Win at Life Archives - BornWilder

On Pause

Cheryl Wilder — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 14:30:02 +0000

Visiting Guano Point, located on the Grand Canyon’s west rim, was a lesson in walking meditation. With the 3,800-foot cliff only steps away, I walked slow and deliberate. I felt every wisp of breeze on my face. My mind expanded as it reached into every nook of stone carved from the power of flowing water. […]

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On Teetering

Cheryl Wilder — Sun, 08 Aug 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Teetering. To teeter. To wobble, toddle, sway. From Old Norse titra, meaning shake, shiver. From titra to titter to teeter–an unsteady waver; indecision. The teeter-totter I shared with my sister had a curved half-moon base instead of a teeterboard placed upon a fulcrum. Neighborhood kids flocked to our yard. Two at a time, we sat […]

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On Plenty

Cheryl Wilder — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 15:23:41 +0000

Recently, I came across Henry David Thoreau’s well-known quote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” His sentiment inspired a Google search where I found Just Enough is Plenty by Samuel Alexander, a book […]

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On Optimism

Cheryl Wilder — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:35:15 +0000

A recent Washington Post headline, “Time to ditch ‘toxic positivity,’ experts say: ‘It’s okay not to be okay,'” made me question whether I have answered too many pandemic texts with an “always look on the bright side of life” attitude. The answer: probably. I have a history of optimism. For example, when I was twenty, […]

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On and On and On

Cheryl Wilder — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 18:16:06 +0000

As the days of 2020 melt into one another, Erykah Badu’s song “On & On” replays in my head. The song was released in 1997, the year my eldest son was born, and I hadn’t listened to it (or the album Baduizm) in a long time. Listening now, in what seems like a warped version […]

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On Focus

Cheryl Wilder — Fri, 22 May 2020 15:34:04 +0000

We’re in the 9th week of pandemic homeschool. When it comes to my six-year-old boys, focus is a daily struggle. And I get it. They don’t understand that Monday thru Friday the living room transforms into a classroom. When they see the couch, they do what they normally do: jump, climb, and wrestle. That I […]

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On Lyric Poetry

Cheryl Wilder — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:33:02 +0000

My school-aged children attended their last day at school on March 13, 2020. The following week I transitioned my house and work-life to include homeschool. On Sunday morning I woke up early, before everyone else in the house, and cried. A good, deep cry as I sat at my new “teacher’s desk.” Then I wrote […]

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On Threshold

Cheryl Wilder — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 02:34:32 +0000

If memory serves, I have never written a holiday poem. I associate lightheartedness with holiday poems; if you know my work, you know I am not a lighthearted poet. And for reasons I won’t get into, holidays haven’t inspired me. But this year, prompted by an upcoming Christmas party with my writing group, I challenged myself […]

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On Little Wins

Cheryl Wilder — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 14:42:36 +0000

[When I started this blog back in 2014, I wrote about little wins. After a few years of practice and perspective, it makes sense to revisit the subject .] The 2008 recession hit my family hard. We were living in Wilmington, North Carolina, a coastal tourist city. My husband-to-be and I were planning a wedding. […]

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On Type II Fun

Cheryl Wilder — Sun, 27 Oct 2019 11:45:21 +0000

Years ago, when I trained in kung fu, I didn’t have the words to accurately explain the experience. If you saw my face during class, I didn’t look like I was having an ounce of fun. And in the moment, I often wasn’t; I was exhausted and in pain. But by the end (and especially […]

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