I can honestly say I have never met anyone famous or infamous. As human beings we are all the same. No one person is any more important as another. It is what we do in life and what we become that makes us famous, and it’s God’s Will behind it. It’s important to note that, once we are granted the status of being famous, we remain humble throughout.
I would relive my teenage years. There are mistakes I made I would like to set right. At the same time, if I had not made those mistakes, I would not have learned all that I had. It’s when we don’t learn from them that keeps us down.
Great moments I would relive are all the times we played baseball with the neighborhood kids and parents. Sometimes we would turn it into a hot dog roast.
Family vacations I would also like to relive. I am from Michigan, USA by the thumb region. Many of our instate vacations were in the northern parts. Those places are Sue St. Marie, Mackinaw Island, Mackinaw City, Boyne City, Lake Charlevoix, Tahquamenon Falls (just to name a few). In 1971 we took a trip out to Oregon, USA (west coast). There, we visited my Aunt Hope and Uncle Jim for a week. At the time I was homesick, but I still remember having a great time.
One historical event that fascinates me the most is the Russian Revolution. My grandfather was a body guard for Czar Nicholas II and was able to escape. This escape was by the pure grace of God. The option presented to him was to join the Bolshevik army or be shot. So he escaped. It wasn’t easy. His journey was hard because they had his name. He was on their list. But here is a piece of information I just learned. He had changed the spelling of his last name to the German spelling.
In WWII the Germans over ran the Russian village he grew up in, and he was told there were no survivors. Prior to this event he and my grandmother corresponded with his family in Russia all the time. I have a difficult time accepting that his whole family was wiped out during the war. So I started searching on ancestral websites and the internet using my grandfather’s last name. For years I couldn’t find anyone with that last name. Then in one search online I found out why. The name he used after leaving Russia and from that point forward was the German spelling and not the Russian spelling. I found the Russian spelling and found a whole slew of relatives dating back to the late 1800’s. So, to keep himself from being found by the Bolsheviks, he changed the spelling of his last name.
Don’t get me wrong. He still had some difficulties along the way. In one instance he had to disguise himself as an old man because it wasn’t an old man they were looking for. The disguise worked. In another instance, he hid himself in plain sight by going up to a Russian officer and starting up a conversation in Russian. Again, he didn’t get away by himself. The Lord was with him every step of the way. If he hadn’t gotten away, I would not be here.
If I was guaranteed to succeed at something I would want to try, it would have to be playing the drums in a rock band. But it has to be something other than heavy metal. Heavy metal to me has always been just noise (even as teen). It’s funny because the opportunity as a kid was there for me to learn how to play drums, but at the time it didn’t appeal to me. As an adult I am interested. Who knew?
Something else I would try is surfing. No, I don’t mean the web (LOL). Real surfing. There something about the idea of gliding along and across the waves that appeals to me. But I would only try if guaranteed success. Other than that… I won’t go in the ocean at all. I can swim, but I’m not a strong one. That’s ok. Seriously though, surfing looks relaxing to do. Whether that is true or not, I wouldn’t know because I have never tried it.
Sometimes these dreams are meant to stay that way, and sometimes they are meant for you to do something about them. In real life failure is the only way we can learn to succeed.
The hardest personal goal I set for myself was back in the early 2000’s when I was in the beginning stages of writing my first novel. I set a goal for myself to finish it in 2004. I had started writing it in 1999. Well, twenty years afterwards in 2019 I finished and published it. Writing your first book is not an easy feat. Maybe for some beginning writers it is but for many it is not.
So what makes publishing that first book so difficult? It’s everything we don’t know that we need to know and have yet to learn. Add to that a full time job and raising a family. We do our best. I did take my time with that book because there were times I didn’t feel like writing. There were times I needed time to think about how I wanted the story to get to where I wanted it to go. Then, a large chunk of my manuscript got deleted when the hard drive on my computer went bad. Essentially, I started over. I am so glad I did because the story was better as a result.
Learning the ins and outs of writing a book along the way took time as well, which included learning how I write. Am I a planner or a pantser? Getting to know myself is what I call this. I did figure all of this out by the way. Now that doesn’t mean I know everything there is to know about writing a book. No one ever knows everything there is to know. It’s a ongoing process, so we are continuous learners.
I should never have made the goal of finishing my first book to be in 2004. That wasn’t realistic. Not for a first time novelist. Hence the most difficult goal I ever set for myself.
My full name is Lisa Marlene. To understand the origin of my name, one must know that my dad, his sister, and their parents all immigrated to the United States in the 1950’s and became US Citizens. My name comes with a German background and reasoning behind it.
I asked my mom once why she and my dad named me Lisa. She said they were originally going to name me Jill. But when my German grandmother said the name Jill wasn’t German enough, they decided to name me Lisa. To be honest, I am SO glad they decided on Lisa. In regards to my middle name of Marlene, I was named after my Aunt Marlene (my dad’s sister).
All in all, I am very proud of the name I was given and the background from which it comes.
I would speak seven languages and work as an interpreter who had her own jet and flew around the world doing my job. But in doing so, I would need a place to lay my head wherever I went. To rectify this I would have a house in five countries and stay in fancy hotels in places I had no house.
When my sisters and I were kids, my parents celebrated St. Nicholas Day at the beginning of each December. We would put our shoes by the front door the night before, and in the morning there would be candy in them. My dad was German, so he bought German candy at the German import store, and he would fill our shoes with that. As an adult with four kids of my own, I never recognized that tradition. I don’t know why. It was a fun tradition.
Over the years I set out to create my own traditions for the most part. Not that I didn’t like the traditions my parents took part in. I just never thought about it before. My husband and I had fun coming up with our own traditions. Some we thought of were compilations of his family’s old traditions and mine.
The one tradition I stuck with (or tried to) is how my mom did Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. From decorations to dinner I wanted my Christmas for my family as a grown up to mirror hers. Why? Because of the feeling I received when I walked into her house as an adult going to her house for Christmas Eve dinner, opening presents in the morning, decorations, all of it. But I learned something along the way during that process of trying to mimic hers. I can’t. I am not her.
WRITE TIME AND AGAIN 