Straighten Up and Fly Right

Posted in authors, emotions, Flying, History, Humor, Reflections, Teens by Shelley Sackier

Today, Peakers, I’m posting an article I wrote for an online magazine called Dear Teen Me, where authors pen their teenage self a note from the future. An exercise in memory, humor, advice and forgiveness, writing a letter to your former self is a worthy task and a labor of love.

Also, a shock of realization regarding your naiveté with savvy hairstyles.

~~~~~~~~~

Dear Shelley,

Buckle up. I mean it. Your life is going to be like a long, long ride in a SIAI Marchetti aircraft doing countless aerobatic maneuvers until you toss your cookies across the glass-roofed ceiling and finally land. Then you’re going to scrape all that Keebler off the canopy and get back up there.

And if you’re having a hard time imagining what it’s going to be like in that Marchetti, picture the Blue Angels, or the Thunderbirds mid-show. Picture speed, panic, and an occasional loss of equilibrium.

And then realize that your answer to all those hair-raising, stomach-churning, lunch losing flights is to learn how to fly the damn aircraft yourself.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking we’re an idiot, right? Well, we are and we aren’t.

We’re an idiot for letting so much scare the hell out of us, but we’re not too duff in the brave department. It nearly evens out.

There’s so much I could tell you right now—warn you about, but I’m thinking if I do that, we might have ourselves a Back to the Future situation here where I could end up altering the past. And I’m not willing to risk that.

I know what you want to hear. Did you get the guy? Is your name in lights? Did all those wishes you made on candles, eyelashes, and falling stars come true?

Sorry. I’m not going to tell you that. Even though it would be tremendously easy for me to do so. Why not? Because you like surprises. And because life would hold no magic if I let you read the end of the book.

Do you remember that one time when you were eleven or twelve and finally got the new hardcover everyone was talking about in school, and everyone was nearly finished with it and you were so behind you jumped to the end so that you could at least talk about the ending with everyone else the next day? Do you remember how it made you feel?

Empty.

The book meant nothing to you. You found out the plot, but you missed the whole point. Yeah, it totally sucked and I’m not going to do that to you. I want you full of wonder. Because wonder is the thing that motivates the hell out of you. But you already know this. I’m not spoiling anything here.

So what might be the point of this letter? Why write to you in the first place? The answer is such a simple thing—such a tiny message, but it might have a big impact. This letter is nothing more than a request. I want you to make a habit of carrying around a small plastic bag in your pocket. Think of yourself more like a Girl Scout. I want you a teensy bit more prepared. Prepared for those “I’m so scared I could toss my cookies” moments. I want to at least eliminate the fear of having a “visual burp” where you can’t get rid of the evidence within the amount of time it takes to tie your shoe, or swat a fly, or download a song from iTunes when you’ve got unbelievable Wi-Fi coverage and computational speed. Okay—ditch that last reference because you’ve got no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

It doesn’t matter.

But because we carry fear around in our invisible backpack of ‘can’t leave home without them’ obstacles, it’s best you just stop trying to overcome it or destroy it and maybe just embrace it.

I’m not saying the two of you have to become best friends, but you are both riding on the same bus and you’d better find a few things to talk about in order to pass the time. It’ll be so much easier this way.

Get to know this fear entity as quickly as you can. Explore it, like the dark side of the moon people write songs and poetry about. It’s really not such a mystery, more like a family member no one wants hanging around when the shit hits the fan. Fear is one of those things that ends up getting in the way of solving a problem when you really wish it would grab a bucket of water and start helping to put out the fire. Fear is the person who screams, “MY BABY!” instead of wrestling the longest ladder she can find off the fire truck and slamming it up against the house beneath the nursery window.

It doesn’t have to be all panic and suffering. It can be more like accomplishment with a little sprinkling of panic and suffering.

Think of fear as a seasoning like salt and pepper. You can live without them, but ask anyone who’s on a low sodium diet what they think of their dish and the first thing out of their mouth is going to be about how bland everything tastes.

So, here’s my definition of fear: not necessary, but greatly needed in order to provide life the depth and breadth of its true dimensions.

I promise I’m not just blowing smoke out of my pie hole for fun. At forty-five, we’ve had enough experience with the annoying companion to qualify as a crackerjack connoisseur on the subject. Trust me. Just roll with it.

And don’t forget the plastic bag.

Lastly, just so we don’t waste time with the whole ‘get your debut book out there quicker’ issue, I’m attaching the manuscript of a little book I wrote which I think might do well. It’s a tale about a boy who finds out he’s a wizard.

Love,

Shelley

*ROBIN GOTT’s NEW POST* (click)

Today, he’s posting a sketch that BELONGS in DEAR OPL!

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery and what we all talked about down in the pub. Plus, you can see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone.

2Jun2013

Fortune favors the brave. (And so does my library card.)

Posted in Books, emotions, Humor by Shelley Sackier

This is a powerful word. A word that when spoken—better yet, whispered—can send a cold prickle down the back of your neck. Try it.

Nothing? Okay, go into the coat closet and turn off the light. Now whisper it.

Still nothing? Fine. Go into the coat closet, turn off the light and wait for your dead grandmother to whisper it. It’ll happen. Be patient.

Was there a touch of angst that crept into your mind? A slight uneasiness joining the flow in your bloodstream?

We all have fear to some degree: an anxiety about a work project, despair with a love affair, qualms regarding the choice we made selecting our new insurance policy, jitters because we just flashed, honked and gave a one-fingered salute to an old service truck that nearly cut us off in traffic, only to realize after another few miles that this is the guy you called from the office to please, please, please squeeze you into his schedule and come to your house to fix your piece of garbage air conditioning unit that’s broken down in the middle of a record-breaking, blistering heat spell, and he’s rushing to meet you at your house on his lunch break.

Yep. Cold sweat fear.

And we try to avoid it. Like it’s a bad thing. But what if it isn’t? Yes, the result of the bad thing we fear being realized is not something most folks want to welcome into their lives, but that state of being fearful might be.

Hasn’t being in that moment—that heart palpitating moment—oftentimes brought you a pure rush of excitement, of thrill, of accomplishment? Hasn’t pushing through fear helped you realize your new potential?

Lately, I find myself a fear magnet. Examples of it are popping up all around me.

– It’s the end of the school year. My kids are up to their earballs in exams. This is fearful.

– I’m in the process of collecting quotes for a major house repair that may determine whether I end up needing to auction off a kidney. This is fearful.

– Domestic terrorism and militant extremists. This is fearful.

– Global warming. This is fearful.

– My dead grandmother just spoke to me in our coat closet. This is fearful.

Prison 2 (Photo credit: planetschwa)

It is so easy to build a moat—abstract or concrete—around ourselves in order to shun that which frightens us, but it’s also easy to brick ourselves into the very castle meant to protect us. Now what have we got?

Prison.

Even as I take stock of my library books, stacked on my bedside table and surrounding my desk, it’s no longer snort-like funny to grasp how many of them are addressing the voluminous boundaries of this one subject.

1. Places That Scare You : A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön (the most edible looking Buddhist/nun/teacher/author you may never come across.)

2. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (Wayward woman + massive life challenge + teeth grinding grit = awesome story + bestselling book + scarcity of toenails.)

3. The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling by Stephen Cope (From Krishna to Keats, Jane Goodall to Ghandi, Ludwig van Beethoven to Susan B. Anthony—words meant to get you off your big, broad backside.)

4. Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by David Roberts (Yes, expect more loss of toenails, blackened chunks of flesh and to be cold the entire time you read this.)

5. Daily Life in 18^th Century England by Kristin Olsen (You’re right. This has nothing to do with the others—except for possibly the castle and moat theme.)

This is just a smattering, but the general theme is apparent: I’m guessing subconsciously I want to move to Tibet, find an iceberg and meditate through the pain of frostbite. Or it could mean that I need more iron in my diet and that my library card would benefit from a temporary suspension. Maybe I just need a walk.

Maybe … it’s worthy to embrace uncertainty. Perhaps wading through the turmoil, you find that you’ve exercised that mental muscle, that by wrestling with the beast of dread you’ve subdued the bête noire and tied him to a tree, that, as the Danish are fond of saying, Life is not simply holding a good hand. Life is playing a poor hand well.

There is so much more to do than tremble. Although tremble if you must as you do what you dare. Explore the edges of possibility. If there is no wind, ROW.

So when the world sends you messages—whether from the faces of your children as they pack up their book bags for the next dreaded round of exams, the rotting corner of your leaking, tarp-covered, held together by a handful of this and a whole lot of hope house, the collective alarm and despair felt by a nation as we trudge through another day of tragic headlines, or the titles that doubtlessly raise the eyebrows of the librarian scanning your books—it might be time to put down the trencher and ditch witch.

Be brave. Push through. And fail forward.

You didn’t need those toenails anyway.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery (here) and what we all talked about down in the pub (here). And to see more of Robin Gott’s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone–click here.