Author: Jen Barry

A little Ode to Spring and all that jazz…

Even at age thirty-two, I still get a little thrill when the calendar clicks over and March begins.  I’m not entirely sure what brings about this feeling of joy, but I think it might be residual happiness about the school year ending, bringing lazy days of summer.  Now, I’ve obviously been out of school for quite some time, and I don’t even have a teaching job that encourages me to look forward to the vacation days.  It’s no matter; I still smile in blissful happiness when I step outside into the chilly March morning to hear the birds teasing each other with a call and response routine.

The magic of spring is that it brings new life to the dead earth of winter.  This resurrection is nothing short of a miracle as trees begin to bud cautiously and the grass gradually creeps from dull brown to a crisp, verdant green.  This awakening affects me just as profoundly as it does the nature that surrounds me, and I feel a pull toward the half-finished ramblings and stuttered starts to books that were cast aside during the unusually harsh winter.  I long for the days of warmth and sunshine so I can cart my coffee and my trusty laptop outside and spend hours tapping furiously at the keys.  Apparently, the resurrection affects more than just the flowers and trees.

My toes are cold, but my soul is warm and toasty.  Sweet, trilling songs ring in my ears, making the need for my iTunes obsolete.  Surely there is no more beautiful music than that which God created–though I’ll certainly return to my Bobby Long playlist later.  It is this call and response that I hear throughout my otherwise quiet neighborhood that reminds me what it means to be alive, and I’m ready to take better advantage of this precious gift.  It’s a feeling that I wish could remain throughout the year, but I know the cold winds of December will likely shrivel this new hope.  For now, I’m content with a reawakening, and perhaps, as with nature, the tiny death each year makes the new life even more miraculous.

Why I’m not a meteorologist…and why I maybe should be.

Writing outside is one of my most favorite things.  When I read last week that we could expect seventy-degree weather here in Nashville today, I started planning to take a trip to the coffee shop with a lovely friend to soak up sunshine and lay down words.  After a brief glance at the forecast this morning to be sure that the weatherman still had it right, I headed out.  It was still chilly when I left at noon, but I had the utmost faith that the day would warm up, the sun would peek from behind the clouds, and I would begin work on my masterpiece.

What happened instead were gusts of wind that were probably about twenty miles per hour at some points, a temperature that never reached above sixty, and lots of goosebumps.  Like the eternal optimist I am, I had ordered a frozen coffee drink, imagining that it would be refreshing once the heat of the day finally arrived.  The coffee was delicious; the day was freezing.

I walked away with a couple of observations.  First of all, my lovely friend is even lovelier than I thought.  She stayed with me for four hours as we both stubbornly awaited the promised temperatures and encouraged me to buy a hot coffee when they never arrived.  She also prodded me through my work for the day, provided possible topics for marketing blogs, and kept me laughing when I got to take a break.  Mostly, though, she suffered those crazy winds with me like a trooper.

I also noted that I wouldn’t mind being a weather forecaster.  Seriously.  How many other jobs out there would allow me to be wrong more than half the time and not get fired?  I think I would always err on the side of caution, however optimistic I usually am.  I’d hate to get everyone’s hopes up for a beautiful spring day while Mother Nature delivered, well, February.

A bit about why I hate Corporate America…and why it seems to hate me back.

I feel as though I was drowning and didn’t realize it until I received a breath of air. For two weeks, I was underwater with a new job that took up almost all of my waking life. I pushed hard for this job, sacrificed many things to make sure it was done right, only to suffer a lay-off yesterday. An immediate lay-off, even. Not even time to collect my coat and say my goodbyes.

Another missive about what a bad blogger I am, and then a bit of excitement about my first published book.  Wheee!  (That’s still exciting to me.)

I am the world’s worst blogger, it appears. It’s not that I didn’t think about posting, it’s just that… well, I just didn’t do it. My husband claims that I have no stress right now, and no responsibility, and therefore should have plenty of time. I have to call bullsnot to that, though. I have a book coming out in three weeks. (Please allow a moment for shameless self-promotion. Apparently, it shows up in google if I put a link here:rioghanskingdom.com.) As such, I’ve spent most of my days connecting with readers of Twilight and Harry Potter to tell them about the book and ask if they’ll consider it when they see it in stores. It’s embarrassing at times, for I’m not really the greatest at shameless self-promotion (earlier example excluded, of course.)

This particular blog is an ode to my love for karaoke.  I’ll go hide my face in shame now.

It has been pointed out that I might have an irrational love for karaoke. Someone once told me that, with years of opera training, I should probably run screaming from tone-deaf drunk people screaming “Don’t Stop Believing,” but this doesn’t seem to be the case. I embrace it, fully and unconditionally. Besides, I live in Nashville, so the ratio of fantastic singers to tone-deaf idiots is actually quite high.