motivational Archives - From the Write Side

Riffing On February

Oh, February, guardian of the gate between ice and thaw, you scamper in with promises and leave before your time. February may be the shortest month, but it carries weight. It is a time to celebrate love and presidents, hearts and history. Red is the color of the hour. Campaigns are waged for women's cardiac health, a reminder that women's heart problems have not always been treated with the same concern as men's. Often, our complaints were dismissed, our insistence that something was wrong ignored. [...]

By irvinjgdm|2021-01-31T17:52:09+00:00January 31st, 2021|Essays, Featured, motivational|0 Comments

While the fields are fallow…

January arrives with a dusting of snow, along with seed catalogs and clothing brochures featuring bikinis I no longer wear and island gear that mocks the winter creep of wind and cold. The former makes my mouth water for the produce so bountifully photographed on page after page, while the latter creates an unreasonable desire to pack a backpack and head on down to the Keys. Since my first trip to Florida's string of low-lying islands for a writers' conference, I have itched to return. [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-12-31T21:09:27+00:00December 31st, 2020|Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical|0 Comments

In This Giving Season…

It's snowing, and the child in me dances for joy. Being a December birthday girl, my earliest memories remain infused with the delight and wonder of snowfall, the way it covers all the imperfections we humans have created on the earth, the way it prepares us to believe in miracles. I realize this love of cold and snow is one of my eccentricities, but I refuse to surrender it. During my teaching career, this wintry month always created a special spirit in the classroom. Students [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-11-30T18:10:50+00:00November 30th, 2020|Essays, motivational, seasonal, Upcoming book|0 Comments

Let’s Dance!

The summer grows hotter. The world roils with the pandemic. I stretch the limits of my housebound sanctuary and, when the mood strikes, I dance. Visiting our grandchildren last weekend, I was struck by the eagerness of my five-year-old grandson to hold a dance party. Cooped inside due to heat and COVID, regular outdoor activities have been curtailed. I understand the need to move, to shake our legs and shake off the anxiety that rides us like a shawl these days. He found his father's [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-08-01T13:59:52+00:00August 1st, 2020|Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical, Uncategorized|0 Comments

A TOAST TO CHANGE

It happens every year...the rehashing of the months gone by, the anticipation of the ones to come. Many of us make resolutions. Many more just keep rolling down life's path, content to face the challenges as they come. Me...I'm a bit of a charge-ahead optimist, plotting stories and events as though each one will move me farther along on the journey I'm making. So, I don't make resolutions so much as set expectations. The end may justify the means, but it is the means that [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-01-28T20:25:28+00:00January 1st, 2020|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational|0 Comments

Wandering the Classical World

I'm back from my trip to Greece, but my heart remains in the space between the blue sky and the blue-on-blue sea, in the waters that birthed Poseidon, the mountains that hosted Zeus. Wherever you dig, the Greeks say, you uncover another glimpse of the ancient world.The soil coughs up ramparts and pottery, imparting truth and mystery in equal measure. I walked the streets of Athens, immersed in the bustle of city life. I sampled the cuisine at a street-side restaurant and contemplated the adventures [...]

By irvinjgdm|2019-05-31T13:07:19+00:00May 31st, 2019|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational|1 Comment

Lion Or Lamb?

Folk adages suggest that March, that sly, greening mix of Ides and shamrocks, comes in like a lion. Roaring with wind and bluster, the days extend tendrils of promise as spring tints the undergrowth, then settles like a lamb just in time for April to glide in on soggy shoes. Hmmm...reality doesn't always conform to this old saw, but we find comfort in the thought. Weary of wintry blasts, our hearts skip a little thinking about less restless days and milder temperatures. Of course, this [...]

By irvinjgdm|2019-02-28T16:31:09+00:00February 28th, 2019|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational, nature, philosophical|0 Comments

Mother, May I?

When we were kids, playing outside was a required activity. Our mother ordered us to leave the house and 'get some fresh air." Until we were old enough to have chores, that's exactly what we did. We claimed the clovered yards, the dandelioned spaces, the treed empty lots, establishing forts or excavating holes for marble games. We climbed construction equipment, acrobated across the beams of houses under construction, fished in mud puddles. Most of all, we organized games - tag, hide and seek, "Mother, May [...]

By irvinjgdm|2018-05-01T11:25:15+00:00May 1st, 2018|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational|1 Comment

Sharing Space… Literary Citizenship and the era of Me

It's so easy to be caught looking inward. Navel gazing has never been so attractive. The culture of entitlement that surrounds us paves a yellow brick road to the Emerald City of Envy and invites us to pamper ourselves, celebrate our own egos, and neglect that which doesn't touch us. Me, me, me scream the ads. "We're all deserving," suggest the self-help gurus. Mine is better than yours, sniff the armchair critics. Narcissus would be proud. Recently, one of my author friends posted a question [...]

By irvinjgdm|2018-02-01T01:38:06+00:00February 1st, 2018|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical|1 Comment

A December Manifesto: 2017

One. I am only one, but I have a voice. As a human being, as a citizen, as a child of the Creator, I must use that voice to speak out for good. Evil cannot be ignored or excused. Not for political gain. Not for corporate greed. Not out of apathy. In this season of peace, when all religions share hope, I must nourish the flame of that hope. More alike than we are different, a cut bleeds red on all our skins. A light [...]

By irvinjgdm|2017-12-03T17:26:03+00:00December 3rd, 2017|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical, seasonal|0 Comments