#music and womens sports saved my life in 2023

[petalsfordany]

Record player ✅

The six records I’ve already ordered… still waiting

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Coached my first tournament in nearly a year today. It was an odd way to start, as I’ve hardly even been to practice since last spring. I haven’t properly returned since COVID occurred. I tried in 2022 to go back, it sort of worked, until a ways in 2023 when I got really disillusioned with it and stepped way back. But wasn’t ready to say I’m quitting, because it was my entire life for about 15 years. You can’t just give that all up. I always assumed I’d do it forever. It was the only place where I knew people or knew what was going on.

There was a really little tournament today, in this small town about an hour away. It was this little thing, nearby and unimportant, in the middle of the part of the season that’s full of major championships. My friend talked me into going with her to help coach. It’s only an hour away.

I always said I love the sport, and I meant it. I love the physical feeling of it. I love the back and forth and the way you can get so deeply focused in the middle of a match that you forget everything else exists. I love the high of when a move works and you bring them down, and I even kind of love the sense of just pushing against a wall when it doesn’t work. I love the strategy and all the little things that you can pick out in a video review. I love the competition.

But more than anything else, I’ve realized, when it’s gone what I miss is being part of something. Having a community, a place where I can go and I know who everyone is and they all know me and I know what all the little connections are and how everything works. That seems like the most irreplicable part of it, if I ever closed the door completely on the idea of being involved again (by, for example, moving out to the East Coast or even across the ocean, as I’ve considered doing, and have no really strong reason to stay besides keeping a door open), I don’t think I’d ever find that anywhere else. The very thing that makes that community feel special to me is the number of years I spent getting to know everything in it. You can’t just replace all those years. I could make new friends but I couldn’t make a whole new community. And friends come and go, you don’t want to count on that for your whole social life. They marry women on the other side of the world or they get engaged to women who live here but want to drastically change his social life, or they have brain aneurysms or they try to a fuck a teenager so you have to cut him out of your life. As, you know, a few completely hypothetical example of where four of my friends have gone in the last few years.

Today was definitely about community. It was a tournament mainly for kids aged sixteen and under, not the level of coaching I did pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, I was mainly involved with really competitive team, of the ones aged 16-24 or so, and I was on the road almost every weekend for tournaments that were usually not just an hour away. The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is 5 or 6 hours away from us (depending on traffic and on which bit of the area it is), and I used to be there all the time, because that’s where the more competitive teams and the bigger tournaments are. We’d go down there every weekend, pile as many coaches and athletes in one truck as we possibly could to save on gas costs, then pile as many as we could into a hotel room or Air B&B or sometimes the floor of the gym where my friend coaches in Toronto, to save on more costs.

And I constantly complained about it, because it’s not fair that athletes from my city have to pay so much more to compete than the ones who live in the GTA, who can just drive an hour in on the morning of the tournament instead of driving 5 hours the night before. But obviously, once it was gone, it was the biggest thing I missed. The road trips home after a tournament, with kids going between loudly signing along to the music, trying to teach my co-coaches and I Arabic (the athletes who rode in the coaches’ truck almost all spoke Arabic, because by and large they were the ones with parents who weren’t rich enough to drive them down – most of the white kids went with their own families), falling asleep on top of each other, and talking shit about their opponents. I wouldn’t trade that for a team that has a little extra money for facilities due to a much lower travel budget, but they don’t get the bonding time. They don’t get the special moments like yelling at 17-year-old for sneaking out of a terrible cheap motel in the middle of night and nearly getting killed.

But today wasn’t that. It was a little tournament in the valley around our area. I knew everyone. So many people whom I hadn’t seen in years. It was gratifying how many came up and hugged me as soon as they saw me, excited to see me because it turns out the community hasn’t forgotten me no matter how long I’ve been gone. I had some really lovely chats with some people I haven’t seen in ages.

But I did remember: being part of a community can get romanticized in my mind really quickly when I haven’t actually done it in a while (you know, like how doing two 5-hour road trips a week for months at a time seems like a beautiful thing when it’s a bit of nostalgia, but would get much more annoying if I started actually doing it again). In actually practice, the thing about being in a whole community, rather than just a small and curated group of friends, is you don’t get to pick who joins that community. Which means that going to spaces where the community is requires being around people you don’t like.

I didn’t realize until today just how lucky I’ve been in the last few years, really since 2020, to have had to spend almost no time in person around people I don’t like. Not that I never have to do that – we had a fun time at Christmas this year when my brother made some racist jokes and I told him they were racist and then my mother started crying because she hates that he and I don’t get along. But mostly, aside from a few exceptions like that, I’ve been able to avoid that feeling of standing in the presence of someone I think is being terrible and having to bite my tongue and try to get along. And I really fucking hate that feeling. I’ve always hated it, obviously. I know everyone hates that feeling, but I think I might hate it more than most people do. Because my friends can do it while seeming only mildly annoying, and it’s always bothered me more than that. Pre-COVID, it was a running joke among my friends that I hold a grudge forever and have no “poker face” for hiding when I can’t stand someone. But I could at least tolerate being in their presence, if I had to. I think that during COVID, my tolerance for that has gone down in the same way an alcohol tolerance would from lack of use. Doing it today made me wonder how I ever used to get through it all the time.

Here is a list of reasons why I disliked various people who were in the room with me today:

- The coach from another city who met his wife by being her high school teacher.

- The ref who’s been posting on Facebook that Israel has a right to defend itself.

- The other coach from that city who voted for the horrifyingly abusive coach to get on the board during the Big Dramatic Elections of 2016 (no not the American ones, the ones for board spots in our region). The coach he voted for has put three athletes in the hospital (that we know of) by forcing them to cut dangerous weight and train while injured, and also drove a friend of mine/first fully qualified female ref in Canada out of the sport by intimidating her into dropping a sexual harassment complaint against him.

- The coach from my team who used to be very close friends with me and then got a girlfriend and stopped talking to me almost entirely, and now they’re engaged so that’s just forever now, and he still makes vague small talk with me when he sees me as though we didn’t used to share everything and as though it’s fine that we have to catch up on basic details of our lives from the last two years.

- The coach of the host town’s team who told a girl I used to coach that girls aren’t really cut out for this sport.

- The parent from my team who once yelled at me for not having the correct facial expression during her son’s match, and also made a formal complaint against our coaches because we didn’t get sufficiently aggressive in yelling at refs to change calls at a tournament for little kids.

- There isn’t even any point in specifying individual people who post Joe Rogan on social media, because that’s just everyone in the room. In this community, the ones who are super into Joe Rogan but think Andrew Tate takes it too far are the progressive ones.

- And on that note: the random guy I saw wearing a Jordan Peterson shirt. Reminding me that probably at least 70% of that room consists of people who are also into Jordan Peterson.

- There were a lot of shirts with Christian imagery, which is fine and I don’t judge, mostly, or at least, I try not to. I still didn’t love being around it.

- The parent from another team who once complained about how my team was full of “ghetto kids” and the kids from her team should be careful around my team in hotels to avoid having their stuff stolen (because we have a lot of Middle Eastern immigrants, especially as compared to the small towns around us that are all white).

- Several people who drove out during the trucker protests to stand quite close to literally outside my fucking house, holding "fuck Trudeau" signs to protest COVID regulations, and also to be a part of a mob that shut down my entire city and intimidated the locals and caused massive property damage and several assaults on people not to mention to horrifying messaging, a couple of years ago. Not enough years ago for me to have put it behind me. Not enough years ago for seeing if my kids can beat up their kids to all be fun and games now.

- The guy who’s running a team because he used to be an assistant coach to that team when it was run by his brother, but a year and a bit ago, his brother committed suicide, to avoid going to court with the female athlete who had charged him with sexually abusing her since she was 15 years old. So he died, his brother took over the team. His brother who was close friends with him and was an assistant on the team through all of this and definitely knew what was going on the entire time, and never did anything to stop it, in fact tacitly encouraged it by continuing to coach there. And now he’s just in charge of those children and apparently that’s fine. Also, his presence reminded me of how, when the girl posted her story on social media after he died, the general reaction from our region was that she shouldn’t have done so because you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Not that she was wrong – the evidence was overwhelming that he did do it. Just that you shouldn’t be mean about him anyway.

- The guys sitting next to me while I ate lunch in the coaches' room, talking about how kids today are so much softer than a few years ago and it's all because COVID regulations have ruined the generation because Kids Are No Longer Tough.

- The guy who’s way too eager about cliché and useless coaching courses that make the coaches who take them think they’re better than the ones who spend that time actually out there coaching. (Actually, compared to everyone else, I’ve turned around on that guy and greeted him today as an old friend.)

But. Also, I've been listening to all these radio shows with John Robins where he's talking about Queen, and sometimes he references We Are the Champions, and every time it makes me remember that that song was on the playlists that we used to play on tournament road trips in the pre-COVID days, and it was the best thing in the world. And I think of this video that I watched so much during the lockdown days, when this still felt recent and like something that might come back soon, that I took once as we drove home in the middle of the night, from the type of tournament that makes us glad for all those tournaments where everything goes wrong, because they make it more special on the rare occasions that every person on our team performs to their potential and we just go down there and take over the whole venue, we were coming home with more medals than we knew what to do with and months of work paying off for everyone, and we had the playlist on and the kids in the back started singing, and you just can't get something that means as much as that without years and years going into it.

One of the guys signing in this video is now way too into misogynistic bro podcasts, even some of the explicitly racist and Islamophobic ones despite the fact that he's a Muslim immigrant from the Middle East. But he saw me today for the first time in months and gave me a big hug and told me he missed me and wished I'd coach him again, and what am I supposed to do with that?

And even if you could create that kind of community without putting years and years into it first, where am I supposed to find one that's better? I guess if I want community and not dealing with that kind of bullshit, then the thing I'm looking for is the mythical liberal bubble. A bubble that's kept liberal by this cancel culture I keep hearing so much about. Geoff Norcott has promised me - he swore up and down - that comedy is such a place. But I've been to a couple of club comedy nights in the last couple of weeks (well, pub comedy nights where comedians work out material to take to clubs), and they sure did not feel like liberal bubbles. I'm beginning to suspect the liberal bubble might be something invented by Geoff Norcott, or possibly by one or two people who might be even worse than Geoff Norcott, to sell terrible books. What I'm saying is I think I could really use a little more cancel culture in my life.

[bethestaryouareradio]

Leading with Joy by Cynthia Brian

Miracle Moment®

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. ". John Quincy Adams

A Message from Founder/Executive Director, Cynthia Brian

Throughout my life, my goal has been to encourage, inspire, motivate, amuse, educate, and inform others to become the stars they were born to be. We have to see beyond our physical beings and know that we have already arrived. To do that, we need to live in the moment and cherish every second making life fun.

We have a motto at Be the Star You Are!® charity: “Read, lead, succeed!” Our volunteers exemplify the qualities of leaders as they lead with empathy, respect, and most of all, joy. If you are looking for a good book, check out honest and reliable book reviews written by our young people at http://www.btsya.com/book_reviews.

This month we are participating in two fun and rewarding events, the Moraga Community Faire and a Shoe Drive to empower women and families living in poverty. Our teen leaders are leading these events and we are proud to support their inspirational actions.

Remember you are the star of your own performance. Make life fun. Care, share, be fair.

Just be you! You are enough.

Happy Spring!

With gratitude,

Cynthia Brian

Founder/Executive Director

Be the Star You Are!®

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org

https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

VISIT US AT THE MORAGA COMMUNITY FAIRE on Saturday, April 29th

Volunteers Ruhani, published author and radio host of Express Yourself!™ and Taylin are the teen chairpersons for the Be the Star You Are!® booth sponsored by MB Jessee Painting (https://www.mbjessee.com/) at the 2023 Moraga Faire. Come visit Us at the Moraga Community Faire and Car Show this Saturday! At the Be the Star You Are!® booth you’ll be able to plant seeds, receive a free bag of spring potpourri, buy autographed books and fresh Meyer lemons, and enjoy free cookies, thanks to MB Jessee. The event showcases live music, over 70 classic cars, a robust (and FREE) KidZone and SportZone with games, battle bots, sporting contests, animal interactions, pony rides, bounce houses, balloons, face painting, a magician and so much more! Stroll the talented Artist’s Alley while noshing on food truck fare and Loard's Ice Cream or while enjoying a local Wine, Cider, or Beer. Ride your bike to the bike valet and then thump a few “big wheels” on big vehicles!

There are so many interesting and interactive booths to see and enjoy this year. Besides visiting Us, you can stop in at booths about acupuncture, gardening, dog training, soaps, and creams, book a travel destination, or sign your trees up for fruit rescue.

Come see Us - rain or shine, at this wonderful, family-friendly event on Saturday, April 29th, 11a-4p at the Rheem Shopping Center (580 Moraga Rd) in beautiful Moraga, CA. MoragaChamber.org/CommunityFaire to check out the schedule of events!

And if you have shoes that you no longer want or need, bring them to our shoe drive.

See you at the FAIRE!!! Mark your calendars for April 29th as this is a very fun, family faire!

Moraga Faire: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/copy-of-events

SHOES SHARE THE LOVE!

Many people are unaware that 85% of consumer textiles end up in landfills, a practice that is extremely harmful to the environment. For the past 24 years, Be the Star You Are!® 501 C3 charity has been increasing literacy and saving trees by collecting thousands of new and used books and donating them to disaster relief efforts around the country. With the Russian war against Ukraine and the unprecedented natural disasters around the world, millions of people are currently experiencing difficult living conditions, and, although books are always an enlightening resource, this year Be the Star You Are!® pivoted to share the love and assist with a basic need: shoes.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, over 70% of the global population needs shoes. In collaboration with Moraga’s 5 A Rent-a-Space and Mark Hoogs State Farm Insurance, Be the Star You Are!® volunteers are launching a shoe drive to collect and ship shoes to several countries including Haiti, Pakistan, Ghana, Ukraine, and more to help lift women and families out of extreme poverty by providing a means for them to create a micro-business. These micro-entrepreneurs will be able to sell footwear at an inexpensive price from their home, a street stall, or even a tent to enhance their income and support their families.

“We are excited to launch this new micro-enterprise project. Everyone has a few pairs of wearable shoes that no longer serve us. What a wonderful opportunity to give them to those who need them and will repurpose them to benefit themselves and their communities,” says Executive Director, Cynthia Brian.  All clean, new, or gently used shoes of all sizes, boots, and work boots are wanted. No ski or snowboard boots, rollerblades, or ice skates can be accepted. “If possible, please keep pairs together by tying laces or putting a rubber band around the shoes,” continues Ms. Brian.

Be the Star You Are!® teen chairperson, Ella Kalpakjian is spearheading the shoe collection at Campolindo High School. Shoes may be dropped in the designated Campo bin beginning on April 17. If you will be attending the Moraga Faire on April 29th, shoes may be delivered to the Be the Star You Are!® booth.

From May 1- June 30th, drop shoes at these two locations:

·      Mark Hoogs

State Farm Insurance

629 Moraga Road, Moraga

925-254-3344

www.TeamHoogs.com

·      5 A Rent-A-Space

455 Moraga Rd. #F, Moraga

925-631-7000

https://5aspace.com/

With your donation of shoes, you will be sharing your love. Thank you!

For more information, visit https://www.bethestaryouare.org/shoedrive

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School Post-Pandemic

by Shanzay Haris

School during COVID-19 Lockdown was really different and the most significant reason was that it was online, so when I stood in front of Hidden Hills Elementary School in person for 5th grade, I was really excited to be back! School post-pandemic lockdown was definitely different than when I remembered it at the beginning of 3rd grade. In our class, we had to ensure we always wore our masks and kept our distance. It was very hard to get used to, but after a while, I got used to it and it became "normal" school. One thing my mom said I had to do was wash my hands and take a shower after school. Now, in the present day, I am in 6th grade. At school, I see some people wearing masks and some not, since it is optional. We don’t get reminded about social distancing anymore, and other than a few people wearing masks, it is back to normal. One thing I learned from the COVID lockdown, is to appreciate what I have right now, otherwise, when things like this happen you realize what things you should have done or thought about.

Shanzay Haris is a twelve-year-old volunteer with Be the Star You Are!® who loves to read books, write, and run.

Take Time to Notice

by Karen Kitchel

Has anyone ever told you that you are awesome?  If not, how would it make you feel?

Leaving little positive messages, either verbal or written, can turn someone’s day around or create a lasting memory. No need to wait for a major accomplishment.  All it takes is time to notice.

Stop. Look. Listen. Feel. You ARE awesome!

Karen Kitchel who penned two chapters in the book, Be the Star You Are! Millennials to Boomers Celebrating Gifts of Positive Voices in a Changing Digital World, is the Kindness Coordinator volunteer with BTSYA. She serves meals to the homeless and is a volunteer teacher, writer, job coach, and mentor. www.scatteringkindness.com

What Literacy Means to Me

by Kennedy Hollins

The definition of literacy is the ability to read or write, but it is so much more. Without literature, we wouldn't know as much as we do. Literature connects people from all over. Whether it's as simple as a quick paragraph posted on Facebook, or an autobiography telling the world your story as Malala Yousafzai did. Literature can date back to 2600 BC when the first piece of literature was made. Today that piece of literature gives us insight into the past history that we might not have known about it without it. Literacy enriches the mind of our youth and later allows them to provide for themselves and their families. While literature provides knowledge, it can also teach things like empathy and critical thinking.  At the end of the day, literature spreads knowledge and brings people together which is a power in itself.

Kennedy Hollins is a fifteen-year-old BTSYA volunteer in our Book Review program and is currently a sophomore in high school. When she is not reading, you can find her dancing or cooking.

SIMPLE WAYS TO HELP!

Spring is time to stock up on gifts for holidays forthcoming. We have suggestions for you to shop, save, and stay safe. Please use these web sites for all of your shopping essentials.

1. Discounted books at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/shops/be_the_star_you_are_charity

2. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash at 3500+ popular online stores :https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

3. Shop at over 1300 stores on IGIVE: http://www.iGive.com/BTSYA

4. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” black tanks and books at StarStyle® Store:

http://www.starstylestore.net/

5. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4e

OUR RADIO BROADCASTS EMPOWER!

When you want to be uplifted and informed, tune into our two radio broadcasts: StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® and Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio.

Live every Wednesday from 4-5pm PT, Cynthia Brian hosts the lifestyle program, StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® showcasing success-perts and information that will make your life enjoyable and meaningful.

On Sundays from 3-4pm PT, listen to Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio, where teens talk and the world listens. No topic is off limits and the program is uncensored and unedited. What young people are thinking, they are broadcasting.

Tune in to both programs on all platforms where you listen to podcasts and music including iTunes, Tunein, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and more!

DIRECT LINKS

Positive Results: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/positive-results

About Us: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/about_us

Programs: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/programs

How to Help: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/how-to-help

Blog: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/blog-1

Events: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

Contact us: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/contact

Make a DONATION through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES:  https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

https://greatnonprofits.org/org/be-the-star-you-are-in

https://www.guidestar.org/profile/94-333388

BE THE STAR YOU ARE!® is proud to be honored as a TOP NON PROFIT for numerous consecutive years. We THANK YOU for making that happen!

Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3 charity

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

Live with Joy!

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