And The Day After

November 16, 2020

Listen to TinaO read this poem below.

A feminist on the day after the 2016 USA election

I want to complain and trash the beach

spill obnoxious tins of paint

confused by yellow shades of not-quite-green hues

all over the rocks

crash multiple bins of soot wrecking the sand

smearing clouds of murky shadows out to the wind

I am stained by this

I am slashed by this

and I want to crumple the shoreline

drenched in wax

from holding a vigil

for an exhale that turned to anguish

with no chance to settle

I am furious

I bet I can swing King Tide logs over my head

fling them

into the ocean

followed by these legs on a torso

this is no longer my body

for I have left

Instead,

I walk the beach

to make sense

of the madness

I somehow

never saw coming

I fucking hate surprises

avoidable fingers

caught in windows and snagged in doors

or train wrecks we say never happen

until they do

now

I bring

teapots and towels

rings and rodents

fire and feathers

bobbles and babies

to this water

my hair is on backwards

and my neck

lays on the ground

I am not here

She screams into the pillow

suffocating

the trembling

the shaking

and the bruised women

out from this silent

nod to misogyny in power

one hand on his bible

the other up her skirt

This is the man

they freely chose

to lead the very country where feminism

cut her teeth

so today I can walk

with multiple careers and a baby on each breast

Today I am a fraction safer on the street

even if every woman still knuckles

her keys in her hand

to reach her car

For the next four years

you will find me

smashing teapots

and bleeding into the ground

This reality

is not mine

and yet

if you visit my kitchen

you will find

I haven’t a cup left

Four years ago I woke up in shock that the world had gone mad. When Donald Trump was elected president it haunted me for days.

This is the morning after…

The day after the 2020 election, it was a very different walk on the beach for sure.

2016 and the Day After

This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…

and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:

Stories won’t let go of you until they’ve been fully heard.

This is release #8 of sixteen Story Hits (vlogs) from as far back as 2013. Some are my favourites, some are yours. If you missed week #1, you can start at the beginning with: Out of the Water here.

I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).

On my 50th Birthday, if you’re on my VIP list, I’ll be sending you 50 Days of Christmas Story Gifts from Dec. 25th to February 12th. If you want some story goodness filled with sneak peeks into the creation and rehearsal process, plus be able to pre-order the book, and order tickets to the show, click here and the let the gifting begin! (You’ll get a bunch of cool story right away)

UNDER THIS, PLEASE PUT THIS IN THE PARAGRAPH FORMAT:

I have to close one story to open another.

Thank you for listening.

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her. CLICK HERE for TinaO Story stuff.

Too Woo Woo for Me

November 2, 2020

Artsy

Listen to TinaO read the poem here.

I’m one of the girls you think about

Listening to snowflakes

growing holly from my elbows

cedars flanking my spine

and this collarbone,

dotted with red berries

I walk these paths,

barefoot,

toes, who can’t help themselves but flirt

with you,

each padded foot-fall

across the forest floor

smirking

and winking,

sparkles lifting off

from the soft bed

of the earth

with each step

You notice

She’s cute

you think.

Skirt smudged with sand

jacket dripping with ocean behind her

always

with a stone in her pocket

The wondering

where her mind goes

How her hands move

How her throat opens

How sound carries through her body

How she breathes in colour

Artsy

is what you say

not at all, what you think

but it’s the only way

you know how to explain

the taste of how she lives

from your mouth

WHERE WE’VE BEEN – circa 2016

I was working through the label of ‘woo woo’ which is thrown around lovingly and always jokingly… but always with an element of judgement underneath.

It was time to say… I am woo… and it’s what makes me think the way I do.

A little time in one of my favourite places – Mt. Gardiner Dock – 2016

This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…

and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:

Stories won’t let go of you until they’ve been fully heard.

This is release #5 of sixteen weeks of Story Hits (vlog) from as far back as 2013. Some are my favourites, some are yours. If you missed week #1, you can start at the beginning with: Out of the Water here.

I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).

I have to close one story to open another.

Thank you for listening.

If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her. CLICK HERE for TinaO Story stuff.

Hold on to What You Know – TinaO

September 28, 2020

Drivers

Listen to TinaO read this poem here.

Four wheels don’t make a driver
Some of us are gap fillers
Never considering how long it takes to stop before we start
or leaving a space between the cars
or a breath before the accident

–

Drivers read the room

they notice the way the rain hits

the window

It’s the rhythm of our repetition

and our listening through the weather

that keeps us rooted,

We drive through the exhale we can no longer hear

–

Drivers always take in

what doesn’t move around them

they drive conversation so they don’t sputter and fall

they grab up all the discomfort

like doughy circles of bread

squishing them into cubes

between our fingers

and palms

smaller and smaller

until just dense enough to stomach them

in one

efficient swallow

–

We drive the impossible

into the wreckage of exhausted potential

–

We’re weird like that

Drivers

–

We think anything can be done,

rescued,

revitalized,

made into something it’s not

and never has been

–

We tell ourselves

capacity

is a moveable thing

and not a boundary

or a sign of where something ends

where we’re so full we simply cannot take any more in

Drivers look at these lines as cartoons,

something we can erase and redraw

or pick up and put down wherever we need them to be

–

But drivers don’t read maps this way

on paper

on the road

or in actual life

where breathing back and forth

can happen,

No,

valleys, cliffs and deserts are not

merely suggestions

there

We are drivers

and we will drive til it’s done

–

I am a driver

I have driven the things I want into what I want them to be

Til I see a moment like it’s not

Til it’s better

Because I made it that way

–

I get shit done,

I make up new rules for the road

and I can see in the dark

–

So why?

Why would I stop driving now?

–

Listen to this poem ready by TinaO here.

Story Hit #3 – Hold on to What You Know

(or How Live Your Best Story Came to Be)

From Where We’ve Been: TinaO’s Story Hit’s Compilation

https://youtu.be/-UDdZ0qmmmo

From October 2016 – almost three months post cancer treatment

These vlogs track where we’ve been together over the last seven years. I share them with you to close one story and open another.

This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:
Stories won’t let go until they’ve been fully heard.
This is release #3 of sixteen weeks of Story Hits (vlog) from as far back as 2013. Some are my favourites, some are yours. If you missed week #1 and #2 and want to start from the beginning, you can start here with: Out of the Water.
I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).
On my 50th Birthday, if you’re on my VIP list, I’ll be sending you 50 Days of Christmas Story Gifts from Dec. 25th to February 12th. If you want some story goodness filled with sneak peeks into the creation and rehearsal process, plus be able to pre-order the book, and order tickets to the show, click here and the let the gifting begin! (You’ll get a bunch of cool story right away).

Thank you for listening.

I Want

July 15, 2020

This is from a box of poetry I uncovered in my office as I was tidying up. I can’t help but notice how self-conscious I feel about it now at fifty, like I want to hide my blossoming from the world as if it’s silly.

I am noticing how embarrassed I feel.

So I’m posting it.

I’m a mom, and as I watch my kid’s mortified fascination as they watch obnoxious videos of themselves at eleven or twelve, I can’t help but think of me here.

When my boys shrink back from their fresh-faced ridiculous selves in their young days, I want to hug them.

Because each stage of our life is a discovery.

And we discover who we truly are by our courage.

Courage to be seen.

Courage to be creative.

Courage to be naive.

Courage to be angry.

Courage to blossom.

So… here is a piece I wrote in my early twenties. It makes me want to cringe now, but then, I really felt like I was being bravely feminine.

I grew up with eight pretty rough and tough brothers and being ‘feminine’ made me a target.

When I remember that, this piece fills me with delight.

I WANT

…to wear candy apple

Red toe nail polish and put my hair in braids

…to go topless on a white beach in the Mediterranean.

I want to be held naked in the water

an ocean, or a lake

I want to wear sarongs

orange, turquoise, purple, emerald green

the colours of tropical fish

and walk barefoot in warm places

I want to ride my bike in France with the taste of exotic wines

on my lips

I want to meet a lover while I’m there

have him speak French to me

as we make love in his loft

I want to write

scads and scads of racy, erotic stories

and spread them around the world under a different name

I want one to come back to me

but read by someone else’s lips

I want to taste succulent

tangy, and salty things

fed to me at some ungodly hour with my eyes closed

and my mouth full of laughter

That’s what I want

more laughter, more desire, more fun

Oh yes,

and some terribly thrilling man who will feed me

mouthful, upon mouthful of

strawberries and cake

This poem was originally published on Medium.

To find out more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones and performances of her solo show O MY God, click here.

TinaO is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media Group where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.

As part of TinaO’s audience, CLICK HERE to receive a personal message from TinaO about the power, beauty and invitation of Story, and your personal Story from the Core. You will also be able to stay up to date about TinaO’s performances, storytelling events, and upcoming retreats and workshops.

Ruby Glasses

June 14, 2020

I am working on a one woman show called O MY GOD for my 50th birthday, and so much more. I’ve been wading through moving images from my childhood for days and this one keeps comes back to me over and over. As I pulled it up I realized I don’t remember moving. At all. But I do remember wrapping the ruby glasses my mom used to collect carefully in newsprint and placing them in boxes.

Ruby Glasses

It’s cinema to me

dust on light becomes mist,

dissolve

evening sundown

to dusk

to twilight,

lighting

my knees on the linoleum

a tint of pale not yellow

but not green

and cool

with grooves that form map lines on my skin

from sitting for so long

It’s okay

I’ll trace them later

under a summer sheet

her picture tucked under my pillow

and a faded window curtain

breathing sleep over me,

set deck

We are moving

and I’m wrapping ruby glasses

with my dad,

quiet

I am never quiet

I am a tiger

a magician

a trapeze artist

a clown in long blue chiffon

trailing the ocean at my feet

I burble

I giggle

I wonder

out loud

always out loud

I am the maestro of this

this

circus of music

of black cherries and red poppies,

of blue bells

of white sheet wonder

and of mystery,

sound design

I tilt here,

so full

my throat

and the sky I see through my window

has wrapped me

and my shoulders

in a shawl to forget

all the things I will miss

when we leave this place

it slips

and I shiver

the depression glass, the broken porch, the pears

the plums and the cherries

the blossoms

so messy

so pink

and always in my hair,

the sound of my feet

running

tripping

twisting my ankle

falling down the stairs

again

dipping my fingers into the chocolate paint

that smothered

everything in the 70s,

editing

everything you built with your hands

for her

will be gone

like her

from both of us

I won’t remember my last sleep in this house

I won’t even think of it until

now

like cinema

but I will remember

wrapping

ruby

glasses

at seven years old

my hands, your hands, her glasses

in newsprint

like moving pictures

This poem was originally published on Medium.

TinaO is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media Group where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.

Beautiful Idiot

July 4, 2016

I’m not going to think about this too much because if I do, I won’t write it. 20 minutes tops… here goes:

This letter is not a letter but a rant, a rub, a flag. It’s graffiti across my 40 something belly, ragged in permanent marker so it fades slowly, my shriek with no parachute, sprawled wide, turbulent and free, the dark velvet of Guiness spilling across the bar.

Bartender smiles.

He’s seen this before.

He knows what day it is.

Truth time. The moment after. The glance back when wisdom hasn’t arrived yet. Someone sits down and tries to chat but all you can do is the no-talk-small-talk, either that or ignore him completely. I pick up my pen and flip to a new page.

Strangers think writers are mysterious but probably crazy. Sexy too, but only …over there.

Bartender smirks knowingly at the stranger, then tosses a soft smile to you.

Dear twenty something,

you write.

Dear lost and jumbled, frenetic and free, torn up and trying… so much trying…

Listen, this tearing wildness that screams through you is worth it. All your hunger and heart break and panic for knowledge, to be sure, to contain, to fret, to flee, to love, and crush and blame and run, to transform and drift… just drift, drift

to claim drama by colouring with pastels, breaking them when pushing too hard and then scratching a new image with your fingers. The purple, red and golden lines beneath your nails say it was worth it.

To plunge into the breathless race of belonging, head spinning, drunk with clamoring still – somewhere anywhere.

To recognize how little you truly know. Claiming THIS IS HONEST at 4:30am.

Oh my but you are such a beautiful idiot.

You run.

every day.

Searching for knowledge, to land, to decide to follow through, to stand for something that doesn’t change in the next second. To be anything but what you are, this beautiful…

idiot.

So beautiful.

And you just don’t know it yet.

Dear twenty something, never stop. Running. Fling yourself forever. Press on. This mess. Love. Fucking Love. Risk sounding like a crazy poet jumping rope with yarn of seaweed, be the child woman with sand in her hair.

Dear 20 something – because you’ll never know.

And that’s just so…

idiotic. yes. and beautiful too.

xxT

On July 23rd on beautiful Bowen Island, just outside of Vancouver, BC at Rivendell Retreat Centre, I am offering Writing as Witness, a one day retreat into the story and/or wisdom inside of you that wants to be heard.

The day includes: Walking meditation, Writing, baring Witness to others, and witnessing our own wisdom. The retreat time will be as private or as connected as you want it to be, which means, you needn’t share your writing or insights if it doesn’t feel right.

There will be a few ‘how to’s and offered best practices’, but mostly, the day is a guided conversation with your-self and the ‘practice’ is in the following of how and what you are wanting to have heard.

Journals are provided. Snacks are also offered however, please bring a picnic lunch to enjoy outside (weather permitting).

July 23rd 2016, 10am-4pm, maximum 16 participants.

Cost is $79 for the day.

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TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.