I guess I have to put this in here, why, because it's real. It's stupid and silly and idiotic and I feel dumb, but none of these change the fact...it's real. I'm poised on the edge trying to make a big decision here. It's something I've been kind of torn about all week...excited, yet full of trepidation. Why's it stupid? Because a) it's not a big decision, and b) why the hell should I be scared?
I guess the truth is I know why I should be scared. And I am. I consider myself a generally fearless person, but I won't lie, there is one thing that can usually get me more than anything else if anything is going to. The past. I. LOVE. My past. And as such, it can be very hard to move on. Oh I can do it; fortunately one of the attributes I acquired in my development was adaptability and well-adjustedness...but it only helps so far. I guess one of my other qualities/curses was a deeply ingrained sense of passion and love. A curse, you say? How so, a curse, to love, to be passionate?
You haven't been listening to my last diatribes, have you?
Yes, I embrace the past, present, and future as a trinity more holy to me than any so-named Deity...but I lament each equally as well. I'm a Libra, these things happen. I must be balanced at all costs, to a fault, even against my own conscious will.
What am I on about?
I want to go to Flagstaff. I mean, I AM going to Flagstaff...I'm pretty much positive about it now. I took a half hour to soul-search even after my initial plans fell through and put it in a spin (for being supposedly so balanced, you have to understand, it's a tricky balance, and I can be easily thrown off...but fortunately it's never long before I can rebalance my tipped scales, you see). I decided yes I do want to go still. But yes, I don't want to go every bit as much as I do want to.
I want to go to Casa Bonita, to the Thai place that good god I can't even remember its name now, to north campus, to the Union, to Wilson, to the Com building, to the language building. I want to go downtown and to Uptown Billiards and to the pedway and the bookstore and the mailboxes. But I don't want to. Because I can feel it from here, and it's wrenching. It's the same but it's not the same. It's my life but it's not my life. I'm like a ghost walking through there and I know it already and I hate hate hate hate hate that. YES I've moved on and YES I've done great things and YES I enjoyed it fully WHILE I was there and YES I'm happy now and YES I've got bigger things than EVER just over my horizon...but...I am a ghost who can travel through time, but have not grasped yet how to bring the others with me. I can walk on those same footsteps that were mine, and theirs, and I can already from Tucson feel them, but where are they? Sjoerd, Tina, AJ, Erika, Angie, Jenny, Mark, Laura, Kathryn, John, Keith, Cammy, Mary, Peter, Joseph, Brad...all scattered to the wind. Even those who are still there are not Mine, not as they were. The Scott who remains has evolved in my life just as everything else. Even when we hang out and drink beer together on the river 6 years later and time and interaction must dictate by now that we're true friends...he's still my boss. In my heart, he'll always be my boss. Sjoerd, god, more than across the world...so far away from my LIFE. It's not so bad, mostly, I know that everything went as it should and as it could, but down here it's not so bad...there, it's as if he's in my arms again...I can feel our imprints in the ground. It's an interesting thing, to be able to time-travel interdimensionally, it is, and I guess I'm glad I can do it...but GOD!!
AJ and I walked that pedway, in a different time. Talk about an alternate universe...talk about nothing but a faded memory.
I have to stop. I've cried my way through this post more than I've cried about anything for a very long time. It's getting late and I want to get up there early. I want to be there sucking up every ounce of it I can, for as long as I can. I know it's only torture...but it's a necessary evil for me. It's not closure, I'll never have that so long as I can walk the halls of memory, not with place and not with people. But it's more than nostalgia too, it's necessity. I guess to keep myself connected. It's been a long time since I've felt emotion...I guess it's to keep myself connected to myself.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Shedding the junk!
I am feeling very organized and very liberated tonight. I made AMAZING progress on paring down and organizing all my SHIT. I am so stoked. I feel so free... My goal is to go just above asceticism (by modern American standards) and get down to as few belongings as I can. I want to be free to start from nothing...and stay there. It is so much better weighing less. I am SO CLOSE to being DONE, I can really see it now! And then I'll have so much more time, energy, and focus to think creatively, breathe freely, and think of other things rather than my preoccupation with all the junk that surrounds me. It's time to start cutting ties in a major way to THINGS and make more room for THOUGHTS, and IDEAS, and SPIRITUALITY. How can you think on a higher level when you're bogged down on a physical one? So close now!
Life is good tonight. I really feel like I'm about ready and able to move on, and move forward.
Good day!
Life is good tonight. I really feel like I'm about ready and able to move on, and move forward.
Good day!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Goodbye, journey.
Not that anyone reads this, but on the off-chance someone should stumble upon it, before you judge too harshly...actually, I don't really care if you do or not. I like Dawson's Creek. I would even say, I love Dawson's Creek. I have ever since its first episode, when I would watch it in the extra bedroom of the house on 72nd Drive. When I would tape it religiously on some ancient Kodak VHS tapes, now more obsolete than Discmans or hand-written letters.
But in the past oh year and nine months (to the day, incidentally, happy anniversary to the mister), my beloved show has taken on an even greater, deeper, and more cherished meaning. I'll never forget how I told him that I'd liked the show, and not long after he'd scored the first couple discs of the series for me (maybe or maybe not or maybe through unscrupulous means, since I had an equal loathe for buying DVDs at their exorbitant prices as I did love for the show contained within), and we embarked on a many-month long quest, voyage, and journey deep into not only the show, but into our histories, our past, and each other.
Maybe it sounds cheesy, fine. But I will always remember so fondly going through this tv show series with him...for the first time I'd ever seen all the episodes (I stopped watching after it got seriously lame in the third or fourth season), let alone all back to back, all the nights on the couch cuddled up alone in the house, through the summers and the winter, or the nights with Melissa right there raiding on her computer, the times we'd sit down with dinner and see where it was going to take us next and what over-done drama or awfully-familiar scenes might play out that night. It's the first time I've ever watched a series like that, all the way through, especially one so close to my heart with old familiar and well-loved faces (especially since I was NEVER one to get into tv in that way), and by the end of it, remembering all the things that happened has a definite nostalgic air to it as reminiscing over my own life.
And I'm not talking just the good episodes, of which there were many. I'm also talking about the GOD AWFUL NOT ANOTHER ONE LIKE THIS ones...of which there were plenty (though thankfully after a rough go of it, season three or four or whatever it is did jerk into a haltingly better phase, and then managed to pull back out of it - it was never the same, of course, but it was still Dawson's. What can I say.).
Anyway, I just felt the need to say goodbye, to the show, which even though it ended some 5 years ago, is only now ending for me, but more importantly, to this really truly FUN time that Ray and I have shared for the past almost two years by sharing it between us, almost exclusively. It was our little thing. Our little guilty pleasure, that we'd never want the guys at hockey to know about, but that we'd never want to abandon. I am so sorry and sad to see it go, not just because the story is over, but because these little shared moments of this chapter are as well. I mean, such is life, and it's not like "the end of the world" or anything, but does it really have to be in order to deserve some pause and reverence? We'll go on now, to perhaps one of his sci-fi shows which I'm probably as averse to watching as he initially was when I uttered the two words that can be spoken by your female counterpart "Dawson's Creek" preceded by "Honey, let's watch..." which are almost as feared by the modern male as those other two words completing that phrase: "The Notebook".
There will be more stories, and more chapters, and more time spent together, in front of the screen, and out in real life. I am excited for the things to come, the things that are, and of course, as always...for those things that have been.
Goodbye, Dawson's...
And happy 17th, Diggity.
But in the past oh year and nine months (to the day, incidentally, happy anniversary to the mister), my beloved show has taken on an even greater, deeper, and more cherished meaning. I'll never forget how I told him that I'd liked the show, and not long after he'd scored the first couple discs of the series for me (maybe or maybe not or maybe through unscrupulous means, since I had an equal loathe for buying DVDs at their exorbitant prices as I did love for the show contained within), and we embarked on a many-month long quest, voyage, and journey deep into not only the show, but into our histories, our past, and each other.
Maybe it sounds cheesy, fine. But I will always remember so fondly going through this tv show series with him...for the first time I'd ever seen all the episodes (I stopped watching after it got seriously lame in the third or fourth season), let alone all back to back, all the nights on the couch cuddled up alone in the house, through the summers and the winter, or the nights with Melissa right there raiding on her computer, the times we'd sit down with dinner and see where it was going to take us next and what over-done drama or awfully-familiar scenes might play out that night. It's the first time I've ever watched a series like that, all the way through, especially one so close to my heart with old familiar and well-loved faces (especially since I was NEVER one to get into tv in that way), and by the end of it, remembering all the things that happened has a definite nostalgic air to it as reminiscing over my own life.
And I'm not talking just the good episodes, of which there were many. I'm also talking about the GOD AWFUL NOT ANOTHER ONE LIKE THIS ones...of which there were plenty (though thankfully after a rough go of it, season three or four or whatever it is did jerk into a haltingly better phase, and then managed to pull back out of it - it was never the same, of course, but it was still Dawson's. What can I say.).
Anyway, I just felt the need to say goodbye, to the show, which even though it ended some 5 years ago, is only now ending for me, but more importantly, to this really truly FUN time that Ray and I have shared for the past almost two years by sharing it between us, almost exclusively. It was our little thing. Our little guilty pleasure, that we'd never want the guys at hockey to know about, but that we'd never want to abandon. I am so sorry and sad to see it go, not just because the story is over, but because these little shared moments of this chapter are as well. I mean, such is life, and it's not like "the end of the world" or anything, but does it really have to be in order to deserve some pause and reverence? We'll go on now, to perhaps one of his sci-fi shows which I'm probably as averse to watching as he initially was when I uttered the two words that can be spoken by your female counterpart "Dawson's Creek" preceded by "Honey, let's watch..." which are almost as feared by the modern male as those other two words completing that phrase: "The Notebook".
There will be more stories, and more chapters, and more time spent together, in front of the screen, and out in real life. I am excited for the things to come, the things that are, and of course, as always...for those things that have been.
Goodbye, Dawson's...
And happy 17th, Diggity.
Friday, August 15, 2008
SWEET Animation Festival!
Ray and I just got in from an awesome animation show at The Loft! Man that place is the coolest...they've always got the craziest, most obscure, indie stuff. This one was called, er, "The Animation Show". I wanted to put in here for posterity the films that were in there that I can remember. It was like a dose of speed into your veins, there were a TON of films in like an hour and a half.
Show Opener: Joel Trussell - The Old People on the Cruise Ship Going Death Metal opener
The Life and Times of Tim/The Angry Unpaid Hooker: Steve Dildarian
Operator: Matthew Walker - calling God while eating a toffee apple and asking why he can't lick his elbow
Voodoo: Gobelins School of Animation - explorers get blasted to sea and eaten when they try to blast open an old ruin
Blind Spot: Gobelins School of Animation - an old woman is blamed for a hold-up gone awry because the videocamera missed the assailant the whole time
Burning Safari: Gobelins School of Animation - robot takes picture of monkey and monkey freaks out
Cocotteminute: Gobelins School of Animation - the racing kitchen chicken opener from Annecy (!!! :)) 2006
Hot dog: Bill Plympton - the little dog that tried to be a fire dog
This Way Up: Smith & Foulkes - two undertakers who try to deliver a coffin when their hearse is squashed by a giant boulder
Western Spaghetti: PES - one of the coolest, wackiest stop-films I've seen, using Pick-Up sticks for spaghetti (which come out as rubberbands), rubics cubes and dice chopped up, foil for oil, tomato pincushions squashed for tomato sauce...very cool
(3) Psychotown: Aussie Dave Carter - paper cut-out guys and their shenanigans...the Oranges game, a psychiatrist session, and staging a coup using the government's army against them
Lovesport Paintballing: Grant Orchard - crazy computer-like game of paintballing where the paint can ultimately annihilates everyone then feeling dismayed shoots himself only for everyone else to get up after the fact
Jeu: Georges Schwizgebel - neither Ray nor I liked this one; way too much going on with the animation constantly turning into something else, made our heads hurt
Speaking of Ray...Raymond: BIF Productions - scientists develop drops to stimulate certain actions and dropping them on Raymond's head stimulate him to do some very strange things...it wasn't one of my favorites yet I probably laughed the hardest on this one
Key Lime Pie: Trevor Jimenez - bizarre spy-type flick, I guess film noir genre, about yes, Key Lime Pie
Prof Nieto Show: Nieto - wtf, beetles for a group of scientist students, a monkey, and beetles that play soccer...a fly pulls a red card...just...wtf
(3) Yompi: Corky Quakenbush - definitely not a fan, could live without this being in existence at all...Yompi this creature thing with a dung-like swirl on his head looks sweet then bites your crotch. And that's it. Ok.
(2) Usavich: Satoshi Tomioka - not too sure about these; first the driver's not paying attention on a cliff road and hijinx ensue, in the second it's about the combined sound effects of the road. Weird characters made for a weird viewing experience.
Lastly mine and Ray's two content-favorites:
Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker: Stefan Mueller - one of the best drug trip portrayals I've ever seen, and a pretty unique take on a film and pov. The neighbor calls the cops on loud music, and between the man being dominated in one apt, and the drug lab in the second, somehow between here and there Mr. First Neighbor ends up with a tab of acid in his coffee and the cop is like wtF is going on with you people??
And the one that takes the cheese:
John and Karen: Matthew Walker - polar bear and penguin. Very simple but very awesome. These animation festivals are so crazy.
Holy god, that's 25 films. No wonder we felt exhausted afterward - but happy! We might even go again this week to see it, even though it doesn't even start til 10p. Anyway that list wasn't meant to be a comprehensive review just a bit to jog my memory in the future. It was an awesome time, and fun to think back on all the fun events we've been to just in the past few months: tonight was the animation festival, Tuesday we went and saw Mongol (cool flick about the rise of Ghengis Khan), the Poetry Slam, the LunaFest women's film festival, the outdoor film festival, the Aloha festival, the Short Film Fest...and there's always so many more things going on! We veered away from them for awhile to build up the savings but I think it's time to jump back into whatever we can and enjoy it. :)
Tonight was definitely a great start!
:) :) :)
Show Opener: Joel Trussell - The Old People on the Cruise Ship Going Death Metal opener
The Life and Times of Tim/The Angry Unpaid Hooker: Steve Dildarian
Operator: Matthew Walker - calling God while eating a toffee apple and asking why he can't lick his elbow
Voodoo: Gobelins School of Animation - explorers get blasted to sea and eaten when they try to blast open an old ruin
Blind Spot: Gobelins School of Animation - an old woman is blamed for a hold-up gone awry because the videocamera missed the assailant the whole time
Burning Safari: Gobelins School of Animation - robot takes picture of monkey and monkey freaks out
Cocotteminute: Gobelins School of Animation - the racing kitchen chicken opener from Annecy (!!! :)) 2006
Hot dog: Bill Plympton - the little dog that tried to be a fire dog
This Way Up: Smith & Foulkes - two undertakers who try to deliver a coffin when their hearse is squashed by a giant boulder
Western Spaghetti: PES - one of the coolest, wackiest stop-films I've seen, using Pick-Up sticks for spaghetti (which come out as rubberbands), rubics cubes and dice chopped up, foil for oil, tomato pincushions squashed for tomato sauce...very cool
(3) Psychotown: Aussie Dave Carter - paper cut-out guys and their shenanigans...the Oranges game, a psychiatrist session, and staging a coup using the government's army against them
Lovesport Paintballing: Grant Orchard - crazy computer-like game of paintballing where the paint can ultimately annihilates everyone then feeling dismayed shoots himself only for everyone else to get up after the fact
Jeu: Georges Schwizgebel - neither Ray nor I liked this one; way too much going on with the animation constantly turning into something else, made our heads hurt
Speaking of Ray...Raymond: BIF Productions - scientists develop drops to stimulate certain actions and dropping them on Raymond's head stimulate him to do some very strange things...it wasn't one of my favorites yet I probably laughed the hardest on this one
Key Lime Pie: Trevor Jimenez - bizarre spy-type flick, I guess film noir genre, about yes, Key Lime Pie
Prof Nieto Show: Nieto - wtf, beetles for a group of scientist students, a monkey, and beetles that play soccer...a fly pulls a red card...just...wtf
(3) Yompi: Corky Quakenbush - definitely not a fan, could live without this being in existence at all...Yompi this creature thing with a dung-like swirl on his head looks sweet then bites your crotch. And that's it. Ok.
(2) Usavich: Satoshi Tomioka - not too sure about these; first the driver's not paying attention on a cliff road and hijinx ensue, in the second it's about the combined sound effects of the road. Weird characters made for a weird viewing experience.
Lastly mine and Ray's two content-favorites:
Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker: Stefan Mueller - one of the best drug trip portrayals I've ever seen, and a pretty unique take on a film and pov. The neighbor calls the cops on loud music, and between the man being dominated in one apt, and the drug lab in the second, somehow between here and there Mr. First Neighbor ends up with a tab of acid in his coffee and the cop is like wtF is going on with you people??
And the one that takes the cheese:
John and Karen: Matthew Walker - polar bear and penguin. Very simple but very awesome. These animation festivals are so crazy.
Holy god, that's 25 films. No wonder we felt exhausted afterward - but happy! We might even go again this week to see it, even though it doesn't even start til 10p. Anyway that list wasn't meant to be a comprehensive review just a bit to jog my memory in the future. It was an awesome time, and fun to think back on all the fun events we've been to just in the past few months: tonight was the animation festival, Tuesday we went and saw Mongol (cool flick about the rise of Ghengis Khan), the Poetry Slam, the LunaFest women's film festival, the outdoor film festival, the Aloha festival, the Short Film Fest...and there's always so many more things going on! We veered away from them for awhile to build up the savings but I think it's time to jump back into whatever we can and enjoy it. :)
Tonight was definitely a great start!
:) :) :)
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Choices
The decision of how and where to allocate one's time is an important one for me. Not only do I feel that precious ticking clock of life, but I truly enjoy every moment I'm in, engaged in whatever it is I'm doing. Yes, even in the worst of times, the times when I bitch. It's not the same as not enjoying it; it's experiencing it, life, for all it is - good AND imperfect.
It's been hard to restrain myself/ourselves from booking another cruise, especially to celebrate our two-year anniversary coming up. It was becoming what we *do*, to celebrate and commemorate the occasion, having gone for the one-year mark, and then the one and half one. But we've been trying hard to save money, like, a lot of money, and that was one choice we had to make, to forgo it for this time around, in the interest of bigger and other things a little further up the road.
It's been hard to restrain from paying half of Sjoerd's airplane ticket to bring him out here. Relational implications notwithstanding, even if those were to be fully ironed out or anyway suspended for the sake of playing it by ear which sometimes you have to do, at the end of those decisions there's still that pricetag anyway.
But I guess one restraint you can't really argue against is that of time in an hour glass. While I can never be guaranteed that I will/Ray and I will have another chance to go on a cruise, or that I will be able to see and spend time with Sjoerd again...chances are much in my favor that I will do both, and almost inevitably. And they are both timeless things, things which can be done at any point in my life and be just as sweet and every bit as timely as now - maybe even moreso (all kinks considered).
There is one argument for my time though, that I'm realizing with the passing days does demand more immediate and definitive action. Mom's been gone to Idaho for 7 1/2 months and has wanted me the whole time to come and see her new life up there. Garrett and Sam, the little cousins, who bless their hearts are apparently enamored with their big cousin (me), aren't so little and aren't going to be getting any littler, and while I anxiously and eagerly await the day they're older so I can better relate to them...these days when they are this age, I KNOW how impressionable they are and how much every little thing means to them. Hell that's exactly what my past three entries were about, ironically. I found Mark the cook from the camp I attended when I was their age (right smack between their two ages, at 12) and my heart skipped a beat, even now at 25. Steve, a counselor from that same camp, with whom I've recently reconnected thru Facebook sent me a little message yesterday and it still means as much to me that he thought of me as it did when I was that age, and received a postcard from him one of those long, hot, boring summer days when I was 12 and the world I had at my fingertips consisted only of that hopeful march to the mailbox everyday, hoping one of my camp counselors had written me. Because they were so big, and amazing, and...wow, 25!!! And they cared about ME?
You'd think that sort of thing, that novelty would wear off with age, right? It does, sort of. I'm not that amazed when someone 35, ten years my senior now, pays attention to me now. Yet the novelty of the people who did when I was that age, when I was 12 and they were (wow!) 22, or 30, or even 19...would you believe, I still sort of feel that residual awe of them. And I'm not one to get star-struck. But, it mattered, they made a crucial difference in my life, at a time when it was most emotionally and developmentally important to me to know that big people paid attention, they wanted to spend time with me, they cared. I think maybe what made their impact so resounding to me was that quietly, subtly, just by being around and taking just that extra modicum of interest, that extra step of sending a postcard or a letter, they were instilling in me an equally quiet and subtle yet a profound sense of self-worth.
In fact, now that I think about it, it didn't even stop at 12. Also through that modern miracle called Facebook, I recently got in touch with my old hockey coach. I've played on a lot of teams in the past 10+ years of my hockey career, but he was the one and only coach who was a true coach, a true leader, a true mentor. I was 16-17 when I played for him, going into college the following year, practically an adult, right? Yet I realize now he still had that same similar sort of impact? And besides despite all opposition, the loud internal one inside myself that was constantly feeling the awareness that as a girl on an boys' checking team I just couldn't compete as well as the latent outer one of those said boys feeling the same way about me, what do I remember about my coach but that he made me an assistant captain for that team. It crosses my mind now as I write about it that I suppose maybe it could have been politically motivated. Good PR, right, to have the girl as a christened leader of the team. Except I don't really doubt his intentions. Because I remember the reason he gave me that position...he said I had heart. And because he said so, I chose to live up to it, as best I could.
Time spent makes a difference, especially when it's at crucial junctures in peoples' lives. I've got big plans boiling to be leaving the state, the country, the continent for perhaps a matter of years, and as mom settles into her retirement in her little senior living community, I have to start facing the reality that time is ticking down. And if I'm not going to be around for all of it later, I oughta at least give not only them, but myself, the time to enjoy some time spent together now. Similarly, my grandparents are right there with her, grandparents that I grew up with as a permanent fixture at the holiday and birthday tables, up until they up and left just preceding mom. Grandpa's 83 and while because of his good health and mental acuity I find it hard to conceive of the age for what it means for normal geriatrics, well, my paternal grandparents made a good case for how quickly things change when they do change, as after 90-some years of being there, the one year I leave to Italy for 8 months, I forfeit the chance to see them ever again. And the boys...well...I know I've got something special with them, and not all of life's lessons of "Do this while you can" are borne of the fear of loss to death. Perhaps some of the most important ones are the ones that say it because things don't stay this way forever, and this is your biggest and best chance to make that lasting difference, that impact that will stay with them until they are teens, twenties, and beyond.
I don't know if they did the same for me as intentionally and purposefully, but I can imagine on some level at least they must have. So, Mark (Coach), Steve, Kevin, since I know you have access and may actually read this, a direct thank you to you. Know that if you wanted to make a difference by coaching high school hockey, working at a summer camp, and returning the letter of a little 8th grader who wrote to a nameless, faceless stranger in a letter addressed to "Any Service Person" and was one of the only ones who did to our class of 90 little kids who all did the same thing I did...if you wanted to make a difference, you did. And you still do, so don't stop, ever. I'm bigger now, and I've done a lot of big things with my life, and will continue to do so. But I still appreciate you just as much, and need you just as much, in that way that all people need each other regardless of how in touch any of us are with that fact or not - to become better, more aware, more complete and confident people.
To my other friends, who are out there working as teachers, as volunteers, as anyone who is truly hoping to CONNECT on the individual level and effect change for the better, keep on. The ripple effect is true...those people I just mentioned (and many others I didn't but are in between the lines anyway) and I are testaments to that. And as proof, I'm going to spend my time and money not on a cruise this time, but to go see my little cousins, and my mom, and my grandparents, and pay homage to that older generation while nurturing the next one, just as was done for me.
You make a difference.
It's been hard to restrain myself/ourselves from booking another cruise, especially to celebrate our two-year anniversary coming up. It was becoming what we *do*, to celebrate and commemorate the occasion, having gone for the one-year mark, and then the one and half one. But we've been trying hard to save money, like, a lot of money, and that was one choice we had to make, to forgo it for this time around, in the interest of bigger and other things a little further up the road.
It's been hard to restrain from paying half of Sjoerd's airplane ticket to bring him out here. Relational implications notwithstanding, even if those were to be fully ironed out or anyway suspended for the sake of playing it by ear which sometimes you have to do, at the end of those decisions there's still that pricetag anyway.
But I guess one restraint you can't really argue against is that of time in an hour glass. While I can never be guaranteed that I will/Ray and I will have another chance to go on a cruise, or that I will be able to see and spend time with Sjoerd again...chances are much in my favor that I will do both, and almost inevitably. And they are both timeless things, things which can be done at any point in my life and be just as sweet and every bit as timely as now - maybe even moreso (all kinks considered).
There is one argument for my time though, that I'm realizing with the passing days does demand more immediate and definitive action. Mom's been gone to Idaho for 7 1/2 months and has wanted me the whole time to come and see her new life up there. Garrett and Sam, the little cousins, who bless their hearts are apparently enamored with their big cousin (me), aren't so little and aren't going to be getting any littler, and while I anxiously and eagerly await the day they're older so I can better relate to them...these days when they are this age, I KNOW how impressionable they are and how much every little thing means to them. Hell that's exactly what my past three entries were about, ironically. I found Mark the cook from the camp I attended when I was their age (right smack between their two ages, at 12) and my heart skipped a beat, even now at 25. Steve, a counselor from that same camp, with whom I've recently reconnected thru Facebook sent me a little message yesterday and it still means as much to me that he thought of me as it did when I was that age, and received a postcard from him one of those long, hot, boring summer days when I was 12 and the world I had at my fingertips consisted only of that hopeful march to the mailbox everyday, hoping one of my camp counselors had written me. Because they were so big, and amazing, and...wow, 25!!! And they cared about ME?
You'd think that sort of thing, that novelty would wear off with age, right? It does, sort of. I'm not that amazed when someone 35, ten years my senior now, pays attention to me now. Yet the novelty of the people who did when I was that age, when I was 12 and they were (wow!) 22, or 30, or even 19...would you believe, I still sort of feel that residual awe of them. And I'm not one to get star-struck. But, it mattered, they made a crucial difference in my life, at a time when it was most emotionally and developmentally important to me to know that big people paid attention, they wanted to spend time with me, they cared. I think maybe what made their impact so resounding to me was that quietly, subtly, just by being around and taking just that extra modicum of interest, that extra step of sending a postcard or a letter, they were instilling in me an equally quiet and subtle yet a profound sense of self-worth.
In fact, now that I think about it, it didn't even stop at 12. Also through that modern miracle called Facebook, I recently got in touch with my old hockey coach. I've played on a lot of teams in the past 10+ years of my hockey career, but he was the one and only coach who was a true coach, a true leader, a true mentor. I was 16-17 when I played for him, going into college the following year, practically an adult, right? Yet I realize now he still had that same similar sort of impact? And besides despite all opposition, the loud internal one inside myself that was constantly feeling the awareness that as a girl on an boys' checking team I just couldn't compete as well as the latent outer one of those said boys feeling the same way about me, what do I remember about my coach but that he made me an assistant captain for that team. It crosses my mind now as I write about it that I suppose maybe it could have been politically motivated. Good PR, right, to have the girl as a christened leader of the team. Except I don't really doubt his intentions. Because I remember the reason he gave me that position...he said I had heart. And because he said so, I chose to live up to it, as best I could.
Time spent makes a difference, especially when it's at crucial junctures in peoples' lives. I've got big plans boiling to be leaving the state, the country, the continent for perhaps a matter of years, and as mom settles into her retirement in her little senior living community, I have to start facing the reality that time is ticking down. And if I'm not going to be around for all of it later, I oughta at least give not only them, but myself, the time to enjoy some time spent together now. Similarly, my grandparents are right there with her, grandparents that I grew up with as a permanent fixture at the holiday and birthday tables, up until they up and left just preceding mom. Grandpa's 83 and while because of his good health and mental acuity I find it hard to conceive of the age for what it means for normal geriatrics, well, my paternal grandparents made a good case for how quickly things change when they do change, as after 90-some years of being there, the one year I leave to Italy for 8 months, I forfeit the chance to see them ever again. And the boys...well...I know I've got something special with them, and not all of life's lessons of "Do this while you can" are borne of the fear of loss to death. Perhaps some of the most important ones are the ones that say it because things don't stay this way forever, and this is your biggest and best chance to make that lasting difference, that impact that will stay with them until they are teens, twenties, and beyond.
I don't know if they did the same for me as intentionally and purposefully, but I can imagine on some level at least they must have. So, Mark (Coach), Steve, Kevin, since I know you have access and may actually read this, a direct thank you to you. Know that if you wanted to make a difference by coaching high school hockey, working at a summer camp, and returning the letter of a little 8th grader who wrote to a nameless, faceless stranger in a letter addressed to "Any Service Person" and was one of the only ones who did to our class of 90 little kids who all did the same thing I did...if you wanted to make a difference, you did. And you still do, so don't stop, ever. I'm bigger now, and I've done a lot of big things with my life, and will continue to do so. But I still appreciate you just as much, and need you just as much, in that way that all people need each other regardless of how in touch any of us are with that fact or not - to become better, more aware, more complete and confident people.
To my other friends, who are out there working as teachers, as volunteers, as anyone who is truly hoping to CONNECT on the individual level and effect change for the better, keep on. The ripple effect is true...those people I just mentioned (and many others I didn't but are in between the lines anyway) and I are testaments to that. And as proof, I'm going to spend my time and money not on a cruise this time, but to go see my little cousins, and my mom, and my grandparents, and pay homage to that older generation while nurturing the next one, just as was done for me.
You make a difference.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Ten Minutes: NAU pangs
I felt it tonight at the gym. Oddly, it was something as simple as standing in line for the water fountain, the backs of two college- or my- aged guys getting their drinks. The familiar long shorts and tshirts, and I felt it suddenly, how much I miss that old life.
I missed riding my bike to French class, or walking to History. I miss the activity always going on around you, free for you to take part in or hide out from. I miss hiding out from my life some nights in my room, when I was an RA and had endless tasks and responsibilities and could-be-doings, and the reprieve I would get from closing my door, turning off the light, and writing to get away from it for just a spell if I needed to.
I miss getting food from the Union, meeting with friends for a meal, the beautiful weather. I miss meeting new people in class and having so many different people my age to look at, puzzle over, be interested about. I miss professors and connecting with them. I miss my friends.
I miss my long and late night conversations with Thom, and figuring out the world, and taking it by storm. I miss working my way into new peoples' hearts, and road trips, and having all those great experiences that make me smile now to think back on. I still have those, of course...moments like that. But I do miss the setting being Flagstaff.
College was so much fun...if I only could have understood fully what it was to have all the different resources there and available - a gym right there; food right there; so many people and experiences, just RIGHT there. I miss the people...I miss being surrounded by people. It's not the same being in the "real" world, real meaning outside of communal living. I LOVED communal living. If I had the chance to live in a dorm right now I'd take it in a heartbeat. I will enjoy being on the road again and frequenting the hostels; I only hope I will again settle in one for a semi-long term like I got to in Queenstown. I love community, and the constant air of opportunity that envelops it.
But even with all these "I misses" pouring out, I can feel the moment is gone. I hate pangs. I love them a tiny bit because it's like it takes you back, to RIGHT THERE, in the moment you have it. But they're so painful for just that reason...it's so intense and so vibrant and so real...and then it's gone, and you know those moments are gone for good. It's like having a dream, only like a shot of a dream into your vein, you know those dreams where you see someone you haven't seen for a long time and it actually feels like it was good to see them when you wake up. It hurt, even as I was having it, but at the same time, god it was so good to stand on that pedway again.
I guess it's a fair enough price to pay for such things to have, at one time, been my reality. I am grateful for that much.
word count: 542
I missed riding my bike to French class, or walking to History. I miss the activity always going on around you, free for you to take part in or hide out from. I miss hiding out from my life some nights in my room, when I was an RA and had endless tasks and responsibilities and could-be-doings, and the reprieve I would get from closing my door, turning off the light, and writing to get away from it for just a spell if I needed to.
I miss getting food from the Union, meeting with friends for a meal, the beautiful weather. I miss meeting new people in class and having so many different people my age to look at, puzzle over, be interested about. I miss professors and connecting with them. I miss my friends.
I miss my long and late night conversations with Thom, and figuring out the world, and taking it by storm. I miss working my way into new peoples' hearts, and road trips, and having all those great experiences that make me smile now to think back on. I still have those, of course...moments like that. But I do miss the setting being Flagstaff.
College was so much fun...if I only could have understood fully what it was to have all the different resources there and available - a gym right there; food right there; so many people and experiences, just RIGHT there. I miss the people...I miss being surrounded by people. It's not the same being in the "real" world, real meaning outside of communal living. I LOVED communal living. If I had the chance to live in a dorm right now I'd take it in a heartbeat. I will enjoy being on the road again and frequenting the hostels; I only hope I will again settle in one for a semi-long term like I got to in Queenstown. I love community, and the constant air of opportunity that envelops it.
But even with all these "I misses" pouring out, I can feel the moment is gone. I hate pangs. I love them a tiny bit because it's like it takes you back, to RIGHT THERE, in the moment you have it. But they're so painful for just that reason...it's so intense and so vibrant and so real...and then it's gone, and you know those moments are gone for good. It's like having a dream, only like a shot of a dream into your vein, you know those dreams where you see someone you haven't seen for a long time and it actually feels like it was good to see them when you wake up. It hurt, even as I was having it, but at the same time, god it was so good to stand on that pedway again.
I guess it's a fair enough price to pay for such things to have, at one time, been my reality. I am grateful for that much.
word count: 542
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Ten Minutes Scratched - Childhood poem...SOLVED?
And just like that, if you hold it in your mind, it was just as he said, the messiah...you bring to you the things you wish for. But oh I know I wished for you then, much more fervently than I've wished for you now, just now. 14 years down the line and I knew it had been that long, and I know that if you were 30 to begin with, you could only be 44 now, but in my mind you'd stayed that youthful man, that mystery...but I've found you, haven't I? In those places where I've searched before, this wasn't the first time but this was the first time you were THERE.
And 44. And here. And I could see you again, then, after all this time, after all.
And who says life isn't magical. Who says your heart can't pound over a stranger, over a dream, over a figment of your imagination, over something that was never real, but something that changed everything at your young age. Who says that those changes don't resonate into the ages of "reason", where you have to congratulate yourself for simply not clawing at the walls...
You're there. I'm certain it's you. It must be you. These things can't happen. You're not supposed to meet a dream, face to face, no matter how much you long for it, no matter for how long. It's like traveling back in time, it just messes with the line of normal continuity, it messes with the lines of love and loves that make sense, that have reason, that have normalcy, that...but no matter. I have grown but I haven't outgrown. Anyone who knows me, knows that I know love without bounds (sometimes to their great challenge)... that dream, that image, it was never real, but it was always real...because it got me through my childhood when you're not even supposed to know about those concepts because it would drive a child mad, and it would have.
But I could write it out.
I could write the madness out.
I could write the love out.
I learned to write it, so I learned to see it, so I learned to know it, so I learned to feel it, so I learned to believe it, so I learned to share it, so I learned to live it, so I learned to believe in it, so I learned to NEVER STOP. And I never did stop, because of you, in a way.
But now to face the dream in its hard copy reality? Not a name, but a face? I've always known your name, still carry it on the tip of my tongue, in the tips of my fingers, always poised to type it in to try just that one last time to find you, and tonight that one search entered as irony, yielded a result, and it was you. In the flesh and blood. 44. You.
And in PHOENIX.
Two hours away. The entire fabric of my metaphysical existence, manifest in one name that belonged to one fantasy of a life without borders and a love without limits and without reason and without needing one; one name that belonged to a real man all that time after all, one who brought me a cd player and two cds - Counting Crows and Alanis Morrissette when I was sick and needed a friend and you stepped out of your cabin and into my dreams everlasting, to become that practical stranger that became an unlikely friend. Did you ever know how you would resonate? Did you ever know how many lives your act would go on to touch, through me? Ask the people I have known how deeply I have loved them, how much they have felt love through me. They are everywhere. They are in France, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, Finland, Scotland, Australia, Japan, America. They are everyone everybody would expect me to love, and they are the ones that no one would have thought that I would love. But by and large, no matter who they are or who they were, I did love them, and I still do. Because of you, I am someone who learned how to love a stranger early on, and one of the lucky few, who never learned to stop.
Do you remember me, Stranger? Because I still remember you.
Mark...
And 44. And here. And I could see you again, then, after all this time, after all.
And who says life isn't magical. Who says your heart can't pound over a stranger, over a dream, over a figment of your imagination, over something that was never real, but something that changed everything at your young age. Who says that those changes don't resonate into the ages of "reason", where you have to congratulate yourself for simply not clawing at the walls...
You're there. I'm certain it's you. It must be you. These things can't happen. You're not supposed to meet a dream, face to face, no matter how much you long for it, no matter for how long. It's like traveling back in time, it just messes with the line of normal continuity, it messes with the lines of love and loves that make sense, that have reason, that have normalcy, that...but no matter. I have grown but I haven't outgrown. Anyone who knows me, knows that I know love without bounds (sometimes to their great challenge)... that dream, that image, it was never real, but it was always real...because it got me through my childhood when you're not even supposed to know about those concepts because it would drive a child mad, and it would have.
But I could write it out.
I could write the madness out.
I could write the love out.
I learned to write it, so I learned to see it, so I learned to know it, so I learned to feel it, so I learned to believe it, so I learned to share it, so I learned to live it, so I learned to believe in it, so I learned to NEVER STOP. And I never did stop, because of you, in a way.
But now to face the dream in its hard copy reality? Not a name, but a face? I've always known your name, still carry it on the tip of my tongue, in the tips of my fingers, always poised to type it in to try just that one last time to find you, and tonight that one search entered as irony, yielded a result, and it was you. In the flesh and blood. 44. You.
And in PHOENIX.
Two hours away. The entire fabric of my metaphysical existence, manifest in one name that belonged to one fantasy of a life without borders and a love without limits and without reason and without needing one; one name that belonged to a real man all that time after all, one who brought me a cd player and two cds - Counting Crows and Alanis Morrissette when I was sick and needed a friend and you stepped out of your cabin and into my dreams everlasting, to become that practical stranger that became an unlikely friend. Did you ever know how you would resonate? Did you ever know how many lives your act would go on to touch, through me? Ask the people I have known how deeply I have loved them, how much they have felt love through me. They are everywhere. They are in France, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, Finland, Scotland, Australia, Japan, America. They are everyone everybody would expect me to love, and they are the ones that no one would have thought that I would love. But by and large, no matter who they are or who they were, I did love them, and I still do. Because of you, I am someone who learned how to love a stranger early on, and one of the lucky few, who never learned to stop.
Do you remember me, Stranger? Because I still remember you.
Mark...
Because I don't suppose I want to fill this thing with ten minute bouts of nothingness, really
Eh exercises are ok, and I suppose it's good to at least be thinking about and even attempting a sharpening of the mind. But let's be honest, my forte is expository; and my only authority, over myself. So let's purge.
One thing I've noticed since starting this thing a little over a week ago is WOW. Nobody on Facebook CARES! I've made a pretty definitive swoop from MySpace to Facebook, and if you're thinking wow six lines into this and she's already a complete nerdazoid, stop to consider. Being in an internet shop in the middle of Queenstown in the middle of winter in the middle of the South Pacific (ok, bottom of it, anyway), MySpace was my only connection to the outer world. You know..."friends".
Friends other than the ones I lived with in the hostel, the ones that I'd come to live with, laugh with, love, only to (and knowingly) have them blow away, scatter to the four winds at season's end. And now, them having done so, now the only - let's be realistic - way to keep in touch now, one of these two sites.
Indeed, that's a big reason I made the switch. For some reason in my circles, the big F hit the tipping point over the big MyS, and said blown friends are shown here in abundance.
But sadly, what I've found, is that where in the MySpace blogging world, that little hole from which I'd carve my little niche and ultimately label it my quiet and unassuming yet impassioned life, where on the Other site, people would emerge from the woodwork in most unexpected ways, not only to read but to respond to my words...despite no announcement of a posting on MySpace but stalker-like fanfare to all reaches of one's social web on this one, almost no one can be bothered here. My two cousins whom I barely know (but am glad for the chance to start at least) have acknowledged me and an oooold friend from HS dropped a lifeline. But it's not been anything like the interaction and feedback I enjoyed on the other site. For a foray into the public sphere, so far a week into it, it hasn't been terribly encouraging.
So where's the waste? Is it in my subject matter? The format? For sure brevity has been my bane on Facebook...I've been painstakingly sharing a close-to-the-heart tale with the subject of the story for the past WEEKS now, because Facebook has this way of making two paragraphs of a Word doc appear as 2 pages of a dried out textbook. Ever tried to copy 38 pages 8 lines at a time and tried to do a good story justice?
Well, whatever. Tomorrow's another day and another and another, and at least I'm not clawing at the walls anymore. Funny to feel like you're marching in place looking to the horizon knowing you're only living today for tomorrow, mostly, and yet knowing that it all goes too fast. At least I'm not climbing the walls...not climbing the walls...not clawing down the walls...
For now if I'm blessed with/cursed with an audience so vast that all of this is lost in the shuffle then I suppose eventually it will give me license to dream with an open hand; knowing that all of it could be read and none of it will be, or that none of it will be but then all of it is...well it makes you wonder how to present yourself, and how to live your life accordingly if you're going to have to answer for it later on, with or without that cloak of anonymity. I wonder why more people don't do this public reflection thing.
I wonder if more people would want to.
Are you out there?, I wonder...
One thing I've noticed since starting this thing a little over a week ago is WOW. Nobody on Facebook CARES! I've made a pretty definitive swoop from MySpace to Facebook, and if you're thinking wow six lines into this and she's already a complete nerdazoid, stop to consider. Being in an internet shop in the middle of Queenstown in the middle of winter in the middle of the South Pacific (ok, bottom of it, anyway), MySpace was my only connection to the outer world. You know..."friends".
Friends other than the ones I lived with in the hostel, the ones that I'd come to live with, laugh with, love, only to (and knowingly) have them blow away, scatter to the four winds at season's end. And now, them having done so, now the only - let's be realistic - way to keep in touch now, one of these two sites.
Indeed, that's a big reason I made the switch. For some reason in my circles, the big F hit the tipping point over the big MyS, and said blown friends are shown here in abundance.
But sadly, what I've found, is that where in the MySpace blogging world, that little hole from which I'd carve my little niche and ultimately label it my quiet and unassuming yet impassioned life, where on the Other site, people would emerge from the woodwork in most unexpected ways, not only to read but to respond to my words...despite no announcement of a posting on MySpace but stalker-like fanfare to all reaches of one's social web on this one, almost no one can be bothered here. My two cousins whom I barely know (but am glad for the chance to start at least) have acknowledged me and an oooold friend from HS dropped a lifeline. But it's not been anything like the interaction and feedback I enjoyed on the other site. For a foray into the public sphere, so far a week into it, it hasn't been terribly encouraging.
So where's the waste? Is it in my subject matter? The format? For sure brevity has been my bane on Facebook...I've been painstakingly sharing a close-to-the-heart tale with the subject of the story for the past WEEKS now, because Facebook has this way of making two paragraphs of a Word doc appear as 2 pages of a dried out textbook. Ever tried to copy 38 pages 8 lines at a time and tried to do a good story justice?
Well, whatever. Tomorrow's another day and another and another, and at least I'm not clawing at the walls anymore. Funny to feel like you're marching in place looking to the horizon knowing you're only living today for tomorrow, mostly, and yet knowing that it all goes too fast. At least I'm not climbing the walls...not climbing the walls...not clawing down the walls...
For now if I'm blessed with/cursed with an audience so vast that all of this is lost in the shuffle then I suppose eventually it will give me license to dream with an open hand; knowing that all of it could be read and none of it will be, or that none of it will be but then all of it is...well it makes you wonder how to present yourself, and how to live your life accordingly if you're going to have to answer for it later on, with or without that cloak of anonymity. I wonder why more people don't do this public reflection thing.
I wonder if more people would want to.
Are you out there?, I wonder...
10 Minutes: Prompt - Poem about a moment from childhood that changed your life for the better
Write a 16-line poem (rhyming or non-rhyming) about a moment from your childhood that changed your life for the better.
Yeah I don't do 16 lines, not given ten minutes
And I probably never did
Probably even back then I could have told you about the world
About my heart, and yours
And about the soul, and life
And oh yes, I could tell you about love.
And I did tell you about love, didn't I?
Those days, those nights beneath the pine trees under the stars
I can still see so clearly in my mind
The dream of how it all went down
So hard so tough so out of reach
But not to me
I could see you, I could feel you
I knew then what I'd know now,
And now I know it all, about those days
I know I taught you how to love in that dream gone by
That story that played out across my mind, over time
I can still see the open-air dining hall
The tables
The flagpole
And I can still hear the bell.
I miss you.
I've always missed you; for some 14 long years now have I missed you
Everything you were
And everything you weren't, not really
But to me you still are, somewhere...
I've tried to find you over the years, as I try to find most people
I found Steve the other day...and I have a rough idea of where Kyle's at
And I even came across Bill, and Nate, and I don't even expect them to know who I am
But I remember them.
We said hello.
And I've got Kevin, even...
But you, well you seem to be impervious to the trappings of the internet
That place where everyone ends up eventually,
Caught up in the sieve of if not a Facebook than at least a Google, but no not you
Or if you, then you pretended otherwise.
I found Mundo, even.
Dead.
It's not fair, it isn't fair, it's not right
To not even get to say goodbye,
Not even know that you ought to cry, out into the night
Like I did for all those years...to you.
I still remember the small yellow piece of paper,
God knows I might even still have it around here somewhere
I never give this out, you said
But you are different, you are special
14 years ago and you knew that I was special but you know...
I knew you were special too.
For 12 years I thought of you, every single day
At least once, one time I'd spare a thought for you
I wouldn't let you go,
Not like I did that rainy afternoon
In my mind
In that place
You know the one
With the porch, and the nurse
And the promises and the heartbreaks
And the growth.
I know I grew far beyond my years then and there
And it never really caught up to me in coherent form
But
It never really had to.
I know what happened then and there,
I know that I became the person I am today
In a way that I never could have
Without then
Or there
Or you.
I'm pretty good at nosing people up from where they've been hidden
You knew I could do it at 12, but we never overstepped boundaries
Nor even approached them
But you knew it, didn't you
You knew it all the same.
And you were right.
And here I am.
And maybe someday I will find you
And I can see all the ways in which my dream was only that
Or maybe
We can see all the ways in which you were right about me
And I was right about you.
Ever since I was a kid.
Word count: 585
Yeah I don't do 16 lines, not given ten minutes
And I probably never did
Probably even back then I could have told you about the world
About my heart, and yours
And about the soul, and life
And oh yes, I could tell you about love.
And I did tell you about love, didn't I?
Those days, those nights beneath the pine trees under the stars
I can still see so clearly in my mind
The dream of how it all went down
So hard so tough so out of reach
But not to me
I could see you, I could feel you
I knew then what I'd know now,
And now I know it all, about those days
I know I taught you how to love in that dream gone by
That story that played out across my mind, over time
I can still see the open-air dining hall
The tables
The flagpole
And I can still hear the bell.
I miss you.
I've always missed you; for some 14 long years now have I missed you
Everything you were
And everything you weren't, not really
But to me you still are, somewhere...
I've tried to find you over the years, as I try to find most people
I found Steve the other day...and I have a rough idea of where Kyle's at
And I even came across Bill, and Nate, and I don't even expect them to know who I am
But I remember them.
We said hello.
And I've got Kevin, even...
But you, well you seem to be impervious to the trappings of the internet
That place where everyone ends up eventually,
Caught up in the sieve of if not a Facebook than at least a Google, but no not you
Or if you, then you pretended otherwise.
I found Mundo, even.
Dead.
It's not fair, it isn't fair, it's not right
To not even get to say goodbye,
Not even know that you ought to cry, out into the night
Like I did for all those years...to you.
I still remember the small yellow piece of paper,
God knows I might even still have it around here somewhere
I never give this out, you said
But you are different, you are special
14 years ago and you knew that I was special but you know...
I knew you were special too.
For 12 years I thought of you, every single day
At least once, one time I'd spare a thought for you
I wouldn't let you go,
Not like I did that rainy afternoon
In my mind
In that place
You know the one
With the porch, and the nurse
And the promises and the heartbreaks
And the growth.
I know I grew far beyond my years then and there
And it never really caught up to me in coherent form
But
It never really had to.
I know what happened then and there,
I know that I became the person I am today
In a way that I never could have
Without then
Or there
Or you.
I'm pretty good at nosing people up from where they've been hidden
You knew I could do it at 12, but we never overstepped boundaries
Nor even approached them
But you knew it, didn't you
You knew it all the same.
And you were right.
And here I am.
And maybe someday I will find you
And I can see all the ways in which my dream was only that
Or maybe
We can see all the ways in which you were right about me
And I was right about you.
Ever since I was a kid.
Word count: 585
Saturday, August 9, 2008
10 Minutes: Writing Prompt - Object in Room
Look around the room and pick an object. Write one paragraph describing the object in full detail and a second paragraph explaining where it came from.
One paragraph, right. Well I've got ten minutes to fill, so we'll see what happens.
My eyes glance across the trash dump that is our room at the moment; yes, another weekend that I...er...cleaned. For all the objects (basically almost everything I own) that are laying around, all with a story of adventure and intrigue, the one thing that catches my eye for the moment is a pair of sticks. Well properly I suppose there are three sticks, but two are just sticks (blue) and one is green with large leather balls at the end. Jester sticks, from the Renaissance festival some 5 years ago.
Five years ago was at least five lifetimes ago, really. That was my AJ life. And I think the reason I want to write about these for this exercise is because it would be fun to revisit AJ life, almost like I have permission for a moment (or rather, ten minutes), to do so.
You see, I don't think about AJ life so much anymore. It crosses my mind from time to time, and once in awhile I'll even scope out his page or his photos, and look at the ones of him and his wife with a mixture of happiness and the bittersweetness that any once- would feel for about a now-, no matter what the terms and conditions. You never got a box back then to check if you agreed, though I guess it's of little consequence, as I'd have checked the box anyway, especially back then.
Anywho since AJ life I've had Italy life, and New Zealand life, and Queenstown life, and Matt life, and my most recent past-life of course being Sjoerd life, and the most pertinent life Tucson-life which is a chapter of Ray-life. But back in AJ life, we had some good times. No scratch that, we had some really, really, REALLY fun times!
I don't have much for memory, can't remember conversations or snippets of information, but some images I do have burned into my brain, and one of them is standing there at the Renaissance fair with AJ and we'd gone with Tina and Dan, and he bought me these silly things that I'd wanted ever since the last time I'd gone to this festival in 8th grade and he got a set for himself, and we switched the sticks so that we'd each have a piece of each others'...which is why the colors don't match. That's one of the only things I remember about the ren fair, but of AJ life I remember a lot of other stuff - working at the front desk, meditating for an ice cream cone - and GETTING one; salt shakers in the dining hall; World History; big decisions, SPRING BREAK, amazing; Joshua Tree; Wilson hall and so, so, so much else. Ten minutes apparently isn't enough to even get started...but I have to stick to the limit. We'll have to revisit this some other time...
One paragraph, right. Well I've got ten minutes to fill, so we'll see what happens.
My eyes glance across the trash dump that is our room at the moment; yes, another weekend that I...er...cleaned. For all the objects (basically almost everything I own) that are laying around, all with a story of adventure and intrigue, the one thing that catches my eye for the moment is a pair of sticks. Well properly I suppose there are three sticks, but two are just sticks (blue) and one is green with large leather balls at the end. Jester sticks, from the Renaissance festival some 5 years ago.
Five years ago was at least five lifetimes ago, really. That was my AJ life. And I think the reason I want to write about these for this exercise is because it would be fun to revisit AJ life, almost like I have permission for a moment (or rather, ten minutes), to do so.
You see, I don't think about AJ life so much anymore. It crosses my mind from time to time, and once in awhile I'll even scope out his page or his photos, and look at the ones of him and his wife with a mixture of happiness and the bittersweetness that any once- would feel for about a now-, no matter what the terms and conditions. You never got a box back then to check if you agreed, though I guess it's of little consequence, as I'd have checked the box anyway, especially back then.
Anywho since AJ life I've had Italy life, and New Zealand life, and Queenstown life, and Matt life, and my most recent past-life of course being Sjoerd life, and the most pertinent life Tucson-life which is a chapter of Ray-life. But back in AJ life, we had some good times. No scratch that, we had some really, really, REALLY fun times!
I don't have much for memory, can't remember conversations or snippets of information, but some images I do have burned into my brain, and one of them is standing there at the Renaissance fair with AJ and we'd gone with Tina and Dan, and he bought me these silly things that I'd wanted ever since the last time I'd gone to this festival in 8th grade and he got a set for himself, and we switched the sticks so that we'd each have a piece of each others'...which is why the colors don't match. That's one of the only things I remember about the ren fair, but of AJ life I remember a lot of other stuff - working at the front desk, meditating for an ice cream cone - and GETTING one; salt shakers in the dining hall; World History; big decisions, SPRING BREAK, amazing; Joshua Tree; Wilson hall and so, so, so much else. Ten minutes apparently isn't enough to even get started...but I have to stick to the limit. We'll have to revisit this some other time...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
10 Minutes: Eddie
I don't even know that much about him. I don't know anything more than what they have told me, and I don't know that I even get all of that. I don't know why he makes me feel this way, or why he's stuck in my head now the way he is. Because it's none of the obvious reasons. He's attractive enough, but there have been others that haven't struck me this way. Others who remind me of my own life, my immediate life, my wonderful life. He's nothing like I've known, and yet that's not the allure either. And the other thing, it's not just him...it's Them. THEY make sense to me. Even with my other favorite coupling, and even with the nice moments between the one that didn't really make sense...they do. And it's that which is stuck in my head, and I name it Eddie only because I can't name it Them and it's not Her either, because she's always been around, playing with my heart, by playing with his heart, or his, or his. No, the new factor is only him. Eddie.
I don't know exactly what it is, but I do have some slight idea, a vague notion. For sure I have the feeling. Not usually disposed to real emotion in such situations, my heart clutched in my chest just as it would in real life when I saw him standing there. My heart ached when there was pain in his. He doesn't remind me of any of my own precious loves, nor even really of any situation I've been in. But nevertheless, when he stands there, I see everything that I love about the male species.
And what a species they are! I can see the fear and the passion and the feeling and the vulnerability and the uncertainty and the certainty, the strength and the flaws and the accessibility. I could reach out to him and reach out to every man I ever have, and every one that I never will be able to, now...and while it is a bit of a shame to know all those opportunities are not for me and not for this, and that it is a missed theoretical chance not just for me but for them, while I can still feel the disappointment for that, I was happy to be in those arms to feel it.
I guess that's perhaps what it is...Eddie isn't to me any reflection of me or my life or my experiences or my situation or my chances or my missed opportunities for things that never will be. But he is the image of what there simply...Is. That indescribable thing that DOES make my heart catch, that DOES make me wish - LONGINGLY - that things could be different, asking why oh why can't it all just have been written differently. I know what the outcome is going to be, unfortunately, I already know. And it's not with him, it's with the other one. I already knew that and I already didn't like that. But now they've introduced Eddie, and I can't bear to watch him go, as I know he is about to. I miss him already.
For all that he was, even in such a short amount of time, I truly loved him.
word count: 550
I don't know exactly what it is, but I do have some slight idea, a vague notion. For sure I have the feeling. Not usually disposed to real emotion in such situations, my heart clutched in my chest just as it would in real life when I saw him standing there. My heart ached when there was pain in his. He doesn't remind me of any of my own precious loves, nor even really of any situation I've been in. But nevertheless, when he stands there, I see everything that I love about the male species.
And what a species they are! I can see the fear and the passion and the feeling and the vulnerability and the uncertainty and the certainty, the strength and the flaws and the accessibility. I could reach out to him and reach out to every man I ever have, and every one that I never will be able to, now...and while it is a bit of a shame to know all those opportunities are not for me and not for this, and that it is a missed theoretical chance not just for me but for them, while I can still feel the disappointment for that, I was happy to be in those arms to feel it.
I guess that's perhaps what it is...Eddie isn't to me any reflection of me or my life or my experiences or my situation or my chances or my missed opportunities for things that never will be. But he is the image of what there simply...Is. That indescribable thing that DOES make my heart catch, that DOES make me wish - LONGINGLY - that things could be different, asking why oh why can't it all just have been written differently. I know what the outcome is going to be, unfortunately, I already know. And it's not with him, it's with the other one. I already knew that and I already didn't like that. But now they've introduced Eddie, and I can't bear to watch him go, as I know he is about to. I miss him already.
For all that he was, even in such a short amount of time, I truly loved him.
word count: 550
Monday, August 4, 2008
Progress
My excitement mounts. Now accustomed to working a wretched 6a-2:30p, I am thrilled to return to my now-less-wretched-looking 6a-12:30p schedule after 3 weeks. The 6a part is still wretched. That will never change.
But, we humans can adapt to anything. What before seemed critical to sit and recupe for that two hour differential, by either making food or cleaning the house or what in the hell DID I do for those two hours? They were always gone before I knew it...well now I am dedicating that time - at least - to writing and picking up this gig.
I am excited because I've spent this afternoon's portion of that time seeking, researching, and registering with various outlets for pay. I mean, how strange. The concept of getting paid for something I do - and indeed, must do - as naturally as breathing. It's no wonder really that I've hemmed and hawed for so long over doing it. It just seems...WEIRD. I've been published, in newspapers, but I've always worked for free, just for the sake of doing it. And because when you do it for free, you don't deal with the bureaucracy of it. I didn't like my editor and I didn't feel like sitting in on meetings thanks but when a big story broke I was on it, and it went front page. Who needs compensation with a deal like that! ;)
Well I still don't need it, but why not anyway. I think my ultimate end in this endeavor is less the paycheck and more the challenge. The money is more just the earmark of success in having met said challenge, than the primary reward. You could probably pay me with stickers and I'd be just as happy. I've always liked stickers. Keep me out of the scrapbook aisle. I don't even scrapbook and never have, but boy do I have some cool stickers from the ($$) scrapbook aisle.
Anywho the digital age has blown my mind for some time now, even though I've grown up in it. I think the shift really hit me in the Virginia Tech shooting time period, when I was able to find out the victims' identities regardless of the mass media's indispose to reveal them. The most up-to-date news source no longer is the New York Times or CNN, or even their respective websites. Word of mouth has always been a fiery trailblazer, more fast and more potent than any other vehicle. No, today you can find the most privileged of information in things like Facebook, or innumerable public internet forums.
The dualities in life are another thing that have astounded me for years. Black to white, good to bad, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows... Normally an intrepid traveler through this vast earth and inconceivable Life, I find myself interested and wanting to step foot into that deep lake of Published Word, as I have always known I would do...and yet with this brush fire of a medium, it is with a degree of trepidation far exceeding what I encounter in any other way. I've ventured down America's highways and slept in my car in casino parking lots or RV slabs in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a white fuzzy dog for "protection"; I've slept miles from civilization on my own without even that much and only the isolation and the things that go bump in the night to keep me company; I've gone sword drawn into the unknown in realms physical, mental, emotional, in countries far and wide and...FOREIGN... without the bat of an eye...but to do this? To seriously begin going truly public? It's a bit concerning!
I don't know how many of you folks peruse the internet. But good god people can get MONSTROUS in forums. And I don't even delve that far into them! The connectivity of the internet is beyond our comprehension as yet, I think. It's all exploded so quickly, too quickly for our minds to truly grasp the vastness of it and the repercussions. Sure has for mine, anyway.
Of course, it all comes back to familiar territory to me: so what are you going to do, not jump? Yeah, I'll jump. I will, I am. But it's not without that last look around me, knowing this might be the last of my vestiges of anonymity. People who rocket to the top from average-ness usually never saw it coming. I won't be presumptuous to say I'm going to be one of those people, but at the same time, just in case I am...I don't want it to blindside me. Right now if you look up my name on Google it will return not much, and nothing terribly interesting: a blurb from one of my said forays into the newspaper reporting world, a random quotation from an old friend's blog (who knows why that one comes up, since I'm mentioned in his blog no less than a zillion times), my rather mediocre hockey stats (thanks, Bladeworld - couldn't wait til I have a good season, could ya?), my old photojournalism portfolio from 2005, random -REALLY random- links to some of my facebook friends/acquaintances, an embarrassingly exuberant employee testimonial from work that I didn't realize was going to be published at the time I wrote it, and a website that promises you my entire life and financial history and probably social security number, list of past boyfriends, personal turn-offs and blood type if you pay their monthly registration fee.
All in all, even laying low and just living my life quietly as I have been to this point, you have a pretty comprehensive glimpse of my life as it is. You know where I work, where I play, how I feel, who my friends are, where I live, and, more frighteningly than the availability of my security number and financial history...how poorly I play roller hockey on Thursday nights.
Mind you, I am by no stretch of the imagination a private or paranoid person. If you want to know how many people I've slept with or what my greatest fears or ambitions are or what my last ailment was that sent me to the doctor, hell, if you care enough to ask I'll tell ya! This is the person who stayed alone in a giant empty house with a complete stranger in Sicily who could have been the Godfather descended for all I knew (and rumor had it his friend did sleep with a knife under his mattress, so...); or hitched a ride from north New Zealand to South with some random -very random- Finnish guy in a campervan that I found on a message board online offering a shared ride. I not only lived to tell the tales, but they were some of the best experiences of my life, with countless others more that are similar.
But none of the things I've put out there could truly come back to haunt me. I haven't yet put out much controversial opinion. The one time I did in my editorial column in the college paper ha boy did I get razed! The teacher had her entire class sit down and write me critical letters. That's not to say I don't still stand by my opinion, but I do definitely take it to heart. Anyone who opens themselves up, opens themselves up to a bashing. While I am a little hesitant to face that ideological resistance head-on, I am more hesitant though, to open up to full-on stalking potential. The internet is vast and deep, as I was saying, beyond comprehension. I know that once I venture on and take this next step, there's no turning back. Bank accounts could be drained, homes could be staked, names could be slandered, ideas could be libeled, throats could be slit. Am I being dramatic? Have YOU read the news lately?
The tradeoff to all this? Not fame, not fortune. I said it tongue-in-cheek when I started my entry with that the other day. The tradeoff is exactly the other side of that coin: the freedom. The freedom to know that you are as open and honest with the universe as you can be. The freedom to enjoy expression to your fellow person who shares and toils and revels in this life beside you. Even if I were to pay an ultimate penance for it, on whatever edge of the continuum, along with everything else I resolved a long time ago that I would rather take the chance and live a shorter life because of it than to live a longer one in fear of it. And what are chances? A funny word, if you think about it. It means risk. It also means opportunity.
If you end up remembering me someday, I hope you'll remember me as someone who took so many chances in life.
But, we humans can adapt to anything. What before seemed critical to sit and recupe for that two hour differential, by either making food or cleaning the house or what in the hell DID I do for those two hours? They were always gone before I knew it...well now I am dedicating that time - at least - to writing and picking up this gig.
I am excited because I've spent this afternoon's portion of that time seeking, researching, and registering with various outlets for pay. I mean, how strange. The concept of getting paid for something I do - and indeed, must do - as naturally as breathing. It's no wonder really that I've hemmed and hawed for so long over doing it. It just seems...WEIRD. I've been published, in newspapers, but I've always worked for free, just for the sake of doing it. And because when you do it for free, you don't deal with the bureaucracy of it. I didn't like my editor and I didn't feel like sitting in on meetings thanks but when a big story broke I was on it, and it went front page. Who needs compensation with a deal like that! ;)
Well I still don't need it, but why not anyway. I think my ultimate end in this endeavor is less the paycheck and more the challenge. The money is more just the earmark of success in having met said challenge, than the primary reward. You could probably pay me with stickers and I'd be just as happy. I've always liked stickers. Keep me out of the scrapbook aisle. I don't even scrapbook and never have, but boy do I have some cool stickers from the ($$) scrapbook aisle.
Anywho the digital age has blown my mind for some time now, even though I've grown up in it. I think the shift really hit me in the Virginia Tech shooting time period, when I was able to find out the victims' identities regardless of the mass media's indispose to reveal them. The most up-to-date news source no longer is the New York Times or CNN, or even their respective websites. Word of mouth has always been a fiery trailblazer, more fast and more potent than any other vehicle. No, today you can find the most privileged of information in things like Facebook, or innumerable public internet forums.
The dualities in life are another thing that have astounded me for years. Black to white, good to bad, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows... Normally an intrepid traveler through this vast earth and inconceivable Life, I find myself interested and wanting to step foot into that deep lake of Published Word, as I have always known I would do...and yet with this brush fire of a medium, it is with a degree of trepidation far exceeding what I encounter in any other way. I've ventured down America's highways and slept in my car in casino parking lots or RV slabs in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a white fuzzy dog for "protection"; I've slept miles from civilization on my own without even that much and only the isolation and the things that go bump in the night to keep me company; I've gone sword drawn into the unknown in realms physical, mental, emotional, in countries far and wide and...FOREIGN... without the bat of an eye...but to do this? To seriously begin going truly public? It's a bit concerning!
I don't know how many of you folks peruse the internet. But good god people can get MONSTROUS in forums. And I don't even delve that far into them! The connectivity of the internet is beyond our comprehension as yet, I think. It's all exploded so quickly, too quickly for our minds to truly grasp the vastness of it and the repercussions. Sure has for mine, anyway.
Of course, it all comes back to familiar territory to me: so what are you going to do, not jump? Yeah, I'll jump. I will, I am. But it's not without that last look around me, knowing this might be the last of my vestiges of anonymity. People who rocket to the top from average-ness usually never saw it coming. I won't be presumptuous to say I'm going to be one of those people, but at the same time, just in case I am...I don't want it to blindside me. Right now if you look up my name on Google it will return not much, and nothing terribly interesting: a blurb from one of my said forays into the newspaper reporting world, a random quotation from an old friend's blog (who knows why that one comes up, since I'm mentioned in his blog no less than a zillion times), my rather mediocre hockey stats (thanks, Bladeworld - couldn't wait til I have a good season, could ya?), my old photojournalism portfolio from 2005, random -REALLY random- links to some of my facebook friends/acquaintances, an embarrassingly exuberant employee testimonial from work that I didn't realize was going to be published at the time I wrote it, and a website that promises you my entire life and financial history and probably social security number, list of past boyfriends, personal turn-offs and blood type if you pay their monthly registration fee.
All in all, even laying low and just living my life quietly as I have been to this point, you have a pretty comprehensive glimpse of my life as it is. You know where I work, where I play, how I feel, who my friends are, where I live, and, more frighteningly than the availability of my security number and financial history...how poorly I play roller hockey on Thursday nights.
Mind you, I am by no stretch of the imagination a private or paranoid person. If you want to know how many people I've slept with or what my greatest fears or ambitions are or what my last ailment was that sent me to the doctor, hell, if you care enough to ask I'll tell ya! This is the person who stayed alone in a giant empty house with a complete stranger in Sicily who could have been the Godfather descended for all I knew (and rumor had it his friend did sleep with a knife under his mattress, so...); or hitched a ride from north New Zealand to South with some random -very random- Finnish guy in a campervan that I found on a message board online offering a shared ride. I not only lived to tell the tales, but they were some of the best experiences of my life, with countless others more that are similar.
But none of the things I've put out there could truly come back to haunt me. I haven't yet put out much controversial opinion. The one time I did in my editorial column in the college paper ha boy did I get razed! The teacher had her entire class sit down and write me critical letters. That's not to say I don't still stand by my opinion, but I do definitely take it to heart. Anyone who opens themselves up, opens themselves up to a bashing. While I am a little hesitant to face that ideological resistance head-on, I am more hesitant though, to open up to full-on stalking potential. The internet is vast and deep, as I was saying, beyond comprehension. I know that once I venture on and take this next step, there's no turning back. Bank accounts could be drained, homes could be staked, names could be slandered, ideas could be libeled, throats could be slit. Am I being dramatic? Have YOU read the news lately?
The tradeoff to all this? Not fame, not fortune. I said it tongue-in-cheek when I started my entry with that the other day. The tradeoff is exactly the other side of that coin: the freedom. The freedom to know that you are as open and honest with the universe as you can be. The freedom to enjoy expression to your fellow person who shares and toils and revels in this life beside you. Even if I were to pay an ultimate penance for it, on whatever edge of the continuum, along with everything else I resolved a long time ago that I would rather take the chance and live a shorter life because of it than to live a longer one in fear of it. And what are chances? A funny word, if you think about it. It means risk. It also means opportunity.
If you end up remembering me someday, I hope you'll remember me as someone who took so many chances in life.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Ten Minutes: On TIME
I'm going to write about time tonight because as I sat here to consider, now that I'm getting a taste for how short ten minutes is and how much I'd want to try to cram into it and end up with only a hodgepodge of a rundown and no real introspection (not my goal), I guess I'll have to narrow each topic down to what is most prevalent on my mind at the time that I sit down to write it.
Time's at the forefront of my mind then, because well I guess it usually is - forwards, backwards or present time - since I'm like, always (ALWAYS) thinking like that. But seemingly for six months straight, seven months straight actually I guess now - see? - it's been focused in on the shortage of time.
And not in the good way either. In my travels I always seemed to keep running in the background that constant awareness that the sand could end up all in the bottom of the glass in some unexpected way, and it helped to keep me focused, aware in the moment, and appreciative. If you knew me during my travels and through the past few years, maybe you noticed that I wanted to keep in touch with you when social norm would dictate otherwise. I had a heightened sense of awareness of the preciousness and fascination of time, or more precisely, my short time here, known as my Life.
Nowadays, I've joined the ratrace that the rest of these crazy fools (you too?) know how to live in. I find myself ill-adjusted. I am a Libra and am finding it hard if not impossible to balance my scales, at least not for long. At best, I'm in a quasi-vegetative state where I lay in a polka dotted paper gown and don't really care if you spoonfeed me the applesauce or the cherry jello as the world turns. At worst, I'm up in the middle of the night trying not to suffer a full-out meltdown with the mediocrity of my everyday and the incessant pounding in my head laughing that I'm a sell out, I'm a sell out, life ticks away and I used to give a damn and now I just want to get through the day and for what.
This manic psychosis isn't a result from any kind of lamentable station. I've got a good job, an ideal living situation, the best company in the world, etc. But I just don't seem to have the TIME.
WHY is that? Eh? Why don't I seem to have the time, to breathe, to think, to reflect, to inspire, to care, to matter, to gather insight about the things I'm feeling and the things I'm thinking? If I have the time, why am I unable to use it? Why am I overwhelmed by the abilities I have to contribute in a myriad of ways but rendered inert and useless by the sheer tick tock of the clock that counts me closer to the next alarm clock blaring me out of blessed sleep.
And how fitting that where normally I would look for the spin to turn it into a positive entry rather than a bitching one, my time runs out for my ten minute session. Very well. Well, know that I would have found the silver lining given the -huh- TIME, but now I'm out and I guess that's the whole point of this exercise...to try to figure out how to do it more quickly and more efficiently than I currently can.
HA! DID IT AFTER ALL!
word count: 600
Time's at the forefront of my mind then, because well I guess it usually is - forwards, backwards or present time - since I'm like, always (ALWAYS) thinking like that. But seemingly for six months straight, seven months straight actually I guess now - see? - it's been focused in on the shortage of time.
And not in the good way either. In my travels I always seemed to keep running in the background that constant awareness that the sand could end up all in the bottom of the glass in some unexpected way, and it helped to keep me focused, aware in the moment, and appreciative. If you knew me during my travels and through the past few years, maybe you noticed that I wanted to keep in touch with you when social norm would dictate otherwise. I had a heightened sense of awareness of the preciousness and fascination of time, or more precisely, my short time here, known as my Life.
Nowadays, I've joined the ratrace that the rest of these crazy fools (you too?) know how to live in. I find myself ill-adjusted. I am a Libra and am finding it hard if not impossible to balance my scales, at least not for long. At best, I'm in a quasi-vegetative state where I lay in a polka dotted paper gown and don't really care if you spoonfeed me the applesauce or the cherry jello as the world turns. At worst, I'm up in the middle of the night trying not to suffer a full-out meltdown with the mediocrity of my everyday and the incessant pounding in my head laughing that I'm a sell out, I'm a sell out, life ticks away and I used to give a damn and now I just want to get through the day and for what.
This manic psychosis isn't a result from any kind of lamentable station. I've got a good job, an ideal living situation, the best company in the world, etc. But I just don't seem to have the TIME.
WHY is that? Eh? Why don't I seem to have the time, to breathe, to think, to reflect, to inspire, to care, to matter, to gather insight about the things I'm feeling and the things I'm thinking? If I have the time, why am I unable to use it? Why am I overwhelmed by the abilities I have to contribute in a myriad of ways but rendered inert and useless by the sheer tick tock of the clock that counts me closer to the next alarm clock blaring me out of blessed sleep.
And how fitting that where normally I would look for the spin to turn it into a positive entry rather than a bitching one, my time runs out for my ten minute session. Very well. Well, know that I would have found the silver lining given the -huh- TIME, but now I'm out and I guess that's the whole point of this exercise...to try to figure out how to do it more quickly and more efficiently than I currently can.
HA! DID IT AFTER ALL!
word count: 600
Saturday, August 2, 2008
10 Minutes
Ok I/we already know that you can give me a wall, a shoestring, a houseplant or a fleeting thought or emotion to pontificate on and I can be off and running for hours. What I need to start working on is conciseness, or at least, limitations of some kind, of many kinds. This week's theme is going to be writing for ten minutes only. Ten minutes. No more, no less. Good god it's already been one minute. Time only goes by this fast when I'm on my 15 minute break at work.
So I'll put today in a nutshell.
Ray and I went to Sunsplash today, a leftover dream of last summer when we ran out of days before we ran out of ideas. This year though I grabbed some discounted tickets from work to ensure that it would happen - good thing too or else it wouldn't have, since we sure didn't feel like going this weekend but every other weekend is booked up til the point they close on Sept 1.
But it was well worth the mild feet-dragging sensation we encountered come Thursday down in Tucson, to get our rears up here, hang out with the 'rents in their lovely house - albeit in separate rooms, even though we live together.... - and enjoy a nice day/date together.
It was a crash course in how things change as you get older though. Man one slide and a couple dips in the wave pool (inwardly groaning when the waves started) and I was ready to be on a lounger reading a book. HOW LAME am I?! Well, at least I've been resurrecting the ol' Christopher Pike books (anyone else a fan?), you know, the ones I've owned since 4th grade, and have been devouring them, so at least there is still some semblance of a youthful spark inside my vapid adult body.
Boring inclinations aside, I did force myself to go check out every single slide and attraction that I wasn't too tall for (grass is always greener isn't it?), sometimes several times, and even squealed and giggled on some of em for fun. We left after a couple hours to get out of the blazing sun, as even the biggest pool was warmer than a comfortable bath and wasn't doing much to prevent heatstroke, so we escaped the $9 gray-meat cheeseburgers to seek out air conditioning and affordable lunchtime grub. We settled on Fazoli's, a little blast to the past as I don't know that I've even been there since high school, gawked and grumbled at the fact that even there it's now $8+ a plate, stuffed ourselves silly with breadsticks (think around 15 and you're getting close), checked out the Birdhouse store that we saw just because that's how we roll and were very entertained by the parrots in the brief time we were in there, swung by Bookman's to get said book that we were wishing for earlier - yes I found a Christopher Pike for $2 bucks to keep the hidden kid in me happy - but ended up not even reading them because we ended up having so much fun on the different slides.
All in all, it was a great day with great company and I'll be damned ten minutes isn't enough time to write squat. Good to know and I'll have to keep that in mind for next time.
Over and out.
word count: 570
So I'll put today in a nutshell.
Ray and I went to Sunsplash today, a leftover dream of last summer when we ran out of days before we ran out of ideas. This year though I grabbed some discounted tickets from work to ensure that it would happen - good thing too or else it wouldn't have, since we sure didn't feel like going this weekend but every other weekend is booked up til the point they close on Sept 1.
But it was well worth the mild feet-dragging sensation we encountered come Thursday down in Tucson, to get our rears up here, hang out with the 'rents in their lovely house - albeit in separate rooms, even though we live together.... - and enjoy a nice day/date together.
It was a crash course in how things change as you get older though. Man one slide and a couple dips in the wave pool (inwardly groaning when the waves started) and I was ready to be on a lounger reading a book. HOW LAME am I?! Well, at least I've been resurrecting the ol' Christopher Pike books (anyone else a fan?), you know, the ones I've owned since 4th grade, and have been devouring them, so at least there is still some semblance of a youthful spark inside my vapid adult body.
Boring inclinations aside, I did force myself to go check out every single slide and attraction that I wasn't too tall for (grass is always greener isn't it?), sometimes several times, and even squealed and giggled on some of em for fun. We left after a couple hours to get out of the blazing sun, as even the biggest pool was warmer than a comfortable bath and wasn't doing much to prevent heatstroke, so we escaped the $9 gray-meat cheeseburgers to seek out air conditioning and affordable lunchtime grub. We settled on Fazoli's, a little blast to the past as I don't know that I've even been there since high school, gawked and grumbled at the fact that even there it's now $8+ a plate, stuffed ourselves silly with breadsticks (think around 15 and you're getting close), checked out the Birdhouse store that we saw just because that's how we roll and were very entertained by the parrots in the brief time we were in there, swung by Bookman's to get said book that we were wishing for earlier - yes I found a Christopher Pike for $2 bucks to keep the hidden kid in me happy - but ended up not even reading them because we ended up having so much fun on the different slides.
All in all, it was a great day with great company and I'll be damned ten minutes isn't enough time to write squat. Good to know and I'll have to keep that in mind for next time.
Over and out.
word count: 570
Begin
I step through the door of a new and promising world, one that whispers riches and glamour and that one thing that I want most...experience. I don't want the money, I want what the money can afford me, not what things the money can buy but the places, the people, the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the memories, the experiences, the SENSATION. OF BEING. ALIVE!!
I want spine-tingling, nerve-wracking, knee-knocking uncertainty. I want to taste the air that I breathe through my nostrils again, and I want to feel my thoughts on my fingertips. I knew how to live this way, once.
But I stopped writing. I stopped writing and I started talking on the phone, all day long, I started numbing out my mind but more importantly numbing out my soul with that evil lurking shadow that we all know as The Grind, day to day living, day to day existing, day to day waiting, for those two elusive days that come too slow and go too fast, the weekend.
I told myself that I had better things to do, more pressing things to do, more important things to do, not realizing until now or until maybe months before now that really I was telling myself lies like I had anything better than to live my life to the marrow of the matter, to suck the core out of every moment. I say I knew this months before, even though I do nothing until now, because I found that the taste I had in my mouth when I tried to suck the marrow out of THIS life left me spitting out the dusty bones that I had bitten down on. I didn't like the taste of it and so I told myself I didn't have the time for it, to replace the fact that I know my home is on the road and yet I chose to settle anyway, to sell out and make everyone else relax that ok, Genelle has finally gotten a "real" job, and knows what "responsibility" is like.
Except I didn't sell out. I got the job, yeah. I got the 401(k), and the benefits package with the health and dental insurance, and the timeclock stamping me in and out in 8.5 hour increments. In 5 days I'll "celebrate" one year in this station, but while I'm bored, I am not bitter. I know better things await, because I've been there. I know that I will go home, and they say you can't go home again but the great thing is, when your home is always changing you can ALWAYS go home again, because you've learned how to suit the notion to fit your needs. I've tried to make this one fit but failing that, I haven't been quite able to make my fingers work to extract the passion from my insides.
Nonetheless, here I am, and I'm tired of being an empty shell. I've been patiently waiting for inspiration to strike me again, to find some kind of soul in a soulless existence, but I guess it's time to turn inward by turning outward and plunging my hands into the depths of my body to wrap them around some semblance of the person I was and bring it to the surface. I WILL WRITE ABOUT A PLANT IF I HAVE TO!!!
Henceforth, I am going to flip on that switch to the old thing I used to know as my mind, so that it can begin to give little kickstarts to the thing I once knew as my soul. I used to care. I used to think, I used to feel. Man I used to know what it felt like to stand on mountaintops and feel ALIVE.
I didn't sell out when I settled. I didn't agree to stop stressing people out with my lack of a conveyor belt to the grave lifestyle for good, only for now. Oh I ain't done, sista. Have my eyes laid upon the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, the Great Pyramids, the Panama Canal, the rainforests of Costa Rica, the streets of Tokyo, the rice paddies of Vietnam, the city of Bangkok, the running of the bulls, or St. Petersburg? NO!!
Do I know what it's like to drink beer at Oktoberfest in Germany, feel the torture lingering in the air of Auschwitz, kayak with Orcas, snowboard in Antarctica, cage dive with Great White sharks in South Africa, snorkel with manatees or whale sharks, celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro, go on safari in Kenya? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
I've got a lot of living left to do, and I'm not gonna do it in one-week vacation stints in fancy pants resorts. I've got a backpack, I've got two legs, two eyes, one brain to put the pieces together, one heart to experience the emotions, and one soul that came here sent from a panel in the stars to see what it's like to experience this life and this world as a human being.
And oh this has been a chapter it has, but GOD when a book bores me I'm not averse to throwing it aside and changing the story that I'm reading. I am so DONE with this chapter!
It's time to turn the page. From now on, my life is going to be interesting to me again. New story. Houseplants, here I come. Whatever. I am going to write again. BEGIN!!!
I want spine-tingling, nerve-wracking, knee-knocking uncertainty. I want to taste the air that I breathe through my nostrils again, and I want to feel my thoughts on my fingertips. I knew how to live this way, once.
But I stopped writing. I stopped writing and I started talking on the phone, all day long, I started numbing out my mind but more importantly numbing out my soul with that evil lurking shadow that we all know as The Grind, day to day living, day to day existing, day to day waiting, for those two elusive days that come too slow and go too fast, the weekend.
I told myself that I had better things to do, more pressing things to do, more important things to do, not realizing until now or until maybe months before now that really I was telling myself lies like I had anything better than to live my life to the marrow of the matter, to suck the core out of every moment. I say I knew this months before, even though I do nothing until now, because I found that the taste I had in my mouth when I tried to suck the marrow out of THIS life left me spitting out the dusty bones that I had bitten down on. I didn't like the taste of it and so I told myself I didn't have the time for it, to replace the fact that I know my home is on the road and yet I chose to settle anyway, to sell out and make everyone else relax that ok, Genelle has finally gotten a "real" job, and knows what "responsibility" is like.
Except I didn't sell out. I got the job, yeah. I got the 401(k), and the benefits package with the health and dental insurance, and the timeclock stamping me in and out in 8.5 hour increments. In 5 days I'll "celebrate" one year in this station, but while I'm bored, I am not bitter. I know better things await, because I've been there. I know that I will go home, and they say you can't go home again but the great thing is, when your home is always changing you can ALWAYS go home again, because you've learned how to suit the notion to fit your needs. I've tried to make this one fit but failing that, I haven't been quite able to make my fingers work to extract the passion from my insides.
Nonetheless, here I am, and I'm tired of being an empty shell. I've been patiently waiting for inspiration to strike me again, to find some kind of soul in a soulless existence, but I guess it's time to turn inward by turning outward and plunging my hands into the depths of my body to wrap them around some semblance of the person I was and bring it to the surface. I WILL WRITE ABOUT A PLANT IF I HAVE TO!!!
Henceforth, I am going to flip on that switch to the old thing I used to know as my mind, so that it can begin to give little kickstarts to the thing I once knew as my soul. I used to care. I used to think, I used to feel. Man I used to know what it felt like to stand on mountaintops and feel ALIVE.
I didn't sell out when I settled. I didn't agree to stop stressing people out with my lack of a conveyor belt to the grave lifestyle for good, only for now. Oh I ain't done, sista. Have my eyes laid upon the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, the Great Pyramids, the Panama Canal, the rainforests of Costa Rica, the streets of Tokyo, the rice paddies of Vietnam, the city of Bangkok, the running of the bulls, or St. Petersburg? NO!!
Do I know what it's like to drink beer at Oktoberfest in Germany, feel the torture lingering in the air of Auschwitz, kayak with Orcas, snowboard in Antarctica, cage dive with Great White sharks in South Africa, snorkel with manatees or whale sharks, celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro, go on safari in Kenya? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
I've got a lot of living left to do, and I'm not gonna do it in one-week vacation stints in fancy pants resorts. I've got a backpack, I've got two legs, two eyes, one brain to put the pieces together, one heart to experience the emotions, and one soul that came here sent from a panel in the stars to see what it's like to experience this life and this world as a human being.
And oh this has been a chapter it has, but GOD when a book bores me I'm not averse to throwing it aside and changing the story that I'm reading. I am so DONE with this chapter!
It's time to turn the page. From now on, my life is going to be interesting to me again. New story. Houseplants, here I come. Whatever. I am going to write again. BEGIN!!!
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