Archives for posts with tag: Rules To Live By

What my IWWG (International Women’s Writing Guild) workshop means to me

April 24, 2013 //
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I just got great news. I’m going to be teaching at the International Women’s Writing Guild summer conference at Drew University. I’m going to lead a workshop on Dangerous Writing: Your Spiritual Autobiography from August 8 to 12. Yup, we’re taking our writing to the edge.

When I was 28, I wanted desperately to attend the guild summer conference, then held at Skidmore College, but my ex and I were flat broke. We were living in Inwood. He was unemployed. I was a temp. I was literally so sad that I couldn’t afford a week of writing that I lay in an empty bath tub, fully dressed and cried.

The next year I still couldn’t rub two nickels together, but by then, I was separated from my ex and willing to take risks to pursue my passion for writing.

I threw myself at the mercy of Hannelore Hahn, the founder of the guild, asking her for a scholarship and promising her that someday, as a scholarship recipient myself, I would give a scholarship to a deserving young woman writer like myself.

She agreed. For partial tuition, I happily worked the registration table.

That was, a-hem, more than 20 years ago. Off and on over the years, I’ve been able to attend the summer conference. I’m not quite yet able to give a scholarship, but I am able to give a heckuva workshop. Check back with me in 20 years.

Life’s funny, right?

Attending the guild summer workshop as an instructor is worth the wait. I’m just happy this year to be a part of it and not crying alone in the tub. (I hope!)

Check out the announcement about this summer’s conference (and register before May 15 for the lower rate.)

tulips

today’s tulips are amazing!

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Categories Blogging, Teaching, Uncategorized, Writing

10 Thing That Make Me Happy

September 8, 2012 //
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  1. Helping a friend with a big event. I’m doing flowers for Barbara’s wedding! And I can’t wait for a highlight of my life — dancing at weddings.
  2. A bike basket. I have had half a dozen bikes in my adult life in New York City. This is the first time I have had a basket. Super cute and convenient.
  3. Riverside Park garden at about 91st. How gorgeous is this. Even in this heavy humidity as I glide on my bike past the flowers, I am weighed down with the tropical smell and the riot of colors. I am transported into some version of heaven.
  4. Brilliant colleagues. I have had intellectual and creative coworkers. The best thing about my work is joking with my coworkers.
  5. A book club. We are hilarious. We travel together for one weekend every year and after that weekend, my jaw hurts from talking and laughing so much.
  6. Kids! Mine are smart, gorgeous, athletic, and basically kind. Even when they bicker and snipe, somewhere deep down, they are whispering, “I love you,” to each other. (I tell myself this.)
  7. A biz partner. Kelly Wallace is supersmart and talented. We are tapping into possibilities of a new kind of writing collective and getting unheard voices into the mainstream. Check out our website at Boot Camp for Writers
  8. Small kindnesses. Holding a door for someone or accepting the gift as someone holds a door for me.
  9. Resilience and New York theater. Last night my husband and I had a date night. We saw “Red Dog Howls” at New York Theatre Workshop and then we had dinner at the Frenchy French restaurant Calliope. Chris had real physical challenges during our meal. These were obvious as he struggled with his forkful (I hate Parkinson’s Disease!) Still, we had a night out. He never complained. I admire his resilience. (The play was a tough one – reminded me of the horrors endured by civilians as one character describes the effects of war on Armenians.)
  10. A washer and dryer. When I got these in our New York City apartment, I swore I would never want for anything, ever again. So I am grateful for my appliances.
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Categories Rules To Live By

Letting Go of Lists

August 7, 2011 //
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On my happiness list, the last item is “Embrace uncertainty.” And the second to the last? “Live every day as if it were your last.” These are hard to follow because I love making lists and planning my day.

There was one day, three or four years ago, when the darlings, Josie and I were in Italy for Thanksgiving and we had absolutely no plans. We followed the Improv rule, “Accept every offer.” If someone suggested we stop somewhere, that’s where we went. We chased a ball in a church courtyard for a long time.

We got lost in Venice. Someone said, “Let’s stop at that pizza place.” We did. We ate pizza under a bridge.

Then someone pointed to a boat and said, “Oh those clementines look good.” So we bought clementine oranges off of a boat. The kids tried to peel the clementines in one peel so you could hold them back together again and they’d look whole. They were the best clementines ever.

Then the kids wanted to spend hours feeding the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square. But I took a break with a cappuccino at a café off the square. When the waiter delivered my coffee in the white china cup, there, in the frothy milk, was a heart.

When I let go of my agenda, things surprised and pleased me — things I didn’t even think were possible.

I had that list of Summer To Do things. And some of the things I’ve done and some I haven’t. And I’m not sure I’ll get to them today. After all, my last item is “Quit making lists.”

  1. Update my resume
  2. Get more help for Chris and household management
  3. Research joining a writer’s room or applying for writer-in-residence program
  4. Befriend new families in kids’ new Fall schools/classes
  5. Prepare kids well for camp
  6. Have a party while kids are at camp
  7. Replace or do something about annoying kitchen cabinets
  8. Eat more fish
  9. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
  10. Comment on and read other blogs
  11. Tweet every day
  12. Do a reading of my work at least once a month
  13. Plan an international trip for me and the kids
  14. Get my bike tuned up
  15. Quit making lists
What’s on your Summer To Do list?
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Categories Parenting Tweens, Rules To Live By

Teaching Children Responsibility

July 8, 2011 //
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Six years ago, I borrowed a book from my daughters’ preschool. The book was called Teaching Your Children Responsibility. I don’t remember any advice from the book. All I know is that I never returned the book to the preschool lending library.

I have felt guilty about not returning that book for six years. I try to model responsibility and consistency. Sometimes I model guilt and blame.

For the mess in our apartment I like to blame my husband Chris and his Parkinson’s Disease and my children who have no good excuse. And of course I blame myself because I don’t discipline them enough and I would rather write before work and play tennis after work than clean and do laundry. I would rather go out to Happy Hour with my work peeps than make a family dinner. How often have I said, “Let’s order Chinese food again, kids”?

I may be irresponsible but I am happy. I may be guilty but I am keeping the Cottage, the best Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side in business.

I may be messy, but I am creative. This is what I tell myself. In our country house there is a magnet on the fridge. It says, “A creative mind is seldom tidy.” So true.

This jibes with my Rule Number 5: Expect the best, love what you get. Even from yourself.

Someday I’ll return that library book. Until then, I’ll try loving myself.

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Categories Rules To Live By

3 Simple Rules

June 2, 2011 //
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When I used to do stand up, I would tell myself 3 things right before I went on stage:

1. Be yourself

2. Have fun

3. It’s important

And I am trying to tell myself these same 3 rules at the start of every day.

I did not sleep well last night. One of the darlings came into bed with me at around 2. She’s nearly as big as an adult so she woke me. We have no air conditioning. It was  hot. I tossed and turned. Then I  moved to my daughter’s now-empty bed. I’d heard an antidote to insomnia is changing rooms.

As I walked in the hall, I heard the television was still on. My husband stays up way too late into the night, sometimes until 3 or 4. Then of course he falls asleep in the early evening hours when you’re talking to him (blame the Parkinson’s). Hearing the television just made me feel all sad and jumbled — my life, my restless night, my work. And I couldn’t wait until morning so I could dump all my thoughts, worries, dreams, into my journal.

1. Be yourself. Because there is a unique point of view based on a unique life’s journey. And for whatever reason, this is my journey. This is mine.

2. Have fun. Because I seriously believe that we are put on this earth to give and experience joy. The goal in life is to be happy, joyous, and free.

3. It’s important. Because I can easily dismiss my point of view, or expect that I am less than. But what I have to say is important.

I did fall asleep in my daughter’s bed and woke to write all this in my journal.

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Categories Rules To Live By

How Lucky — To Work So Hard!

May 13, 2011 //
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My fake spouse reassured me, “It takes a long time to become an overnight success.”

We were at a call back for a Kodak commercial. I was auditioning for the part of a young mother. I didn’t get the part, but I got that awesome advice!

I had been bitching about my slow-moving talk show career to the actor who was auditioning as the father. I said, “You know I worked so hard on my cable show, Mary Beth & Friends, and honestly, I am surprised I haven’t become the new Katie Couric.”

This was years ago. I never forgot my pretend husband’s wisdom. It kept me going. Success takes time. Fake husbands (and actors) can be so smart.

But now it seems the whole world is discussing this wisdom:

Luck is out. Hard work is in.

Last night, I was listening to the Ted Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE6lWGzO_7A from David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us. http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/

Here’s what I got. Genes don’t matter a hill of beans unless you work hard. There’s no such thing as born smart!

This is a difficult revelation for me – me! The daughter of a genius (okay, two geniuses)! I always felt I had a slight genetic, intellectual advantage — swimming as I was in the Mensa gene pool. But no, sorry, not so.

My working 3 jobs, auditioning for commercials, and producing and hosting my own cable show probably mattered more to my current success (ahem!) than my brainy family tree.

I was thinking about this today, when from the LinkedIn group, LinkEds & writers, Indy Quillen, emailed her introduction.

Indy said, “Many years ago, when I excitedly showed my martial arts teacher my first place trophy, he smiled and said, ‘See how lucky you are when you work hard?’ I’ve never forgotten that lesson!”

Love that!

I don’t know how to fit in my awareness of the importance of hard work to my Rules for Living.

Maybe Rule Number 3? Remember your hoops of steel (priorities) — even when you think success should occur magically and quickly. Success takes time.

And hard work is 1 of 3 parts that makes up community:  http://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/what-is-community/

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Categories New Media, New York Stories, Publishing, Rules To Live By

Rule #2 Escape Through Literature

February 19, 2011 //
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I hope my kids always think of me as someone who loves to read. I think of my parents as book lovers.

When I remember my mother from my childhood, I remember her head bowed to a book, especially late into the night. My mother- in-law was like that too; she always had a book close at hand.

I think reading helped my mother and mother-in-law cope with their respective tasks and stresses of each raising five children. And it wasn’t nonfiction, how-to books that they read. No, they found their answers in literary fiction. They read heavy hitters like EL Doctorow, John Fowles, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Atwood.

Reading, like meditating, does good things to the body. I’m sure there’s some science that shows physiological benefits to the body when we curl up with a book — the heart rate slows and the breath gains depth. We enter another world when we read, as if in a trance. We focus intently and we lose ourselves.

When I am stressed from working or parenting, I grab a book. Right now I am reading “The Other,” by David Guterson. It is good literary fiction, a great way to escape. I have to bow my head to it now.

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Categories Publishing, Rules To Live By
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