JESSICA F. HINTON

Beautiful Difference

2013-05-13T17:21:27Z

I’m working on teaching my three-year old that she doesn’t have to be a princess to be wonderful and that just because the big girls at the park don’t listen to their mothers, that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t listen to me. I’m teaching her, now, about difference and through that, I’m learning about difference myself and how for much of my life, I was too afraid to be anything but the things that were the same as everyone else.

I just wanted to fit in, through my teens and twenties and when I was in college and when I started blogging. So, to be the same, I did what everyone else did and lived with lumps in my throat, in fear, that anyone would see through my facade of decided “sameness.”

But I am different. We are all different. And we should all be okay and celebrate our differences in conversations and dialogues about who we are and what we want for ourselves, our children, and the world because in showing ourselves as different we learn that even in our variations, really, we are more naturally… alike.

So today, I’m showing my oldest toddler images of women who play violins and talking to her about a woman I know who is a rocket scientist. I do this while learning through doing the things that make me, as I want her to be, beautifully different.

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10 “Lean In” Quotes for All Women

2013-04-25T19:05:47Z

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Lean In

2013-04-22T19:34:33Z

I said I wouldn’t, but I am reading Sheryl Sandberg’s (Facebook’s COO) “Lean In.” I started a week ago after my sister called to tell me that it was THE book that changed her life. After hearing so much about it in the media, I didn’t think it was a book that I could possibly find relevant or useful in my everyday life as a mom and writer, but so far, it has been relevant and useful. And, with one chapter left, I can say that I am really enjoying it. What’s the saying? “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover or your own defensiveness about your choices as a woman? Yes. I think that applies here.

Have you read Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In”? Did you enjoy it?

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Write beautiful things

2013-04-15T17:57:19Z

I think as a self-identified “new” writer, my writings were colored in my own insecurities and doubts, doubts about myself, the world, and how others would receive me.

One of my biggest insecurities that I had was that I was not good enough and that I needed to do a lot of extraneous stuff to justify my existence and right to call myself a “writer.”

I wrote a lot then, mostly for blogs, and tried to build a platform and stay connected and do all the other things I was told. And I did these things not really because I wanted to. I did these things because I thought I had to.

And I did what I was told instead of what I felt because I was afraid, mostly, of being forgotten, that my writings were never good enough to stand on their own. I convinced myself I needed a “tap dance” routine, a gimmick that I performed regularly to keep an audience interested. And I told myself that keeping an audience interested was what I had to do, or else I would fade into oblivion and my dreams of writing something great would die.

There are many writers online and with the economy in the state it’s in, writing has become a desired profession by many. There are many who craft sentences and tell stories and do this work with the hopes of being paid for it. But there’s only one you, I’ve realized. And so long as you write things that are beautiful, that is enough. You don’t need to be in every online publication to be BIG. You need to write what you wish and ensure that you are writing from beauty rather than that uglier place of self-doubt and fear of being forgotten.

Every year, my family and I go to the Cherry Blossom festivities in Washington, DC, as do thousands of other people from all around the world.

The flowers that attract us are the same.

They hang and are of a blushing pink and white color. They smell the same and feel the same in your hands. The trees are the same. They are dark and windy and so picturesque.

In looking at them, I was reminded of myself as a writer. These trees attract thousands not because they promise to be different. They attract thousands because they are always beautiful. They are just themselves and that’s enough for people to want to see them, to travel miles each year to take pictures in front of them.

The trees are beautiful and that’s enough.

So, to any new writer, I say, just write things that are beautiful. And it will always be the beautiful things you’ve written, the truthful things you’ve written that you should hope will one day define you as a writer, not how many publications you made it in or how many followers you have on Twitter or Facebook or any of the other channels that you may have been told you need to be on to “make it.”

Write beautiful things and you will find that rather than “making it,” you will look at your feet and see you’ve already arrived.

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Old Clothes

2013-04-10T11:54:55Z

In sorting through their baby and toddler clothes the other day, and in putting them away, in boxes I purchased, I was reminded of writing.

I was reminded how, through writing, we’re given the opportunity to sort through things, to put things where we think they should belong, and uncover things, things that have since been lost from our everyday memories.

Having gone through this twice with clothes and many times in my writings, I can say that these processes can be surprising, at times, in that you never know where you’ll “end up” when it’s all done with. You always assume going into it that you’ve moved on from the past. It is just the past, after all. You assume that you’re just sorting, digging through and will come out, in the end, unscathed. But in holding them and recalling what once was, you hear stories that give you reason to become invested, to remember and feel…something.

It wasn’t her baby clothes that made me nostalgic. It was the clothes from her toddlerhood, that time when she was speaking and becoming this person who cared about what they looked like and could form these, seemingly, complex associations with her clothes and those intangible things called “feelings.” Her yellow dress she twirled in as a princess. The white canvas shorts she despised. That conversation/”argument” we had about her brown skirt. It was getting too short, but she wanted it anyway because it made her feel “pretty.”

These clothes carry words and have memories of the person who first wore them, my first born. But now, or yesterday, in sorting through them, I kept having to remind myself that they will have new memories and words with the new body that will wear them, my second born.

She will speak in them and tell me about them and how they make her feel. “I feel like a princess!” “They’re itchy.” I don’t want this string here!” And if they last another year, we will do this all again. Recycle clothes. Put them in boxes when they are “finished” and wait for them to be used again, loved again, given meaning, again. The cycles will repeat themselves. The wash and rinse cycles and the cycles of meaning I’ll attach to these pieces of cloth as a mother and writer…they’ll repeat themselves.

And in the end, or when we’re all done with this, they’ll just be clothes with layered voices that will speak only to me about where they’ve been. They’ll have stories and memories that I’ll recall like my childhood in my own writings and tell, again and again.

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I am a student

2013-04-08T20:06:07Z

My high school experience was unfortunate, colored mostly by bad hair, poor clothing choices, and social awkwardness that prevented me from really taking myself serious.

I can’t say I liked high school, but I really liked college and graduate school because with all those things out of the way, I could enjoy just being a student.

I’m kind of a big geek, and I’m not saying this to be facetious. I was one of those students who looked forward to class and studying and tests. I didn’t have much of a social life because I’ve always been a bit of a bore and always too concerned, usually, overly concerned with what became of my professional future.

I’ve changed since motherhood. I don’t take myself as seriously and think less of the future as this thing that I should constantly panic and obsess over.

I’m older and have three children, but I still like learning new things and hearing new perspectives and being asked to state my opinion and write something down.

I love to learn. It makes me happy.

With motherhood, I have learned that in order to take part more in my love for learning, I have to create opportunities for myself to be a student. I have to make time for reading. I have to make time for writing. I have to make time for doing the things that make me happy as a woman. So, I do make time.

I’m taking a writing class now and have plans to take a class in photography and sewing and, maybe, cake decorating soon after I finish. I can’t say that I expect any tangible rewards at the end of all my self-paced “education” in things that interest me, I’m just enjoying the process and how I feel right now. And at this point in my life, that’s enough.

When’s the last time you took a class or workshop in something that you enjoyed? What kind of class/workshop did you take?

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Words to Inspire

2013-04-04T19:49:28Z

source

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Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

2013-04-03T20:01:33Z

I didn’t know that I had a writing comfort zone. I assumed, when I starting pitching myself nationally that in writing about motherhood and parenting I was only writing what I wanted to write.

And I was (and I am) writing what I want to write when I talk(ed) about these subjects. I am doing this while also sticking to what feels most comfortable. And since I would never allow myself to make that distinction, I stayed there, or in my comfort zone, because I had convinced myself that this was, after all, all that I wanted….even though it wasn’t.

Stepping outside of what feels comfortable. We should do what we feel most comfortable with because usually that’s what we think we’re best at. But, sometimes, it’s necessary to step outside of what, immediately, feels comfortable to us and try something different for the sake of self evolvement and growth.

When you do this, you will often feel uncertain. But, I’ve learned that sometimes it’s a good thing to live in uncertainty if that uncertainty is rooted in fear.

Sometimes we must feel uncomfortable to understand parts of ourselves that aren’t readily apparent, our insecurities, our fears, our anxieties, our true selves, our wants and desires.

Sometimes we must learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and learn, from that place, to continue on because the alternative of just staying isn’t working anymore.

So, today, I wrote a short story about a girl who wore red and throughout my entire time writing, I kept bumping my head up against this voice telling me, “This makes no sense! You’re wasting your time! Why are you doing this, anyway?” This voice is not unfamiliar, and I normally do ignore it, but usually in my writings, I don’t.

Usually, or when “she” gets particularly loud, I stop and start writing again with something that feels comfortable.

But, today, I persisted and I hope you will, too, in your writing and in your life. Ignore that voice that says you should stop and just keep going. Keep writing. Keep dancing. Keep at it until you’re done and “she” has nothing else to say but, “you did it!”

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Being a parent is important work

2013-04-02T14:26:07Z

When I started motherhood, I had this thing in my head that the most important work I needed to do in a day was the work that didn’t involve my children.

It was my writing that was important.

It was that, not the hours spent with them, I thought, that I wanted to speak for my legacy as a woman and use as proof to the world that I was…relevant, smart, worthwhile. And it was that that I hoped my daughters could look back on and say, “my mother was wonderful.”

What I’ve learned after three years of mothering is that I was wrong. I’ve learned that being a parent is work and that it’s serious. I’ve learned that all this stuff I do, this cleaning, this cooking, this kissing boo boos, this playing on the floor, this teaching and reading books, and this driving to and from library storytimes and playdates….this is all matters and is serious. And that by embracing myself as a mother and by making everything fit around that important job, I could be happier.

I am happier now, not because I do a lot, but because I’ve learned to do be secure enough to only do the things that matter most and be okay with letting go of the things that really, in the grand scheme of things, don’t.

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Create a Life

2013-03-30T03:57:12Z

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