“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”
———- attributed to Martha Graham
One of the coolest rejection emails I ever received (and there were tons of them) was sent to me by Mileta Schaum. I can’t even remember what she rejected of my work, but I will never forget these words of encouragement she passed along to me from Martha Graham.
To all of my fellow bloggers, writers, authors, poets, and all my cyberspace amigas and sports fans – I am passing this forward to you with my fervent wishes to keep your channels open.
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About Sheila Morris
Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother.
In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality.
She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award in 2008. Her writings have been included in various anthologies - most recently the 2017 Saints and Sinners Literary Magazine. Her latest book, Four Ticket Ride, was released in January, 2019.
She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.
That’s a great quote.
Often, I don’t end up writing or doing my thing with local politics because it feels like I don’t have anything planned at the moment that is good enough. I try to remember that it’s never going to get better – that nothing at all is going to get done – unelss I do SOMETHING and start somewhere.
That quote sums it up better than I can say it!
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Thanks, Harry…you are right. Go for it.
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Sage advice!
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