Category Archives: Writing

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The Big Countdown Begins – Ten

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It may seem a bit self-indulgent to announce to the world that I have a big birthday fast approaching but turning fifty seems as if it should have some special attention paid to it. I have no clear idea of what I will be saying over the next nine days leading up to my birthday, but I plan to post a bit of something that will be quite shamelessly, all about me. That’s right, I will be posting daily right up to my birthday on September 10. I have not planned a thing in terms of topic and will write whatever comes to mind which can be my favorite kind writing and might lead to some interesting insights.

Some people enjoy having big parties to celebrate special birthdays, but I actually tend to feel a bit shy and out of place when I’m the absolute center of attention so I am pleased to be making memories with a smaller gathering of people who care about me. Can two (John and my sister Margaret) be considered a gathering?

After a detailed examination of my accomplishments over the last year, I find that some of my goals for forty-nine have not been met. I must confess that not one thing I’ve written in my forty-ninth year has gone out the door electronically or otherwise in search of a publisher. I am not sure why I have dragged my feet so badly when this has been at the top of my list for so long.

I have watched as other bloggers and writers have found their footing while juggling huge responsibilities and managed to publish while I write and research and think too much about the best way to find an audience for my work. I don’t feel jealous about their success just a bit disappointed in myself for not getting more done by now.

Watching others seems to be a life long habit with me and I tend to take a bit longer to find my footing once I’ve figured out the steps. In the photograph above, my fourteen year-old self is on the far right looking uncertain about what the group is doing or how I might join in.

I still feel like that fourteen year-old sometimes … uncertain about doing things just right even though I know now after almost fifty years of living that movement in any direction is sometimes all you need.

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Change And Possibility

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I becomes we

and then you and I

and then just you

and then just I.

~ e.e. harper

In the process of writing a post for today I think I wrote a tiny poem. I don’t write poetry and I am afraid I have not read much either so I am not even sure this could be called a poem, but here is for you to consider.

Of course I have a story that goes with it, but in looking at the words and rolling them around on my tongue I thought about all the possibilities and different stories that any of us could create from the sixteen words above.

If you come back later I’ll share one story with you … the one that inspired it.

(Having both a first and middle name that begin with E, I could not resist signing my work in the manner of a real poet.)

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Walking The Talk – Matching Actions With Words

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Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

~ Henry Van Dyke

The other day when I wrote a bit at the end of this post about sharing a dream you might have or anything else you wished to discuss, I received an email from someone who wrote about her desire to have a dream that motivated her or a hobby or cause that could be as she put it, “close to her heart.”  She went on to say that she thought her fears around financial stability and the American economy might be one of the things keeping her from allowing herself to ” find her dream and pursue it with passion.”

I thought her email was an excellent place to open a conversation around living with passion and going after your dreams despite fears of not having or being enough.

A few years ago my friend Patrice would occasionally watch American Idol (when I begged her to stay and watch it with me) and as she listened to the anguish of those who were not going on to the next round crying and wailing about how, ” Singing was their whole life and all they’d ever wanted, ” Patrice would say in the direction of the television, ” So sing, find places to do it if it’s that important.” Of course this comment opened the door to conversations about singing without public acclaim or financial reward and if it was one’s whole life as the contestants said, was the singing itself the important part or was it the fame and money of an American Idol win?

Listening to her talk out loud to the people on the program created a perfect opportunity for me to consider my own dreams. I was working a day job where I was well paid for my time, but I was always dreaming of a writing life. During my time off I was generally brain tired and complained a lot of creative fatigue, but I was also wasting time on a variety of things like my American Idol nights. Most importantly, I was not getting any writing done other than scribbling story ideas on bits of paper or spinning out marketing ideas for my job.

Patrice’s comments made me think about whether it was writing or being read that was most important in creating the life I wanted as a writer and storyteller. I think deep down we know what our are dreams are even if it’s just a tiny seed of something we’ve tucked away thinking that we don’t have time for it now because we have to earn a living, feed the children, clean the house, walk the dog, and anything else you wish to put here ________.

While money and security are important so is the chance to live fully and I don’t believe that you need to give up one for the other. You do have to make time for it somewhere and that’s where most of us fall short. Some folks seem to be better at managing it all. John Grisham used get up and write for a few hours before work and I frequently read about published authors who write whole books with babies in their laps.

I will confess that I have not been as disciplined in the past as I could have been with regard to my writing. I tend to spend too much time on research and other distractions and I am just now understanding the need to commit to a firm schedule of uninterrupted writing time. I don’t think I could do it with a baby in my lap and at this stage of my life, I am glad I don’t have to, but I do need to stop doing things that keep me from having total focus on finishing the stories in my head.

I would write whether someone paid me or not and blogging has been a good starting point providing a balance for me between writing for myself and being read. That said, a bit of financial success from writing would be good to have and is certainly part of the motivation behind the need I feel to focus and deliver a larger finished product than what you see here.

I have found a level of satisfaction and a sense of security through blogging that I could not have imagined from being seen and heard here at GOTJ, but with a desire to finish some of my larger projects, I feel a need to spend more of my writing time on the big stuff which means cutting back here a bit or at least putting myself on a tighter schedule.

I appreciate more than you know everyone who stops by and puts ” money ” in the meter with kind your words and support and I’m not disappearing just readjusting my routine. It might be good to subscribe in the top right corner if you don’t want to miss me and I’ll drop into your inbox each week like a letter from a friend.

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Missing The Good Stuff

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Sometimes when I am in bookstores I stop by the discount table to see what I might find there that’s a good read. I say sometimes because I don’t always do it. It’s not because I don’t want to take the time to rummage through or because I think I won’t find anything of value there, but more a case of how I feel when I find really good writing laid out there for just a few dollars.

I know what it takes to sit alone and write and write and write … sharing bits of reality or imagination hoping that the effort will have some impact on a reader somewhere one day. So when I see good authors on the clearance table that never made a ripple in the book world who have quietly slipped by unnoticed, I get a bit depressed even if temporarily because I can’t help but think, what if that happens to me.

Of course, not having published a book yet one might think my momentary angst a bit premature, but I do feel for really good writers whose story appears to go unnoticed. That said I want to be sure you don’t miss out on a piece that really touched my heart a few days ago. Mariellen Romer has written about a life event that had a lasting impact and I hope you’ll take a minute to stop by her place and have a read .

You won’t be disappointed. I promise.

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Kelly Rae Roberts – Taking Control With Flying Lessons

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Remember that e-course I mentioned here and what I revealed about myself here, well we are winding down now after five weeks of online lessons with loads of positive information and ” flight plans ” useful in getting a creative idea and business off the ground.

While I picked up some really great ideas and business tips, I think what I enjoyed most was watching how inspired the collective group was and the energy that came through when so many taking the class began implementing big projects right away and sharing them online with each other.

So many of my classmates already had the skill and creative abilities (their shoes, if you will) that helped define them in their roles as artists, but still needed a bit of help in the taking control aspect that is necessary when going from creative artist to someone able to earn a living doing the work they love.

I am in deep in the process of expanding my vision for myself now and over the next few months will be unveiling a few projects of my own as I work out all the nitty-gritty details. The biggest take away for me during this process has been about lifting some of the limitations I tend to put on myself. Although I have long been identified by friends and co-workers as the kind of person who thinks outside the box, I have often limited my own creative movement while encouraging others to reach for something more.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had those lovely red shoes that could have taken her home with just a click had she known the ability she already possessed. I have been thinking lately about what I already know … what each of us know within ourselves about our dreams. I’ve been thinking too about the ways in which we can develop the vision required to take our dreams from being just a possibility to something that actually gets off the ground.

So I have been busy here … working steadily on my ” flight plan ” while opening boxes that have held a few dreams for far too long. What about you … what have you got packed away that feels boxed up so tightly it’s like a memory of what you once dreamed of for yourself?

If it’s direction you need, you might find some inspiration over here today. The topic has to do with a technique that has helped me define mine for years.

It will be worth your time, I promise.

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Sharing A Story – My Teary Moment With Kenny Loggins

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In 1997, my life was in the middle of major changes when I saw that an old musical favorite of mine was coming to town to sign copies of a book that he had co-authored with his wife. I knew virtually nothing about this book, but what I did know was how at various points in my life his music had offered a soundtrack for the emotions and struggles that I had experienced particularly in my 20’s and early 30’s and something in me felt a need to go to his book signing.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long you already know that storytelling is so throughly a part of who I am that the idea that I might wait in line at a bookstore to have my newly purchased book autographed without mentioning the significance of his music and then quietly slip away was not even in the realm of possibility.

As I stepped up to meet him with a long line of people at my back, I considered how I might communicate the importance one song in particular had for me during my divorce from my daughter’s father and how I had listened to it over and over hanging on to the words like a life raft when I felt as if I might drown in all the sadness and disappointment I felt in myself and my failures.

Although very few of us are entirely responsible for the end of a marriage, for a while I believed that burden was all mine and I cried my way through years of pain that while unrelated in some ways surfaced during the final days and weeks of my marriage. I wanted more for a child of mine than two parents living separate lives shuttling back and forth between two houses and I struggled with keeping my own childhood sorrows from overshadowing my need to ensure that she felt safe and loved.

It was during this time while dressing for work one morning that I saw Kenny Loggins sing a song on a morning television show and listened as the words in his song mirrored my own experience. I remember stopping what I was doing at the time and just sitting as I watched … feeling for the first time that maybe things would be alright. The words in his song echoed exactly what I had been feeling and later I listened as he talked about the changes in his life and the joy that was now present.

His song had given me hope and a bit of solace back then and made me see that I was not alone in my sad experience and I as I stood there waiting I thought, I’m going to tell him. For a moment I considered, what if he thinks I’m silly, stupid, or God forbid, groupie-ish, but in the end I decided to share the importance hearing that particular song had for me during a time of crisis.

What you see in the photograph below is me telling him my story. I had given my camera to the woman behind me to take my picture with him and as I was talking I knelt down for a minute so my position shifted from what you see here. I told him of that morning only a few years earlier and how the message in his song had provided a starting place for healing and a form of forgiveness that I while I was still working on for myself, was slowly coming together after years of not trusting my own voice and my own sense that my feelings and dreams were just as valuable as those who wanted to be in relationship with me.

Kenny Loggins - Elizabeth Harper

As I told him my story, his eyes began to tear up … filling close to overflowing while we spoke and not because of the sadness in my story, but I believe now having read his book, because of the similarity. I think he was touched by my story because he had lived parts of it himself, different in ways to mine certainly, but the same at the core.

The woman who followed me in line brought my camera to me after having her book autographed and said, ” You made him cry … what did you say to him? ”  Without going into my whole story, I told her that I just shared an important moment in my life and how one song had made a difference. Having taken a risk to share something so special to me, I can’t tell you how pleased I was that it was received in the way I had intended.

There’s a release that comes in speaking your truth. It doesn’t need to be public or released in a song as has often been his way, but sharing your story can be a gift to someone who just might need the message in your own experience. Most of us do this everyday never really knowing the impact our words may have.

I’ve been speaking my truth here at GOTJ for the last 24 months. Today marks two years since I wrote my first blog post at giftsofthejourney.com where my first 82 posts still live. In February of 2009, I moved GOTJ to this WordPress account and during the last two years the combined total of 338 posts have garnered 76,853 page views and the kind and generous comments of many of you likely reading this today.

I want to take a minute to thank you for including my words and images in your daily life. Even though I don’t always have a chance to respond on the comments left here, please know that they are so appreciated and mean a great deal to me. Quite often as you’ve shared bits of your own story in response to something I’ve written I have been moved to tears as Kenny Loggins was that day and I am always grateful whenever my story connects in some useful way with your own.

I’m not sure what Kenny Loggins was writing in everyone else’s book, but he could not have picked better words for me personally than those two you see at the bottom of the page,” Trust Love.”  I frequently tell people that I could not have imagined that I would ever have the life I have now, but you all know my story if you’ve been reading GOTJ for long.

Trusting love is what brought me to this sweet life with John and the awareness that change had its own gifts to offer led me to create Gifts Of The Journey and a chance to share the experience with anyone interested in their own gifts and their own journey. My thanks to each of you who through Gifts of the Journey are now a part of mine.

John Winchurch & Elizabeth Harper - 2008

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Dancing For Your Life

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You may remember this post the other day where I wrote about chewing on an idea, what I didn’t mention at the time was how difficult it was to get a macro shot of the caterpillar I used for that post. Every time I came in close to snap a photograph, the caterpillars would suddenly lift their back ends up and hold them aloft moving them up and down slightly in a waving motion.

This morning I did some research as I was curious to see what they might look like as butterflies. I was having no luck searching through Google for websites until I stumbled across a link that mentioned dancing caterpillars. It turns out they will never be butterflies as this type of larvae are known as Sawfly larvae which look more wasp-like than anything else after it goes through its final changes.

As for the dancing movement, that is commonly said to only be seen in this particular type and is a survival technique that is supposed to protect them from harm. They only do it if you get too close, but when they went into defensive dance mode with me it seemed kind of slow if the goal was to protect them from birds and other fast-moving predators. A few days later I went back to the bush to see what had become of them and to see if anything remained of the plant they had been munching their way through only to discover the branches empty and bare.

While they had eaten quite a lot of the leaves, more remained than were missing which made me wonder if perhaps those little caterpillars had not danced fast enough to avoid becoming a dinner snack for some of the birds in our back garden.

Of course nothing is ever only an educational experience on one level for me, not content with just an impromptu science lesson, I spent some time thinking about these dancing caterpillars and considered all the protective dance moves I’ve used in my own life. I considered the effectiveness of what nature had taught these little future flyers as I thought about the ways I’ve used denial and avoidance in the past to sidestep important issues and I wondered whether that had hurt or saved me in my transformative years.

Can you tell I’m working on something a bit deeper in my daily writing than just happy pleasant things? What about you, are you doing any dancing lately and is it working? Maybe you can teach the rest of us a few new steps … in case we need them sometime. Regarding dancing, I should tell you that I am notorious for trying to lead but I’ll try not to step on your toes.

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Chewing On A Dreamy Idea

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This little caterpillar was hard at work yesterday trying to fill its belly in anticipation of the big transformation that comes with growing wings. Thanks to a dream I’ve had for a while that I shared on my Big Bag Of Dreams post along with a inspiring lesson yesterday in Kelly Rae’s Flying Lessons, an e-course that I’m taking, I’m chewing on a few transformational ideas of my own.

I be back a bit later when I have a chance to digest it all. I’m pretty excited about what I’m planning and I hope you will be too. * Burp*   Oh, pardon me!

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A Few Spoken Words From Elizabeth Harper

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Have you ever wondered what some of the bloggers you read regularly actually sound like? Do you hear a particular voice in your head when you read my posts?

Not long ago two things happened that made me think I might like to share my voice with you and I’m hoping that you might feel inclined to do the same. Mariellen Romer and I exchanged a couple of emails where the topic of tea came up, sweet tea in particular, and cold, the way southerners where I’m from in Georgia tend to like to drink it.

She said this reminded her that I was a Georgia native by birth and as such, my spoken voice might sound a bit different from the one she heard in her head when reading my blog. Additionally, there was a post by Jennifer Trinkle written for a contest on NPR called Three-Minute Fiction that asked for submissions which could be read in three minutes and prompted me to want to give the three-minute thing a try for fun.

The piece you can hear below is not fiction and is something I wrote a few years ago based on an actual event. It’s also a tiny bit longer than three minutes clocking in at 3:03.

Have a listen below and tell me … does my voice fit the one you hear in your head?

The Secret In Her Smile



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Pirates Come To Cornwall

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I’m a bit short on words today so my pictures will have to tell the story. I missed a few activities and didn’t get shots of everything, but I think you’ll be able to see that the children seemed to have a great time at the party yesterday. I was amazed watching them play in a place so beautiful and so close to where we live. I run past this spot which is just off the Camel trail. I can’t imagine what it must be like to grow up with all this nature around them.

If you closely at this photo, you can see ducks in the river and cows in the meadow.

The river is to the left in this shot of the tables and the field is a fine one for play. The woods in the distance were used to hide two of the treasure boxes.

The bottle with the map was hidden near these rocks which are across from the picnic tables.

Here comes the first wave of pirates with John and Jersey Girl joining in the procession.

A little snack before the work of treasure hunting begins.

Pirate Queen  ‘Miss S’

Pirates making a plan.

Finding the map.

Opening the bottle to get to the treasure map.

Finding one of three hidden treasure boxes.

The littlest pirate waits for a hand while the others follow the map to search the ferns.

You can see the gold and silver find in the ‘crystal’ box in the pirates hand.

Time for some video before moving on.

These two were the first ones in the water.

Then the girls began to edge around it too.

Muddy, you don’t know muddy until you’ve played with these two.

Here’s a couple of pirate moms taking a seat across from the river where the pirates are getting muddy and wet.

One of John looking a bit sea going himself.

One of a few games that they played although I’m not sure what they doing.

This is the book and clue I mentioned yesterday which led them to the treasure map. I’ll be a bit more chatty when I’ve recovered from the week.  Thanks for your interest in the party and I hope the photographs give you a sense of the afternoon.