Yell At The Trees #advice

On the ride home from work yesterday, I gave a piece of advice to one of my slugs when he mentioned he had a bad day at work and punched his desk.

Smiling, I stared at the traffic-filled highway and almost giggled when I said, "Don't punch your desk. Go home and yell at the trees."

He laughed, but I meant it. Work is the last place you want to show your anger. Well, really anger gets you nowhere, but that's a different story.

So, when a friend called me and shared an experience that had me upset for her, I decided to take my advice and "Go yell at the trees."

But when I stepped into the woods beside my house, I couldn't scream. I couldn't vent my frustrations. All I could do was listen. So that's what I did. I listened to the trees, the bugs, the leaves shifting in the breeze. Cicadas vibrated and made their little buggy noises so loudly it sounded like a car alarm going off.

Squirrels scampered through underbrush, rushing from tree to tree as they took their prizes home.

Fence lizards ran in circles around the gnarly tree trunks.

Floral smells filled the warm, humid air, mixing in with the musty smell of damp leaves and dirt.

This path is featured in Shattered Secrets. This path is what Abigail walks down in the summers with Derick. Though the story starts out in the winter. This path is what sparks my creativity. My imagination runs endlessly when I'm out there.

I picture sword fights. I picture butterflies and fairies. I'm inspired by nature. I love nature.

I definitely don't want to yell at it, but at the same time, I feel as though the trees wouldn't mind. They would listen. They'd shift and try reaching out to me to tell me everything's going to be okay. They'd whisper encouragement. Maybe sprinkle a little pollen (yes, there was sneezing yesterday).

Nature is forgiving, kind, gentle. Ironically, nature is also harsh, brutal, and holds endless power. Exactly the kind of friend I like having.

So, the point of all this? When you're having a bad day, when you need someone to yell at, when you need a friend and no one else is around, go listen to the trees.

See what nature sparks in you. For me, it's definitely not anger.

What do you do when you have a bad day?

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Kissing Under a Parasite

I'm sure everyone knows the age-old tradition of kissing under the mistletoe, but maybe not everyone knows that you're actually kissing under a parasite!

You heard me.

This morning my coworker gave a few of us a Christmas mistletoe, complete with glitter and bows. It was a thoughtful gift, totally unexpected, which is the kind of thing that makes Christmas so special. When we asked her where she bought the live plants, she said she didn't have to; it's a fungus and grows wild in the tops of trees. So, she and her daughters went around their back yard and shot them down.

She shot them down!

Okay, that's not really the point, but I did take a second to laugh about that. I love my coworker; she's so real!

So, my boss and I looked at each other and said, "So we've been kissing under fungus all these years?"

I added, "Hope it's not contagious."

After we went our separate ways, I decided to research this fungal infection of trees, and sure enough, she was almost right. Mistletoe is actually a parasitic plant, sucking the nutrients out of the trees they grow in. The little infector of deciduous things can actually kill their host.

Sigh.

The more I read, the more I couldn't figure out where this kissing tradition came into play. Wikipedia says it had something to do with Christianity, though the reasoning is vague. The most definitive answer said the custom may be of Scandinavian origin.

Seriously. We have kissed under mistletoe for how long, and no one knows why?!

If you go back, pre-Jesus and pre-kissing, I kind of like the mythological uses of mistletoe:

• - a remedy for barrenness in animals and an antidote to poison;


• - a representation of divine male essence (and thus romance, fertility and vitality), possibly due to a resemblance between the berries and semen;


• - in Prose Edda, Baldr is killed by his brother, the blind god Höðr, by way of a mistletoe projectile;


• - mistletoe is believed to be The Golden Bough of Aeneas, ancestor of the Romans.

Whatever the real purpose of mistletoe may be, tonight I will go home and hang mine and I will kiss my husband, and I'm sure my children will giggle and try to avoid the "kissing parasite" as much as possible.

What about you? Do you hang mistletoe? Will you think differently now that you know what it really is?

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Politicians and Reviews

Reviews have a way of bringing an author a lot of joy and also a lot of pain. No author likes to hear that our words pissed off a reader. And I definitely know we can't stand when someone rips every fiber of our book to shreds, saying it's worthless, horrible, the worst thing ever.

But this is reality. And if you read what I recently wrote about perception, you'll know that everyone's reality is different.

Here's an analogy for all my author friends, something to help you get a little perspective on why the entire world doesn't love your book, something I like to laugh about because I work in politics!

Enjoy!

Look at politicians. They speak at a public event, to a crowd of thousands. Half the crowd cheers and says "HELL YEAH! You ROCK. You're going to save us, bring change, rule the world, end Darkness!"

 

The other half of the crowd goes, "What the *bleep*? Idiots! You're all idiots! Did you HEAR what he just said? He's going to enslave us, you fools!"

 

Everyone is at the same event, listening to the same politician, but everyone hears his words a bit differently.

 

Think about that next time you get a bad review. People are unique, so you can hardly expect everyone to love your book!

 

Happy Friday!

 

<3 Krystal

 

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