Barbara Tako’s Clutter Clearing Choices is about “how to live a fuller, more caring, and simpler life.”
by Roger Zotti
Remember Oscar Madison? Yes, Oscar Madison, the messy one of The Odd Couple! Well, Barbara Tako was once like him – but several years ago she underwent a turning point in her life.
Because her life was overrun with clutter, she said an emphatic goodbye to Oscar and “decided to become more like Felix Unger [Oscar’s roommate]. I learned my clutter clearing goal wasn’t about perfection but about freeing up energy [and time] to focus on the things in my life that matter most.” In fact, she rails against perfection because it “holds us back from attempts to get better organized, manage our time better… Decide it is more important to get started than to do it perfectly.”
To help other people “overwhelmed by clutter” the way she once was, Barbara shares her ideas in Clutter Clearing Choices (O Books). “We all have different personalities and preferences,” she says, “and we are all at different life stages. I offer a variety of suggestions rather than one ‘right’ way. I also think about different kinds of clutter depending on the season, and writing seasonally on this topic hadn’t been done before.” Packed with sensible information and common sense, her book is easy to read and insightful, valuable and humorous.
Here’s a sampling of Barbara’s many important clutter clearing tips: “Accomplish a lot of weeding out in small blocks of time – as little as 10 or 15 minutes… Spend less time worrying about clutter and just a little more time resolving it.” Also, remember to “Keep an ongoing donation box or shelf spot in your home to take discards to – as you discover them daily.” A common and serious clutter problem is what to do about sentimental items that accumulate. According to Barbara, “Keep the sentiment by taking a photo or writing in a journal, but donate, sell, or gift the actual ‘stuff.’ Display rather than store ‘sentimental stuff.’ If you keep something in a basement or attic, ‘it’ could get wrecked by temperature or humidity level changes…”
And what if it’s a collection? “Keep your favorite two or three samples, write down the history of the collection, and decide not to retain the entire collection.” She believes, however, that “there is no one right way to handle sentimental items. We all choose to keep some sentimental items – and that is fine.”
For Barbara clutter is “physical, mental, emotional and relational.” Now, while it “can be tangible like household goods, clothing, toys, and paperwork,” clutter “can also be feelings that pull us down and wear us out, including stress, guilt, anxiety.” To paraphrase one of her key points: Clutter is anything in your life that isn’t helpful to you – but once you take charge of clutter, you might just find yourself living a more caring, richer, and simpler life.
Remember, Clearing Cutter Choices is written by someone who has experienced the problems clutter can cause – and therefore there’s nothing pie-in-the-sky about it … If you have stories or ideas about clutter clearing, contact Barbara at simplify@clutterclearingchoices.com or visit her website: www.clutterclearingchoice.com.
Becky Walsh, author of Intuitive Lovers, says, “Avoiding pain is an avoidance of life itself. Everything works on polarity... In order to feel pleasure you must be able to feel pain.”
by Angela Olsen
There is sunshine in the horizon as I sit down to interview the author of perhaps one of the most groundbreaking books to come my way. The book is Intuitive Lovers by Becky Walsh and I liken it to the brilliant work by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth.
Becky Walsh taught intuition at the College of Psychic Studies in London. She has a radio show on LBC 97.3FM, works as an intuitive therapist, and as a life coach helping people to develop their consciousness. She is candid, sharp, quite accessible, and, oh yes, hilarious!
To get the ball rolling, I must know what inspired this book? To this, Becky says there were three defining moments which brought about Intuitive Lovers. One being, she kept saying the same things to clients in session. So, she decided to put it all in a book, suggest the clients read it, and then refer to that body of knowledge in therapy.
She was shocked to be told by an acupuncturist partner that she was too much in her… well, you can use your imagination (or better yet, read the book!) Becky, while scoring points on being a technical lover, in reality was not making love, but was making actions. She attributes this to “finding difficulty in being a woman, struggling to be sensual.”
Another catalyst for Intuitive Lovers was an assessment of society. We are all born with intuition. Yet as we develop linguistic skills, we are able to communicate solely with words. In combination with techonology, this absolves us of the need for many of our innate intuitive abilities.
So then, what stands in our way to finding our perfect mate? One of the culprits is ego. Becky believes that we awaken every day in a perfect state, that there is nothing we need to do to define ourselves. “The ego is seeking enlightenment, but it is about seeking not finding,” says Becky. “It’s crazy in a way, but the ego will die if it finds enlightenment.”
She adds, “We believe that we need to get rid of the ego… The only way to get rid of it is to embrace it… Stop putting energy into our negative emotions… To be one with living, doing human things, I love that!”
Becky refers to something called the Pain Body, a force Tolle presents in A New Earth as well, and was the subject of Oprah Winfrey’s first-ever online course. People with an over-active Pain Body can unknowingly sabotage everything which is dear to them. If someone acts out often, they probably have an active Pain Body.
Often people will avoid relationships to avoid being hurt. “Avoiding pain is an avoidance of life itself. Everything works on polarity… In order to feel pleasure you must be able to feel pain. It’s like any other emotion. If you turn down hurt on a volume dial to 6, you also turn down love to a 6, as well… If you cut off pain, you also cut off love.”
There is a lengthy look into the world of “kink” in Intuitive Lovers, so much, in fact, that Becky was uninvited to a book signing at East-West Bookstore in Seattle! Quite frankly, the only part of the “kink” which is shocking is how it is presented to the reader without judgment.
Intuitive Lovers is revealing. While reading it, I had many “a-ha” moments, as it opens the mind to emotions and how to take responsibility for them alone and in a union. After all, thoughts become things and what we resist persists!
John E. Oden’s “Life in the Ring” is filled with “tales about the human experience and achievement.”
by Roger Zotti
Lucidly written and immensely satisfying, John E. Oden’s Life in the Ring (Hatherleigh) differs from most books about boxing because, its author says, “In a lot of ways, it is a self-help book that draws from an unlikely place. These boxers are men who could take a punch, literally and figuratively. Their life stories are inspiring … these tales are about the human experience and achievement.”
Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Marciano, Joe Calzaghe, Bernard Hopkins, and Joe Louis are just seven of the fifteen fighters covered in this insightful book. What these warriors have in common – in addition to courage, perseverance, and dedication – is that they continually challenged the best fighters in their respective weight divisions.
From 1992 to 2004 John was a white collar boxer, and he recalled an evening when he fought in London. “It was a black tie fundraiser called Hedge Fund Night.” The year was 2004 and in his corner was the great trainer and World Boxing Hall of Fame inductee Emanuel Steward. “It was a great experience and ranks as one of my proudest moments. ‘Business World’ did a two page article on the fight and white collar boxing.” (Take note: that night John dropped his opponent twice.) John still boxes – but now it’s “for exercise and fun. I just no longer compete.”
What John found most challenging about writing Life in the Ring was organizing his writing time. Because he works full time, for several months he was up between 4:00 and 4:30 in the morning. He wasn’t sparring or doing road work – he was writing. Also demanding was the matter of “deciding which principles I wanted to describe and which boxers to use to illustrate the points I was going to make.”
Yes, John believes boxing can regain its popularity of former times. “All the sport needs is an appealing personality, like a Mohammad Ali,” he says. “It is possible that the success of Manny Pacquiao will go a long way to do this and a fight between him and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. could restore some luster. The demand is there from the boxing public – the sport just needs the personality and talent. Boxing has been controversial since time began, but the draw and appeal is there when the right combination of factors comes into play.”
His 13-year ring experience, John says, “carried over into life itself.” It’s no surprise, then, that Life in the Ring illustrates the similarities between boxing and life: “To say that boxing is exactly like life itself is, perhaps, extreme. But life in the ring offers so many comparisons which mirror life that I cannot deny the connection. Boxing is a metaphor for life.”
If John’s book has a cumulative effect – and it does – it’s this: “The lessons taught in the ring are the obstacles that breed heart, character and determination that, in turn, apply to the real world. We can draw strength from the accomplishments [of the professional boxers about whom I write] and their victories over adversity.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever walked in my shoes…” – Steve Lazraus, author, vendor, and standup comedian.
by Roger Zotti
In Steve Lazarus’s remarkable and often laugh-out-loud memoir, “The Pope and Me at Yankee Stadium,” he’s at his hilarious best when he writes about some of his co-venders – like Roderick Coleman. “During any given day he’ll stop wherever he happens to be… set down his Cracker Jacks… stand ramrod straight, and announce, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, now batting, number fif-ty fiiive, Hidecki Matsui… Matsui… Matsui.” (Roderick always “[throws] in the reverb from the loudspeaker.”) He’s equally uproarious when he tells us about his Grandma Rosie, who “threw expletives around like a discus champion… Like peeling wallpaper, we just got used to Grandma Rosie – until company came; then we cringed.”
Steve wrote his book because “It got to a point where after you read a book, you say, ‘My story’s more interesting than that.’ I thought that being a comedian and vendor I had an interesting and unique story to tell. I don’t think anybody has ever walked in my shoes.” The events Steve writes about take place between 1977 – when he started vending at the original Yankee Stadium – and 2008.
Though writing “The Pope and Me at Yankee Stadium” with his longtime friend and co-vender, Sandy Miles, was a plus, Steve said, “we also got into many arguments about what to put in the book and what not to – well, that’s a way to almost break up a friendship.” Also, reliving some of the things “I lived through wasn’t easy or enjoyable. There’s some serious stuff in the book about gambling and being brought up gambling.” But overall, Steve added, “writing the book was a positive experience.”
What Steve hopes readers take away from his book is, first, that though people know what a vendor is “they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, and I hope they say, ‘Wow! I never knew that about a vendor.” Second, there’s the book’s gambling aspect – which is, Steve makes clear, a serious disease. “On TV you see these celebrity rehabs for drugs, but you never see or learn much about gambling rehab. Maybe after reading my book, people will realize that gambling is a serious problem.” (Read the chapter titled “Seventh Inning.” You’ll learn how Steve supported his gambling problem that was “slowly and surely sucking the life out of me on a daily basis.”)
As for the standup comedy Steve started doing in the early nineties, making people laugh “is the greatest job in the world. I recommend it highly to anyone who has always said, ‘I want to be a comedian.’ Just do it because it’s enjoyable.” Steve’s biggest comedic influences are George Carlin and Robert Klein – “because it is so hard to come up with new material like those guys did year after year.”
If the people and situations Steve writes about weren’t real, they’d have to be invented – which is a big reason why his book is so distinctive and terrific. Visit Steve’s website, www.ThePopeAndMe.com, to order it. It’s a great read.
“...Even though I can tell a story, writing it is completely different.” - Monroe S Tarver
by Roger Zotti
For Monroe S Tarver, the most difficult things about writing children’s books are “choosing the right words and knowing who you’re writing it for. Though I can tell a story, writing it is completely different.”
Monroe aimed his entrancing “Imagia and the Magic Pearls: Tales from the Mapmaker” (Wizarding World Press) at four to eight year olds. He explained that “parents are the ones who usually make the choice about buying the book. So, you have to appeal to them. They’ll ask questions like, ‘What is the book going to teach my child? Is it easy for them to read? Something they’re going to be interested in?’”
Actually Monroe – with his captivating and vigorous illustrations – was an artist before he became a writer. “The writing came much later,” he said. “I would draw different characters that never had a big story behind them.” But when he was working for a company in Winston Salem, North Carolina, a co-worker saw his work and suggested he create a story for his characters. “So, I wrote my first story and everybody loved it – and that’s when it all started.”
In “Imagia and the Magic Pearls,” the main character, Imagia, is an elf princess who’s black. As Monroe pointed out in a press release, “The recent controversy over Justine Labalestier’s cover reinforces that skin color still matters in publishing.” Justine’s book, “Liar,” is about a short-haired black female, but her publisher decided to put a long-haired, light-skinned female on the cover because he felt it would sell better. Justine disagreed but was overruled. Monroe said he and his publisher “both felt it was important to place my ethnic elf princess on the cover of my book. We are really going to be testing this.”
Imagia “spends most of her time studying,” Monroe said. “She’s getting ready to become a queen, doesn’t have any friends, and is instructed not to leave the palace.” But one day she discovers a tunnel, crawls through it, and finds herself outside the palace. Enter a “thinking fluttery” named Flutterwalk, who has blue hair and “two large purple antennas … Its wings were yellow and orange … soft and shimmery.” Soon her adventure with her new friend begins.
Later, we learn that Imagia and Flutterwalk “were being watched by the evil Queen Baddora” – who sees “the large pearl in the center of the crown on Imagia’s head.” The wicked Baddora exclaims that the pearl “will be mine!” She knows it will grant her powers “greater than anyone else in the world.”
What the immensely talented Monroe S Tarver hopes readers take away from his book is the importance and power of imagination. “Today there are so many things going on in the world that kids don’t get a lot of time just to imagine,” he said. When he was young, Monroe’s parents gave him time and encouragement to imagine, and he believes, “If parents give their kids encouragement to use their imaginations, there’s no telling what kids can do when they get older.”
