A Speech that almost happened!

"Most great people have achieved their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure." ~Napoleon Hill

Timing is everything.

My speech was a great one. It was tweaked, streamlined, power-pointed, and ready. I showed up, but it didn’t happen.

We were invited to our pastor’s house for lunch. I was telling the four at the table that this speech I prepared for a writer’s conference was burning inside of me to be told.  I said, “I’m fertile to tell my little speech.”

My Sweet Al’s eyebrows went up, his eyes started blinking and twinkling.

The pastor’s wife said, “WOW! We have a extra bedroom in the back.”

I said, “I’ll take a rain check. I’d rather give my speech. I’ll make it quick.”

The pastor asked, “What’s it about?”

“I’m glad you asked. It’s about the Rhythm of Time for a Writer. It’s that moment when you’re prepared, you’re in alignment with the universe, the market is ready, your words flow onto the sheet of paper, and someone gets excited about it.

It’s not about your age — you might be a late bloomer.

It’s not about your education —you might have barely graduated from high school because you were too busy looking at the boys.

It’s not about how ready you are — you might have lived your whole life thinking you were ready.

It’s not about the sale of your book — only your friends and family have bought it. It’s not about money — you might be living on a limited income.

It’s not where you live — you might be living on the Lower Blanco at your computer.

It’s all in the timing.

For a mystery writer, it’s when to hold back that final clue to solve the mystery. For a humorous writer it’s about rhythm in your humor and voice. I don’t know if it’s a learned instinct or you’re just born with it. It’s all about timing.

I have said many times and many ways, “I think it’s my time.” and nothing happened. “It feels right,” and I’m still on the launching pad. “It’s right around the corner,” and it wasn’t there. “I feel like I’m in a Sweet Spot,” and the ball goes out of the court.

One thing I’ve never said is, “It’s not my time.”

Here’s my little speech that didn’t happen. “The Rhythm of Time for Writers.” Rhythm of Time will bring your Place, Vocation and your Goal. There is an appointed time for you. You need to be ready!

Jeremiah 9:7 says even the birds have a vocation and know their time, but my people don’t. Wow! Even nature chastises us, because we’re not in tune with the One who made us, and what we are called to do.

Migratory birds each have a different vocation. The stork, returns to Palestine, and has been described as the “stork in the heavens.” It refers to the immense height at which they fly during migration.

The turtle-dove returns and is the sure sign of spring. It represents new life.

The crane and swallow is all about whooping and trumpeting that rings through the night air in spring.

The swift has a shrilling scream. There is no bird as more conspicuous by the suddenness of its return than the swift.

Birds are free to roam through illimitable regions of air, the high-flying stork, the turtle-dove, the swift and the crane all keep to their true course, not dropping down tempted by the attractions of leafy vales or fruitful gardens. They don’t turn aside terrified by the horrors of high mountains, lonely deserts, stormy seas, or my Sweet Al’s shotgun. They reach their destination in punctual obedience to the mysterious law of their nature. They migrate by their inward law, called instinct.

For man, it comes as a mandate of duty, an impulse in the conscience, a way to clearly perceive what we should be doing on this earth, our place, our vocation, and our voice.

So, that Sunday afternoon after the meal, I said to the wife of our pastor, you and I are like cranes and swallows. I’m not going to apologize anymore about who I am. I get too excited, I get pushy, passionate, over-the-top, and even loud at times. I’ve got to write it, talk about it, and paint it. It’s who I am. I think it’s my time.

Final Brushstroke! So there, I told it! I finally gave my speech. Was it the right time? Who knows? Someone out there might be waiting for things to turn around, for their ship to come in, or their book to be published. When it’s your time, be ready, be confident, and keep showing up. When you show up, things happen. It’s all in the timing.

When the Lights went out on a Friday Night

"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." ~Christopher Reeve

The yellow flag was tossed higher than usual into the black sky. By the distance of the flag, I figured the referee was really angry. When it came down, the lights went out Friday Night at the Golden Peaks Stadium in Pagosa Springs. It was the last game at home and the last game for this senior.

“What happened?” The fans stood stunned as one of the players pulled off his helmet and jersey and was asked to leave the game before second half.

This young man has played football with his teammates since fifth grade. This is his team. After review of the film, all consensus was, “The punishment didn’t fit the crime.” It didn’t matter, it was done.

When the Friday Night Lights went out, was the game over? No, it’s the next step to proving your character — what you’re made of and how you handle an unfortunate situation. It’s part of life and it’s all about learning who you are under fire. It’s how you’re going to handle the next day, the next opportunity, and the next challenge.

I’ve said it a thousand times over my lifetime, “I needed that lesson, I don’t know how I would have learned it any other way. I didn’t want it to happen that way, but it did. I’m better for what I’ve gone through, than not. I’ve also had to apologize to many people who I let down and who were counting on me. I’m sure I’ll have to do it many more times.

I have always believed it’s how you deal with the challenge. Grandson-You’ve already stepped up and owned your mistake. You apologized to your parents, to your team and your coaches.  Your size makes you visible, threatening and vulnerable. Just know, it’s the size of your heart that makes you so much bigger, that’s what will prove who you really are.

Being a leader is not something you ever asked for, it’s part of your DNA. It’s in you to see a wrong and step up and challenge the situation. It’s in you, to go your own way, because you have a purpose and you know where and what you want it to be. You’ve also planned how you are going to get there. You are your own agent, but life will come in and challenge every decision you make, life will test you to see if you are really the man you say you are.

When you are a born leader, it’s in you to be passionate over something, so passionate that it will drive you to be out in front. The problem with being out in front, you become more visible to everyone around you. At that moment you don’t think of the people who are following you or looking up to you, but they are.

When you are a leader, there are those who secretly want you to fail. When you lead, it challenges people around you to step up. Some don’t want to be reminded that they could do better. How you handle things, proves to them, that you belong in that place as a leader.

It’s after the game and the next day, you will have a new challenge. You had a meeting with a college football coach who has been looking at you and your videos throughout your high school years. They are considering you to be a part of their team next year.  You’ve lost hours of playing time on the field. Have you lost credibility? It stands to be seen.

Are you going to get out on the field on Monday morning and practice with your team and help them in the next game, even though you have to sit on the sideline? Yes, you have.

Your football team came to your house for an already planned-end-of-the-season party, on Sunday night. The coaches, according to the rulebook couldn’t come, but your teammates did. Sixteen boys played a video football tournament, had a wiener roast, skits and bonded. Too bad, the rules didn’t afford the coaches who have admire you and who love you, the opportunity to bond and see what the team is made of under adversity. Their loss!

The team went home Sunday night with Mohawks, challenged to play their best with their rival, Bayfield on Friday night. You’re still a part of the team and a part of their hope. You’re still a part of Pagosa Pride. You’re a Pirate.

Final Brushstroke! Does your parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, teammates and friends still love you? More now, than ever before. Your Uncle Stephen wrote: My nephew, the strongest man I know next to my father. A born leader who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, carrying the burden of all, because he can. If only I was half the man this 18 year old is, I can't imagine how much further I could be in life.

Some times the loss is the real win. Sometimes that's all we need, to know how to move beyond ourselves to win a much greater prize. I sure love you "mini me".

Todays battle is tomorrows victory.

I was not one of the Chosen

I was not one of the Chosen. No, I’m not Jewish, but I was chosen for jury duty, and then sent home!

I received my notice, “You’ve been chosen.” I hung it on the nail and told my Sweet Al, don’t let me forget. I went on about my life. The day came, it was the day to show up for jury duty.

First I had to get my life in order. I cleared the week. I called Wyndham, “Do I have any art classes for this week?”

“Your classes are full. They are counting on you. They come back every year just to take classes with you. You are popular among our guests. You need to be here.”

Of course I needed to be there, plus I could see my money taking wings and flying away. No income for two weeks. Drats! What does a good citizen of Archuleta County do?

Do I plan a pretend vacation, be out of the country while hiding in my living room, or be in the hospital with a made-up problem? I tried to think of a good excuse, I didn’t have one. I had to show up.

I had been invited over to the neighbor’s house for dinner the day before the trial. Al was in Albuquerque and I went alone. I told them I needed to teach those classes. They were counting on me, I was counting on the money. I should go teach.

The neighbor said, “You can’t do that. If you don’t show up for jury duty, the sheriff will come after you.”

“They wouldn’t do that?”

“Yes, I’m serious. You’ll get in a lot of trouble.”

One of the guests from California said, “Where we live, they were having so much trouble getting the people to show up for jury duty, they gave $1,500 fines.”

“That’s terrible. I can’t afford that.”

“They will send the sheriff to get you.”

I laughed,  “I can see it now, I will be teaching the art students how to paint a color wheel, police cars will drive up with sirens, the sheriff will come with handcuffs, and take me away.”

The guests will be crying and yelling, “We paid for the class. Give us our money back. We came to paint.” They will storm Wyndham’s Corporate Management. I’ll be in big trouble.

“Not as much trouble as if you don’t show up for jury duty.” My neighbor reassured me.

I was on a roll, I was still laughing. “I will be wearing an orange jumpsuit to match Al’s. It’ll be like in the old days when we were going steady and wore matching shirts. Wait a minute, our neighbor, who moved away, and who sold the orange jumpsuit to Al, asked for it back. It’s been sent to Arizona. That’s not going to happen. I guess I’ll have to go.”

The courthouse was overflowing with perspective jurors. I sat down by a lady who writes. Things were looking my way. I had a captive audience. She told me about her book, and I told her about my book. Two hours went by in a clip. I bought her book. I was in my own world. I could handle this. Surely jury duty couldn’t be that hard.

I talked to the other people who also waited. Several of the contractors were sweating bullets. This time of the year was crucial for them. They were working like crazy getting jobs done before winter.

They knew when winter came their work would slow down. They needed these next two weeks. This was money for their families. One of them had a roof to put on a customer’s house, and he had a crew to run. His money, just like mine, was also taking wings and flying away. The weather was coming in. It wasn’t looking good for them.

I was thinking, There are people I know who love to sit in court and listen to all the details. Bring them in they don’t have anything to do. They have time on their hand, I don’t.

The first day, we came and went and came back. The next day, we sat waiting, and then I heard my name called. I forgot about money, my book, being funny, or what was going on outside of the courtroom.

“Is Betty J. Slade in the courtroom?” I stepped into the juror’s box. I became a perspective juror. Everything changed.  It became serious. I was on trial. A man’s life was in my hands. I raised my hand and solemnly swore before God I would do what the courts required of me to the best of my ability.

We were asked, “Could we be fair and judge honestly?”

Some perspective jurors answered as a matter of fact, “Yes, I can. I’m honest. I can separate myself from the trial.”

I said, “I think so.” I had to do some real soul searching. Could I really judge another person’s fate? Am I of the best one for this job?

Everyone in the courtroom was under the gun. The Prosecutor, the juror, the police force, the witnesses, the judge and the defendant, everyone was on trial. As citizens of Archuleta County, we were all responsible for the wellbeing of other citizens in this town.

Final Brushstroke! I learned a lot about the court system, the law, myself and the responsibility of a juror. Being a juror is an awesome task, I don’t envy anyone who is chosen. When I was dismissed, even though I was kicking and screaming before that day, I felt like I had been asked to leave a secret circle. That is when I wanted to stay and become the best citizen I could be.

Who Takes Care of the Caregiver?

Oh Me!  I was the closest one around, and I was expected to take care of the My Sweet Al when he had surgery on his foot. Wait a minute, he’s the Care Giver. He takes care of us.

My daughters said, “Mother, you need to take care of Daddy. He won’t be able to do anything for two weeks, and you need to be there for him. Wipe your schedule clean. He needs you.”

“Of course I will,” I said, but in my mind I was thinking, Do I have to? Isn’t there anyone else free to sit in the hospital? I have things to do. If I have to go, I’ll take my projects with me. I can work while Al is in the doctor’s office, I’ll write on my study workbook for the Red Candle while he’s in surgery.

Al and I went down two weeks before the operation. We sat in the doctor’s office and I watched Al react to the nurses. The little girl said he needed an EKG. He argued with her. He told her that he had an EKG three months earlier when his brother insisted he go to his brother’s doctor for a check up.

Al said a famous television doctor had already checked out his heart, and it was fine.

She wasn’t impressed.

It was Dr. Ramos, (the pretty people’s doctor.)

The little assistant looked blank.

Al reminded her again that his brother is a good friend with the famous doctor who is on television. Surely she knew him.

I said to Al, “This young girl doesn’t know about your brother and his famous friend, Dr. Ramos. If it was Dr. McSteamy she would care.”

Al said, “It’s a racket. They just want to make another $200.00 for another EKG and I just had one.”

I said, “Al, the insurance will cover it, let her do it.” I’m thinking, I just dropped my supplementary insurance, because I refused to pay $300.00 a month for myself. I just went to the funeral of my cousin who is my age and who dropped dead of a heart attack. My father died at 39 years old from a heart attack, my older brother has had 4 heart attacks, and my younger brother just had a heart attack last year. It’s in my line and Al’s arguing about a heart checkup.  I should be up on the table getting an EKG.

The day of the surgery, our daughter said she would take off work and drive down to Albuquerque with us if we could make it in one day.

I said, “Great, he has to be at the hospital at 2:30 in the afternoon, and he will be operated at 4:30. He can’t eat or drink anything. As soon as he is operated on, we will drive home.”

We went to the hospital and I checked Al in. The nurse wanted to know if I wanted to wait with him during the pre-op. I said, “No. I’m going shopping. I’ll be back when he comes out of surgery.”

She looked at me funny.

I said, “You know, I’m from Pagosa,  I need to make a Costco run, Sally’s, Farmer’s Market, and the usual.”

My daughter and I got into the car, and we headed for the mall. I said, “Poor Daddy, I didn’t want to eat in front of him, now we can get a cheese on a stick, then to Costco for pizza and an ice cream chocolate dipped bar with almonds. We’ll save some pizza for Al, he can eat in the car on the way home.”

I was there when Al came out of surgery.  The nurse went over the details and I nodded. I propped Al up in the car and we drove home.

I’m home with Al, and I’m debating whether I should go to church or not. I e-mailed a friend, “If I was the dutiful wife I would stay home and take care of Al. But if I’m being religious, I’ll be in church. I can leave the TV remote, phone, newspaper, hunting magazines, his pain pills and a drink of water by his bed. I would only be gone three hours. I haven’t decided.”

She e-mailed back, it read, “Ha ha ha ha...I say do what Love says!!!  Be with that sweet man and enjoy yourself!!!”

I wrote her back, “I guess that means, I need to stay home.”

I’ve stayed home with my Sweet Al. I left the house for fifteen minutes and that evening my daughter came in laughing. “You wouldn’t believe it, as groggy as Daddy was, he was shopping for shoes. He read in the newspaper that we had a sale on flip-flops and he called my work to see if we had flip-flops in his size.”

My daughter said she thought it was so funny and told her sister, Allison and they were still laughing. Allison said, he is going into winter and he doesn’t need flip-flops. You know, it’s that shoe fetish thing.

Al clicked through the TV channels and landed on Home Shopping. Oh me, I better keep a better eye on my Sweet Al. No telling, the UPS man will be bringing packages to our door.  I’ve got to keep him away from that Shopping Channel.

He’s safe watching Nascar, Ducks Dynasty, The Hub and the Turkey Calling shows. He can’t get into too much trouble, hopefully.

Al still has his hospital bracelet on, and I should be wearing my WWJD bracelet to remind me what would Jesus do. I think I failed another test.

Final Brushstroke! Al’s been too busy taking care of all of us. I haven’t had a chance to watch him incapacitated. I’m waiting for him to get well. I don’t like this Care Giving stuff. Plus he has enough shoes and right now, he only has one foot to walk on.

Whiskey took Thunder with her.

A phone call sparked this article.

The lady on the other end of the phone said, “This is Patty from Kansas. Let me explain why I’m calling. It’s been a mystery to our family until we read your article. Do you remember our garage sale?

How could I forget it? Al came home with a whole truckload of things, which he didn’t need.

Patty explained. “We took all the leftovers to the thrift store when we finalized our garage sale. I asked my mother to call the thrift store to see if my Dad’s orange coveralls were there. I felt this twinge when we closed up their house and left Pagosa but the only thing I felt sad about was Dad’s coveralls. My Dad’s passed away and I always remember seeing him in those orange coveralls. They have Ken written on the pocket. When I read that Sweet Al has my Dad’s orange coveralls, I was thrilled to know where they were. Could I get them back?”

“Of course you can have them, both pairs. Al won’t mind, I’ll send them to you. I was afraid he was going to wear them to town and be picked up as an escapee from the county jail. Al would try to explain he wasn’t Ken.”

“I’m relieved. Thank you so much I’ll send postage and my address. I really appreciate it.”

I told her, “It’s interesting you called. We were just speaking about you the day before. Al also bought a dog collar from your garage sale. Our daughter took my Sweet Al to Albuquerque to see the doctor. They decided to take Whiskey with them, since Whiskey needed her shots and the vet had all of her records. She’s was a city dog.

“While they were there, I got a call. Al was just beside himself. He lost his prize hunting dog. Whiskey escaped over the fence and she was lost. They scouted the neighborhood in Albuquerque for three hours, no Whiskey! They called the humane society and the Animal Rescue. No one had called in about a lost dog.

“The next morning I got another call from Al, he was relieved. A man from the Animal Rescue called Al. They had found a dog by the description of Whiskey. The problem was, this dog’s name was Thunder, a male dog, and had your old Pagosa phone number.

“Al explained to the man the collar belonged to the neighbor’s dog whose name was Thunder and he had bought it in a garage sale. She is wearing Thunder’s collar, it has the neighbor’s phone number, but she’s mine and will come if you call her Whiskey.

When Al and our daughter arrived home they re-told the story to me, I said to Al, “Why would you put that collar on Whiskey?”

“It’s a nice collar.”

“No more garage sales for you.”

Final Brushstroke! Ken’s orange color coveralls and Thunder’s dog collar almost landed Al in jail and Whiskey in the Animal Shelter as a permanent resident. It’s those garage sale finds that will get you in trouble every time. And I have learned you might own that great garage sale treasure, but if it has someone else’s name on it, it’s not worth the stolen identity.