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Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Release Date: 03/03/2023

How Do We Get Off This Wheel? show art How Do We Get Off This Wheel?

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

A beach conversation earlier this week caught Cam's attention. And he asks if we've ever had so many known solutions to a common problem and ignored them? ----- At a family event earlier this week I asked eight members of my extended family who liked their work. Six people did not their work. Some hated their jobs. Some were just ready for something new. And some were actively looking for new jobs but only something they’d enjoy and were struggling to find anything that they thought they’d enjoy. One had weeks to go before retiring at age sixty. Rather than go to sixty-five, he decided to...

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Alabama Writers Showcase show art Alabama Writers Showcase

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston seems to think writers are a good bit like Labrador retrievers - they can't not chase the stick. And writer can't not tell a story. ----- I stepped into the Mobile Literary Festival back in April not knowing what to expect. What I found surprised me and, ultimately, inspired me. Here’s what happened. But first - I used to own labrador retrievers. I learned they could never not chase the stick. Or the socks. Or the pinecone. Whenever I tossed something, they had to go after it. They couldn’t control themselves. It was who they were. It was in their...

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Dancing Lady Orchid show art Dancing Lady Orchid

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, is Cam talking to his plants? Talking to himself. Both? And what's the message? ----- I use this commentary quite a bit as therapy. If I’m trying to work something out, I’ve learned that writing about it then speaking it helps in some way or another. One of the most recent themes that regular listeners may recognize is this transition into whatever the next chapter of my life will be. Every morning, the mirror reflects the changes taking place on the outside and I wonder when the change will impact the inner parts of me. My mother used to get up in the...

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The Crossing show art The Crossing

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Saturday afternoon, Cam was on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. On this week's Keepin' It Real, he tells us how he got there. ----- I was reminded about fear on Saturday. And, strangely, it was exactly what I had hoped for. Last July, I decided it was time to test myself. I had been comfortable for too long. It was time to be afraid again. Not the fear that comes danger and helplessness or the fear of someone saying Boo, but the fear that comes from gathering the wits and the strength to get yourself out of a tough situation. In my experience, that’s the fear the makes you feel alive. So I...

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Rounding Up show art Rounding Up

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston stands at the register at a coffee shop and what comes out of his mouth is a complete surprise to him. ----- Last week I bought a coffee and a T-Shirt at a coffee shop. And at that awkward moment when the person at the register spins the pad around for me to sign and enter a tip amount, I asked the guy “How much should I tip you for this?” I’ve never asked that question before. The moment I thought about asking it was after I had said it. Tipping has gotten out of hand. A few weeks back at a hotel in Colorado, every transaction at the hotel...

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Wisdom Is More Important Than Smarts show art Wisdom Is More Important Than Smarts

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

This week Cam offers some insight to new college graduates on some basic workplace skills that will make them effective in their workplace. He’s advised his clients for over twenty years on these things, maybe he should have something worthwhile to say. ----- My daughter graduated from college in May. After 20+ years advising companies and 7+ years interviewing workplace leaders on my What’s Working with Cam Marston radio show and podcast, I realized I should have some useful advice for her—and others—stepping into the next chapter. This is lesson number one called Wisdom is...

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Blaine Got The Call show art Blaine Got The Call

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, lots of people celebrated last week. Cam was one of them. It was a case of determination unwavering belief that was finally rewarded. ----- So, after six years, Blaine finally got the call. I remember during the pandemic my wife and I rode our children’s bikes down the center of the street late one evening to our friend’s house for a cocktail. It was strange to have no traffic at that hour. At their house we sat outside and chatted for a while. Blaine was home and he and his sister stood in the back yard playing an improvised game hitting ping pong balls with...

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Practitioner show art Practitioner

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam wonders if we have what it takes any more. If the thumbs up button is as far as we'll go or as much as we'll do. ----- David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times last week calling for a, quote “comprehensive national civic uprising.” There are well over four thousand comments with most being something along the lines of “Yes. It’s about time. Someone should do something.” Brooks’ says the Trump administration has gone too far, that we are indeed in a constitutional crisis, and it’s time to act. But, I wonder, do we have what it takes to...

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Prom show art Prom

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam tells us that based on a series of recent events, he has two people he'd like offer up as potentially superb spies. ----- My twins are high school juniors, and prom was last Saturday night. The event went something like this: For my son: He brought his Joseph Banks suit downstairs about noon. It looked like it had been in a pile on the floor since he last wore it in March. There was a button-down shirt with it. My wife took the clothes and began steaming the wrinkles out. She asked “What flowers did you get your date.” A blank look. “Go to Publix and...

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To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question. show art To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question.

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On today's Keepin' it Real, Cam reports on a writer's conference he attended last weekend where a good part of the conversation was about using AI. All the writers, Cam reports, choose to not use it, preferring to remain "pure." ----- I attended a writers' conference last Saturday. Writers are a curious breed, convinced their unique perspective on describing something as mundane as a sunset is groundbreaking and essential. I love them. But they’re weird. This year, though, a frequent topic was artificial intelligence – how do writers use it, if at all. Speaker after speaker claimed they...

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My mother died a year ago. Cleaning out her home office brought about some questions for my father and me as we gathered her things. 

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My mother died nearly one year ago today. It was March 5th, the day after my birthday. I think of her frequently. Last week, my wife, my daughter, and my son and I placed purple flowers on her headstone for her birthday. Purple was her favorite color. We bought a purple orchid on the way home to remind us of her and it’s now sitting in the kitchen window.

Last week I said in an interview that doing these commentaries helps me process things, they help me think through things that I’m seeing or that are going on inside.

Which leads me to a somber day several weeks ago when my father and I cleaned out my mother’s home office. Lots of the stuff in there was easy to throw away – stuff that made no sense to either of us.

However, some of the things did make me pause. What do you do with your mother’s faded black and white pictures of family members from long, long ago that have no notes or identifiers on them? They were important enough to her to set aside. But, without her explanation, they’re no one to me. My dad and decided to keep them, hoping the decision about what to do would be easier when we found them again someday.

And I came across a Ziploc bag full of inspirational and spiritual and motivational quotes she’d had collected for what appeared to be half her life. Some were torn out of books. Many appeared hurriedly handwritten in her beautiful handwriting before the disease took her ability to write. Like she heard it and quickly captured it on a receipt or a church bulletin. There were probably two hundred of them. They meant something to her. Maybe, they even shaped her in some way or another. The ideals and attitudes she cherished, that she’d taken the time to gather for many years, sat in a Ziplock bag in my hands. Without her explanation, though, they were meaningless.

Is it possible to capture someone, to gather who they were and how they engaged life in a plastic bag full of torn out pages and handwritten quotes? No, I don’t think so. But what do you do with something that was once so important to someone who’s now gone?

I’ve been a bit surprised by how quickly my mother has disappeared since her death one year ago. How quickly all of us who loved her have moved on. I remember her daily which, I suppose, should be no surprise.

And the same will happen to you and me. We will vanish from the lives of our cherished loved ones. They’ll come clean out our stuff and throw most of it away. We will be very gone. It’s what the wisdom teachers and philosophers have told us for thousands of years. And, of course, my mother cares the least about this. The benefit of the deceased they don’t have to make decisions about their stuff.

And I think about these things. Like r ight now. As I stare at a Ziplock back full of meaningless quotes now sitting on the edge of my desk that, in some unexplainable way, capture my mother.

I’m Cam Marston, and I’m just trying to Keep it Real.