Call it the ceremonial paging of a new calendar, flipping the year from 2022 to 2023. In my younger days, the ushering in of a new year would almost certainly be accompanied by a late-night party with friends, a meandering brook of festive cocktails, streamers and noisemakers, highly impractical shoes (for a Nebraska winter, mind you) smartly paired with a bolero or skirt adorned with enough sequence to light up the midnight sky.
But now?
Now, in my early forties, I’m unbelievably content noting New Year’s Eve on my calendar, with a low-key gathering among family, a home-cooked meal, fleece-lined lounge pants and warm slippers by 8 p.m. (with an electric blanket or comforting heating pad), and a cup of caffeine-free tea for good measure.
Regardless of when we join the rest of the world on January 1 of any given year, we find ourselves in a potential place of transition. The opportunity naturally presents itself for change. Continue moving through life in the same form or fashion – or try something completely new.
And yet we’re given this precious choice for change each and every day of our lives. New beginnings can almost always occur on January 2, January 22, March 1, and so on.
For whatever reason – one I imagine I won’t fully understand for quite some time – writing in this space, with this voice, once again sounded appealing. Peppering these code-driven pages (and not those printed on paper and stored on a shelf) with my thoughts as words felt familiar and even a little bit needed.
After some digital housekeeping here and there, fixing broken HTML code and replacing old plug-ins with new ones, the pull to get back to my writing roots began to grow.
Even further hunting and pecking brought me to this meaningful piece of data: my first blog post went live on September 7, 2003.
Which means September marks TWENTY YEARS since I began filling this online space. My writing “career” began much earlier than that, but the writing I grew to love (accountable to no one but myself) began on a handful of long-forgotten blog platforms and eventually found a home here, at wendytownley.com.
And with a few years’ absence, two books, a thesis for graduate school, and freelance articles too numerous to count, I find myself called to begin again. Writing here as I’m called, when I have something to share or thoughts to digest, best served up beyond the boundaries (and distractions) of social media.
The countdown to September has begun. Let’s see where this road leads.
Posts Archived From: 'January 2023'
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Let’s See How This Feels
The Birthplace of Creativity
Much like wedge boots, leggings, mascara, and protein bars, I was clearly late to the party on this Brené Brown video. It has been viewed more than nine million times since it was posted in 2011.
And while I only watched it for the first time last week (and multiple, multiple times since), its message resonates with me like nothing else of recent memory; specifically, at 12:43, when she describes vulnerability as the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.
I inherently knew this, and have known this for quite some time. For years I have easily articulated the “how” of vulnerability but have continuously struggled with the “why.”
Upon watching this video, it now makes perfect sense. I agree with Brown whole-heartedly and encourage you to follow her lead: allow yourself to be seen. Truly, truly seen.
Letters to Barley: My Next Book
Some nine years ago a handful of essays I shared on my blog were published, thereby taking me from writer to author. Nerdy Thirty was a sweet little book made possible by Cindy Grady, Eric Downs, and countless others. Many of your purchased that little book and told me how much you enjoyed it.
Since then I have wrestled with what to write next. I carried doubt and even some guilt in the subsequent years, struggling with what stories to share.
It’s only now that I realize I needed to live more to be able to write more.
The past three years I have chipped away at a manuscript containing more personal essays, covering serious topics and others decidedly less so. I didn’t plan to have the book published once I turned forty … and yet, here we are.
Letters to Barley: Personal Stories My Dog Should Know will be published in the coming months. I am delighted to work alongside Michael Campbell on this project, with Zach Klebba to thank for the cover and Tracie Mauk for the illustrations.
A sign I spotted recently says this: The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
It has been my experience that, in that very same breath, beautiful stories do not just happen. It bring me such joy to soon share those beautiful stories with you.
Let’s Give Good Hugs
Allow me to begin with a confession: I hate the one-armed hug, the side hug, and the distant-hug-paired-with-the-equally-awkward-multiple-shoulder-pats. You will rarely IF EVER receive one of these hugs from me. And if you have in the past, I apologize. I assure you I felt horrible long after we parted ways.
I’ve been a hugger for as long as I can remember, and come from a long line of people who hug relatives, friends, neighbors, clerks at the grocery store, nurses at the doctor’s office, bartenders, vet techs, hair stylists. You get the idea. I dole out hugs on a daily basis to close friends, old friends, new friends, co-workers – and yes, sometimes complete strangers.
Hugs are my currency, and I use them at will daily. My hugs involve both arms and, if I am fairly certain you won’t freak out, pull you in close. If I’m going to take the few seconds out of my day to create a meaningful moment with you, I’m darn sure to make it count. Hugging in any way less than that just doesn’t seem worth the effort.
I want my hugs to convey any combination of the following sentiments:
I see you.
Thank you.
You are hilarious!
You are too kind.
You are welcome.
You are such a special person to me.
I’m so sorry that happened to you.
I prayed for you today.
I love you.
You are such a good dog! (Reserved exclusively for Barley and Teddy.)
I recently exchanged hugs with a good friend rather quickly, and in the flurry of our surroundings I didn’t deposit the three heavy bags weighing down my right arm. I was too caught up in the moment and just wasn’t thinking. (Forgive me.) So I went in with the one-armed hug using my left arm (one of the worst!) but attempted to counteract my unintentional misstep for holding the hug a heartbeat or two longer than usual. I think it helped.
That’s another important point I want to make about hugs: LET THEM LINGER. A hug can transform another person’s day in ways that words just won’t. And I speak from a cozy space of experience, because I’ve been on the giving end of these kinds of hugs, and the recipient. A too-quick, sporadic hug on my way out the door doesn’t seem worth it. The extra five seconds I spent hugging you won’t make any difference on the rest of what I need to get done that day.
In our Omaha community especially, the hug, at times, looks forced and uncomfortable. Almost staged. I see it far too often, and I cringe. It’s signaling something along the lines of, “We should hug, so it appears our relationship is far more friendly and close than our words or other body language or shared experience actually reveal. To be honest, I don’t even know you well enough to determine whether you’d welcome a hug from me.” And when that happens, it’s all wrong. A million, billion times wrong. Don’t give hugs you don’t mean just because everyone else around you is doing it.
Last night I heard from a friend I haven’t spoken to in at least six or seven years. Her departure from Omaha was abrupt and hurt deeply. But when her message landed in my inbox, after the first few seconds of surprise and even a bit of confusion, my honest-to-God next thought was, I wish she was close enough to hug.
The hug says things the heart wants to, but that the head sometimes prevents. Let the hug do the work. Don’t be afraid to hug when you mean it. Let’s agree to continue giving good hugs – or, at the very least, begin doing so today.
My Well-Worn Path to Healing
During a Wednesday night dinner for three that convened much later than I’m used to – and involving more wine than I’ve had at such a witching hour – we inevitably touched on topics close to the heart. Moments and experiences gently hemmed together with hurt and grief are less painful today and perhaps a bit easier to talk about, but their borders are still unmistakable. As we talked and ate, drank and shared some more, my inner narrative, among the gentle clinks of wine glasses and flatware, started forming the idea of emotional memory and, very plainly, how we deal.
During trying, testing times of personal trauma, family crisis, and the like, I’ve often found myself fleeing to the familiar. When nothing looks normal or feels even remotely right, my coping strategy is to head down a well-worn path. Here’s the secret: for me, the road not taken in recent years has always been there. I just needed to be in the proper frame of mind to find it.
An example: My return to Catholicism a few years ago came during some very trying times. As I stood in the circle of my own windstorm of uncertainty and foreign emotions, my quickest sanctuary was visiting a place I’ve been before. Twelve years of Catholic school proved a solid, beginning foundation to a religious life. But as I wrote in Nerdy Thirty, I quickly replaced all that church stuff with journalism my first year of college. It was 1997. I had finally found my home at our college newspaper. I prayed daily at the altars of Woodward and Bernstein. My morning and nightly novenas were instead writing snappy lede sentences and clever, two-deck headlines. Rather than church hymns of my youth I developed a love for classic rock of the seventies (a love that remains strong even today), thanks to shaggy-haired photographers who commanded control of the darkroom’s stereo.
My weekly Mass attendance slowly ended, holy days of obligation even more quickly, until I never thought about what it meant to be Catholic anymore.
And yet, some fifteen years later, when large swaths of my daily life spun in unimaginable, unfamiliar, and at times terrifying directions, I headed directly to what I knew best.
I never stopped writing, but I started going to church. And it felt weird at first. But I kept going every now and again. And, at some point, it started to feel familiar.
Weekly Mass lead to a trial run of skimming daily devotionals and faith-based writers. Some were inspirational, others a bit too preachy. It took awhile to find a few that spoke to where I stood and what I needed – especially as I struggled to identify just what that was. I was desperate to feel better by any means necessary; Simon and Garfunkel and Sauvignon Blanc just weren’t enough anymore.
And so I prayed and wrote and read, often in the morning and sometimes before bed. My prayers became less like the standards I learned in grade school and more like an ongoing conversation – much like time spent with friends you don’t see that often. The best relationships are those that pick up right where they left off, as if no time or distance has passed.
The more I allowed faith and spirituality to slowly spread into my life, the more familiar it became. And on the worse possible days, I started to feel just a tiny bit better.
I suppose it was deliberate at first, the same way you might react with a stomachache: you reach for what you think (hope?) will work. Anything to ease the pain. As the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and life started resembling something more conventional and more ordinary, prayer became something I sought less for relief and more out of routine.
In this world and time we are all moving through together, we can use a respite to the familiar every chance we get. It varies what I need from day to day, but what has changed is I now have a map to find those places of healing. And, if I’m being honest, I’ve never been more eager to help others find theirs. That spirit of support is what inspired my latest tattoo, song lyrics lifted from the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi. His message was simply this: life’s meaning and purpose are realized by using what you have to help others. Lessons learned from heartbreak shouldn’t remain hidden. Put that pain to good use and lend a hand whenever you can. You will be amazed at the grace you will receive.
Where I Have Been
In recent months I have pulled back considerably from all forms of social media. My blog has sat quiet since 2017. This has been somewhat intentional and somewhat a byproduct of who I am and, perhaps most importantly, who I am becoming.
The older I get – I turn forty in December (!!!) – the greater the pull to put my personal needs first. Like so many of you, I imagine, I strive to meet each day’s goals. My ever-growing task list is at the ready. The bed is made each morning. The trash is taken out. The dogs are fed. The laundry is washed, dried, put away. And on. And on. And on.
At work and in my various community commitments and passions, those lists are just as long (if not more so). Emails, text messages, and phone calls are returned. Meetings are scheduled. (Sometimes they’re rescheduled.) Meetings take place. And then comes follow up. And follow up. And even more follow up.
Precious time with my husband, our dogs, our families brings me tremendous joy and peace. It is a balm that I find increasingly necessary in a world of my own choosing – a world of important work and human interaction on a daily basis.
Which is why my need to share Every Waking Moment and Every Fleeting Thought on social media and even this very blog has dramatically declined. Radical self care, personal creativity, knitting, gardening, reading, journaling, time alone each morning in prayer. Those hours populating my social media accounts have been replaced with daily habits that have proven far more satisfying and far more beneficial to my own wellbeing.
That’s not to say I still don’t find laughter and comfort and solace and hope in what all of you are sharing on social media. I am. These days I’m just far more selective about what I am sharing.
I have my dear friend Angel to thank for helping me find a morning prayer routine. She introduced me to the Prayerful Planner late last year. When 2017 became 2018, and I dove into the Bible each morning, I was called to reconsider my day’s priorities. And since then, my life has changed dramatically.
The Illustrated Faith community has brought me equal amounts of joy. The 100 Days of Bible Promises book was a creative exercise I gingerly joined back in April, and quickly found the melding of color and words to be inspirational. The book itself was a soft landing for so many emotions – emotions that I imagine you experience on a regular basis. Those one-hundred days changed me for the better, and I’m eager to continue on this journey.
And just yesterday I spent six hours blissfully alone in silence at the Rainforth Retreat Center. My morning hours were spent sprawled out on the most comfortable, oversized couch with coffee and in prayer. As a few passing thunderstorms moved through after lunch, I put the finishing touches on the manuscript for my next book. (More details on that coming soon. Promise. And fingers crossed.) At 2 p.m., I clicked send on an email to the publisher of my first book, Nerdy Thirty. It has been eight years since Nerdy Thirty was published, and it has taken as many years – if not more – to determine what my next foray into the book world would look like. Hammering out another collection of breezy essays could have easily come sooner, but it would not have been the book I wanted to write.
I needed to live life more, figure out the stories I wanted to share. Selfishly, I wanted my next book to be just for me. And it took me a while to determine what that looked like. But yesterday afternoon I landed on a collection of essays that I hope gives you a sense of where I have been and who I am becoming.
Debate ‘Fear and Loathing’ October 20
The 1877 Society will host “Animus: Film vs. Book” at Aksarben Cinema on Thursday, October 20.
This second annual fundraiser will screen the 1998 film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp.
Attendees are encouraged to read the book, written by Hunter S. Thompson and first published in 1971, prior to the October 20 fundraiser.
A spirited audience discussion will follow the movie, on which version of the story was better. This year’s panelists include Karen Pietsch of Omaha Public Library and Ryan Syrek of The Reader. Local comedian Cameron Logsdon returns as emcee.
“Animus” proceeds will benefit Omaha Public Library adult literacy, programs, and services this year.
The 1877 Society is a group of library enthusiasts and advocates in their twenties and thirties who support the Omaha Public Library Foundation. The Omaha Public Library Foundation raises funds and advocates for Omaha Public Library, its programs, patrons, services, and staff.
Visit http://www.aksarbencinema.com/showtimes.html to purchase tickets, selecting Thursday, October 20, 2016 from the drop down menu.
Tickets are $25 for 1877 Society members, and $35 for the general public. Admission includes appetizers, popcorn, cocktails, and the movie ticket.
Questions? Send an email to 1877society@omahalibrary.org or call (402) 444-4589.
The Spices of Their Lives
All memorable stories, written or otherwise, are filled with turning points. Moments when the next step becomes unmistakably clear. Moments when life’s twists and turns, wins and losses, hopes and heartbreaks, serve up the next chapter.
A few moments for Sarah Baker Hansen and Matthew Hansen defined not only their life together, but also their life’s work. Today, they are a literary power couple, both writing prominent columns for the Omaha World-Herald.
Their pivotal moment together took a while, more than five years after their first date. The couple met in 2000 while working at The Daily Nebraskan, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s student newspaper. Although they acted friendly to each other, a relationship was far from their minds. Take a look at these vending machine locations where you can easily obtain your favorite food.
Their first official date wouldn’t happen for another year. It was 2001. Sarah had since graduated from college and was living back home in Omaha following an internship at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Matthew was finishing up his studies at UNL. A 100-year reunion for The Daily Nebraskan was near, which meant Matthew might see Sarah soon.
“A fellow DN staffer said Sarah had a crush on me years earlier, so then I started emailing her,” Matthew recalls with a smile.
Emails were exchanged, and a little bit of flirting even took place. Sarah missed the reunion, but Matthew eventually asked her out.
Sarah chose the French Café, one of her favorite Old Market eateries. It would become the same spot where Matthew would propose to Sarah, and a venue that would emphasize their vastly different backgrounds.
“I was a dorky, small town sports guy,” says Matthew, a native of Red Cloud.
Matthew found Sarah’s Omaha roots, her affinity for food, and her love of art and culture attractive. But such interest was also met with some trepidation that evening. On their first date, Matthew recalls having a “very quiet, very polite panic attack around the idea of ordering a drink. We sat at the French Café bar. I never had a cocktail that was fancier than Jack and Coke.”
>> Continue reading my article for Omaha Magazine, “The Spices of Their Lives.”
Intentions Versus Goals for 2016
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. The beginning of anything new – new job, new romance, new year, new you – is less about goals and more about intentions. This is a lesson I learned recently following a rich, two-day retreat lead by three wise women: Daphne Eck, Melissa Kopplin, and Abra Poindexter.
As I continue to bask in the far-reaching and honeyed glow of this experience, I consider its impact not only on my marriage and my personal life, but also my professional and community life. Finding satisfaction in these varied areas requires me to be intentional on a singular focus, with the understanding that an intention lasts much longer than a goal.
Once you reach a goal, your work is done. You obviously have the opportunity to create a new goal, but it isn’t always required. And it is far too easy to allow that goal to fade away and be replaced by bland distractions.
When you enter into uncharted waters with an intention, however, the experience is vastly different. The intention is purposely more vague to allow for greater impact. Here’s an example.
One of my intentions for 2016 is to be more present and mindful wherever I may be – to avoid distractions and fully immerse myself in my surroundings. To accomplish this requires a lot of effort: tucking away my iPhone, allowing myself time between meetings and appointments (and between home and work) to reset my mindset and truly prepare for what I have to do next. Self-care and continual reflection are a big part, too.
These steps, I am certain, will spill over into other areas of my life, producing positive and long-lasting results.
If, however, I only created my intention as a goal, it might sound something like this: “One of my goals this year is to not be so busy.” The inherit challenge with such language: it is far too limiting. It leaves me no direction, no roadmap on where I should be or what I should be doing.
As we, the Greater Omaha Young Professionals Council, look to 2016, my hope is that by December we found a similar purpose. Not that we met our goals, but that we established our intentions and kept them close year-round.
Goals are a great place to start, but true change comes from intentions. Being open to where you are now and where you will be next will only open new, exciting doors of opportunity. Get ready.
Editor’s note: Previously written for the Greater Omaha Young Professionals in January 2016.
Spend Your Late Mornings with Matt
The news was announced earlier this month. My husband, Matt Tompkins, has returned to radio. The Late Morning Show with Matt Tompkins airs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on 1290 AM KOIL in Omaha.
With a career that spans twelve years in radio and two years in television (thanks to his No. 1 rated local sketch comedy show, Omaha Live! on WOWT), Matt is no stranger to the microphone. His new all-talk radio show features a revolving cast of co-hosts (yours truly included).
If you’re not in the Omaha-area, tune in by listening online, download the Mighty 1290 KOIL app, or listen via KOIL’s podcast page on SoundCloud.
And be sure to find Matt on Facebook.
Photo by Foton Foto.