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KARA FUJI's avatar

I like your question, on the threshold of what? Indeed, I am asking myself that very question at 81, on the verge of publishing, will it happen? Do I have the razz-a-matazz to complete the process? Do I even NEED to?

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Kara, I feel in these very words of yours the requisite razz-a-matazz. What is need, anymore? What completes us? I have found a sense of completion here on Substack that I haven't felt in a very long time. Stay with us here, while you ponder.

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Martha Chabinsky's avatar

Asking myself the same question!

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Martha, the eternal question.

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Josie Rashmi Smith's avatar

Yes yes yes you do!! Go for it Kara.

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Georgetta Hughes's avatar

Just so perfect. Each word placed naturally. Each one a wild flower. How I love the view from your window.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Wild Flower! Do you know, dearest and beautiful friend, that I have a novella called "Wild Flower?" (not published). That Wild Flowers, in so many ways, define me? Thank you.

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Bernadette Geraghty's avatar

You have such a gift of saying something that illuminates and names things that I am walking/sitting around feeling……when I read your words my heart so often explodes! ……I too have been holding this feeling of having not ‘done’ enough with my time. Yet. It’s seems we were these young women just yesterday. Yet also now the knowing that just ‘being’ fully in a beautiful moment is enough. And the moments I feel that joy of life are when I’m making. 🙏

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Oh absolutely. That joy of making. We are all struggling in this new world and with the passage of time. And then we hold something in our hands and … the moment is alive. Our lives are now. Thank you to you.

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Melissa Firman's avatar

"and when she plays her music, she plays it loud and dances, unafraid to be seen, or to be found out..."

A certain Mr. Springsteen, perhaps? :)

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Dancing in the Dark. With Bruce.

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Melissa Firman's avatar

Our one and only.

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Mountain Mama musings's avatar

"Though I only hear the wind within, the tumbleweeding of my mind. How one thought knocks against another thought, leaving bruise behind" so good... 🙏👏👏👏

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Thank you so very much. My mind receives the world in its own strange ways. And then the words emerge.

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Char Wilkins's avatar

Yes, yes, yes to being audacious lest we be as boring a fluorescent tube bulb. Here are my favorites: "There is grammar in my skin, gray in my hair. the old bike is rusty. suddenly I am lost in the liquidity of time, chasing multiple selves."

All of the above.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

to the forever audacious in us, Char.

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Ruth garrison's avatar

You will look back and see your beauty and youth and realize how much more you know now and love that woman .

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Oh, Ruth. She seems so far away, that Beth. And I wondered, reading the previous her, if I do know more now. But I will hope to. These times challenge us in new ways. And we must keep rising. Thank you so much, Ruth. xo

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Laura Pashby's avatar

So beautiful, Beth.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Hello you. And thank you.

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Karen Rile's avatar

Keeping being audacious! (I know I don’t need to tell you that.) I love this photo and I love that Bill took it.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

I will do my darndest to be my most audacious, even though anxiety and panic gnaw and gnaw, as they do. As they will. xo

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Karen Rile's avatar

Women are always the bravest, and you, my friend, are fearless and leading by example.

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Judy Goldman's avatar

Grammar in your skin!

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Beth Kephart's avatar

always!

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Nancy Jainchill's avatar

There is no container for ongoingness!

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Nancy, those containers just keep shattering ...

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Carmen Radley's avatar

Love this missive so much. It's gorgeous, and it reverberates. xo.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Carmen, it means so very much to have these words from you this morning. Thank you.

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Claire Polders's avatar

Your audacities are an inspiration. This essay made me think of Annie Ernaux’s “A Girl’s Story.” A book I highly recommend, but I assume you already know it.

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Claire! I have on my shelf AE's Getting Lost, The Years, and A Woman's Story (all read, sometimes more than once) but not A Girl's Story. I love that you are recommending it. I will look for it, with gratitude to you.

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Linda Hoenigsberg's avatar

Yes Beth. I see photos of myself and think, "Then I could do this...then I thought about doing that." Some of my past desires have changed, but not all have. They've just become impossible. How should I feel? Surprised? Resigned?

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Perhaps alive in the very humanity of it all, as bewildering as it is, Linda —

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Linda Hoenigsberg's avatar

Yes...and I've found a balance between acceptance and experimenting.

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Susan J Tweit's avatar

I read your words "on the threshold" and "audacities" and I think of all you have done and all you bring to your work, the totality of you in each book, each piece of art, each class and workshop. What a gift you are!

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Beth Kephart's avatar

Susan, I — still feel so incomplete, so still wondering what more I might have been, how much wiser. But I thank you, truly I do.

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Susan J Tweit's avatar

I think we all wonder what if. The thing is that we are who we are at any given time, and that is more than enough. To me, you feel like a gift!

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Beth Kephart's avatar

I will try to live with that, Susan. With your grace. In it.

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