I am always held captive by beautiful words. There is a whole lot of magic within the text of a well-written page, and words that are put together in such a way as to tug at the emotions are the ones that ring true for most of us. In my favourite journals, Inhalations and Exhalations did just that...when I had finished reading I realised that I had been holding my breath because the person writing them had somehow said all the right words and written them just for me, yet I also knew that any other person reading the same journal would feel these words were written just for them..now that was really special. I wanted to find out if Joli was ever lost for words, if she had a favourite place to muse, and if she was as spicey as her Cajun heritage...
I wandered into her garden and the delicious scent of the gardenias just hung in the breeze...aah...I could see her sitting with a notepad, serene, deep in thought...Who is Joli, I asked:
"Joli is a made-up name for a real person who's still trying to answer that question".
As always, I was transfixed by her words. She used them to maximum effect even when she said very little indeed. That was the sign of a great writer. I knew from her journals that she appreciated her life and that is something not many of us do. We grumble and moan about the everyday things, the little things that mean nothing to anyone else but ourselves, but forget how beautiful life can be too. I wondered if Joli had always known she wanted to be a writer, who or what was her inspiration when she wrote, and who her ideal audience was?
"I suppose so, but I also wanted to be an anthropologist, ballet dancer, astronaut doctor, (no, I'm not missing a comma there) French translator, speech therapist, photo journalist, hippie backpacker, pope, tightrope walker, fry cook, pole dancer, and a conquistador. Several college majors later, I picked up a pen. Or maybe it was that time my dad read my first sci-fi story when I was ten and said, "You wrote this?" That, to me, was like a 40 year veteran smoker's first sneaked inhale while hiding behind the gym in Junior High. It felt good and I wanted more!
My inspiration is my dad, mostly. He's an amazing artist. I spent an entire Wednesday trying to draw a nose when I was 12. Never made the fridge. If I can ever paint with words half as well as he paints on canvas, I will consider myself a great success.
Audience? People with baggage: sin, love, loss, triumph, guilt, yearning, and remorse. If you don't have your own stuff, how can the words find you, speak to you, and become your own?"
I found myself nodding as she talked...Joli had a lot of wisdom to share and I for one wanted to know more...I wondered if she could tell me about being a Consul here on VR. Why do you think Cancer chose you as a Consul, and what exactly does a Consul do?
"Consuls are pretty much chosen from admins whose schedules have changed, making them less available to help Cancer. We help support the active administrators where we can. That's a nice way of saying that we've checked into the VR Nursing Home. We're old and wise, but we sit in our rockers a lot and our fangs aren't as sharp as they used to be.
Haven't you heard of Cancer's legendary good taste?"
...One thing that struck me when Joli spoke about herself was how modest she was, but then, all the loveliest people always are modest.. There was so much more to her than being a VR Consul... I read in your journal about the program called The Student Sponsorship Challenge, how is that doing?
"We have collected $11,000.00 so far. We still have students applying until Thursday and donations continue to come in each day. It's been amazing to see the community respond".
How do you keep the momentum, or motivation to keep going at your charity when you're real busy and you have more than one project to maintain?
"Momentum is easy when you believe in what you do and you have a team who believes in you and supports your efforts. We have 150 volunteers who work their butts off, mostly behind the scenes. This is a job where salary is not the primary motivator. I wonder about people who have that as a sole motivation for keeping a job - how do they keep momentum? Don't you find that people who are most satisfied in their work are those who are internally rewarded and believe their efforts have meaning and make a real difference? Money is nice enough, but there are bunches of miserable people who have a whole lot of it".
I wanted to know if Joli had a firey Cajun side to her? What do you do to 'let off steam'?
"I bite off projects bigger than I can chew. Nothing gets my adrenaline going like knowing I have to pull together something that I believe in, that will help the community. The deadline is short and we have a press release with the mayor and other community officials. It has to get done and I have no clue what I'm doing. Weeeeeeeee! That's my version of jumping from a plane and free-falling until the last second. Sadly, I like to drag everyone I love out of the plane with me. I hang out with a bedraggled and glorious group of folks who make me look like I can fly".
I giggled at that, and I just knew what my next question should be...If you were an evil dictator for the day, what would you do to your subjects if anything imaginable was allowed...?
"I'd take away all their money and food and line them up at a food bank. I'd have them experience mercy and kindness. Then I would give everything back to them the next day so they could experience restoration. We need people in this world who are familiar with gratitude rather than ill-tempered and unmerited expectation. I'd hope it would awaken a sleeping desire to be kinder and more merciful. But if I'm wrong, at least I would have plenty to write about between gunshots and pitchforks when the mob decided to depose the evil dictator".
I loved that answer and right away, I could see that Joli wasn't ever going to be an evil dictator.
Thanks Joli! It was a pleasure.
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COMMENTS
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dabbler
17:14 Jun 29 2011
Another spot on interview
PAGAN
17:50 Jun 29 2011
Thanks Dab. There are a few more to come too and I'm looking forward to getting them up.
Vampirewitch39
22:50 Jun 29 2011
She always brings one word into my mind when I think of her. And that word is grace. :)
Sulks
07:31 Jun 30 2011
Yeah, I can see why :)
DarkMemoir
19:56 Jun 30 2011
Very cool!
PAGAN
20:03 Jul 09 2011
Joli is one of my favourite writers on here. She makes me think :)