national poetry day – Aspirational Adventures

A photo of a boot print in soft sand with a piece of seaweed nearby. photographed by Diane Woodrow — Taken by myself on Conwy Beach in September 2021

This post is really a follow on from my post on 7th Oct about Sharing One’s Achievements. It’s taking it one step further and unpacking it more

My poem was one of the top 7 poems pick from hundreds and hundreds – so many in fact that they needed to extend the decision date – from the Science Museum’s National poetry competition. You can find it here – https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/celebrating-national-poetry-day/

Of course I was very pleased and have been moving into sharing my achievements rather than keeping quiet about them and hoping others just happen to come across them, which is what I used to do. Then I would get upset that friends and family didn’t know what I’d done. But of course I hadn’t told them. So I shared far and wide, and my mum and others shared onwards too. A comment from one of my Mum’s friends was “What a clever lady, just to look at an object like that and then give it a voice” My response was to say that I “found it a natural thing to give the pot personality. I do it with all sorts of random objects.” But it got me thinking about how my Mum’s friend and others don’t do that sort of thing. And yes I do do it was all sorts of things.

It got me wondering about how many things we can just do we take for granted rather than celebrate. For instance my seeing inanimate objects with personalities, being able to cook up an amazing meal from random ingredients, people being comfortable sharing their stories with me. And I am sure there are things about me that others see which again I just think that’s “normal”.

My husband retains facts and is a whizz at University Challenge, complicated maths equations, learning new things on the IT/engineering front that I can’t tell you about because I don’t understand them. He takes it as obvious and will say something really sciencey and then say to me “isn’t it?” and I just have to look back dumbly. But also he can’t remember where he left his keys or his phone!!!

But I need to not be upset that I don’t know all these techy, clevery sciencey things the same as he should not be upset that he can’t do somethings too. We all need to celebrate who we are and what we can do.

I did a post ages about about being humble, which I can’t find, and explored how when we are told in the Bible, or elsewhere, to “be humble” it isn’t about being self-effacing but it is about honouring our achievements. It is ok to boast and say “I’m good at putting character to intimated objects” or “I’m good at learning technical things”. The same as it is good to say “I don’t get technical things and often think it is working in the dark arts” or “I really don’t see how you can give a pot a personality”.

So my suggestion today is to look at what comes naturally to you, realise this is a talent that you have, then tell yourself how amazing you are to be able to that. Then if bold enough tell others that you can do X and realise however small it is a talent. Remember the story of the talents in Matthew 25:14–30. Everyone had a different number of talents and the only reason the person with one got in trouble was because they didn’t use that one talent.

So get out there boast about that talent, share that talent and who knows we could start a talent revolution, changing the world one confident step at a time.

Share One’s Achievements

Bronze bell jar from Science museum group collection — https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co129140

I wrote a poem a while ago about the above object. I sent it off hoping but not expecting to win anything. But I have! Out of hunderds of poems of a high quality, so many that it took them a week longer to decide which seven poems to publish for National Poetry day, mine was one of those picked.

Check out https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/celebrating-national-poetry-day/ to read mine and the other six.

I had planned to do a blog post today [my hope is that I do at least one post a week regularly, but promise nothing – even to myself 🙂 ] So thought I could share my poem here. My plan was to just share it in a blog post and leave it at that, hoping that people would see it. But then something in me whispered “share it with everyone” and as I am trying to ‘listen to my heart/inner self’ I thought I’d go for it. So it has been shared on Facebook, with those in my writing group, via email to various friends and on to WhatsApp. I might have even shared further but don’t have any other way of sharing.

Yes it has been lovely getting the messages back that say how good the poem is and congratulating me, but what it has also got me thinking is about how often we share our successes.

I think it is more a British thing than an American thing but we too often work on the “don’t be too proud”, “don’t show off”, “be humble”, etc. And then, I don’t know about anyone else, but I get upset when others don’t notice what I’ve done. But then how will they notice what I’ve done if I don’t share it. Yes the email that said ‘Congratulations’ will know that they are some anonymous person who I might never meet. I want/need/expect my friends and family to be proud of me, to be pleased for me, but if I don’t tell them how will they know.

Being one who, a few years ago decided that I’d do New Year Resolutions all throughout the year, I have decided that my 7th October Resolution is to be more open about sharing what I achieve, sharing my success. And my hope from it is that I will start a revolution where we all stop being so self-effacing and to be proud of what we achieve, what we do and most importantly be proud of who we are whether we win competitions, whatever success criteria we base our lives out. Instead let us be proud of who we are, what we can do and get on a be.

I suppose this is a blog that continues from What Have I Achieved? and is now looking at ‘What Am I Achieving Now” and taking it onwards and forwards.

I will finish with a photo of me with Abergele’s mayor and mayoress outside The Gift Shop, Abergele. Alan, the mayor, who is a huge encourager of people, suggested I get in touch with Tracey who runs The Gift Shop to promote my book, The Little Yellow Boat. But not only did he encourage me to do that he then was the first person to come and buy a copy of the book to get it out on Facebook for advertising for this Saturday’s event when I will be in the shop for two hours signing books. He not only encourage but supported too. And I do think that if I am going to go forward with shouting about my achievements I need to also get behind others to shout their achievements, to encourage them and to help us all take a step forward into realising what amazing people we all are and what an amazing world we live in.

Photo of Mayor, Alan Hunter, Mayoress Cheryl Hunter, author Diane Woodrow, her dog Renly, outside The Gift Shop, Abergele promoting Diane's signing of her book on Saturday 9th October 12-2pm — Also found on https://www.facebook.com/LittleYellowBoatBook /