#Reverb11 Day 31: Reflect

January 2, 2012December 31, 2013 / Becky B / 7 Comments

Prompt: Reflect – Take a moment to think back on your reverb11 responses. Have you learned anything? What surprised you about this experience? Which of your responses was your favorite?

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this whole Reverb thing was how natural it felt.

Once I jumped on that prompt-a-day email list, I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I was compelled to write, marveling at how a simple little word or phrase could unlock portions of myself I hadn’t even known were walled up. However much I’d snarl at the topic sometimes, I knew it–and Reverb itself–was doing good things for me. So I kept going.

That taught me something about myself that I liked. Call it integrity, willpower, bullheadedness; whatever it was, it was working for me and I liked it.

I’ve never risen to this kind of challenge before voluntarily, where you commit to a prompt someone arbitrarily decides for you (and there’s no letter grade involved). Never mind that there’s a whole bunch of “yous” all doing the same thing. Reverb proved to be incredibly personal from the start.

I found it difficult, exhilarating, painful, revealing and so much more–and that goes for the reading of other people’s posts, too. Bless you all for being so open, forthcoming and brave. Knowing one isn’t alone in one’s thoughts is something we all crave, sometimes.

My favorite response was perhaps the most difficult–the one on forgiveness. An intense healing session that turned me inside out, shook me up and put me back together again, only better.

Yet the biggest thing I look back on is my awareness of time.

I’ve often given myself those mental (or vocal) harangues–er, pep talks–about getting up and getting things done, but it makes a big difference seeing those same words looking up at you from your own blog. Once they’re posted, even the friendly blinking cursor goes away, and you’re left with uncompromising text telling you exactly what you’ve been letting slip for far too long.

It’s a crucial moment: Will you acknowledge their truth and act on it, or slip back into yet another year of half-wakefulness and should-dos?

I know what I aim to do, and what I hope will turn out to be wonderful, fruitful, exciting. I hope what you aim to do yields you as good or better a harvest. Whatever part you played, thanks for being on the Reverb journey with me!

By Rad_Ix on deviantart

#Reverb11 Day 30: 3 Wishes!

December 30, 2011December 31, 2013 / Becky B / 4 Comments

Prompt: 3 Wishes – If a genie could grant you 3 wishes for 2012, what would they be?

This is so the kind of thing where I know I’d leave out something incredibly important or word something stupidly and end up with a sausage on my nose.

I also can’t look at this prompt without remembering what my dad always told me: For your last wish, ask for three more wishes. I know, there’s usually always a caveat that you can’t ask for any more wishes, either an infinite number or a measly three. There’s no free lunch.

So with all that, even this prompt with no genie in sight makes me unreasonably nervous. But as I’m in the relative safety of my own blog, I’ll venture forth with these:

1. Excellent health that’s not at the expense of something else in our lives, including actual expense and not including death being the ultimate cure (i.e. live out our natural lifespans, please).

2. Dreams/aspirations working out for the best, with the strength to accomplish them, including latent plans for writing and singing–and where I also KNOW it’s worked out for the best. There’s nothing worse than wondering if something would have been great after you passed it by. Maybe that kind of knowledge is too dangerous to have, but hey, it’s my wish.

3. Please let us not blow this planet up or otherwise wreck it past redemption, flora and fauna both. I’m not talking any 2012 crap–though you get enough people believing in that and something stupid will happen–I’m talking the trampling over, under and through our natural resources and the beings that live on them as if we haven’t learned anything all the years we’ve seen fit to reign over this planet. Yeah, this one bugs. We could stand another Age of Enlightenment. I do have hope; if we keep communicating and figuring things out for the benefit of all, we could do amazing things.

So my addendum to this last wish is that we don’t stop talking to each other. It all comes down to the same thing in the end.

nerdyrenegade.blogspot.com

Read more fables about the foolish use of wishes! I admit I quit after the first one; rather abrupt and gloomy.
In fact, after reading Ty’s post about wishes and his link to The Monkey’s Paw, I have determined that all these “wishes” stories are conspiring to keep us from wishing without extreme caution–or wishing at all!

#Reverb11 Day 29: Shaking Things Up

December 29, 2011December 31, 2013 / Becky B / 3 Comments

Prompt: Shaking Things Up – Looking toward 2012, what can you do to shake things up a little next year?

“There’s nothin’ shakin’ but the leaves on the trees!” (Eddie Fontaine, 1958)

Time to change that!

My top shakers:

Write.
Sing.
Donate more–Money, time, things.
Be present.

All of these things I think about but haven’t been doing as much as I should, or at all. It means a little less being lazy on the couch and a little more getting up and moving. It means a little less indulging and a little more getting things done. It means getting back to the way I used to be when I did do all of these things.

The last one, though, that’s the killer. Yes, time ran differently when I was growing up versus now with all the trappings of adulthood…at least it seems that way to my nostalgic eye…but when I think of how much time I can spend just daydreaming, I realize I’m not spending as much time being truly aware of my surroundings. Truly participating. Truly present.

Trust me, I know how to escape from reality as much as anyone else. Books are a huge part of it. I’m not giving up reading at all (I’d die) but I can expand my horizons in that too, and catch up on all the broadening-the-mind works out there that I’ve been missing.

So those top shakers above with their four simple words are four BIG things to me, but as all big things are made of little things, I can manage at least one small, chiseled-out step at a time. Maybe more!