Mirror… Mirror…

On The Surface of The Water…

Reflect For Me…

The Blessings of This Daughter…

In 2006, my debut novel, A Flower: It Has Its Own Song, was published for the world’s eyes… I began writing my novel perhaps, two or three years earlier, but put it aside for a while to focus on other life matters. Once I resumed writing my book, it had taken less than a year to complete… Then came the editing process and my decision to put my approximately 400 or more page manuscript aside again for another year, before handing it off for publication… I decided to put my novel aside for another year to ensure I was genuinely happy with the story I would be sharing with the world… I wanted to read my story again, at a later time, with a fresh mind, heart and eyes… A year later… my story made it to the printer with minimal edits, was bound in paperback and hardcover and made available for global distribution…

I was truly excited to see both the proof and final copies of my soft and hardcover editions after receiving them by mail… I felt deeply blessed to hold within my own hands copies of my debut novel… especially after several years of capturing thoughts in my journals regarding what I wanted my first story to share… mostly an inspirational message about the strength of the human spirit… My story, although part fiction and part autobiographical, is a story I related to quite profoundly… It is mostly, nonetheless, a tapestry of several stories… woven into one story, made to be my story… A story told from my own perspectives, albeit not always from experiences that were directly my own… or that reflected glimpses into my own life…

As excited as I was to hold in my hands… copies of my very own books… I had to at the same time get excited about speaking to others in the public about my book and life… I was a greatly private person. Outside of the company of close family and friends, I didn’t generally discuss my personal life… I was fairly comfortable with my life, yet I wasn’t used to sharing private parts of my life in most conversation… It too was almost like a golden rule for many families, including my own, to keep family matters just that… family matters. I wasn’t at all opposed to this… I appreciated having a private life, including a private family life… There was indeed benefits to adhering to this family creed… I enjoyed the freedom it gave us to be more fully ourselves with each other…

Once the speaking engagements began… as well as book club discussions, seminars and workshops, I found I had not much shyness talking to others about my life and what I had written in my novel… Some of the content of my book was light… some humorous… some deep… some a little heavier in nature than the more simple depictions of life… Overall, I thought my first book was one filled with a myriad of wisdom… Life lessons anyone could learn from or golden nuggets one could carry with them— adults and youth of appropriate age. It became such a pleasurable experience to talk about my life, as it related to my book and its story, with others… Therefore, I more and more looked forward to public talks and felt more comfortable “opening up.” As much freedom as I found in having a private life, which I will always deeply appreciate and will continue to foster, I was beginning too… to find freedom in letting myself explore more of me with a world outside of me…

The reviews I received about my first book were quite promising… I was being recognized by the public as a writer who had her own unique and provocative way of telling a story… These reviews were indeed encouraging and kept me focused on further establishing myself within both the arts and literary communities as a writer who’s found her own voice… a voice that maters… and one worthy of being heard… I continued to do talks… I also continued journaling and capturing ideas and my thoughts for forthcoming books I intended to write… As this all was taking place, I eventually started to feel as though I wanted to withdraw again from the public… partly because of questions I was feeling urged to explore… They were questions mostly about my own life experiences and views… and the experiences of the characters I’d written about in my first book, A Flower… Some of the questions were my own…

In a few private talks with other women… I learned some of what I had written, particularly about the lives of the female characters, made them feel uncomfortable… I was told in one private talk that my perspective of an experience I had written about did not reflect a view that women could smile upon… I didn’t try to justify my own perspectives or views, yet I did my best to make room for us to discover a mutual understanding we both would be comfortable with… I left this book discussion feeling content with the same understanding that led me to write what I did in the way that I did… however, I was open to others’ understandings as well… I was also even more motivated to explore in depth the lives of my characters… each of them…

There were more talks like this one… Ones that motivated me to go back to my book, open its pages and personally dialogue with my characters… Why did I write what I did about them… What else was I to learn from them… What am I conveying to readers about each of my characters, including the young, slave woman kneeling over a body of water, looking down at her own reflection with a large knife raised up in her hand, with it’s blade’s sharpest point above and facing the surface of the same body of water…  What is this image conveying to just women, whether we look like this young, slave woman or not…

I am a woman… who has written stories about other women’s lives… their experiences… that have included not only my own points of references… but theirs too… I came to know more keenly, as time passed, that there were parts of my story that not only caused women to take a closer look at their lives, but that my book did the same for men… On this journey we call life, which for me is quite an amazing adventure, there are times when we are brought closer to our own personal reflections… times when we are urged to take a closer look at our own selves… When we are here… sometimes feeling as though we are at the edge of a body of water, looking down at our own reflections… how do these reflections of our lives make us feel… How does your own reflection make you feel… How does my own reflection make me feel… What I’ve learned… is that at different points of our lives… our perspectives might change… our points of view might be different… simply because our lives move… life changes… Yet, though this is true… though water’s constant movement is not always visible… though there may be only gentle ripples moving along its surface… though more undulating waves may come in and too depart… changing the look… changing the face… changing the surface of the water… the reflections we see of ourselves on the surface of the water, particularly when the water is calmer once more, will remain the same… We each will still show up as our very own selves… Life changes… the surface of the water reflecting back to us images of ourselves changes… Nonetheless, what matters is not so much this, but how we show up… and when we show up in front of every mirror life presents to us… how much we each can appreciate who and what we see…  How do you view your very own life… How do I view my very own life…

Mirror… Mirror…

On The Surface of The Water…

Reflect For Me…

The Blessings of This Daughter…

My very own life… I am whole… I am complete… I am here… even during the changes of life…

We have the capacity and potential to always be a blessing in our own lives, in the lives of others and in this magical and magnificent world of ours…

Images photographed, created and/or designed by Partners In Goodwill: Publications & Media…partnersingoodwill.com …

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biashedo™ ~ My Universe Is Friendly… Inside and Out… And So Is Yours… The Macro… and The Micro… Grace… Love… Prosperity… Always sending forth light and love… :o)

Learn more about biashedo™ at windinc.org… Select the link for the Healthy Lives Campaign in the main menu… I have also written a more detailed blog on biashedo™ posted on January 6, 2016… Check it out too… danarondel.com …

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