About Me — Selma Martin
An updated introduction to Selma: reader, writer, poet, and Oh, so ordinary
“Be humble, for you are made of dung.
Be noble, for you are made of stars.”
~ Serbian Proverb
In April 2020, I wrote my first About Me on this lovely platform and shared parts of myself as my parts uncurled in current world events, namely the pandemic that I never foresaw would drag on this long.
Back then, as today, I consider myself lacking a funny bone, so I created a post formatted as an interview that I thought was fancy.
That post is now buried under newer posts, mostly poetry, and I’m delighted to excavate it to show it to a new audience here on Medium.
Go ahead, click on that old link — it’s me, oddish and a few years younger, but me nonetheless. In that post, you will find half a dozen other short posts written around the same time — all about me.
I’m still the same person who values life and friendship above all else, loves the diversity here on Medium, is still IN JOY and IN AWE with ordinary living, and still believes in miracles.
And I’d be just a dusty old porcelain figurine if I hadn’t grown into the sum of who I am today — in baby steps, though it may be — so let me update you on how I’ve evolved.
Until then, I was so gungho about working on the novel I started in 2017 — editing and polishing it, making it better for publication. Today I have taken a long hiatus from that novel and have grown into poetry.
This doesn’t mean I’ve given up; I cannot, I bled those words, but for the time being, I want to continue galumphing in poetry and perhaps make it so that on this, the almost start of my sixth decade, I, too can contribute a verse in a book of poetry that I hope to publish on Amazon.
Aww, to have my verses tucked between the covers of a book — dreamy! Please, won’t you stick around?
“Kind people, don’t think me
purse-proud,
don’t set me down as
vainglorious,
I’m just a little euphorious.”
~ No Doctors Today, Thank You
Poem by Ogden Nash
So you see, now my rudders are pointing toward a different route to get to the same place. That is one thing that has shifted.
Two years ago, the bulk of my work was here on Medium. But then I got overwhelmed with the platform’s speed and started going slower on my website and slower still with my once-a-month newsletter, where I sell nothing; I give my friendship away to connect on a deeper level with my audience that I call my pen pals.
And through this much-needed respite is how I landed on all fours on poetry.
I’ve come to love reading all sorts of poetry, mainly victorian, which has awakened something within me that I never knew laid dormant inside the chariot that houses my soul. Imagine my surprise!
I love traditional haiku and syllabic poetry forms (the easy ones) and have been practicing earnestly in the lovely WordPress Reader community. And in April 2021 participated in my first-ever National Poetry Writing Month (I repeated it this year too). That was the most exciting event in the last two years of my becoming.
I am now a half-poet
attempting to paint you
a rose garden
with real toads —
in burrows in the day
and at night, croaking
Right now, I hear a voice in my head that tells me I came into poetry too late and in a way that could be true. I’ve missed opportunities to write poems about the bad things that have happened to me in my life —if I were younger, I probably would, but today I cannot. Those bad things were written long ago in the *sand, and the tide has done away with all the bad.
To write something that shows my brokenness feels dishonest to me, as I am not broken right now, and nothing unpleasant from my past exists in my present.
It could help someone going through the same, I hear another voice saying. Sorry, guys, I have no living bad incidents and examples to enlighten anyone about my past. Furthermore, I wish to transmit presence, and my presence resides in the now, not the past.
But I do have a past. And as you read, you will discover lessons in words that are real — as real as the air that I breathe, that you breathe — and whole like I am today (I hope this is not a down putter for you). And as relevant as how I see our world through my lenses.
I love detours. Here’s one
Aside: In all my time here on Medium, I can count on one hand the number of times any of my articles got curated. Let me share
with you the first one. And as you read, please let me know if you think returning to the way life was is a good idea. Have we evolved?
I hope you enjoyed that detour. Now we move on with what else has shifted in the last two years.
Now I’m on Instagram in addition to Twitter — both places where I flounder but where I’m told I need to be seen. I don’t dislike it, but I do not like it! Confusing? Well, I contain multitudes.
I’d much rather more people saw me here on Medium *sigh*, where I’ve started sharing my 2022 words that flow from my happy place.
I’ve always been a happy person, a camera-shy person, an intuitive person, and a no-bling person. I am still all that, as some things cannot morph. I am okay with that.
I will be a country mouse!
You — city-mouse?
Following suggestions to take those tests that reveal one’s personality/temperament/character, I discovered that I’m INFJ and an old soul: an empath. Knowing this about myself has me nodding in acceptance (agreement?) as I think I fit the mold. Fit it but still free to roam.
Lastly, I have been married to my best friend for 32 years, and we raised two babies who turned into gentle young men right before our eyes. We blinked once, and there they were.
“… If you plant crab apples, don’t count on
harvesting Golden Delicious.” ~ Bill Meyer
And while some might find this last part cloying, I’ll say it anyway: I believe marriage is a holy thing; it’s the luminosity that feeds my spirit.
Haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644–1694)
“seek not to follow
in the footsteps of wise men —
seek that which they sought”
*sand — where you will find my footprints that will help to raise you above your tempests or the vexations of your soul. This is how we are connected. Just pay attention to the melody.
Thanks for reading.
I’m so happy we’ve met.
I Wish You Miracles.
