Occasionally, I will chide my Dad for making an off-color or seemingly 'racist' remark. My Dad's invariable shot back is something to the effect of, "Hey I'm not racist, when I took your Mom (my Dad's now ex-wife) to see Purple Rain, I was the only white guy in the theatre!"
And in 1984, that was probably true.
By now we all are probably familiar with the fact that Prince Rogers Nelson passed away at his home in Chanhassen, Minnesota last week. Many of us may not have even known he had a middle or last name. To my generation, he was simply...Prince. All you needed was that one word. Just that word usually conjured up the image of a man of slight stature, clad in sequined purple, armed with a guitar and absolutely insane dance moves. To this day, despite my admiration for Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson and Gene Kelly, my secret ambition has always been to see if I could even come close to Prince in dance moves.
I never have.
Just yesterday, listening to the radio in the car, "When Doves Cry" comes on the air. It's not surprising. It seems to be the done thing now, when an artist passes away, a station will devote significant air play in tribute. I expect we'll hear a lot of Prince over the next few days, But what surprises me, is that all of the sudden, I feel a tear streak down the left side of my face. It's not usual for me...I respected Bowie, but I didn't shed a tear for him. Ditto for Michael, Whitney, all of these grand artistes. And yet, one song by Prince, and there I am, mourning for a man I certainly never knew or even met.
I analyze it. And then, a moment, streaks through my mind as if I were looking at a VHS tape of a summer day in 1985. It's my living room and the four of us, me, my sister Erin, my friend and her brother are all mesmerized by "Raspberry Beret". My sister and my friends' brother create a 'dance' for "Raspberry Beret" and they spend a great deal of that afternoon trying to perfect it and to 'teach' us the moves.
I think about it now...4 white kids trying to get funky with Prince. Something that would have been almost unheard of only two decades earlier in my parents' generation. My older self now understands the gulf we were trying to span. I have clear memories of being asked why I liked all that "black music" (Motown), Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, etc. I guess to my parents and their generation, it was 'black music', to us though, it was just good music. Just music to 'get down' to.
Just three years later, my sister and I are called upon to 'rap' Will Smith's "Parents Just Don't Understand"(we'd memorized all the words) to our indulgent grandparents who thought it 'cute'. Amusingly my Dad likes to listen to an MC Hammer cassette in his mini-van on the way to church in the early 90's. As I get older, in my twenties I discover, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and P-Funk. It's a revelation.
But it all started with Prince. Only an artist of his caliber and mesmeric performances could ever have induced my parents to a movie theatre in 1984 populated mostly by African-Americans. In fact, I am not even allowed to see it in 1984, my sister and I beg a cousin who abides by our aunt's decision and takes us to see "The Muppets Take Manhattan" instead. I finally see a sanitized TV version sometime in the mid-90's. Knowing as I do now the names and lyrics of some of Prince's tracks, I'm certain my parents were somewhat alarmed.
Fast forward to 2007, and it's Super Bowl XLI and like most of America, my Dad and I are dutifully watching. It's raining in Miami, I'll never forget that...and then Prince takes the stage and with his guitar and dance moves, he mesmerizes us. I remember my Dad and I just looking at each other and saying one word, "Wow!".
Then my Dad says to me, "You know, I took your Mom to see Purple Rain, I was the only white guy in the theatre!"
And that's how I will always remember Prince. He was our generations' Elvis. A guy who could unite races, bring people together who didn't see the music in terms of black and white, electrify us with his guitar, paint the world in purple sequins and make us all dance.
I never knew you Prince Rogers Nelson....but I will certainly never forget you.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
Writers' Paralysis
You don't have to tell me...I know....
I haven't been here in quite awhile. And the world it seems, survived. It did not spin off its axis and hurl itself into the sun. No-one wrote me great angst filled emails begging for just one more piece of my writing. No one cried...possibly no one noticed...
I noticed. I've been here sometimes, staring at the great vast wall of white with the single blinking cursor. Many's the time, pardon the pun, that I've cursed the cursor...wishing it would let me issue forth, something...anything.
So let's say I've been on sick leave, struck down with what I term writers' paralysis. Too much life to live I guess. Not enough pensive thoughts that needed to be committed to the page.
I've been living. Working. Working hard. On myself, my job, my sense of fun, my need for belonging.
I'd been so busy over the last months and years trying to belong, to put my great square peg self into a round hole that I'd forgotten what fun felt like. What it really felt like to live, to play, to be silly.
Last weekend, I found myself twice in a sense of homecoming. Family was here, when family comes to Florida, you usually A. Go to Disney or B. Go to the Beach. We opted for the latter. It's ironic, I live within an hours' drive of possibly the most famous coastline in the world and I never go there. As we got closer, I could see it, aqua water with rolls of foamy soap-like waves. I felt 4 years old again, scrambling out of the car, impatiently waiting for the others to catch up to me. I simply could not wait to get to the sea and when I was finally there, the most odd sense that it had been waiting for me, just waiting for me to come back. Home, back where I belonged, the place that I most loved. Why had I stayed away so long?
The world has always seemed to me to be divided between two types of people, ocean-people and mountain-people. As majestic as mountains are, I must admit I am ocean person. It's there that I feel most myself.
As Ann Morrow Lindbergh wrote, in her famous "Gift from the Sea" (which I can never be without) "I walk far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone, full like moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it, full as a cup poured up to the lip. There is a quality to fullness that the Psalmist expressed: "My cup runneth over."
My cup runneth over, I stood in the surf, the sand retreating from the pools under my feet, and just took it all in and I thought, "I'm happy. If nothing else comes of life but this moment, I'm happy and it can never be taken from me."
My next moment of homecoming took place in a gallery that I work within walking distance of. It's small and eclectic compared with the galleries one might see in NY or larger cities like London or Paris. But I've always loved it. Down to the smell and the heavy wooden doors that are on either side of it. I am passionate worshiper of beauty and design. Although frequently befuddled by it myself,(to wit, I spent the better part of one evening this week trying to buy throw pillows on Wayfair.com and becoming completely overwhelmed with the variety and colors offered, I slammed down the lid of Gavin (my laptop) and burst into tears), I always find myself completely enthralled with the product of another man's genius. I drank in beauty in paintings, vases, pottery, jewelry and other media. I asked questions of the museum guides, I reveled in color, in textures, in light. I found myself wanting to somehow capture it, to savor the moment, so that when I needed it, I could take out like a talisman against disappointment in man and humanity. Sometimes when life becomes overwhelming and too teeming with the problems of humanity, you need to be able to remember that there is still color, and beauty and romance left in the world. I found all of those things in that same neighborhood gallery that I visited so many times before.
So I guess I could say that for me, the antidote to Writers' Paralysis was to find inspiration and imagination again. And I guess, all apologies to Jonathan and Drew Scott, HGTV offerings are not always enough. I had to step outside of my own insular world and into the wider world and explore the things that are outside of the ordinary, even if my fear of heights did prevent me from climbing up the whole Lighthouse at Ponce Inlet and knocking an item off my bucket list!
All the writing prompts in the world cannot make you feel...
Writing is so much more than just the words...just setting them down will never do...you have to do the heavy lifting, the living...the feeling, the scents, the sounds...
Going through this time of paralysis makes me that much more grateful for the times when they words do come...
I haven't been here in quite awhile. And the world it seems, survived. It did not spin off its axis and hurl itself into the sun. No-one wrote me great angst filled emails begging for just one more piece of my writing. No one cried...possibly no one noticed...
I noticed. I've been here sometimes, staring at the great vast wall of white with the single blinking cursor. Many's the time, pardon the pun, that I've cursed the cursor...wishing it would let me issue forth, something...anything.
So let's say I've been on sick leave, struck down with what I term writers' paralysis. Too much life to live I guess. Not enough pensive thoughts that needed to be committed to the page.
I've been living. Working. Working hard. On myself, my job, my sense of fun, my need for belonging.
I'd been so busy over the last months and years trying to belong, to put my great square peg self into a round hole that I'd forgotten what fun felt like. What it really felt like to live, to play, to be silly.
Last weekend, I found myself twice in a sense of homecoming. Family was here, when family comes to Florida, you usually A. Go to Disney or B. Go to the Beach. We opted for the latter. It's ironic, I live within an hours' drive of possibly the most famous coastline in the world and I never go there. As we got closer, I could see it, aqua water with rolls of foamy soap-like waves. I felt 4 years old again, scrambling out of the car, impatiently waiting for the others to catch up to me. I simply could not wait to get to the sea and when I was finally there, the most odd sense that it had been waiting for me, just waiting for me to come back. Home, back where I belonged, the place that I most loved. Why had I stayed away so long?
The world has always seemed to me to be divided between two types of people, ocean-people and mountain-people. As majestic as mountains are, I must admit I am ocean person. It's there that I feel most myself.
As Ann Morrow Lindbergh wrote, in her famous "Gift from the Sea" (which I can never be without) "I walk far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone, full like moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it, full as a cup poured up to the lip. There is a quality to fullness that the Psalmist expressed: "My cup runneth over."
My cup runneth over, I stood in the surf, the sand retreating from the pools under my feet, and just took it all in and I thought, "I'm happy. If nothing else comes of life but this moment, I'm happy and it can never be taken from me."
My next moment of homecoming took place in a gallery that I work within walking distance of. It's small and eclectic compared with the galleries one might see in NY or larger cities like London or Paris. But I've always loved it. Down to the smell and the heavy wooden doors that are on either side of it. I am passionate worshiper of beauty and design. Although frequently befuddled by it myself,(to wit, I spent the better part of one evening this week trying to buy throw pillows on Wayfair.com and becoming completely overwhelmed with the variety and colors offered, I slammed down the lid of Gavin (my laptop) and burst into tears), I always find myself completely enthralled with the product of another man's genius. I drank in beauty in paintings, vases, pottery, jewelry and other media. I asked questions of the museum guides, I reveled in color, in textures, in light. I found myself wanting to somehow capture it, to savor the moment, so that when I needed it, I could take out like a talisman against disappointment in man and humanity. Sometimes when life becomes overwhelming and too teeming with the problems of humanity, you need to be able to remember that there is still color, and beauty and romance left in the world. I found all of those things in that same neighborhood gallery that I visited so many times before.
So I guess I could say that for me, the antidote to Writers' Paralysis was to find inspiration and imagination again. And I guess, all apologies to Jonathan and Drew Scott, HGTV offerings are not always enough. I had to step outside of my own insular world and into the wider world and explore the things that are outside of the ordinary, even if my fear of heights did prevent me from climbing up the whole Lighthouse at Ponce Inlet and knocking an item off my bucket list!
All the writing prompts in the world cannot make you feel...
Writing is so much more than just the words...just setting them down will never do...you have to do the heavy lifting, the living...the feeling, the scents, the sounds...
Going through this time of paralysis makes me that much more grateful for the times when they words do come...
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Improver Guy
It all started because I'd been running late, actually I'm almost always running late...
I'm not a morning person, never have been. Many mornings my first waking thought is, "how many hours do I have to be awake before I can crawl back under the covers again?" I love sleep, everything about it, soft pillows, cool silky sheets, quilts...It's probably the reason I never had kids, they'd have gotten in the way of all that.
I'm off topic, sleep led to me running late, egregiously so this morning and the result was I didn't make my lunch. I decided that I would turn it into a positive and treat myself to Chick-Fil-A. To the un-initiated, Chick Fil-A is the maker and the proprietor of the best chicken sandwich in the South, if not the whole world. It's simple really, they take a plump juicy chicken breast, bread it in a coating of 'secret herbs and spices' (no really, I worked there and I still don't know the contents of the breading which comes in non-descript brown sacks) throw it in a pressure fryer full of peanut oil, then they take all the crispy goodness of that chicken cutlet, lay it on a buttered toasted hamburger roll with two dill pickles, throw in a paper sack of waffle fries and it is quite honestly the best lunch ever!
I sat at a table, eating my sandwich and browsing my phone when for some reason I looked up and there in line was a guy with a face I swore I'd seen before, I thought about it and all of the sudden I got that dizzy, cold sweat, my stomach is in my shoes feeling because whether or not it was the actual guy, he had the face of a man I knew all too well.
Most women at some point date a guy I like to categorize as "improver guy". You aren't quite his type of girl, but he thinks with a few tweaks here and there, you just might get close. You won't. Let me state that again for all the cockeyed optimists out there... YOU WON'T. You'll never get close, but you will half kill yourself trying.
I know, I've been there. Seeing that guy in line today, it brought it all back. Many years ago in the days when Windows XP was all the rage; I entered into a nine-month 'relationship' with my 'improver guy'. He was like the foreign exchange student that you can't send back until the program is over. We weren't really even friends by the end of our time together.
I still can't quite understand what made him stay around. Maybe it was the fact that I was gullible, emotionally needy and co-dependent. I think that he enjoyed toying with me much in the same way that a cat will toy with prey before actually 'killing' it. To his way of thinking, I needed a great deal of 'improvement'. My clothes were "too dowdy' and "prematurely middle-aged", my exercise program needed overhauling. I ate far too many carbs and didn't appreciate the finer points of a good curry. My taste in music he found appalling, my politics too conservative. Slowly, piece by piece, he took me apart until I could barely find myself. I'd been a kindly optimist cum idealist until I met him. When he left, I'd become a world-weary cynic with barely enough enthusiasm to get out of bed in the mornings (much like him).
After he was gone, I started to eat. I craved Lucky Charms, Twinkies, M & M's, burgers, and Chick-Fil A fries. I couldn't seem to eat enough to numb the memories. I just wanted to get rid of the despair, the emptiness that comes with the realization that no matter how hard you work, how much you try to change, you can't make someone love or care about you.
I had fantasies of running after that guy I saw in line even though I don't really think it was him. The last I knew, MY 'improver guy' was in Spain trying to 'improve' someone else. I wanted to say "Listen, you don't know me, but I knew a guy once who looked just like you and seeing you (him) today brought it all back. You (he) hurt me so deeply, that even now, I can't hear songs from that time period or smell your (his) cologne without nausea. I want you (him) to know that you (he) may have bruised my spirit, but you (he) did not break it! That I'm successful in my life, in my work, that I'm happy in myself. I want you to know without any of your (his) shaming or running until I threw up, I lost over twenty-five (nearly thirty now) pounds and this time I did it for myself, not to get someone who was unworthy of me in the first place to care about me. That I unashamedly listen to Opera, Classical, 80's New Wave and yes, even Easy Listening from time to time and I don't give a damn if you (he) think that it's appalling! Lastly, I heartily enjoyed the Scottish Highland Games this past weekend!" (Improver Guy was English and never had a good word to say about the Scots)
I didn't say any of that of course. I did almost get hit by a pickup truck in the parking lot while fantasizing what I would like to say and I admit that I got distracted a bit at work this afternoon wondering if it really was him, but the important thing is...I'm okay now. I never really wasn't in the first place and it took seeing that guy to realize it.
So, wherever you are, Facsimile Improver Guy...Thanks from Happy Well-Adjusted Woman!
I'm not a morning person, never have been. Many mornings my first waking thought is, "how many hours do I have to be awake before I can crawl back under the covers again?" I love sleep, everything about it, soft pillows, cool silky sheets, quilts...It's probably the reason I never had kids, they'd have gotten in the way of all that.
I'm off topic, sleep led to me running late, egregiously so this morning and the result was I didn't make my lunch. I decided that I would turn it into a positive and treat myself to Chick-Fil-A. To the un-initiated, Chick Fil-A is the maker and the proprietor of the best chicken sandwich in the South, if not the whole world. It's simple really, they take a plump juicy chicken breast, bread it in a coating of 'secret herbs and spices' (no really, I worked there and I still don't know the contents of the breading which comes in non-descript brown sacks) throw it in a pressure fryer full of peanut oil, then they take all the crispy goodness of that chicken cutlet, lay it on a buttered toasted hamburger roll with two dill pickles, throw in a paper sack of waffle fries and it is quite honestly the best lunch ever!
I sat at a table, eating my sandwich and browsing my phone when for some reason I looked up and there in line was a guy with a face I swore I'd seen before, I thought about it and all of the sudden I got that dizzy, cold sweat, my stomach is in my shoes feeling because whether or not it was the actual guy, he had the face of a man I knew all too well.
Most women at some point date a guy I like to categorize as "improver guy". You aren't quite his type of girl, but he thinks with a few tweaks here and there, you just might get close. You won't. Let me state that again for all the cockeyed optimists out there... YOU WON'T. You'll never get close, but you will half kill yourself trying.
I know, I've been there. Seeing that guy in line today, it brought it all back. Many years ago in the days when Windows XP was all the rage; I entered into a nine-month 'relationship' with my 'improver guy'. He was like the foreign exchange student that you can't send back until the program is over. We weren't really even friends by the end of our time together.
I still can't quite understand what made him stay around. Maybe it was the fact that I was gullible, emotionally needy and co-dependent. I think that he enjoyed toying with me much in the same way that a cat will toy with prey before actually 'killing' it. To his way of thinking, I needed a great deal of 'improvement'. My clothes were "too dowdy' and "prematurely middle-aged", my exercise program needed overhauling. I ate far too many carbs and didn't appreciate the finer points of a good curry. My taste in music he found appalling, my politics too conservative. Slowly, piece by piece, he took me apart until I could barely find myself. I'd been a kindly optimist cum idealist until I met him. When he left, I'd become a world-weary cynic with barely enough enthusiasm to get out of bed in the mornings (much like him).
After he was gone, I started to eat. I craved Lucky Charms, Twinkies, M & M's, burgers, and Chick-Fil A fries. I couldn't seem to eat enough to numb the memories. I just wanted to get rid of the despair, the emptiness that comes with the realization that no matter how hard you work, how much you try to change, you can't make someone love or care about you.
I had fantasies of running after that guy I saw in line even though I don't really think it was him. The last I knew, MY 'improver guy' was in Spain trying to 'improve' someone else. I wanted to say "Listen, you don't know me, but I knew a guy once who looked just like you and seeing you (him) today brought it all back. You (he) hurt me so deeply, that even now, I can't hear songs from that time period or smell your (his) cologne without nausea. I want you (him) to know that you (he) may have bruised my spirit, but you (he) did not break it! That I'm successful in my life, in my work, that I'm happy in myself. I want you to know without any of your (his) shaming or running until I threw up, I lost over twenty-five (nearly thirty now) pounds and this time I did it for myself, not to get someone who was unworthy of me in the first place to care about me. That I unashamedly listen to Opera, Classical, 80's New Wave and yes, even Easy Listening from time to time and I don't give a damn if you (he) think that it's appalling! Lastly, I heartily enjoyed the Scottish Highland Games this past weekend!" (Improver Guy was English and never had a good word to say about the Scots)
I didn't say any of that of course. I did almost get hit by a pickup truck in the parking lot while fantasizing what I would like to say and I admit that I got distracted a bit at work this afternoon wondering if it really was him, but the important thing is...I'm okay now. I never really wasn't in the first place and it took seeing that guy to realize it.
So, wherever you are, Facsimile Improver Guy...Thanks from Happy Well-Adjusted Woman!
Monday, January 4, 2016
Post Partum Star Wars...An Existential Crisis
Maybe it's the fact that Mercury is retrograde...
Maybe it's the fact that Kylo Ren killed his own father, Han Solo...(or did he?)
Maybe it's the fact that now that I've seen Star Wars VII, there's nothing to look forward to until Star Wars VIII...
But, I'm definitely on this side of bummer...
I can't explain it, but while I'm not exactly unhappy, I'm just not feeling as creatively challenged lately. Ever so often, I go into a sort of existential crisis where I examine my life and I debate whether I am living up to my own potential? Every so often, I debate as to whether or not I should even bother with this blog anymore. The optimist in me, will rear up and say, but what if you were one more blog post away from some major life-changing 'thing' that would blow up on the net and make you achieve a sort of immortality? The realist in me says that many people live their whole lives and die never achieving anything other than a sort of humdrum existence and are only mourned by a select few.
I'd settle for something in between that.
Actually, the way things are right now, I am probably the fulfilment of that line in Bridget Jones' Diary where, in a particularly dark moment, she speculates whether her only meaningful relationship will be with a bottle of wine and that she will die fat and alone, being found three weeks later half-eaten by wild dogs. In my case though, it'd probably be cats.
At least, I am at the point in my life where I no longer self-medicate with food or alcohol. I've given that all up and now spend much of my time debating the merits of quinoa vs brown rice. Chia versus flax. I spend endless time trying to assess the degree to which I absolutely abhor and detest kale, all the while stuffing it in everything from soup to salad. Two to three nights a week, I ingest fish, I say ingest because to me eating implies enjoyment. I don't enjoy fish per se. I ingest it because it is healthy.
All of this should, I rationalize, make me a better person.
But am I?
Or maybe I'm the same carb-loading, junk food junkie I always was, just under better control.
In any case, I realize that I am complicated. Probably most of us are. However, lately I worry that I am complicated to a higher degree than some.
Take Amazon, for instance. Getting ready for work this morning, I experienced yet another existential crisis when thinking about my Amazon recommendations. I did a lot of my Aunt Jill Christmas shopping on there. Toys for various nephews and niece. As I ran my toothbrush over my pearlies, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't remembered to check off the field on Amazon that states, "This is a gift". Sure enough, after sprinting to Gavin II (my laptop natch, don't any of you read this thing?) and checking my Amazonian recommendations, in addition to the usual coterie of book, CD, and Blu Rays, there were all manner of Disney and other assorted toys recommended to me based on my shipping and browsing history. And all of the sudden, I am beyond mortified, imagining some Amazon lowly imputing my orders and thinking that I am some sort of freak who is 'into' kids toys! A second and worse thought occurred to me, that Amazon probably didn't even care, heartless profit making machine that they are, they probably don't even recognize what kinds of persons with predilections for kids toys that they are enabling! On the heels of that, was a third and probably the most unsettling thought of all that, if I was into toys, didn't they know that I would probably buy collectible and 'retro' toys that I coveted in my childhood like a Snoopy Sno Cone Machine or Easy Bake Oven? Sheesh! Doesn't Amazon even know me AT ALL!
I slumped back from Gavin II, world-weary and despondent. Did I even want to venture out into a world that was so out of touch that even Amazon.com doesn't 'get me'?
Like I said, maybe it's just the New Year blahs...sloughing off Yuletide cheer and thinking of how many months I have to get through to hear "Silver Bells" again...
Maybe it's Mercury...
Maybe it's just post-partum Star Wars depression...
Yeah, let's go with that.
Maybe it's the fact that Kylo Ren killed his own father, Han Solo...(or did he?)
Maybe it's the fact that now that I've seen Star Wars VII, there's nothing to look forward to until Star Wars VIII...
But, I'm definitely on this side of bummer...
I can't explain it, but while I'm not exactly unhappy, I'm just not feeling as creatively challenged lately. Ever so often, I go into a sort of existential crisis where I examine my life and I debate whether I am living up to my own potential? Every so often, I debate as to whether or not I should even bother with this blog anymore. The optimist in me, will rear up and say, but what if you were one more blog post away from some major life-changing 'thing' that would blow up on the net and make you achieve a sort of immortality? The realist in me says that many people live their whole lives and die never achieving anything other than a sort of humdrum existence and are only mourned by a select few.
I'd settle for something in between that.
Actually, the way things are right now, I am probably the fulfilment of that line in Bridget Jones' Diary where, in a particularly dark moment, she speculates whether her only meaningful relationship will be with a bottle of wine and that she will die fat and alone, being found three weeks later half-eaten by wild dogs. In my case though, it'd probably be cats.
At least, I am at the point in my life where I no longer self-medicate with food or alcohol. I've given that all up and now spend much of my time debating the merits of quinoa vs brown rice. Chia versus flax. I spend endless time trying to assess the degree to which I absolutely abhor and detest kale, all the while stuffing it in everything from soup to salad. Two to three nights a week, I ingest fish, I say ingest because to me eating implies enjoyment. I don't enjoy fish per se. I ingest it because it is healthy.
All of this should, I rationalize, make me a better person.
But am I?
Or maybe I'm the same carb-loading, junk food junkie I always was, just under better control.
In any case, I realize that I am complicated. Probably most of us are. However, lately I worry that I am complicated to a higher degree than some.
Take Amazon, for instance. Getting ready for work this morning, I experienced yet another existential crisis when thinking about my Amazon recommendations. I did a lot of my Aunt Jill Christmas shopping on there. Toys for various nephews and niece. As I ran my toothbrush over my pearlies, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't remembered to check off the field on Amazon that states, "This is a gift". Sure enough, after sprinting to Gavin II (my laptop natch, don't any of you read this thing?) and checking my Amazonian recommendations, in addition to the usual coterie of book, CD, and Blu Rays, there were all manner of Disney and other assorted toys recommended to me based on my shipping and browsing history. And all of the sudden, I am beyond mortified, imagining some Amazon lowly imputing my orders and thinking that I am some sort of freak who is 'into' kids toys! A second and worse thought occurred to me, that Amazon probably didn't even care, heartless profit making machine that they are, they probably don't even recognize what kinds of persons with predilections for kids toys that they are enabling! On the heels of that, was a third and probably the most unsettling thought of all that, if I was into toys, didn't they know that I would probably buy collectible and 'retro' toys that I coveted in my childhood like a Snoopy Sno Cone Machine or Easy Bake Oven? Sheesh! Doesn't Amazon even know me AT ALL!
I slumped back from Gavin II, world-weary and despondent. Did I even want to venture out into a world that was so out of touch that even Amazon.com doesn't 'get me'?
Like I said, maybe it's just the New Year blahs...sloughing off Yuletide cheer and thinking of how many months I have to get through to hear "Silver Bells" again...
Maybe it's Mercury...
Maybe it's just post-partum Star Wars depression...
Yeah, let's go with that.
Friday, December 18, 2015
For Great Aunt Dorothy
For my mom, Jan, who is a pretty cool chick!
Dear Aunt Dorothy:
Feliz Navidad Prospero Año y Felicidad
I remember that's how you started out your annual Christmas letter. Mom always insisted on two things, that we (my sister and I) read your letter and that we write you one of our own. A thank you letter. You always sent us a check for Christmas and as your (and ours) years advanced, the sum grew larger. I remember, hating to write that letter. Hating it with a deep dark purple passion. Mom always proofread them and sometimes there were rewrites and grammar revisions. She really put a premium on us completing them properly. Usually, it was during Christmas vacation from school and I wanted to use up every last precious second of freedom in selfish pursuits, sleeping in, reading non-school books, going to movies and I admit I resented any time 'wasted'.
Mom insisted though and so I would think and labor over it, filling up pages with my large almost illegible cursive scrawl, thanking you for money and telling you what I was doing. I can't help but wonder if you enjoyed the letters at all? I'm sure they were a bit tedious.
You would probably be distressed to hear that the art of writing the thank you letter has all but disappeared. I don't know that I have ever received one for a gift.
I'm glad you gave us the money then. Instead of making us wait for an inheritance.
If I had the money now, I probably would do something boring and adult, like deposit it into my IRA. Truthfully, what I did with the money was to use it to buy presents. Back in those days, money was always tight and I was always 'short' at Christmas.
Well Aunt Dorothy, I'm an aunt myself now. A maiden one, like you were. I think now, I've started to understand what you were trying to say to us all of those years ago. I more fully 'get' all of the virtues you wanted to instill in us, a love of knowledge, intellectual curiosity, to love animals, respect others and care about the environment. Having no children yourself, you wanted to leave a mark, a legacy, some sort of immortality when you were no longer with us.
Your Christmas letters were full of your pursuit of making the world a better place. Your hosting of students, teaching English, your artistic endeavors, your garden and beloved dogs and cats all your way of trying to leave the world a little better place than it was. I didn't understand that at the time, I'm beginning to now. In my 40's now, you start to leave the self-centered brat behind more and more.
In case you didn't know it, you have left a lasting mark in my life. I'll never forget two experiences you shared with my sister and I. An outdoor amphitheater opera concert in the Sangre De Cristo mountain range and Shakespeare in the Park in Santa Fe. I'd never experienced things like that before, and may never have, if not for you. To this day, I love opera and I'm fortunate to have the ability to hear it frequently on satellite radio. Very few written words thrill me more than Shakespeare's immortal poems, comedies and tragedies.
As I mentioned, I'm an aunt myself now and I feel that sense sometimes, as you must have done, of wanting to have an impact on the lives of my nieces and nephews. Trying to share wisdom, praying for them, sharing favorite books and philosophies, hoping that their eyes will be opened to all that life can be. Just as you must have found, it's difficult when there is so much distance between you, both physically and emotionally.
Sometimes I found it hard to relate to you, being that you were so accomplished, so crusading and pioneering. Magna Cum Laude graduate, WAC in WW II. My mom always described you 'as a force'. In the old home movies I've seen of you, you are magnetic, your looks and joie de vivre. I've struggled with joie de vivre myself, being introverted and shy. I've only recently begun to sort of claim for myself a feeling of beauty and independence. I like to think that some of it was passed on to me from you.
Politically, I don't know that we are all that similar, except to say that I am as passionate as you were in wanting the best for the country. Maybe we might go about it in different ways, but at the root of things, I don't think we would be all that dissimilar in our belief in the independent rights of man.
You were always distressed that I didn't read Louis L'Amour novels, and I'm sorry to say that I never really changed my opinions on that. I've always been somewhat of a deep romantic type. This is not to say there isn't romance in the Western cowboy that L'Amour wrote of, it's just that when I pined after a man on a horse, he was usually in a kilt, as the Laird of a clan or a English Dandy on a white horse with breeches and tri-corn hat.
I'm sorry we didn't talk more. In my only visit to Santa Fe, I remember it wasn't until the night before I was to leave, that we really 'talked' and I shared with you my thoughts, dreams and hopes for the future. We finally 'connected' that night. I think it's what the visit had been all about. Up until that point, I'd been struggling with the altitude, (living my whole life at sea level in Florida to suddenly be thrust into the mountains took some getting used to), homesickness and I guess I wasn't 'up' to trying to figure out what you were trying to 'say'. I wish I'd been able to see that visit with adult eyes, to really appreciate the majesty and wonder of the mountains, to get your joke about the Rio Grande not being so 'Grande', to understand what you saw in Navajo pottery and beading, why you wanted us to feel the plight of those living on the pueblos. I only saw the appalling poverty and felt the relentless heat of the sun. For a Floridian, the lack of humidity just felt 'wrong'. The lack of rain implausible. I'm sorry it took until now for me to 'get it'.
You might be glad to know that I've tried to pick up a bit with the ancestry digging. You have justifiable pride in the family. Some of them were quite remarkable. Through this, I begin to understand that I'm just a link in this chain that has gone on for so many decades.
So, in this posthumous thank you letter. I sincerely express my gratitude for all that you did and said with an eye toward building my character. I hope you'd be proud of the woman I am today. I've worked hard and striven for all that I have. I am strong and independent and maybe in my own way, "a force".
I miss you and your sister, Helen more than I can say. You presence in my life has never really disappeared though. It's there every time I look in the mirror, every time I recite the poem about the Goops, every book I read, and every time I strive in my own way to make the world a better place.
Your Great Niece,
Jill
Dear Aunt Dorothy:
Feliz Navidad Prospero Año y Felicidad
I remember that's how you started out your annual Christmas letter. Mom always insisted on two things, that we (my sister and I) read your letter and that we write you one of our own. A thank you letter. You always sent us a check for Christmas and as your (and ours) years advanced, the sum grew larger. I remember, hating to write that letter. Hating it with a deep dark purple passion. Mom always proofread them and sometimes there were rewrites and grammar revisions. She really put a premium on us completing them properly. Usually, it was during Christmas vacation from school and I wanted to use up every last precious second of freedom in selfish pursuits, sleeping in, reading non-school books, going to movies and I admit I resented any time 'wasted'.
Mom insisted though and so I would think and labor over it, filling up pages with my large almost illegible cursive scrawl, thanking you for money and telling you what I was doing. I can't help but wonder if you enjoyed the letters at all? I'm sure they were a bit tedious.
You would probably be distressed to hear that the art of writing the thank you letter has all but disappeared. I don't know that I have ever received one for a gift.
I'm glad you gave us the money then. Instead of making us wait for an inheritance.
If I had the money now, I probably would do something boring and adult, like deposit it into my IRA. Truthfully, what I did with the money was to use it to buy presents. Back in those days, money was always tight and I was always 'short' at Christmas.
Well Aunt Dorothy, I'm an aunt myself now. A maiden one, like you were. I think now, I've started to understand what you were trying to say to us all of those years ago. I more fully 'get' all of the virtues you wanted to instill in us, a love of knowledge, intellectual curiosity, to love animals, respect others and care about the environment. Having no children yourself, you wanted to leave a mark, a legacy, some sort of immortality when you were no longer with us.
Your Christmas letters were full of your pursuit of making the world a better place. Your hosting of students, teaching English, your artistic endeavors, your garden and beloved dogs and cats all your way of trying to leave the world a little better place than it was. I didn't understand that at the time, I'm beginning to now. In my 40's now, you start to leave the self-centered brat behind more and more.
In case you didn't know it, you have left a lasting mark in my life. I'll never forget two experiences you shared with my sister and I. An outdoor amphitheater opera concert in the Sangre De Cristo mountain range and Shakespeare in the Park in Santa Fe. I'd never experienced things like that before, and may never have, if not for you. To this day, I love opera and I'm fortunate to have the ability to hear it frequently on satellite radio. Very few written words thrill me more than Shakespeare's immortal poems, comedies and tragedies.
As I mentioned, I'm an aunt myself now and I feel that sense sometimes, as you must have done, of wanting to have an impact on the lives of my nieces and nephews. Trying to share wisdom, praying for them, sharing favorite books and philosophies, hoping that their eyes will be opened to all that life can be. Just as you must have found, it's difficult when there is so much distance between you, both physically and emotionally.
Sometimes I found it hard to relate to you, being that you were so accomplished, so crusading and pioneering. Magna Cum Laude graduate, WAC in WW II. My mom always described you 'as a force'. In the old home movies I've seen of you, you are magnetic, your looks and joie de vivre. I've struggled with joie de vivre myself, being introverted and shy. I've only recently begun to sort of claim for myself a feeling of beauty and independence. I like to think that some of it was passed on to me from you.
Politically, I don't know that we are all that similar, except to say that I am as passionate as you were in wanting the best for the country. Maybe we might go about it in different ways, but at the root of things, I don't think we would be all that dissimilar in our belief in the independent rights of man.
You were always distressed that I didn't read Louis L'Amour novels, and I'm sorry to say that I never really changed my opinions on that. I've always been somewhat of a deep romantic type. This is not to say there isn't romance in the Western cowboy that L'Amour wrote of, it's just that when I pined after a man on a horse, he was usually in a kilt, as the Laird of a clan or a English Dandy on a white horse with breeches and tri-corn hat.
I'm sorry we didn't talk more. In my only visit to Santa Fe, I remember it wasn't until the night before I was to leave, that we really 'talked' and I shared with you my thoughts, dreams and hopes for the future. We finally 'connected' that night. I think it's what the visit had been all about. Up until that point, I'd been struggling with the altitude, (living my whole life at sea level in Florida to suddenly be thrust into the mountains took some getting used to), homesickness and I guess I wasn't 'up' to trying to figure out what you were trying to 'say'. I wish I'd been able to see that visit with adult eyes, to really appreciate the majesty and wonder of the mountains, to get your joke about the Rio Grande not being so 'Grande', to understand what you saw in Navajo pottery and beading, why you wanted us to feel the plight of those living on the pueblos. I only saw the appalling poverty and felt the relentless heat of the sun. For a Floridian, the lack of humidity just felt 'wrong'. The lack of rain implausible. I'm sorry it took until now for me to 'get it'.
You might be glad to know that I've tried to pick up a bit with the ancestry digging. You have justifiable pride in the family. Some of them were quite remarkable. Through this, I begin to understand that I'm just a link in this chain that has gone on for so many decades.
So, in this posthumous thank you letter. I sincerely express my gratitude for all that you did and said with an eye toward building my character. I hope you'd be proud of the woman I am today. I've worked hard and striven for all that I have. I am strong and independent and maybe in my own way, "a force".
I miss you and your sister, Helen more than I can say. You presence in my life has never really disappeared though. It's there every time I look in the mirror, every time I recite the poem about the Goops, every book I read, and every time I strive in my own way to make the world a better place.
Your Great Niece,
Jill
Sunday, December 6, 2015
The Now of Christmas
It's a quiet Sunday morning and I think to myself, "If I was a truly good person I'd be in church right now" or, "I should be up and doing things", after all there are Christmas trees to finish trimming, floors that need vacuuming, clothes that need folding, "I need to get on top of them". Instead I've been lying prone of my backside hanging out with my cat Jamie. He's in the mood for kitty cuddling. In fact, he sits here with me now, watching my fingers fly across the keys. If I had to guess, he's probably torn between wondering why am I doing this, when he has come in all this state to be with me and I could be petting him! Or whether or not to attack the moving fingers. He decides on the latter, dammit, he deserves my attention! You can't believe the number of backspaces I've done in the last few moments.
Jamie, in an odd way, is teaching me something. Life's moments cannot be pre-thought, organized or measured. I keep trying to do this. It's as if my life was some sort of carefully staged road-show, complete with choreography, lines to learn and elaborate sets and props.
I had another of these wake up calls yesterday. It was my new Not Non-Company's annual Christmas Party and I had the responsibility of organizing it. Weeks of preparations for four (4) hours. I start off for the party early, so that I can be there an hour before the festivities start. Traffic is heavy and I am angry and tight. I realize that I need to get gasoline and resent the need to stop. Curse my lack of preparedness. I angrily rant that "I don't even want to go to this g'dmned thing". A weak moment later, I realize that, it's more than the traffic, more than the strain of wanting everything to go perfectly, I'm tired of going to these things alone. I am so sick of being the single in the room. I have one moment, where I think, 'I can't do this', and I nearly text my boss that I've had a personal emergency and can't make it. I hang my head over the steering wheel and I pray, "Please God, I need an attitude adjustment and pronto! Please give me a break with the traffic. Just please help".
After all my whingeing and whining and dire predictions of being tardy, I pull into the venue, exactly one (1) hour before the start, just as planned. The club where the party is being held is surprisingly beautiful, staggeringly beautiful. Decked out to the nines for Christmas, in fact, it couldn't be more Christmassy. I check everything, it's organized to plan. And then I have the moment, that I realize I'm there for, the upper room in which the party is being held looks out onto the golf course, but it's more than that, it's a view of old Florida, ponds, swamps of great Cypresses, swaying palms and heron and egret. And it's my favorite time of day, that whisper of time between day and night. Twilight, the stars just starting to come out, and it's absolutely magical. I'm all alone, the guests haven't arrived yet, there's no noise, just this sort of hushed reverent silence as I watched day turn to night. I couldn't tell you how long I stood at that window and stared out; time just ceased to exist. Waiters silently went in and out, bustling about with trays and all of the minutiae that goes in these types of things and I barely saw them, they seemed to understand that I was lost to them for however long I stood rapt at that window.
Some moments after that, the first guests arrive and with them the noise, people shouting out greetings to one another, spouses that haven't seen other spouses in nearly a year, huddle together to share bits of gossip, and all of the jokes that have probably been served up since Eden. It turns out to be a pretty good party. There were some headaches, missing place cards and the tables set up in groups in five instead of even sixes. As a single person, I forget about the dire need to sit with ones' spouse. I don't sweat odd numbers. I never even think about them. One of the wives, makes an unkind remark that it's very evident that I have done the table arrangements and not my predecessor who apparently was perfection itself. It wounds me for a few minutes but then I think of the things that I've done right and of my moment with God an hour earlier and the remark loses its' sting.
Sometimes I think that God tantalizes us with views of heaven, with glimpses of the real beauty in life. It's kind of a love note, right from God to us and frequentlywe, I miss it. I'm moving too fast, too full of the thoughts in my own head, the plans that I have. Today I realize that Christmas, rather than it being this elaborate stage play that we move closer and closer to the opening day of, is measured in small moments. For me, it's taking a few moments to watch my cat Jamie sleeping under the Christmas tree, savoring the cool brisk taste of a peppermint candy cane, sitting in an elaborately beautiful room laughing my head off at the sight of a co-worker's husband wearing an orange paper Christmas cracker crown as my own pink crown slips tipsily over one eye, listening to the sweet little boy voice of Linus reminding Charlie Brown what Christmas is truly all about.
Be there when God slips you your own personal love note.
Don't miss the now of Christmas.
Jamie, in an odd way, is teaching me something. Life's moments cannot be pre-thought, organized or measured. I keep trying to do this. It's as if my life was some sort of carefully staged road-show, complete with choreography, lines to learn and elaborate sets and props.
I had another of these wake up calls yesterday. It was my new Not Non-Company's annual Christmas Party and I had the responsibility of organizing it. Weeks of preparations for four (4) hours. I start off for the party early, so that I can be there an hour before the festivities start. Traffic is heavy and I am angry and tight. I realize that I need to get gasoline and resent the need to stop. Curse my lack of preparedness. I angrily rant that "I don't even want to go to this g'dmned thing". A weak moment later, I realize that, it's more than the traffic, more than the strain of wanting everything to go perfectly, I'm tired of going to these things alone. I am so sick of being the single in the room. I have one moment, where I think, 'I can't do this', and I nearly text my boss that I've had a personal emergency and can't make it. I hang my head over the steering wheel and I pray, "Please God, I need an attitude adjustment and pronto! Please give me a break with the traffic. Just please help".
After all my whingeing and whining and dire predictions of being tardy, I pull into the venue, exactly one (1) hour before the start, just as planned. The club where the party is being held is surprisingly beautiful, staggeringly beautiful. Decked out to the nines for Christmas, in fact, it couldn't be more Christmassy. I check everything, it's organized to plan. And then I have the moment, that I realize I'm there for, the upper room in which the party is being held looks out onto the golf course, but it's more than that, it's a view of old Florida, ponds, swamps of great Cypresses, swaying palms and heron and egret. And it's my favorite time of day, that whisper of time between day and night. Twilight, the stars just starting to come out, and it's absolutely magical. I'm all alone, the guests haven't arrived yet, there's no noise, just this sort of hushed reverent silence as I watched day turn to night. I couldn't tell you how long I stood at that window and stared out; time just ceased to exist. Waiters silently went in and out, bustling about with trays and all of the minutiae that goes in these types of things and I barely saw them, they seemed to understand that I was lost to them for however long I stood rapt at that window.
Some moments after that, the first guests arrive and with them the noise, people shouting out greetings to one another, spouses that haven't seen other spouses in nearly a year, huddle together to share bits of gossip, and all of the jokes that have probably been served up since Eden. It turns out to be a pretty good party. There were some headaches, missing place cards and the tables set up in groups in five instead of even sixes. As a single person, I forget about the dire need to sit with ones' spouse. I don't sweat odd numbers. I never even think about them. One of the wives, makes an unkind remark that it's very evident that I have done the table arrangements and not my predecessor who apparently was perfection itself. It wounds me for a few minutes but then I think of the things that I've done right and of my moment with God an hour earlier and the remark loses its' sting.
Sometimes I think that God tantalizes us with views of heaven, with glimpses of the real beauty in life. It's kind of a love note, right from God to us and frequently
Be there when God slips you your own personal love note.
Don't miss the now of Christmas.
Friday, November 6, 2015
The Bookworm
Your blogger wrung her hands and prayed and tried to bring forth a blog piece this evening, but it just wasn't happening. The muse wasn't with her. But she did find a poem, a little ditty as John Mellencamp, or John Cougar or John Cougar Mellencamp or whatever he is calling himself these days would say.
I chanced across it the other night, the forties had taken hold of my brain and I was trying to recall the name of the teacher we (all the girls in the 8th grade) thought was hot, (Mr. Caldwell) and I found it stuck inside the yearbook that I looked in to find the name of the Hot for Teacher guy.
I wrote this was I was about 15-16 I guess, I was in High School though, so not sure why it was in my Junior High Yearbook?
I am the author of this, so I guess this is sort of a blog piece.
The Bookworm
Exact is the yarn I spin of my readings
Chart of my book learnings highs and lows
Time loss and lack of exercise my deepest sorrows
Lack of shelf space and social calamity
Daily I've borne sitting in a plethora of chairs
Fearful of an unbalanced book budget
Watching as time passed, while I sat enraptured with Gone with the Wind
Fast to the floor my feet were frozen
Gripped by the appearance of Damn Yankee soldiers at Tara
My eyes ceased to blink and I stopped not for sustenance
Little he who is engrossed in a book takes notice of
How, sick at heart, over Rhett's leaving, the wretch!
I read the novel through
Bare of nourishment and banished from family and friends
Swathed in blanket, tears stinging my eyes, glasses sliding from my nose
Nought I heard but the characters in my book, "I don't know nothin' about birthin no babies!"
For amusement I had Aunt Pitty's swoonings
For sorrow I had Rhett's final pronouncement, "Frankly my dear..."
The cry of Melanie's baby, the mirth of Rhett and Scartlett's first meeting
Shrill through the roar of the Confederate army
Yankees charging through the war-torn south
Raping and pillaging as they march through
And the glasses slide from my nose
Little tears drop off my face
With no help from the pressure of my glasses
They slide all the way down
Gasping and choking back sobs, I reach for a tissue
The book slides off my lap and falls to the floor as I escape in a daydream worthy of The Great Gatsby himself
Oh wildly my heart soars as I read of Oliver Twist, the drama of the Phantom of the Opera, the sorrow and misery of Les Miserables and the Decameron
Daily, hourly I crave the book
As an addict craves his next fix
No amount of book reading ever appears to satiate me
No deeds ever done by any hero, match those played out in my imagination
Which is of course fueled by the library of books stored there
Ever I long for a trip to the library, a jaunt to the bookstore
Winter freezes, spring brightens, summer burns, yet I miss these all
Ever lost in the latest bestseller
The perils and pleasures of he who readeth
Do heed the roosters warning
Morning will overtake you
Those who the night hath departed from
Reading the night through
Fatigue, nay, slumber will overtake thee
Suddenly my conscience awakens
Soareth afar my head sits the timepiece
It reads 4:05 a.m.
Hovers on high, o'er my conscience
You should be asleep it prods
I lay the volume down on my night table, bidding it a regretful goodnight
Yet the morrow lies before me, new mysteries to explore, new romances to blossom, new territories to chart
Thank thou goodest Lord for literature!
As faithfully as I could, I have reproduced this exactly as I wrote it. The inner critic in me was constantly editorializing, embellishing, re-imagining sentences, cringing a bit at the mawkish use of a sort of pidgin Elizabethan Shakespearesque language, but I kept it just as it was, marveling a bit at the fact that I am still very much the same as I was when I was a nerdy sophomore or junior. I still frequently read longer than I ought and I still daydream about being romanced by a tall handsome fellow on his steed, or being the heroine solving the mystery and saving the day and for that fact, I am truly and profoundly grateful,
As I work and strive towards being the heroine of my own life, sometimes it's good to stumble on a bit of the past and realize that inside, I already am.
I chanced across it the other night, the forties had taken hold of my brain and I was trying to recall the name of the teacher we (all the girls in the 8th grade) thought was hot, (Mr. Caldwell) and I found it stuck inside the yearbook that I looked in to find the name of the Hot for Teacher guy.
I wrote this was I was about 15-16 I guess, I was in High School though, so not sure why it was in my Junior High Yearbook?
I am the author of this, so I guess this is sort of a blog piece.
The Bookworm
Exact is the yarn I spin of my readings
Chart of my book learnings highs and lows
Time loss and lack of exercise my deepest sorrows
Lack of shelf space and social calamity
Daily I've borne sitting in a plethora of chairs
Fearful of an unbalanced book budget
Watching as time passed, while I sat enraptured with Gone with the Wind
Fast to the floor my feet were frozen
Gripped by the appearance of Damn Yankee soldiers at Tara
My eyes ceased to blink and I stopped not for sustenance
Little he who is engrossed in a book takes notice of
How, sick at heart, over Rhett's leaving, the wretch!
I read the novel through
Bare of nourishment and banished from family and friends
Swathed in blanket, tears stinging my eyes, glasses sliding from my nose
Nought I heard but the characters in my book, "I don't know nothin' about birthin no babies!"
For amusement I had Aunt Pitty's swoonings
For sorrow I had Rhett's final pronouncement, "Frankly my dear..."
The cry of Melanie's baby, the mirth of Rhett and Scartlett's first meeting
Shrill through the roar of the Confederate army
Yankees charging through the war-torn south
Raping and pillaging as they march through
And the glasses slide from my nose
Little tears drop off my face
With no help from the pressure of my glasses
They slide all the way down
Gasping and choking back sobs, I reach for a tissue
The book slides off my lap and falls to the floor as I escape in a daydream worthy of The Great Gatsby himself
Oh wildly my heart soars as I read of Oliver Twist, the drama of the Phantom of the Opera, the sorrow and misery of Les Miserables and the Decameron
Daily, hourly I crave the book
As an addict craves his next fix
No amount of book reading ever appears to satiate me
No deeds ever done by any hero, match those played out in my imagination
Which is of course fueled by the library of books stored there
Ever I long for a trip to the library, a jaunt to the bookstore
Winter freezes, spring brightens, summer burns, yet I miss these all
Ever lost in the latest bestseller
The perils and pleasures of he who readeth
Do heed the roosters warning
Morning will overtake you
Those who the night hath departed from
Reading the night through
Fatigue, nay, slumber will overtake thee
Suddenly my conscience awakens
Soareth afar my head sits the timepiece
It reads 4:05 a.m.
Hovers on high, o'er my conscience
You should be asleep it prods
I lay the volume down on my night table, bidding it a regretful goodnight
Yet the morrow lies before me, new mysteries to explore, new romances to blossom, new territories to chart
Thank thou goodest Lord for literature!
As faithfully as I could, I have reproduced this exactly as I wrote it. The inner critic in me was constantly editorializing, embellishing, re-imagining sentences, cringing a bit at the mawkish use of a sort of pidgin Elizabethan Shakespearesque language, but I kept it just as it was, marveling a bit at the fact that I am still very much the same as I was when I was a nerdy sophomore or junior. I still frequently read longer than I ought and I still daydream about being romanced by a tall handsome fellow on his steed, or being the heroine solving the mystery and saving the day and for that fact, I am truly and profoundly grateful,
As I work and strive towards being the heroine of my own life, sometimes it's good to stumble on a bit of the past and realize that inside, I already am.
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