Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Work Hard.

August 9, 2015June 25, 2016 / boo king / Leave a comment

Girl Warrior. Work hard. Especially if you want those big dreams to come true big time. Be willing to do whatever it takes. And I mean whatever.

This may not be easy. The road may be bumpy and jagged and full of hairpin curves, blind bends and tricky twists. There will be setbacks and disappointments. At times, it’ll feel like you’re taking two steps back for every step forward. Nothing wrong with that. Think of the two steps back as your opportunity to regroup, reset and reconsider where the next step forward will take you.

And ask yourself this question, “Am I still willing to do whatever it takes?”

If the answer is yes, then get your ass in gear. And get going once again. If the answer is yes, do not stall out. Rest on whatever laurels you’ve managed to acquire this far. Or deploy any delaying tactics. If the answer is yes, resist the urge to make excuses. Whine or hold a pity party for one. If the answer is yes, acknowledge where you’re at and how far you’ve come already. Give yourself a pat on the back for that Girl Warrior. Then examine your options and consider what the next step will be. But if the answer is yes, you really only have one option. Take the next step.

And know this. Other people, circumstances, situations, events, finances, or the state of your current affairs, do not crush dreams. The biggest destroyer of dreams is inertia. Doing nothing. That’s the enemy.

Do nothing Girl Warrior. And that’s exactly what you’ll get.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Dream Big.

August 9, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

Girl Warrior. Dream big. In ultra-high-definition. Of epic proportions. Beyond the beyond of the beyond. Without brims, borders or boundaries.

The sky isn’t even the limit when it comes to your dreams Girl Warrior. That’s just for starters. Your little aspiration appetizer. Amuse-bouche. Take these dreams of yours to the moon and back, from here to infinity, and then some. See what happens.

And don’t stop at just one. Have so many dreams your heart and mind and spirit cannot contain them. Break all the rules here. There is no magic number. You are not born with a finite quantity. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Dreams are designed to be an embarrassment of riches.

These sweet dreams are the beautiful seeds that grow the beautiful you.

And always remember that you are the star of your dreams. They belong to you. They are the essential element of your blockbuster kick-ass tale. And absolutely crucial to your never-ending life story. These supernatural keys unlock every door of opportunity. Every possibility, promise and potential begins here. And the best thing is, they are yours to shape and mold and refine in any way that pleases you. Plus the bonus bit is, you can change your dreams at any time you choose. That’s the beauty of it. Nothing’s ever really locked in.

So start dreaming Girl Warrior. And blow the roof off this place.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Fairy Dust and the Heartbeat of Oneness.

July 26, 2015 / boo king / 2 Comments

Do you ever wonder why some things in life appear as though they’ve been sprinkled with the enchantment of fairy dust? Why do some people, places or things touch our hearts in a way that is utterly ethereal, inexplicable and mystifying?

What causes this heart connection?

It could be anything or anytime or anyplace when this connection occurs. You’re watching one of those ubiquitous television programs like America or England or Japan’s Got Talent and some awkward kid comes on stage and starts singing like an angel. At that moment, we’re touched by the kind of grace that only The Divine can deliver. Not only is our heart affected, but our spirit as well. Our emotions are fully engaged. Quite simply, we feel like better people for the privilege of witnessing this singular moment in time. We know intuitively that we are part of something much grander than ourselves.

We are all breathing in tune to the Heartbeat of Oneness. This is the transcendent flash. Our knowing. The sudden awareness that our prosaic humanness is also magnificently divine. We get a glimpse into the soul of another. And what an honor this is.

You can’t force or manipulate these things either. You can’t define them. Direct, determine or describe. There are no words that are truly adequate. Impossible to articulate, communicate or enunciate. For if you could, then the magic would turn to vapor and disappear. There would be no fairy dust.

For this is the beautiful inherent intangible, the essential enigma, the precious paradox.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Be Honest.

July 22, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

Girl Warrior. Be honest. Speak up. Speak out. Speak your truth. Express yourself. Whatever that means to you. However that looks. Tell it like it is. Or how you wish it was. Be bold. Audacious in your speech. Intrepid with your message.

But don’t use your words to slaughter. Use your words to empower. Elucidate. Illuminate. Exalt. Demystify. Take ownership of what comes out of your mouth.

Make it good.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Look What They’ve Done to my Song, Ma.

June 29, 2015 / boo king / 1 Comment

I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman. Crazy I know. But the truth is, I really only know what it feels like to be me. And to make matters even more ambiguous, I only know what it feels like to be me at this very moment. Like most people, I’ve been changing since the day I was born. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. Intellectually. In every conceivable way, I’ve changed. And so have my feelings and perceptions of myself. Ergo, the only “me” I really know is the one right here, right now, typing these words.

Lately I’ve been thinking about gender fluidity, a term I must admit I’d never heard of, until I read this bit online about Miley Cyrus, where she said that she was gender fluid. Although I’m not entirely clear on what this means, something about it resonated with me. I know, more crazy talk. Me? Miley? Worlds apart, right?

And then I watched one of her Backyard Sessions with Melanie Safka and thought maybe we aren’t all that different. Maybe no one is. Is it possible that human beings, from all different walks of life, have more in common than not? And that we all defy being defined, limited and restricted?

The pair was performing an old tune of Melanie’s, and one of my all-time favorites, called Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma. And in that moment, I was charmed. I had loved Melanie back in the day, and truthfully I thought she was dead. But there she was, as beautiful and quirky and amazing as ever. Watching her and Miley took me back to my bedroom floor at 204. I used to lie on my back, with my head right next to the record player, with my eyes closed, and belt out this song over and over and over. I couldn’t get enough of it.

It’s funny how things go round and round. Like that song. It came to mind a few years ago when I wrote this love song for Eric for our wedding. A very talented bluegrass musician was helping me refine and polish it. He was also attempting to teach me bluegrass guitar, which was undoubtedly frustrating for both of us. And let me stop here to say, I’m not a bluegrass musician, Eric is.

During that time, when the bluegrass musician and I were working on my song, we had very different opinions on how it should sound. To him, it was bluegrass all the way. But to me, it was a sweet little folk tune with a hint of an Irish lilt in its cadence. At one point in the song-making process we were camped in completely different worlds. But in the end, Fragile Moment landed happily in the most harmonious place within my beating heart. Not my vision going in, but exceeding all expectations when it was done.

But in the beginning, I’d come home from one of our sessions and think, ‘look what he’s done to my song, Ma.’

So there’s Melanie’s song and there’s Miley’s backyard. And then there’s me, and this gender fluidity, that makes sense on some level, despite not fully understanding. But I am intrigued. In fact, so much so, that I declared to my youngest daughter the other night, that I think I’m gender fluid.

“When did this happen?” she asked sardonically. Admittedly, a very reasonable question for her to pose, especially to me, a person who has been known to utter lots of utter nonsense but nothing of this ilk. If I could have read her mind, I’m pretty sure she was thinking, ‘what the fuck mother.’

“When I stopped having my period,” I blurted.

I don’t know what made me say that. But I do know, that around the same time, Ma died, and then The Old Man did too, and then I started to feel differently about everything. Including myself. The “me” I thought was me was being whipped and refashioned by this menopausal hurricane. I’d had the first real brush with my mortality and it scared the shit out of me. The worst thing was, much of the time, I felt irrelevant, insignificant and invisible. I loathed feeling irrelevant and insignificant. My feelings were hurt. I felt unloved by the universe. But I have to say there was something incredibly liberating about feeling invisible. I was flying effortlessly under the radar and for the very first time in my life I felt free to say and do whatever I wanted, as long as it wasn’t causing harm to others or myself.

Since my period stopped I’ve started. And like Miley, I’m just me.

Backyard Sessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX9A5vv-jOM

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Snapshot of Mel at Four.

June 18, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

Melissa sat in the brown Rubbermaid laundry hamper hugging her knees. She was wearing her over-sized blue sweatshirt with the Dalmatians on the front and purple leggings. Her feet were bare and pale.

She had pulled the hamper out of the closet and placed it in front of the television in my bedroom. Her petite body was fully contained with only her head peering out of the top like a sprung jack-in-the-box.

I don’t know if it was something she saw on TV, something someone said perhaps. I don’t recall. But she turned to me and said, with the simple unvarnished directness of a four-year old, “I believe in God.” In that moment, I saw her ancient soul. The one that had been around since the beginning of time. The wise One.

And in that holy moment, for it truly was divine, I was envious of this sweet wide-eyed child of mine. Because at four, she was so resolute and confident in this elusive thing called faith.

And I was not.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Don’t Waste Your Pretty.

May 17, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

Girl Warrior. Don’t waste your pretty on anyone who is unworthy. Consider that thought for a moment. Let it sink in. Allow it to ooze into the deepest place inside your generous heart and beautiful mind. For it is here that you will know the truth.

And the truth is Girl Warrior you are one fabulous chick.

You deserve to be surrounded by sweet heart-stopping goodness. Pure and simple. Drop anything less than that like a bad habit. Kick their sorry ass to the curb. Don’t wave or blow a kiss goodbye. Put them in your rear view mirror. Permanently. Save all your heavenly kisses for the good ones. For they are out there just waiting for your warm embrace.

Be radical about this knowledge. Wrap your brilliant brain around this information. Fill your soul with this awareness. Grasp the importance of this concept. And hold onto this big idea for dear life.

Seek extravagant love. The best love. The kind of love that is true to the marrow. That sees, with breathtaking clarity, your pretty in all its magical complicated layers. The kind of love that holds like crazy-glue. No matter what.

Because Girl Warrior, your pretty is too precious to be unappreciated.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: My Yoga.

May 15, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

In many ways yoga has saved my life. Or at the very least kept me from being a total train wreck. My daily practice has taught me how to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. And my spirit ever reaching for heaven. It has opened my eyes to the exquisiteness of my life in its domestic ordinariness. The beauty of the day-to-day. The rhythm of regular rituals. The well-crafted commonplace I love.

For I am an ordinary woman.

My yoga has aged with me. I can no longer do the poses the way I once did. But I can still bend and fold and breathe. And allow grace to gently do the rest. I surrender to a higher wisdom.

I salute the sun and whisper thank you to the morning light.

These photos were taken by daughter, Melissa Adams in our living room where I do my yoga every morning.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: The Maple Tree.

May 3, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

I have a Maple Tree in my front yard.

I brought it with me from Ontario as a tiny sapling.

I removed it gingerly from its mother tree the morning I left to return to BC.

I wrapped it in a wet paper towel and a plastic baggy.

I placed it carefully into my purse where it journeyed across Canada with me.

I loved it so and made a promise to my parents to take good care of it.

I planted it temporarily in a small terracotta pot.

I replanted it and replanted it into ever-bigger pots that sat on my sunny patio.

I watched as it grew and grew until it was the same height as me.

I bought a little white house after my parents died just around the corner from the rental.

I lovingly removed the Maple Tree from its final pot made from a wooden barrel.

I planted it permanently in the front yard deeply anchored in the solid earth.

I called it Marion after my mother.

She is well over twenty feet tall now.

She is far bigger than my mother could have ever imagined.

She is a faithful reminder of my mother and the life we shared.

She provides a welcome canopy of shade.

She keeps my front room cool and comfortable in the summertime.

She is beautifully naked and oh so graceful in the winter.

She quietly stands guard and watches over this little white house.

She is eternally helpful and obliging that way.

She also makes me feel safe in the shelter of her branches.

She changes color with the seasons but not the way her mother tree did back in Ontario.

She wonders about some of those autumn colors of her lineage.

She ponders the reason they are missing from her leaves.

She thinks her mother tree looked divine in a particular shade of red.

She mourns the loss of the things she did not inherit.

Diaries of The Breadman’s Daughter: Take Risks.

April 19, 2015April 19, 2015 / boo king / Leave a comment

Girl Warrior. Take risks. Big ones. Small ones. The kind only you know you’re taking. This is your deal. Go out on a limb. Get rid of the safety net. Free fall. Hang ten. Step out. And step off. Close your eyes and let go. Fall in love with uncertainty. Welcome unpredictability. Embrace the random unexpected things with open arms and wide-eyed wonder.

Don’t play it safe. Just play it with everything you’ve got. Let the cards land where they will. And then play those too. Put yourself out there even when you’d rather hide under a rug. Don’t have second thoughts. Or third. Don’t let anything or anyone sabotage your efforts. Squash your dreams. Take away your power. Don’t doubt yourself. Not even for one second.

Take a chance. Venture forth. Give it your best shot. Something mind-blowing will happen when you do.