Your Teeth Are Very Important!

April is National Poetry Month

Welcome to DPP, a weekly newsletter about the real-life trials and tribulations of pleasing, and how I leverage emotional intelligence for proper recovery. Letters land on Tuesdays and sometimes surprise days, please consider me a first-class seat with your inbox?

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This past weekend I attended the San Diego Writer’s Festival at the Coronado Public Library. It was a completely free event, so I went in with low expectations- but there were some CATS there! Tembi Locke- author of memoir and NYT Best Seller, From Scratch, which was adapted to a Netflix series, was the keynote speaker.

Speaking of Netflix, if you have seen the series Sweet Magnolias, actor Anneliese Judge was also a panelist in attendance of the festival, and she spoke about her online presence, book club, and podcast, “Who To Judge?” She touched on the importance of pitching our work with genuine interest in the platform or person we pitch to- and we can all start by spelling her name correctly. She said that her name is the traditional German spelling of Anneliese, from her Oma. Tears pricked my eyes because Coronado (where the festival took place) is where my Oma and Opa lived when I was little. It’s hard for me to cross the bridge over the bay without singing to myself in Oma’s voice, “Here we are in beautiful CoronadooOoOo”.

It all felt very synchronistic, and special, and if you are a writer or aspiring to be, the message of the day was; “get on Substack”. And to those of us already over here, “you’re doing great, sweetie.” 💖

April is National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, I found a collection from many moons ago. Circa 2012?? I came across this one below that I don’t hate makes me smile:

RING RING:

“Hello?”

“Hi Kaylen! How was your birthday, sweetie?”

“Oh, it was fine, thanks, um, may I ask who is calling?”

“WHAT?! Kaylen sweetie! You are so FUNNY! This is your dentist's office of course! I’m calling to remind you about your appointment for a cleaning at 10 AM on Friday!”

“Oh shoot. I work on Friday. Can I reschedule?”

“WHATTTT??? You want to RE-schedule?? BUT YOU PICKED THIS DATE six months ago! Doctor will be VERY disappointed if she don’t see you!!”

“Well, I was scheduled to work this Friday- that’s why I need to come another time.”

“You mean the coffee place?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Kaylen. You go and find someone to make the coffee for you. Your teeth are VERY important, sweetie!!”

“Okay, I will try to switch.”

“Good. I’ll call you Thursday to confirm your 10 AM on Friday. Bye now!!

CLICK.

- Your Teeth Are VERY Important

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As I type this out for the first time since handwriting it over 10 years ago, I am realizing that this is more reflective of a moment in my life rather than a piece of poetry. I am deciding to claim that life itself is poetic, and this is the piece I want to share today.

I took a creative writing class at community college where my professor, Dr. Arancibia was working on his PhD in literature from UCSD while I was in his class. He was/is a great poet, and he remains the most influential teachers I’ve ever had. He shared his own writing with us, and combined hip-hop and prose into spoken word in the most vulnerable way. He selected one of my poems from his course for publishing in our school magazine- don’t worry not the one I shared here.

Looking back at little assignments, scraps of prompts from his class, and poems inspired by his teachings, I can’t help but feel guilty for seeing retrospectively, my love for writing has always been…around. I could have dedicated myself to this craft a decade(s) ago. I can’t help but wonder where I would be if I had been more self-aware of my vocation back then.

As a practitioner of self-acceptance and emotional intelligence, I try to notice that voice of doom creeping into my thoughts and CHOP HER UP, with kinder- more compassionate thoughts. Tim Ferris sends out a “5 Bullet Friday” Listicle and the quote by J.W. Gardner he sent most recently touches on people-pleasing. It grounded me:

“You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”

-John W. Gardner

Embracing writing now, is the leaning into the relaxing bit of slipping out of people-pleasing, and into a creative process that fuels me for all future dentist appointments connections, to come.

From my pearly whites chompers, to yours,

K. Alexandra 😁

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