About a month ago, my roommate came up with a crazy idea to paint a wall in our kitchen with chalkboard paint. I was informed that there was a type of black paint that magically became a chalkboard when it dried. I had just painted my whole room, and the only thought I could think of was that at some point we would have yet another wall to paint back to it’s original color.

I was not a proponent, and paint that turned into a chalkboard absolutely made no sense to me. However, I was out-voted by the other roommates in the decision to create this so called chalkboard, and thus the process began. We taped off the door, laid down the tarp and began painting. With the first stripe of black paint, I cringed.

I asked numerous times during the construction of the wall, “Are you really sure this will work out?”

“Yes,” they assured me over and over again.

At the end of the day we had a black wall, and no chalk. Again, I thought, a black wall in a green kitchen, this looks fabulous. Therefore, I nominated myself to go buy some fun colored chalk and the next day hit up Target.

And so, my love affair began. As soon as the paint dried, and I was clear to draw, I knew all my doubts had been laid to rest. I immediately fell in love with the chalkboard wall. I don’t draw as much as I write words or phrases that at some point have meant something to me. It does not matter what form they come in. I can draw inspiration through anything from song lyrics to movie quotes. I usually come to the board with some quote or rambling I came up with, maybe attempt to draw a little picture, then step back and gaze at my creation. No matter what mood I’m in, I know that that chalkboard is there for me to draw whatever thoughts and emotions I need to unload.

This little chalkboard that I was so weary of has taught me the joys of creating again. It has inspired me to let go. I once heard a wise person say that, “I believe all people are made with the ability to create,” and I believe that with all my heart. Whether it’s dance, writing, photography or any other art; as humans I believe we are made to express ourselves through the process of creation.

My problem is I fear it will be judged, it won’t measure up and the final product will not be what I had envisioned in my mind. I often let ideas rummage around in my head, longing to make something, but never going through with it. I go to art shows, concerts, or photo exhibits and think, Oh, if only I could do _____ well. Inevitably instead of giving whatever ______ is a try, I tell myself I cannot do it. In fact, I have put off writing this piece for a good two months for fear that the editors will read it and wonder, How did this girl ever graduate with a degree in English? I have created numerous topics, wrote down what I wanted to say and after editing promptly threw them away.

Which is where the chalkboard comes in. I originally started drawing on it because I knew if it looked bad I could just erase it and start over. I can write something I feel one day and erase it the next. I’ve reached a point where I am confident in what I draw. It might not look like Monet (it is chalk and all), and it might not mean something to someone else that takes a walk through our kitchen, but for me it has provided some much needed therapy.

I’m going through what I like to call a “quarter-life crisis,” where I’m not sure what I want the rest of my life to look like career wise. I’m uncomfortable in my current state — which I don’t think it necessarily a bad thing — however, it provides for a lot of restlessness.

I came home last night around one in the morning, and instead of going to bed I decided to “chalk it out” in the words of my roommate. I wrote out the lyrics to a Kings of Leon song, I wrote things I wanted to say to someone but probably never will and I created some graphic that does not represent anything. In the midst of creating I was able to “chalk out” my feelings. What started out as an impromptu session ended 2 hours later when I decided I could go to sleep peacefully.
This morning I erased it all.

And metaphorically that’s the beauty of this whole chalkboard. Sometimes what I draw is not pretty, and that’s ok. Life is not always rainbows and butterflies. Life is messy, and we are its messy inhabitants. And no matter how un-together I think my life looks right now, that’s ok too. My future is up for me to decide. I have a blank slate. I can try many new things, and if it doesn’t end up striking my fancy, just like that chalkboard, I can start over again. Nothing in this life is permanent.

So I thank you little chalkboard. Our relationship started out rocky, but we preserved. I thank you for allowing me to let go of my silly fears and allow me to create. Most of all, though, I thank you for letting me re-learn the passion I have for all things pertaining to art and giving me the spark I needed to ignite the fire. Here is my open apology for not giving you a chance and may I never doubt your purpose — or mine — again.

— — —

Amy Cesak was born and raised in Houston, and finds herself running away from the city only to run back. She invites everyone who lives in the area to come play on the chalkboard any time they would like. .

Amy is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day’s Sunday Specials. If you would like to participate in Sunday Specials, please click here.

When I was a senior in high school, I wrote a note on a piece of paper and taped it to my bathroom mirror. I don’t remember the exact wording; all I remember is the message: “State.”

To reach the State tournament in basketball was my biggest goal that year. I started dreaming about it in fifth grade when I went to watch my future high school win the Substate tournament to reach State. They upset Shawnee Mission East, a team that had a couple of foreign big men. I think both their last names were Johnson, but spelled differently, and obviously not related. One of the players ended up being a star at Oklahoma State.

It was a huge upset and I could picture myself in that orange and black jersey one day, making the big shots that would send my team to the State tournament.

My sophomore year, our team made it to State, but I was only a practice dummy and a spectator on the sideline.

When my senior year arrived, I finally took the stage, and it was my turn to live my dream.

My team struggled that year, but we pulled off some upsets and showed potential at times to make a run. No matter how illogical it should have been at times, I got up every morning and looked at the piece of paper on the mirror and believed it could happen. That message was my motivation every day to do something to achieve my dream.

Today, I’m sitting at the State tournament and I’m watching my school play.

Of course, I’m six years too late. I didn’t win Substate or take the bus ride to Emporia, Kan. My journey today was just a two-block walk from my office to White Auditorium, the arena where the 6A tournament is played every year.

Our coach used to tell us how great White Auditorium was and about the special feeling we would get when we walked into the old building. When I came to watch my sophomore year, it seemed so big and such a grand stage.

Now I go to games and practices at White several days a week, covering Emporia State University. The aura of the place is gone for me. It doesn’t seem so big sitting on press row.

But today, as I sat and watched the ocean of orange pour into the arena — it took seven buses to bring the Shawnee Mission Northwest students who came to the game — and watched the excitement of the players, I could see myself out there again. I got goosebumps and had that feeling I used to get before games.

I used to get so excited that I would have to go to the bathroom four or five times leading up to the game. I only went once before tip-off today, so I must not have hydrated well.

Northwest won, and Friday will be the school’s first time back in the State semifinals since my sophomore year. The players are all foreign to me (not like the Johnsons; I just don’t know them). Some of the teachers and administrators are the same, but none of the students. The players were in grade school when I played. They probably watched me play and dreamed my dreams. And although I don’t know them, I felt a sense of pride that I hadn’t felt since high school.

My team lost in Substate my senior year and I have no idea where the note on my mirror is now. That dream has been replaced by new dreams, like watching my future son play the game I love. Maybe some day he’ll play at White Auditorium. Or maybe he’ll be end up on press row. Either way, I’ll be proud — like I know my parents were — just as long as he’s chasing his dreams.

I feel better when I’m good shape, physically. Who doesn’t? Isn’t that a bit of a “1+1=2” statement? I guess. But then, the more important question: Why the hell do I have such a hard time staying in good shape?

I don’t detest working out, and in fact, can find some real joy in it under the right circumstances. I don’t mind cardio. I prefer not to lift weights. I’ll avoid abs at all costs. But when I’m in the right mindset, I can find an escape and push myself through all of it.

This is a common battle for people, I realize. I know I am not the only one who would rather plop down on the couch after a long day at work and just order a pizza instead of hitting the gym and making a healthy meal for myself. Sometimes I feel like the only person who acts this way. I convince myself that I’m the laziest man on the planet and that I’m destined to be 40 years old with a gut and no muscle definition. I hate that feeling.

And then, mysteriously, I’ll wake up from time to time with a sense of purpose and a determination to be fitter. I work out. I write it down. I go to the gym and lift weights, I do treadmill sessions that progressively get easier and easier by the day. I go to the grocery store, and instead of Coke I pick up V-8. Rather than Burger King on my way home, I settle for a salad and some grilled chicken. That lasts two to three weeks before I start to slip. There’s not much middle ground between my slob and motivated settings; it just goes pretty much straight from one to the other. Before I know it, I’ve been set on lazy for three weeks and I can feel it.

Do I lack willpower? Do I lack toughness? Will I ever get this figured out?

The answer to each of those questions, I guess, is probably a little bit of yes and a little bit of no. I’ve fought this battle for most of my life, with my sophomore year of high school being the best shape I’ve ever found myself in. There was a low point a few years later during my second year of college where I just let myself slide for too long. Highs and lows.

Unless something seriously drastic happens, I’ll never be the health nut who can wake up before dawn and go for a run before I go to work. But at the same time, if I lacked motivation entirely, I wouldn’t bother caring how I looked or felt. It’s something that matters to me and I recognize that. So there’s hope for me.

The fact that I feel so noticeably better about myself physically and emotionally when I feel “fit” should be all the reason I need to begin a regimen and keep up with it on a permanent basis. The fact that it’s not quite enough causes me to be concerned that maybe I have (maybe we all do) self-destructive tendencies. Could it be that I secretly hate myself and enjoy feeling bad about the way I look and feel? I don’t think that’s it. I think the main problem for me is priority. I’ve always looked at my health as a secondary issue, and that’s got to stop. I won’t be young forever, after all.

So I’ve got a gym membership and a new-ish pair of running shoes. I’ve got an iPod with some up-tempo music. I’ve got tomato juice in my office desk drawer and a good attitude to keep myself going for more than a few weeks. What I need now is a little determination and maybe a nice spring day. Wish me luck.

Prologue

I’ve just finished and sent out my PhD thesis, and as it seems, with it have gone my words. So I’m relying on other people’s words for now.

A wise woman* once said: You can steal you heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror, but the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch it.

This resonates deeply with me. It conjures up memories of friends coming from far away to be with me on my wedding day, of people I hardly know sending gifts and good wishes for the birth of my son and of strangers helping me out for no reason at all.

Be kind to someone today, and see how far something so simple will go.

*Learn more about her here:

My house had a mystery squawking noise this morning. It sounds akin to a dying bird. At first I thought it was a dying bird. But it’s my house, creaking and squawking, for no other reason than it’s old.

My husband, Eric, and I live in a 1920s boarding house-turned-duplex in an urban neighborhood in Houston. A large county fair used to be located blocks from our house, so the streets were lined with boarding houses to accommodate fair-goers in the Roaring ‘20s. Our house survived, with a few others nearby, and now we inhabit the bottom floor.

We decided in about five minutes to rent the house, having looked for almost a month for what would be our newlywed home. We fell immediately in love with it.  Old houses have a lot of charm, and this one had a lot of space, a rare commodity in our neighborhood. It also had no prejudice against large dogs and even offered a fenced-in yard for our black lab, Morgan.

After we actually moved in, we started to discover some of its quirks. We found what we refer to as the “Potter closet,” an odd-shaped room beneath the stairs.  Use of the other closets required creativity… My clothes are in the living room, and Eric’s are split between the bedroom and the kitchen (yes, there is a clothes closet in the kitchen). My parents came to help us clean before we moved in, and we found that the original wallpaper lined the back of the kitchen cabinets. By original, I mean almost 100 years old. The wallpaper had become rotted burlap covered with a flowery pattern and host to several roaches. It took all day to scrape it off and disinfect the wall. Also, it didn’t take any time at all to find the house is nowhere near level. We gave up trying to hang our pictures at any reasonable level, because it didn’t matter. The floor and ceiling are so slanted it’s beyond hope.

Because we house-hunted during 95 degree Houston summer, it didn’t occur to us to look for a heat source. The lack of central air didn’t bother us too much because of the window units. But the first night it turned cold in winter, we discovered that the window units only have A/C. I should mention this is the draftiest house of all time. We are convinced there is no insulation in the walls, and the pier and beam foundation just sends coldness through the floor. It was below 50 degrees inside the house, possibly even colder than outside. Add some drafty humidity and that made for a really cold night. The immediate addition of space heaters and an electric blanket helped significantly. However, plugging in more than one space heater blew the circuit and turned off all the electricity. By the way, it hasn’t snowed in Houston in years, but this winter it did, while we live in the coldest house in town.

Most recently, a mouse found its way through one the many holes in the wall/floor and took up residence. It ate all kinds of our food, including cheese, which I thought was very stereotypical. At the same time a possum wriggled onto our back porch where we do our laundry, hissed when we opened the door, and refused to leave. He’s gone now, and so is the mouse, thanks to some clever hole patching. But I did hear the mouse attempt to come in through the fireplace while I was trying to fall asleep.

So why do I love this place so much? I’m a historian, for one, so I love old things with stories. I’m not going to pretend I haven’t imagined myself as a flapper going to the fair and returning to the comfort of a high-ceilinged room in a local boarding house. And in general, I don’t like it when old buildings are torn down. It makes me sad. I like the problems of old homes; they are endearing and expected. I have shared this house with countless former residents, but it’s still my home. I love the cracks in the original tiles, the two boarded up fireplaces, the lack of dishwasher and heat, the way the porch swing bangs into the side of the house because the roof is slanted, and, even, the mystery squawking.

I spend huge amounts of time thinking about food, so it makes sense that I would draw my latest realization of inadequacy from a meal. On this ordinary day, I have had an epiphany: I want to be as good as my oatmeal.

I go through phases with breakfast food. The latest is a nutrient-rich, bursting-with-vitamins, protein-and-fiber health monster that is worth dozens of hyphenated modifiers. The meal: packet of plain instant oatmeal, fortified with iron (45 percent recommended daily allowance); a big spoonful of plain, no-sugar-added, organic pumpkin (Vitamin A, fiber); little spoonful of hydrogenated-oil-less, all-natural, salmonella-free peanut butter (fat, protein); sliced banana (fiber, protein, Vitamin C, potassium); and cinnamon (metabolism booster). And of course, two or three cups of coffee with skim (protein, more metabolism kick-starting … and dehydration, which I compensate with three cups of water and a multivitamin).

The breakfast covers every food group, takes a few minutes to prepare, dirties few dishes, is frugal and is energy-efficient. It is a roundhouse kick of nutrition. My strongest time is morning, so it makes sense that I’d peak then nutritionally too. I often go downhill fast – wolfing down burritos while I’m driving, caving when there’s free cookies in the teachers’ lounge, eating chips incessantly for a three-day vacation and giving myself heartburn. (True story.) I also have the unfortunate habit of drinking anything that’s in front of me fast, and you can imagine how that can end up. That breakfast is the ideal, the Natalie before stress has had time to interfere and willpower has had time to disintegrate and happy hour has had time to turn into dinner, post-dinner drinks and late night. I wish I could sustain my breakfast mentality all day.

If I were more like my oatmeal, I’d be more positive and well-rounded. I’d be sweet, but not too sweet. I’d be free of all the fake crap and full of what’s good and natural. I’d be sturdy enough to keep people going. I’d trade in flakiness for reliability; flashy accessories for wholesomeness. Instead of being a bad influence (”What’s one more round? Drafts are only $3.”), I’d be good for you. I wouldn’t be a real looker, like omelettes and french toast and McSkillet breakfast burritos, but I’d stand the test of time.

You are what you eat? I should be so lucky.