In Search of Better Metaphors
December 31, 2019

   Indeed, my cup runneth over – and over, and over, and over.  And I don‛t want to harbor any illusions here: this may not always be a good thing, or a useful one.  It may, in fact, reflect a regrettable waste if not handled properly. 

   But before I get to that thought, I acknowledge the bounty that I have, and I give thanks.  Abundance – indeed, overabundance – marks my life.  And in order to learn what to do with it, I must first see it as such.  I am grateful.

     So what‛s the problem?  It is this:  I have more abundance and responsibility in my life than I can reasonably enjoy and shoulder alone (and yes, I believe those two things – abundance and responsibility – are bound together).  My cup runneth over, and this one little fly has too many elephants on her plate, to shamelessly commingle metaphors.

     So what do I do about it?  I take Justin Rhodes‛s advice to turn an apparent problem into a solution – to see the opportunity in it.  What is the opportunity here?  To find new, more effective metaphors.  

    To view myself or my life as a single cup or as one fly receiving these blessings is to place limits on them.  I must, instead, see myself as one who shares this wealth and seeks partners to bear its burdens with me.  I already have some great partners, of course – Brad, my legal assistant Beth, my parents, colleagues in professional and community service settings, and even my kids now, as they‛re growing.  But what I really need is a different model, a different modus operandi, one by which I act and understand myself as conduit and not as respository, and as co-laborer rather than martyr to the mission.  Abundance that flows through me, as opposed to abundance that flows to me, will not stagnate or cease.  And abundance that flows through me alongside my family, friends, and neighbors – that is abundance, indeed.

     I suspect this is one of the reasons why the river is a central image in so many religious traditions.  So, River.  That‛s a good start.  I‛ll go with it.

Eater of Elephants
December 30, 2019

     I have been known to bite off more than I can chew.  When I was serving as Managing Editor of the Oklahoma Law Review during my third year of law school, I would often lament to my mother about how overwhelmed I felt by the necessary tasks and responsibilities of the job.  This was in the days before kids, of course, so my threshold for feeling overwhelmed was significantly lower – but nonetheless real.

      My mom‛s response to my moaning sometimes came in the form of a quirky, but apt metaphor: ‟Georgeann, it‛s like a fly eating an elephant.  You just take one bite at a time.‟  It was an idea that had gotten her through her own doctoral dissertation more than thirty years before, and it‛s similar to Anne Lamott‛s admonition to writers to take their subjects ‟bird by bird‟.

     So fast forward ten years (exactly) from my year as Managing Editor of a scholarly legal journal – the responsibilities of which ended up taking me about a year and a half to complete, by the way – and here I am, with growing children, a steady law practice, a budding farming practice, and deepening community ties.  To say my plate is full would be an understatement.  Hello, my name is Georgeann Roye, Eater of Elephants. 

A Matter of Form
December 29, 2019

          Virginia Woolf suggests in A Room of One‛s Own that there are (or will be) ‟feminine forms‟ of literature – and that whatever those forms may be, they will likely be shorter, more condensed units than "masculine forms" of literature.  Writing in the late 1920s, Woolf‛s basic notion was that the typical woman's experience – or at least that of her imagined future cohorts of female writers – would be characterized by fewer stretches of uninterrupted time to write than those through which male writers ply their craft. Children and any number of exigencies of a woman‛s life, she posits in the book, call for new forms of literature by which women can bring forth their gifts – forms shaped by women‛s lived experiences.

     Woolf may or may not have been right – although I think she was really on to something.  But in any case, I, for one, am certainly interested in exploring forms that work for me, as a woman who has the audacity to think I have something meaningful to say in the world, but whose current circumstances (as mother, lawyer, homesteader, and community advocate) admit of only tiny nuggets of time in which to try to say anything.

     Here goes.