wonders about what the builders were thinking.  Let us buy 4 postcards for just 1 euro (undercharged).  Climbed Croagh Patrick with a blind man.  He and the guide held onto the stick at one end, while the blind man held onto the other end.  Short, a little stout, like a medium Santa.  Beautiful.

Man at Croagh Patrick-- climbs it every day before work.  Gets up early to make his climb.  Best time: 1 hour 15 minutes.  Bleach-blonde hair, no shirt, running shorts.  Crazy.  Beautiful.

Woman in Roscommon gift shop-- very soft-spoken.  Short blondish hair in a gentle bob around her wrinkly face.  Glasses.  Sat on a stool behind register and talked to us.  Wanted to know if she could climb Croagh Patrick at age 68.  I don't know if we convinced her or not.  Seemed lonely not in life, but behind that counter.  Ended our conversation with "God bless."  Beautiful.

Man with Famine cottages-- tall.  Strawberry blonde hair.  Gentle eyes and soft voice.  Must have known Gaelic-- stumbled in English.  Heavy Irish accent.  Was sitting in truck with border collies when we approached.  Left truck to sell us tickets (to see the cottages) from a small ticket booth a foot next to his truck.  Had hand-drawn maps and info for us.  Stayed in his truck while we looked and learned.  Gave us food for his animals.  No one in Ireland talks about the Famine-- small miracle he kept those cottages on his land for viewing purposes.  When we came back, he genuinely wanted to know if we thought it was worth the price he charged us (only 2 euros/ticket).  We explained how sad it was but how amazing it was to see it.  He seemed proud to have been able to show and share his cottages.  Beautiful.

Thomas Christopher Coyne-- artist, craftsman, artisan-- sitting at a small table outside of ancient Celtic tomb (Poulnebrone).  Red cheeks from sitting in sun all day, white rock dust scuffed across under his eyes.  Bright eyes.  Rough working apron, tunic with hood pulled up over head to protect from sun.  Rough, sure, gentle, strong hands.  Deftly handled the pewter.  Interesting-- making money, but did not seem to be a tourist scam.  Truly, truly loved what he was doing.  Had several books at his little table.  All very well-loved.  Showed us his book that defined what trees the Celtic letters stood for and what they meant/represented.  This book was so loved.  It was a friend.  He handled it beautifully.  Great accent, great conversationalist.  Must enjoy both talking to people and the occasional solitude of his work.  Kind soul.  Beautiful.

Rory-- OPW worker at New Grange.  Tallish, brownish hair.  Blue eyes.  Baby face, round owl face.  Nice accent.  Great sense of humor.  Looks young but must be in early 30s.  Has held OPW job for 8 years.  Constantly reading/doing research on monument and era.  Doesn't like math/science but appreciates the subjects.  Has experienced winter solstice at New Grange TWICE-- "very humbling experience."  Prefers idea of birth/death/rebirth for Neolithic entrance stone drawings-- thinks it the "nicest of the theories."  Loves what he does.  Curious.  Good with people.  Friendly.  Funny.  Beautiful!

Pablo-- flight attendant on our 8 hour flight from Ireland to Atlanta.  Very funny!  Stays in great humor.  Short, happy, pepper hair and happy eyes.  Uniform, but has an extra something to it-- happiness/satisfaction in career choice?  Lovely accent.  Jokes with passengers and other flight attendants.  Jokingly asked me if I was writing about him.  I smiled and said yes; he thought I was joking, but I am.  Very kindly.  Truly cares.  Makes connections, I think.  Rare kind of person.  Beautiful.

...

I dislike the fact that I will probably never know if the 68 year old woman will climb Croagh Patrick.  I think that will be on my list of questions to ask God when I die.

There are 7 billion stories to share and tell, and I can't seem to imagine even just one of them.  Maybe I should travel the world and just collect stories and retell them...