“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
~~Mahatma Gandhi


Hi all,

Well, welcome to the first JABB newsletter being sent by someone in their forties!  I can't believe it, really.

Because this one coincides with my birthday and JABB's recent 24th anniversary (July 19th), I figured it made sense to be nostalgic.  So I put together this list.

I hope you enjoy and here's to many more years together!

God bless,
Jenni

So I've actually learned a lot that didn't make it into this list but given the celebratory nature of this newsletter, I focused on the positive things.  Just trust me when I say that writing for an AOD can sometimes lead to learning some rather upsetting things!  But today is all about the good so...
Forty Things I've Learned in JABB's 24 Years
 (in no particular order)

1.  How to make web pages.  I know I don't have a career in it, of course.  The JABB pages are very simple.  But at least they're here!  I don't think I'd have ever learned if not for JABB.

2.  The Aramaic names of the Twelve Apostles and assorted other biblical people.  I knew Yeshua before JABB.  But I think that was the only one.  And I can't say I can rattle them all off by memory.  But if not for JABB, I may not know Mattay, Yohannan, Maryam, etc. 

3.  My ability to read text on patterns has definitely declined over the years!  I don't do this any more just due to time constraints but every year I used to go through all the newsletters and see if I could still read them easily.  And I most definitely could not because my younger self had chosen bold patterns for some backgrounds.  Yikes.  But it's okay!  I think it's funny.

4.  I've learned things about other cultures that I might not have necessarily learned without the Dyeland stories.  To get specific...

5.  For "The Messiah," I learned a little about Islam including how Jesus is viewed, when hijab is worn and by whom, and the meanings behind several Islamic names.

6.  For "God With Us," I learned about Lenapehoking and the tradition of a father's dreams giving an indication of the sex of an expected child.  That was really cool!

7.  For "You'll Never Walk Alone," I read up a little on the Algonquins and the importance of various stones in order to determine an appropriate necklace for Takoda to give Joccy.

8.  More generally, when discussing Wahkan and other principalities of Native American tribes, I looked into what stones and gems would be familiar to those tribes in order to determine what stone they would have in their pendants. 

9.  I learned that Reuel is the second R in J.R.R. Tolkien.  When I was trying to name the angel Reuel, I came across that name and really liked it.  So I was kinda surprised that it was part of a household name I was very familiar with but only as initials.  I knew C.S. Lewis was Clive Staples but had no idea what J.R.R. stood for until then. 

10.  I learned the story of the Dearg-Due thanks to Isolde's story in "Chrysalis."  To be fair, I think I'd heard of her in passing but it wasn't until I was writing that story that I actually read a version of her sad tale... which is kinda weird since I'm Irish and love the occasional vampire story. 

11.  Handfasting and other historical Irish wedding traditions and bits of Irish history of the 1500s were also things I learned about thanks to "Chrysalis."

12.  Speaking of Irish stuff, I knew about Claddaghs independent of JABB and even had one but it was because of JenniAnn having one that I really looked into the various meanings behind *how* one wears a Claddagh.

13.  While I can't go into it too much just yet, I did recently research a number of things related to Māori culture and the history of Aotearoa New Zealand.  There was definitely a learning curve there as I don't recall ever learning about Oceania in school. 

14.  Honestly, I've been introduced to a lot of different music because of JABB.  Especially with flashbacks, I often don't just know a song that would be appropriate for, say, 1953.  So I end up Googling stuff like "top songs of 1953" and listening to songs that I might very likely have never otherwise heard.  So that's been pretty cool!

15.  Names are another thing I've learned a lot more about.  I track the meanings of characters' names here but when naming a character I also look into what names were being used around the time of their birth. 

16.  I've learned about tropes.  So much about tropes... as you can probably tell from the numerous tropes-centric newsletters.

17.  Unsurprisingly, I've learned a bit about how religions and cultures from around the world envision the role of the psychopomp... the entity that escorts people from one life to the next.  Let's just say I'd take Andrew over Charon any day!

18.  While I give them all my own spin, the Dyeland stories have prompted me to look into the Watchers, Metatron, Sandalphon, principalities, and other specific angels and angelic groupings that I had heard of but didn't have a really clear understanding of.  While I don't necessarily use what I learn, it's interesting nonetheless!

19.  Having grown up Catholic, I learned about a heckuva lot of saints.  But there were still ones I'd never heard of and learned about only because of JABB including Sts. Sergius and Bacchus (pretty sure Sierra told me about them), St. Dwynwen (for JenniAnn's middle name), and St. Josephine Bakhita (a favorite of Isolde's and Marco's).

20.  So I'm pretty sure that if an actual New Yorker read the Dyeland stories, the characters' abilities to move around swiftly between boroughs would make little to no sense.  But at least now I know what the boroughs are!  Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.  The majority of the stories take place in Manhattan which is where St. G's is. 

21.  I learned a bit about Welsh history for "A Thousand Years" which was cool because right around the time I was working on that, I learned I'm a bit Welsh.

22.  I learned *a lot* about the Salem Witch Trials and colonial American life as I prepared for "For Thou Art With Me."  To date, it's probably the most researched story given I actually read trial transcripts and such for it.  I wish I had time for something that detailed these days but now my research is mostly in the form of videos, podcasts, and web pages.

23.  "Chava" involved researching a lot of very sad and terrible things.  But I also learned a lot about Jewish culture and religious practice that I really loved and that have stuck with me.  I love the concept of a minyan, for example. 

24.  Simply writing for Joshua has meant learning about the various Jewish prayers associated with particular activities such as eating bread, rising, going to sleep, etc. 

25.  I've learned I can still get downright irritated and angry with Monica and Tess even two decades after TBAA ended.  :-)  Sorry, not sorry.  Irritation and a sense of being left unfulfilled fuels my writing.

26.  I've learned to not take things for granted.  I've definitely learned that from other areas of my life, of course.  But when COVID started, I realized how flash forwards I thought would make a lot of sense no longer did because life had changed so much nearly overnight.  It's no longer safe to assume that three years from now, someone's gonna be able to put on a full theatrical production worry-free.  And that sounds frightening but I view it as a positive.  It's a good reminder to enjoy what I have when I have it.

27.  I've definitely learned pandemics do a number on my memory...  Huge chunks of what I wrote during the height of COVID seem like new material to me.  On the downside, this could lead to continuity errors down the road.  On the plus side, I get to experience reading parts of my stories as the reader and not the writer basically!

28.  Stage directions.  Absolutely did not know them until I wrote "The Carpenter."  During that, I actually had a diagram of a stage posted near my computer so I could reference it while writing.

29.  I learned a lot about sex... most of which I promptly scrubbed from my brain.  :-)  Thanks, "Hope and Healing" for that awkward fun!

30.  A big lesson I learned was the importance of being flexible.  There are certain plots and characterizations that I would never, ever have considered when JABB started or even ten years ago.  But I think the only way JABB has been able to keep going after TBAA's cancellation and especially following John Dye's death is because I allowed it to change with me.

31.  Another big lesson is that writing is cheap, productive therapy.  That's not to say one shouldn't seek out actual therapy when needed.  Writing is an aid but not a substitute for that.  But having a creative outlet is definitely a sanity saver for me.

32.  I definitely write better when I have a playlist to accompany a story.  Or at least the writing comes more easily.  Whether the quality is better... not sure.  But music definitely helps get my creative juices flowing and helps me get into the mood of a particular scene.

33.  I can't play it safe any more.  For a long time, I tried to avoid social issues that might be divisive.  I just don't care any more.  I'm gonna say what I need to say and write what I need to write and if people don't like it... well, absolutely no one is forcing them to be here or to read a single thing on the JABB site.

34.  I'm still bitter about the fact that Jesus Christ Superstar, as originally written, gives credit to a man for something a woman did.  It was Pilate's wife who had the dream and spoke out.  Not Pilate!  I feel a sense of victory every time I write a Claudia rehearsal or performance scene.

35.  Tea definitely makes writing easier.  So does coffee.

36.  I definitely learned a lot more about using image editors than I ever knew before JABB.

37.  I learned I will consistently be able to think of one less item than I need on a list and will have to rely on a filler.  :-)

38.  I'm probably never going to entirely get over Andrew.  And that's okay!

39.  John Dye, and especially his portrayal of Andrew, will always be at the heart of JABB.  But it's possible for JABB to go on and even for the Dyeland stories to go on even though he's left this world.  That was a lesson I struggled with in the early months after his death.  But I know it well now.

40.  Living in a time when the lines between religion and politics are getting blurrier (something which I do NOT like), it helps to have the Dyeland stories to come back to and remember that God is still God and God is still love, no matter what people say.


This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for inspiring so much learning!
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(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions.  They are not being used to seek profit.)