Last Haiku: Black vs. White

Take a Haiku

I went on a long walk intending to "write" one haiku in my mind…I wrote ten.

WRITING PROMPT:
Try to illustrate aliveness through a short poem, story or reflection about yourself. Describe yourself in the third person in your most optimal creative flow and deep connection with the whole of life. Include sensory details (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing)  

Walkman

Is this me hitting PAUSE?  Or me hitting STOP?  

Stop rewinding
to the past
And fast forwarding
to the future
is futile

So just PRESS PLAY
PLAY
PLAY THE PRESENT
PLAY & RECORD
because

Everything in this life
Is the difference between
pause vs. stop.

"In Vino Veritas"

Writing Prompt: Write an entire poem the way Tyler Knott Gregson www.tylerknott.com writes them, (even if poetry isn't your usual style, push yourself outside the box) in which you are not allowed to edit a single line once it's down.  No changing words, no revising the order, nothing.  Create snapshots of moments instead of perfectly edited poetic masterpieces.

WWTKGD - Write a poem like Tyler?! Ha. Here's my attempt. PS Usually, when I write, I have some, um liquid courage, in the form of glass(es) of wine. Ironically, tonight, I wrote this and was drinking only water.

"In Vino Veritas"

You are a rare vintage

Vine-ripened to savor

The sweet flavor

Of love's swirl on my palate

You are of full body

And strong finish

And your thick legs

Prove you are potent

You are a slow sip

And no one would dare

Spit you out

And so I swallow you

Intoxicated

Inebriated

"In vino veritas"

-tess gamboa

Black Out Poetry

Writing Prompt:   Grab the nearest "broken book" to you, a new Sharpie or pen of your choice, and make new poetry out of ONLY the words on the page.  Black out the other words you don't use or choose.  By removing the pressure of having every word in the English language at your disposal, it frees your mind up to create without the burden of such choice. Start with 1 page, then try to write 5. 

Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
page 149 

(This exercise was definitely WAY harder than I thought.  Also, this book is sacred to me with my own notes in it -- haha -- so I just color copied the page and blacked out that way…)

"I exhale … surrounded by grace.
…You just got a taste of love.
…But a true soul mate is a mirror … that you needed to …
…show you your obstacles and addictions, …light could make you so desperate … but now it's over. … accept … the dump, baby -"

#writeyourselfalive #writeordie #30daysofwriting

My first month as a stay-at-home Mom.  With Andrew working 15-20 hour days and nights.  I decide to sign up for an online creative writing course with two brilliant poets/authors/artists I became familiar with via social media.  It is more than writing, it is therapy.  I am writing again.  And it feels like breathing.  It feels like home.  And it is beefing up this often defunct and gun-shy blog.  Bang bang bitches.  I'm fired up and firing out one entry after another.  Here are a couple of intros I had to write for the course.  It was hard to sum it all up in something so short but HI.  MY NAME'S TESS.  AND I'M A WRITER.

"Hi, I’m Tess, I’ve been writing since I was 7 years old on my parents’ old typewriters. Writing is my heart and soul and passion but I’ve also always been afraid to fail at what has always been my dream. I’ve kept it such a secret from so many and am so reluctant to share it. As such, I haven’t committed a discipline or practice to nurture my writing; I often put it all on pause and regret never expressing myself in the way I love the most. Instead, I’ve let life in general and a crazy non-stop television production job that is 24/7 WORK WORK WORK consume me, and now on top of it all, I am beyond busy with my first child, a beautiful baby girl. I’m sick of the excuses and don’t want any more time to pass without writing in my life. Thank you for creating this opportunity of cultivating creativity. Quite simply, thank you for creating. I’m so ready to write myself alive. Without writing, I really feel like I haven’t been living at all. Looking forward to sharing this journey with all of you."

BIOGRAPHY:

Tess Gamboa is an Executive Producer of non-scripted/reality television.  She has enjoyed professional and personal adventures for nearly 20 years, on-camera and off-camera, on-location, on the road, traveling the world and producing for such networks as Bravo, Lifetime, ABC, E!, VH1, MTV and FOX.  Tess has recently premiered her greatest production yet:  a brand new baby girl!  She lives with her husband Andrew, her daughter Elyse and her two dogs Sequoia and Jack Hammer in Los Angeles, California.  This year, Tess feels blessed that her two lifelong dreams have come true: to be a mother … and a writer. 

Stranger Danger

poetry seems to be flowing tonight.  #writeordie

Last Words.

Writing Prompt: If you only had one week left to live, what is the last story/poem/letter or reflection you would write?  What would you put on your last page?  What are the most pressing words you would want to leave behind? 


Last Words.

This is my last foray

Into my past transgressions
And the first time there won't be a future to look forward to

God made the world in 7 days
And in 7 days,
my world, my existence,
my life will be over. 

And on the 7th Day - REST. 

Final words flip-flop
Between two extremes:
Happily Epitaph-ter
Or oBITCHuary

To my mother, I became you
To my daughter, don't become me
To my husband, I tried
And I'm sorry and I never deserved you and this life you gave us. 

To the rest of my family and friends,
I know I always made it all about me. But I need you to know now it was always about all of you.

I should have worked less and played more. 

I should have talked less and listened more. 

I should have focused on quality and not quantity. 

My ears echo Rent's refrain,
"no day but today"
But I fear we lived
Too many maybe tomorrows
In this life we Owned. 

So when I am gone
Live for me. 

"Live. Laugh. Love."
Rise above it all

And meet me,
In the "rainbow in the clouds,"
In the twilight of time,
In the semi-darkness of pre-dawn,
In the magic hour of a brilliant sunset.

And know that "still I rise" in all of you. 

-Tess Gamboa

FOR SETH … 21 YEAR FRIENDSHIP

1994-present.  You are a gift.

Wake Up Call

Writing Prompt: Imagine your current life as an autobiographical novel.  Narrate a day in your life as the main character in your book.  What story would you tell?  Focus on details and describe yourself: include your strengths and weaknesses and everything that makes you YOU.

I am your mother.  And I can barely keep a houseplant alive.  And it’s a miracle this mutt I rescued ten years ago is still alive but I think, in fact, it was he that rescued me.  There he is, snoring at the foot of the bed as we two gals cuddle in it, in the early morning hours after your father has left for work.  The miracle mutt.  The miracle baby.  And me.  So maybe I am the miracle.  Yes.  It’s a miracle that I am your mother.

This morning in the early AM light that filters through the curtains, I can make out the profile of your perfect face.  It is like my soul silhouetted in soft folds of chubby cherub cheeks and pudgy fingers wrapped around my own.

But it is your breath.  Baby’s breath.  It takes my own breath away.  I am so close to you as you sleep.  Closerthanthis.  Nose-to-nose and I drink in every perfect little puff you sigh my way as you slumber.  Baby’s breath more precious than you know.  Because I have lost one before.  A baby whose heart stopped, who never took a breath outside my body.  But you.  You are my heart beating outside my body, as the saying goes.  You have made me a mother and I am forever-changed.

There are many things in life, my daughter, I want to teach you and show you.  But I don’t have the confidence of your father, who knew he was born to be a parent all along.  I’m not a domestic goddess either and my instincts are more fight-or-flight, rather than maternal.  I work too much and sleep too little.  I am a career woman that is married to my job, that parents my colleagues, that spends more time with my co-workers than my own family.  I may handle million-dollar budgets and a staff of dozens but when I am handed a few pounds of pure baby, it is humbling how clueless and incompetent I feel.  The What-Ifs drown out the I Think I Cans and now I stare at your face every morning and I so don’t want to fail you. 

But you make me feel like a Mom.  Every day with you, you grant me that gift.  I am grateful for that.  And my self-doubt wanes with each toothless drooly grin you show me as if an affirmation or confirmation: “Listen here, lady.  Whether you feel like a good mother or not, I have pooped and I have peed.  And there will be more.  And you will change this diaper.  And the next one and the next one and the next one.  You will clean up all my messes.  You will even clean up your own.” 

Before you, my sweet baby: My daily routine used to be shower, do my hair and makeup, stop at Starbucks, conference call after conference call with back-to-back-to-back production meetings, a thousand emails a day, an executive in the television industry, shooting and filming all day and night, every day and night for months on ends, traveling nonstop, living out of a suitcase, working 16-20 hour days or 70-100 hour weeks, etc.

After you: now I am lucky if I shower at all.  Now our big daily field trip is being able to get out the door and see if we can even make it to Starbucks.  My routine is picking your playthings and then picking up your playthings.  And then play pickup repeat.  Play-pickup-repeat.  Every day, you choose book after book and I read to you.  I hope today is the day I figure out how to shush you, soothe you, feed you, change you, love you as well as you love me.

I tiptoe through a gauntlet of colorful, musical toys and past piles of vomit-spit-up-poop-stained, pee-soaked laundry.  I stack a mountain of dirty bottles and parts and nipples like a crazy Jenga game in the kitchen sink.  These are the chores of a domestic goddess.

Every day is the same and “a mother’s work is never done."  How do stay-at-home moms do it?!  Single moms?  Moms with more than one child?!  How did my own mother, an immigrant to this country with her closest family on the other side of the globe (!!), how did my mother raise three kids in a big house with no help??  She shopped for groceries, cooked, cleaned, did all our laundry, supervised our activities, got us showered/bathed/dressed off to school in the pre-dawn darkness, etc.  I should call my mother.  Have I ever thanked her?  I’m in awe of her right now.  She was alone with all of us at home while my father worked all day and night.  And if she was struggling, I never knew it. 

Dear daughter, the struggle to juggle is what you will witness because long before you got here, I raised another child in a sense -- my career.  I nurtured it and tended to it so that it would grow and thrive.  Being so career-driven was so much of my identity that it felt odd to be motivated by motherhood.  My professional life had trumped my personal one for so long.  I fear the challenge of the balancing act everyday.  The guilt that tugs both ways: am I bad at my job now yet I am a good mother?  Or am I still as successful as I was and have instead proven to be a terrible mother??  Still, I want to lead by example and show you how independent you can be, that you can achieve any goal and pursue any ambition you can imagine.  I want to teach you values like sacrifice, determination, leadership, self-esteem, hard work, perseverance and how to embody teamwork and compromise by sharing parental duties with your father.

I want you to know that as I take my turn to be the stay-at-home mom and focus on YOU, it does not mean I am giving up ME.  I don’t want you to think that as you grow older, that you need to give up anything (a career, a hobby, a passion, a dream) that is so important to you and has become so much a part of you. 

There is room for everything.  It adds to the blessings in your life.  It enriches you from the inside out.  This is especially true for the person I can already tell you are – someone with an open heart, a vast, deeply intelligent mind and a kind, compassionate, old soul.  Eight months young with a mischievous glimmer in the eyes of an old soul who’s seen this all before.   

So today, like every day these days, we will wake-eat-play-nap-eat-play-nap-eat-play-bathe-sleep-dishes-laundry-clean-chores-walk the neglected dogs-errands.  We will explore and enjoy and question and wonder and bond and connect and learn.  I am learning more than you, it seems.

I was never a morning person and yet here I am, my new favorite time of day, to watch you before you wake and come to terms with how much my life has changed, how I have changed, how very full I am of so much.

Shhhh your eyes are opening … you’ve opened mine too.

"MIDDLEMENT"

Writing Prompt: Invent a new word and define it.  Let it replace a feeling, action or idea that you believe the world needs, yet you have found no other way of expressing.  Incorporate it to your vocabulary and start using it.

"MIDDLEMENT"

The state of being in that "in the meantime,"in-between-time and accepting that there is, indeed, "a grey area."  Neither black nor white.  

Remaining comfortable in the discomfort that is not knowing quite what's next.  And to use this midway point/this middle time/existing in this "middlement:"

-- to take stock in the past and assess what may come in the future.  

A reminder that it's not being "stuck in the middle" but embracing the present.  

Being present.  Remaining present.  Appreciating that gift.

Like this great quote by artist Jodi Hills:

And so this also applies to these exercises, to this creative writing course, to my personal dreams and goals and inner calling of writing.  You must live in your truth.  

Wherever you are is OK.  

Baby Steps. One day at a time.  

Just launch forward with momentum from your "middlement."

A place and space and mindset to sit, rest, deserve and be.  

And appreciate being surrounded, in the middle of it all.

A Letter To A Decade Younger Me (CONT'D. FROM PREVIOUS ENTRY)

 Writing Prompt: Reflect over the past 10 years of your life and write the decade younger YOU a letter, as if you were catching up with an old friend.  Include life lessons learned so far that you would share with this younger version of you.

Hey You,

I’m pushing 40 now.   Officially past the age when my Mom had all of us, all my siblings and at 38, I now have finally had a child of my own – my beautiful baby daughter Elyse.   

Elyse & Me.  Age 38 and Age 7+ months. Stearns Wharf, Santa Barbara.  January 2015.

So this means you’re me a decade ago, 28 and pushing 30, full of doubt and the woe-is-me-dom brought on by being the single girl stringing together one disastrous dramatic relationship after the other.  The big three uh-oh looming at you like a death knell to your dating life, a tick-tock to your biological clock, a pressure cooker you’ve submerged yourself in that will make you explode if you don’t (not necessarily in this order…) find a man, have babies, make more money, move up in your career and just do something with your life, dammit.  Something other than being The One Before The One, bearing the brunt of breakup after breakup with yet another guy you were willing to change everything for, just to make him happy.  I’m writing to tell you to STOP.  Stop doing this to yourself.  All these men didn’t make you unhappy.  You are making you unhappy.  You hate yourself.  You disgust you. You’re ashamed and embarrassed and humiliated that you exude confidence in your professional life at work and whimper weakness in your personal life at home.  You think you are tired now and you think this is the worst you have ever felt, you are oh-so-sad and when will your pain end??  I am writing to tell you, unfortunately, because I love you but you have to know.  Your pain hasn’t even started yet.  It has only just begun.

I am writing to tell you also simply that I. Love. You. because you do not love yourself yet.  I can say that to you because ten years later, that’s how long it took to recognize the importance of and cultivate the growth of/foster the environment of self-love.  A twentysomething flees their flaws; a thirtysomething embraces them.  A thirtysomething reaches in and deep and explores internally what a twentysomething is too scared or too unaware or too proud to poke, prod, find, confront and accept.  In my twenties, I reached out.  Literally.  Reached outwards to seek validation or worth or attention.  Reached out to others, toxic friends, self-sabotage with especially men who I would allow to deem my value as a person.  And in truth, in a sense, that’s what your twenties are about: to just go out there, get out there, put yourself out there.  I traveled as much as I could, met as many people as I could and collected as many life experiences as I could.  And so congratulations, yes you did all that. 

10+ Years Ago.  Age 27.  VFest.  Chelmsford, UK Countryside.  August 2004.
On-location globe-trotting for FOX's The Rebel Billionaire: Richard Branson's Quest for the Best.

But here’s a secret, Drama Queen of Broken Hearts: all those men that you were committed to making happy, all the ways you kept changing yourself to please them…you’ll learn to change yourself for yourself in the years ahead, and no one else.  You’ll learn how to be comfortable in your own skin.  You’ll learn how to like being alone and hell, yes unbelievable, you’ll even wish you had more alone time!  And one day, which seems like a forever that will be never to you now, one day you’ll find yourself with a man that doesn’t want you to change at all.  And that for once, he’s the one making sure it’s YOU that is happy.  Hold out for that one.  He makes all those other assholes worth it.  Almost.  Ha.

But I need to write to also tell you the next ten years is not some Oprah spiritual self-help walk in the park journey full of A-HA moments; there are also many UH-OH moments ahead.  There will be many mistakes, and great loss and suffering and extreme ups and downs and milestones and rockbottoms.  There will be disease and unease and marriage and miscarriage and infidelity and near-divorce and birth and death.  You will drop to your knees in pain, in submission and in prayer.  You will stop wondering and believing and hoping altogether.  You will stop writing.  Don’t stop.  I’m writing to you ten years ahead, telling you that you should have NEVER stopped writing.  Pen to paper, all those empty journals, pages that should have been filled of your pain and your joy, your triumph and your tragedy, ALL those experiences were lived, yes.  But they should have also been written in your voice – however fresh and frail, so passionate and poignant, at the time.  Instead of now, ten years later, struggling to recollect like some crunchy crispy handfuls of sepia-colored leaves off a tree after the changing of the foliage has passed and the chill of winter is about to set in.  I’ve chosen ten years later at last to force my mind, my soul, my spirit, my voice, but more importantly my pen/THE WRITER in me to reawaken and return to those vibrant hues and shades and colors of memory, like leaves in the Falltime, when everything was changing and turning over, slightly still the same but also very different.  This writer is no longer hibernating in a winter without words.  So write write WRITE (!!!) and read these lessons I’ve learned and revel in the truth that is your twentysomething self.  Because don’t worry, you end up a pretty bad-ass woman, if I don’t say so myself.  ;)

Love, Me.

10+ Years Ago.  Age 27.  Necker Island, BVIs.  September 2004.
Branson's Private Island in the Caribbean.
On-location globe-trotting for FOX's The Rebel Billionaire: Richard Branson's Quest for the Best.

A decade ago.  Age 28.  Winter 2005.  Lake Tahoe.
All In.  "Chardonnay" gets her nickname.  Texas Hold 'Em.
(Clearly this was a long time ago due to my choice in wine.)

10+ Years Ago.  Age 27.  Necker Island, BVIs.  September 2004.
Branson's "Office:" The Hammock.
On-location globe-trotting for FOX's The Rebel Billionaire: Richard Branson's Quest for the Best.

More Lessons for my Younger Self:

*You are good enough.

*This isn’t rockbottom.  You will hit rockbottom.  And then you will come out on top.

*“Every little thing’s gonna be alright.” -- Bob Marley

*The money will always come from somewhere.

*Most of the people who are your friends now, won’t be your friends much longer.  Like an outdated haircut, or some trendy fashion item, there are just some people you outgrow.

*Stop playing the victim.

*Pray. To Whomever or Whatever, Whenever, Wherever or However.  (Like my favorite Maxwell song.)  Just. Pray.  The power and impact of it all will astonish you.

THOUGHT: What will my 48 year old self write to me today/my current 38 year old self??  Whoa.