Adding Dimension to NeenaLove, Inc.

It's time for a change.

It's time for me to catch up to this wave of podcasting that has taken over the online community.

I will always be a writer. 

I will continue to communicate and convey my thoughts and feelings BEST in written format on this blog, in my journal, and it my written manuscripts.

However, it is time to include VLOGGING/Podcasting to my repertoire. 

I actually make this transition with excitement as I love cameras (maybe I can upgrade soon). And I love the sound of my voice. I have a deep, rich voice that sometimes gets mistaken for a man's voice. I remember pulling up at McDonalds once and the woman on the receiving end kept calling me "Sir." At first, I was annoyed but now I'm just used to it. Trust and Believe, I am ALL woman. 

I hope you will tune in to my vlog.

I have selected Wednesday as my regular release date every week.

It is very difficult for me to select just one topic because I am interested and curious about so many things. To nail down a topic and pick just one would be a tragedy in the making. So I am going to treat this like a really good conversation with my BFF and when she's in town, she will make an appearance on the vlog.

Most of the pivotal decisions in my life have happened after a great conversation with people in my inner circle. There's my father who has always dispensed the best advice and usually did it with very few words. Even though he can talk on and on about a variety of subjects, when it comes to causing a paradigm shift in my heart, he only need say a few words and I "get it." There's my older brother. He, too, is a man of very few words. And the words he chooses are always very impactful, just as my father. There's my baby brother who, consequently, is also a man of very few words. His age (he is so young) coupled with his millenial outlook on life always flips the script on me and I always sit back and laugh at his wisdom. There's my sister-in-law. She is like the definition of "plan ahead" and I always cherish her view on things because it's so different from my own. I am the 'fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants' girl. Spontaneous to a fault. I think of all of them as I start this journey into vlogging. 

I have dipped and dabbed, a little, with vlogging. Making videos is such a chore as it requires so much planning. Let's not talk about all the "bloopers" that also happen when filming one single video. I laugh at the many "takes" that I have to do to get it just right. I have not scripted any of the videos that I have made so far. I have a general idea of what I want to say then I go with it. When I look at the videos on my YouTube page that I have made so far, I cringe at the lighting. Almost all the videos look like I have bags under my eyes - thanks to the shadows and the contours on my face that cause the shadows. But I am who I am regardless of what I look like. Also - maybe I can get sophisticated lighting the deeper I get into this vlogging world.   

One thing that I absolutely love is hearing the stories of older people. For instance, every morning when I leave for work, there's an older gentleman that walks around the complex. When I run into him, he is sweaty and looks as if he's been walking for quite some time. This morning, I stopped him and told him that I should get into walking too. He looked so thrilled that I said more than, "Good Morning," as I normally do when I see him. While we're standing there having a conversation, his legs are still going as he is walking in place. 

"How old you think I am," he asks me. 

I take a good look at him and I guess 60 years old. He fires back, "Try again. Higher."

65?

He is shaking his head vigorously.

"Higher!"

I step back. No way you're 70?

"I turned 80 two weeks ago." He has a light patois. Jamaican, maybe?

What the hell? The man looks good and maybe it's because he's bald and clean-shaven that there's no graying to behold but his eyebrows are jet black. His skin has some wear on it but no deep wrinkles at all. I am speechless. That is hard to do - to cause me to be speechless. I stand there with my mouth agape as he talks about his habit of walking and his wife's habit of walking. He runs down his daily routine. Exercise. Cool down. Shower. Eat a bowl of cereal. Relax. 

"But," he says, "I just started working again."

Before retiring, he drove a van for special needs children and he has picked it up again.

I smile and tell him that work keeps him  young. Just like my dad who still works at 75 years old. And his job is a physically vigorous job. My father is a landscaper.

Anyway, I wish I had snapped a picture with that gentleman this morning. But trust and believe, I am going to interview him, in the future, for my VLOG. I will let him tell me again what the secrets are for living a long, healthy life.

So here's to VLOGGING/PODCASTING! I will always write but now I'm adding another component to NeenaLove, Inc. Stay tuned!

Let 2015 Be The Year.... Challenge #1

I created a Facebook group for my family to encourage them to tell their story and to start journaling. This was spurred by my cousin's desire to see her daughter start writing in her journal. So I did a video message to her to hopefully encourage her to start the tradition of writing.




Most Pacific Island cultures - I'm Hawaiian and Samoan - have a deep emphasis on the art of storytelling. I can remember being a young child and my mother sitting me down to memorize a speech for church. Having that type of background has truly given me a high standard to which I apply to any speaker that I sit to listen. I find that I am very impatient with speakers that read to me. If you did not prepare to deliver a message from your gut then you are not prepared and my ears and heart are closed to you.

Speaking, storytelling, painstakingly preserving your genealogy in chant are part of my culture. I find these things so very compelling now as I knock on my 40th birthday door. I want so very deeply to inspire others and assist them in telling their story and finding their roots. Come along for the ride, if you dare.

I would recommend you purchase a diary or journal and that you hand write in cursive. This is so important to the human mind. It constantly nourishes our brain. Do a simple google search "human development cursive" and read up about this topic. But if the thought of having to cursive write everyday puts you off then I suppose you can keyboard it in MSword or some online journal.

Challenge #1 is to write one post per week in the month of January. I will post four questions. These questions are meant to get your brain thinking about the story that you will tell. You can also all four questions, one per week or one question every week. You could even use one of these questions every day if you feel like writing beyond the one entry per week challenge. You will be surprised where one question will take you and all the memories and thoughts that will come forward. Capture it. Preserve it. Go back and read it. Share it.

REMEMBER
-No one is going to read your journal without your permission and if they do then they're EVIL.
-Be honest!
-Speak your truth.
-Let it out; whether it's gut-busting laughter or die-ugly-cry-face.
-Write down whatever comes to mind.
-I will post my entry so you have an example. Maybe you might be inspired by my quirky thought process and how it translates to the written word.

Here are January's questions:

1. What is your favorite thing about winter?
2. Who is the funniest person you know?
3. Who are your siblings?
4. What are your plans for today?

HAPPY WRITING!

The Story Teller

My life is consumed by stories. There are stories in my head and all around me.
Stories on TV.
Stories in the movies.
Stories in the CD player on my way to work.
Stories in my iPod.
There is a story always around me. Fiction. Non-fiction. Mostly non-fiction but the non-fiction-every-day-activity is what produces the fiction.
I must write them all down.

The other day I watched Oprah interview Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. I was struck by Ayana's clear confidence in stating that she was BORN to write.

Could I say the same of myself? I approach this writing with trepidation.
Fear of failure.
Fear of not succeeding.
Fear of offending someone I love by the things I may write.
Fear of success.
What am I so afraid of?

In the story of my life, I only see myself as the story teller.
The teller of stories
The orator that brings to life the imagination of those without dreams

Story Dying to Come to Light

I think I'm ready to write a romance. It could be a story or a novel or it could be lifted from the pages of my journal. What I know is that I am beginning to come from beneath the heavy sadness of getting divorced (yes, I'm still talking about that nine years later) and losing my mother. I am discovering my heart again -- the thing that longs to love everything and everyone in an unconditional way.

Losing my mother has really put me in touch with my heart again. I interpret this experience as a call to take advantage of every moment with the people I love. Each moment with a loved one or even a stranger is the last and final moment; the one chance, the one second even if its a million seconds or a trillion seconds, that I get to express love.

Then there's the romantic love of my life; my husband. I don't know that there are many people who can deal with his bi-polarity. I joke about it often but really... there are no words to express the different tides that we ride together. We are the greatest of friends. Most times, I feel like he is my soul twin. He pushes me to grow in ways that I probably wouldn't have without his gentle nudges and outright shoves. I hope I push him to expand his horizons also.


Recently I read Beautiful Ruins. I still haven't quite figured out how I feel about it except that it's a story about many different love relationships unfolding/unraveling/coming together. It beckons one to see the similarities in his or her own life, that maybe you are part of a romance-in-the-making.

What I do know is that I'm ready to write Mr. Perfect into reality. I've talked endlessly about writing a book. I am leaning toward writing novels -- contemporary love stories with a Polynesian twist or a Polynesian adventure. Whatever it is, the story is dying to come to the light of day and one day soon I can say that I wrote a book.

The Covenant Keeper

Telesa - The Covenant Keeper by Lani Wendt Young... what a read!! This book is the first in the trilogy. **inhaling** It has consumed me. The Polynesian backdrop and themes make for really good entertainment; better than that, the story and the characters are endearing. The novel sits perfectly alongside its contemporaries - maybe Harry Potter, Twilight - appealing to a teenage, Young-Adult audience but equally entertaining for the mature reader. This book definitely fills the lack of fictional reading material for Polynesians.

At its core, Telesa is a LOVE STORY. It is a tale of magical love between Leila and Daniel. The story is set in beautiful Samoa but could be any Pacific island really. For non-Polynesian readers as well as our young Polys, there are small history lessons strewn upon its pages. As Polynesian societies become more and more colonized/globalized, we lose our identity. The hope is that we can retain some of what we have to pass on to the next generation. The stories we tell the future generations are important to keep the mana, the power, alive.

The author makes no claim that the cultural protocol is accurate, nor does she make any claim that the magic in the book is real. Chances are, though, that most Polynesians have a story about shamanistic magic that healed someone or caused someone death. And maybe part of the belief in the superstition keeps the magic alive, who knows?

Aside from the magic and back to the LOVE STORY -- Leila and Daniel remind me of the magic of love and the excitement of new love. It reminded me of how crazy I was about my husband when we first met. The magic of our instant attraction still amazes me today. It is easy to identify with the main character - Leila. Her feelings of being an outsider in modern America and finding her way to Samoa and realizing that Samoa felt more like home than anywhere in the world is beautiful.

You will fall truly, madly, deeply in love with Daniel as he is every girl's dream. He's courteous and respectful, kind, and driven by a sense of purpose. He is smart, musical, athletic, dare I say "the-boy-next-door". If you like the bad boy types, Daniel is not for you, which works out fine because the rest of us goody-two-show-lovers will gladly snatch him up. At the end of the book, the author posts pictures of the man she fashioned Daniel after. He DOES NOT DISAPPOINT... very, very easy on the eyes!

Go to Amazon and get Telesa: The Covenant Keeper now (just $3.99 for the Kindle App)! Happy reading!