Me, in Concert
- At March 29, 2022
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Life, Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Me, in Concert
Being a beginner at 37, was I strong enough to fail?
This is from an essay I wrote on parenting for the July 2002 issue of Reader’s Digest. What a crazy time of life… three homeschooled daughters, part-time admin/vet tech work at our veterinary hospital plus getting my writing career going. Also, an average of 2.5 pets per capita in our house. Five people. Do that math.
I’d forgotten how hard it was to keep at something while having more failures than successes.
It was a marvellous time of life. Part of me misses being a young mother. A bigger part of me is so grateful for the memories, and that I’m in another stage of life I love just as much.
The main message? Don’t be afraid to fail. There’s more to be learned from failures, and continued trials, from practice, practice, practice, followed by that one magical success… than there is from easy success. (At least, that’s what I hear. Easy success hasn’t been my journey.)
So have a great day, my friends. Try something new. Tell me about your wonderful, spectacular, life-affirming fails. Repeat. And when that glorious, elusive success arrives, shout it to the mountaintops!
Original essay: copyright © Roxanne Snopek 2002
Photo credit: copyright © Chick Rice 2002
All Rights Reserved
Why be Vulnerable?
- At March 04, 2019
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Rox Reads, Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Why be vulnerable
… you might ask? Because that’s the key to connection.
Recently, I picked up a copy of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown. You know what they say about the teacher appearing when the student is ready? It feels as if this is the book landed in my sight-line at exactly the right moment.
It’s about vulnerability and transformation.
If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you know that one of my key-words is authenticity. I strive to tell the truth in my books, to dig into the real issues of a character, a relationship, and figure it out. I strive to be real, to be honest with myself and with others.
This is REALLY HARD. Because being honest, being authentic, means being vulnerable.
I’ve always secretly believed this desire for authenticity to be my super-power, however I’m extremely aware that vulnerability is not valued in much of our culture and that you have to have really good boundaries to remain safe, while being authentic and vulnerable. I’m not always that great at determining the people who are safe, the times and places where this part of me will be valued. Which means, I can get really hurt. And when I get hurt, I withdraw, like a turtle, into my shell.
I’ve spent a lot of time inside my shell. Note: it’s not a great place to be.
Brené Brown’s book, and her videos and TED talks, addresses this fear – terror really – that we all have of revealing our true selves… and being rejected. Her research is about the true power that lies within vulnerability, how we can’t fully engage in our own lives unless and until we embrace it.
I’ll tell you more as I learn more. In the meantime, watch this:
Roxanne Reads
Roxanne reads… oh yes, she does!
I joined the Goodreads Reading Challenge this year and set myself a goal to read 200 books. Actually, I clicked that number accidentally, then looked at it, shrugged and thought, “Maybe,” and left it. It probably won’t happen. Or, more likely, I’ll read them but forget to record them. But now I want to try.
Anyway, I want to tell you about the winners I’ve landed on so far this year. The first, by a landslide, is The Humans: A Novel by Matt Haig. It’s weird and wacky and entirely hilarious. It’s also profoundly moving, perceptive and thought-provoking. Read it.
When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal.
He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there.
Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” author Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.
The Orphan’s Tale: A Novel by Pam Jenoff. A very interesting WWII story, set against the unusual backdrop of the circus world.
A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan’s Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival
Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep… When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night.
Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another—or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything.
Waiting On You (The Blue Heron Series) by Kristan Higgins. This a comfort re-read for me. The whole series just makes me happy, which I often need this time of year. So, thank you, Ms. Higgins!
Is your first love worth a second chance…?
Colleen O’Rourke is in love with love…just not when it comes to herself. Most nights, she can be found behind the bar at the Manningsport, New York, tavern she owns with her twin brother, doling out romantic advice to the lovelorn, mixing martinis and staying more or less happily single. See, ten years ago, Lucas Campbell broke her heart…an experience Colleen doesn’t want to have again, thanks. Since then, she’s been happy with a fling here and there, some elite-level flirting and playing matchmaker to her friends.
But a family emergency has brought Lucas back to town, handsome as ever and still the only man who’s ever been able to crack her defenses. Seems like maybe they’ve got some unfinished business waiting for them—but to find out, Colleen has to let her guard down, or risk losing a second chance with the only man she’s ever loved.
I’m adding this one too, even though I finished it last year. It’s on sale right now and a tremendous read. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel by Balli Kaur Jaswal is a “lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages.”
Every woman has a secret life . . .
Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a “creative writing” course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.
Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.
As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s “moral police.” But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.
What about you? Read anything great lately?