My piece on exuding confidence (titled: Get Your Groove On) landed me some stellar feedback, including something along the lines of having what it takes to be a great writer…

The hazard of all this success?  Cheeks that ache from smiling so much.

As luck would have it, I have been given the extreme pleasure of helping these Esthetic geniuses with informing their clients of upcoming events, product reviews and other Rouge-related hype.  Stay tuned for their blog… it’s bound to be addicting!

www.sparouge.ca

I am the ultimate in hopeless romantics.  I lose myself in story, film and music… and even when the last chapter is read, the credits roll, or a song fades into another, I hold on and finish their story in my head.  So many of my friends (aged anywhere from mid-20’s to early 30’s) have fallen in love with the New Moon trilogy – not for it’s dynamic writing (as it’s written for the teenaged demographic) but for the love story that sprawls across the pages.  Each book, they have devoured in need for that same beautiful content to reach into their own relationships… and, perhaps if we spoke more of a romantic language, it would. 

I realize that as centuries fade into the next, we are less and less likely to be able to recreate the splendour that was once commonplace, that we will continue to evolve our language of love into something completely unrecognizable in comparison.  I only hope that we find our way back to authenticity, that we find a way to ensure those we care most for know it, understand it and feel it.  Whole-heartedly.

I took the long way ‘round to ultimately end up exactly where I started with the very goal I set out with.  My parents were always cautious about my intention of being a writer – you know, that whole starving artist thing and all – and, offered up a handful of other possible careers (all of which were great options, just not for me) in an attempt to lure my attention away with something shiny (like, coins… and the beautiful shoes that could be purchased with coins!). 

I wavered a little… which gave way to doubt… which gave way to thinking I could write solely as an on-the-side activity.  So, I treated it as such and rarely wrote beyond silly emails and quirky stories involving close friends.  An entire decade dissolved leaving nothing more than trace memories with little to show in terms of work produced.  When I look back now, I get why that was, I understand why it sat so long simmering on the back burner – if I didn’t acknowledge it, I wouldn’t miss it as much.  If I didn’t miss it as much, I wouldn’t realize that that there was a gigantic part of me that felt lost.  And, was lost.  

I’m not exactly sure when the light came on, when I had that ‘Aha!’ moment that Oprah speaks of in nearly every episode, but somewhere along the way it happened.  Somewhere along the way I found my way back to me.  I realized that regardless of which path I followed, I was likely going to starve – either literally or figuratively.  I picked up my pen and paper (or rather, opened my laptop) and began rapidly writing (or rather, hammering away on the keys)… only to discover how different my voice is now from back then…  When exactly did that happen? 

The first full year (last year) was painful and oddly enough, I was somewhat prepared for that.  Though contracts were landed (to my surprise) and I started to establish a rhythm, I wondered if it would ever move beyond that, if I would ever establish my name.  Then, when I started to waver a little once again, a photographer friend of mine said something that I put trust in:  When you least expect it, things are going to gain speed and snowball in the best way.  Hmmm… maybe so!

Two weeks later, I had landed a freelance position on a magazine (in addition to the one I landed on another magazine two weeks prior to that) and a scheduled interview with Victoria Banks…

Yesterday was the interview… and, the timid little Lake Cowichan girl nailed it!  Next stop:  Coins… and the beautiful shoes that can be purchased with coins!

Currently in the works:  An article on exuding confidence (which is witty and brilliantly executed… then again, I am a smidge-bit biased), film reviews (I can’t wait for Alice in Wonderland – I suspect Johnny Depp will rock his role as the Mad Hatter) and a feature-interview on Canadian country music artist, Victoria Banks. 

Should anyone need to locate me, I can be found on Cloud 9… tickled a delicious shade of bubblegum pink!

On the go:

RAGE – An up-and-coming magazine (web currently, print eventually) focused on fashion, art and culture has launched in Kelowna.  My first RAGE article (see link below) was published on the site January 28, with more to follow soon. 

On the horizon:

Nickle and Thyme – My dear friend, Kristal Burgess (cook and photographer-extraordinaire) is self-publishing her first cookbook (due out later this year) and I have happily signed on as editor!  With an entire chapter dedicated to bacon, this is going to be a must-have book. 

http://www.ragefashionmagazine.com/melissa-macdougalls-shoe-isnt-always-greener

Focused on the arts, he assigned us graphic collages to create and spiral-graph designs to color, each of which he would proudly laminate and frame for us.  Beyond that, we were required to write an autobiography of our truly fictional future lives. 

At ten years old, I wrote of my sprawling estate, luxury automobiles and celebrity husband (namely, Tom Selleck, who fathered our four beautiful children; two boys, two girls).  While his acting career continued to keep us in the lifestyle that we had grown accustomed to, I produced literature worthy of deep sighs, a few tears and a smiley-finish. 

The imagination of a child is a truly marvelous thing… and, sometimes, if we look hard enough, we can find truth in fiction.   It’s just too bad that Tom Selleck was already married!

I was once entirely fashion-dysfunctional. 

Pairing reds with oranges and layering horrendous knits under a furry cow-patterned vest, I was a walking eye-sore, sure to have made small children cry.  My idea of peep-toe shoes equated to wearing my Birkenstock-like sandals without socks.  (I cringe in re-reading that last sentence)

Though able to identify the flawless faces of the classically illustrated models that blessed the glossy pages of Vogue and Glamour, my knowledge of Fashion Houses were limited to the floral fragrances in which they offered.  To me, fashion-forward meant an exciting shopping excursion to a neighboring city where, perhaps, the selection of overalls might be slightly larger than that within the boundaries of the small town in which I was raised.  I was anything but feminine, refusing to adorn my teenaged body with something that could suggest I had developed a shape beyond that of a rectangle. 

However thankful I might be that photographs of this sad, ill-dressed girl haven’t yet surfaced on Facebook, I sometimes wonder how she got from there to here. 

Here… a place where walking by Coach and Jimmy Choo have left me breathless… a place where little black dresses no longer frighten me into wild hysteria, a place where I am the proud owner of the most stunning pair of pearly white Chanel stilettos that ever were.  I am reformed.

Twinkling lights strung through mossy green garland break the morning darkness and the warm scent of gingerbread seems to linger in every last corner of our home.  Crafty decorations held together with globs of glitter and paste dot the branches of our spindly tree as wired gold ribbon, laced in circles, shimmers slightly.  Her eyes widen as she processes every last detail – the wool stockings which hang so expectantly from the mantle, the Nutcracker standing so stately upon the hearth, the cranberry wreath welcoming friends and family to our door.  Together, we lose ourselves in the senses of the holidays.

We watch as puffs of white crystals fall softly from the sky before dusting the ground with their frosty kisses.  I imagine them caressing my eyelashes and my nose as a verse from “My Favorite Things” plays melodiously in my mind.  I travel back in time, recalling moments of prickly cheeks and snow angels.  Now, I watch my daughter take pleasure in those same offerings, her chatter broken by laughter as she trudges through knee-high powder.  This is the wonderland that is winter.