AHHHH yes, I remember this! We had fun, even when going through painful times, but we kept on keeping on… thanks to Lady Calen here at Impromptu Promplings : as we step back into The Sandbox (crayons in hand) for revisiting The Writing Challenge.
Exercise 1
“You find yourself in a quiet room looking at your reflection in this beautiful old mirror. What do you see? Is there anything in particular you like about yourself? Is there anything you don’t like? Tell us about it.”
So what are the odds that I’d decide to come over and take a look at the challenge Lady Calen mentioned in a phone chat, and find the first exercise mirrored (pardon the pun) a thought I’d had not even 15 minutes ago? Standing in front of a looking glass not framed, but rather larger, spanning the wall of the bathroom. I stood and looked at myself just before washing my hands. From further back, be it my eyes going over more presbiopic, or perhaps the shadows which standing under the lights take away, I couldn’t say, but I recall scowling at myself. Something had changed in my visage – or memory there of – from 2015 to now. But then I stepped up to the sink and I saw a difference. The light made the difference. And I’m lacking light currently, dwelling in this artic land of winter. I found myself smiling as the ‘joy seeker’ I was once upon a time. And it occurred to me that the light was key. It seemed to lessen the dark circles upon which the shadows put emphasis. Hmmmmm SO, is there anything I like? (shrugs). Is there anything I don’t like; don’t ask, and I won’t tell. BUT I have been working on that part. The don’t liking is easy. The liking is… an acquired taste? Meh.
I’d been thinking a lot about covering the mirrors in the house with pictures I’d prefer to see. How’s that for the ‘Art of Self Loathing?’
Oh, wait, I believe I hear a voice…. “you know, there are things you do like about yourself, so quit focusing on the negatory already.” *rolls my eyes* It’s her again.
Alright, let’s wrap it up, as was said to Daniel in “Defending Your Life”… And what an apt reference THAT is.
The email, containing no title, no address of origin, was a lone item blinking for attention from my inbox. A single click is necessary to open up and read the intended message.
Sure, I knew what it was, yet the specifics were, as yet, unrevealed. If I clicked, I’d be committed, IF I accepted the mission, to following through.
It was always a risk to accept assignment. Thus, even without the words, I knew it was asking me to take that risk. In fact, it is no different, from this assignment, given to all of us, agents of personal excavation, from our fearless leader, The Lady Calen of Impromptu Promptlings.
Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch….
CLICK
The question before us:
What risks have you taken in your life?
I tend to have that first thought, off the top of my head, that may not end up being what I write, but I find it interesting to see how my spontaneous mind puts out the immediate response that is often over the top.
That said, two things came to mind:
1) What risks haven’t I taken?
2) Walking out the door is taking a risk. Getting out of bed, in fact, is taking a risk, but not getting out of bed is also taking a risk. Sort of a catch 22.
Now that my mind play has had its way, let’s get down to the serious world of “risky business.”
Looking back – WAY back – some small, silly risks, come to mind.
Playing on the street corner with friends, I tried to do a handstand, and ended up with a split elbow, and a scar for life.
Paying attention to these things, might have helped me think before leaping, if you know what I mean.
Bigger risks were things like being in college, in my last semester of undergraduate school, and realizing that I’d have to take one class over. I went to my advisor and told him that I wanted to take it over, in another school. Of course, I’d already chosen what school I wanted to go to, and had, in fact, called that college and spoken with the dean of admissions about my plan to take this last class out there.
Believing that their answer of, yes, of course I could do that, really meant that I had my foot in that door, my asking my advisor was more a statement of what I was going to do. I got a no, to that request, which in turn pushed that button I have where I simply said, fine, then I’m outta here. What I meant was, if they didn’t allow me, I’d just quit. My advisor relented, when I told him about the other school agreeing.
So, I packed up my things over the summer and drove 2000 miles out to Colorado, and, boy was my face red, when I was informed that there was no such agreement. “But, I called and you said I could, and… and… and…” To which they suggested I speak with the teacher of this already filled, and closed class. I did, and she was quite understanding about my dilemma, and allowed me to take the class.
It was a risk which could have backfired completely, but on the other hand, I was where I’d planned to be, when I graduated college… in Colorado – a return trip I had promised myself six years prior.
The reprecussions of that, however, would follow me through the years, and not always as I would have wished. A failed an internship, after I’d done the class, would put the kabosh on my graduation plans, and when at loggerheads with the dean of my department, being denied admission to take liscensure exams, I simply took those lemons and made my own special brand of lemonade. I took a creative writing class, for the 4 measley points I needed to graduate, and got a BS (and I’m not just whistling Dixie here), in Liberal Arts, with a major in Occupational Therapy, and a minor in psychology. I did get a job for a year or so, in OT, until time came to take that exam to get my license. No certificate, no work. But never deterred, I went in another direction, which, IMO, turned out a far greater place to be in life. I got a job at the Parapsychology Foundation, and later, took the risk of going off on my own to publish a music magazine, and so on and so forth.
The way I saw it was, each place took me to a place I needed to be at that time, to meet the people I needed to meet, and I am where I am supposed to be.
GREATER RISK
Getting married can be a risk, but that risk turned out to be one of my best decisions – as I mentioned in a previous challenge post.
STUPID RISK AHEAD
But life is not all ‘coming up daisies.’ I have paid with some dire consequences with risks I took back before college, when I was young and wild, and sowing my rebellious oats. Today, the consequences have proven to be life threatening.
Would have taken those risks had I known what would happen 30 to 40 years down the road? I don’t know, to be honest.
Still on many levels I remain a risk taker. I know that I have a rather stubborn streak in me which challenges the way things are. But then, so did people like Galileo, and Copernicus, and Nikola Tesla, Leif Erikson, Christopher Columus, Alan Shepard, Neil Armstong, Jim Lovell, Lewis and Clark, Admiral Byrd… You get the message. I’d say I’m in good company.
This week, I’ve been working on a challenge concerning quotes, which of course, got me thinking about lyrics for songs. There are some songs which I love perhaps more for the words and the poetry in the song than simply the music draws me in. Which comes first, the music or the lyrics? (that chicken or the egg condundrum).
I don’t know for certain, but I do know when a song gets me because of how the words feel when my mind is infused with their magic, even if I liked the song because of the music first, it becomes more about the words for me.
This means, oh no!, I have to make a choice. But wait! No I don’t. I can, in fact, put forth two songs. Each very different, yet equally captures me within the web of woven words.
Here are two songs which I give to you for the prose.
The first is a lesser known song from Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow:
The summer had inhaled and held it’s breath too long
The winter looked the same as if it never had gone
And through an open window where no curtain hung
I saw you. I saw you, coming back to me
One begins to read between the pages of a look
The shape of sleepy music, and suddenly you’re hooked
Through the rain upon the trees that kisses on the run
I saw you. I saw you, coming back to me
You came to stay and live my way
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind
You always say, you won’t go away
But I know what it always has been
It always has been
A transparent dream beneath an occasional sigh
Most of the time I just let it go by
Now I wish it hadn’t begun
I saw you. Yes, I saw you, coming back to me.
Strolling the hills overlooking the shore
I realize I’ve been here before
The shadow in the mist could have been anyone
I saw you. I saw you, coming back to me
Small things like reasons are put in a jar
What ever happened to wishes, wished on a star
Was it just something that I made up for fun
I saw you. I saw you, coming back to me
By Marty Balin
The second is an early Bruce Springsteen classic, Born To Run, from his 1975 album of the same name:
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected
and steppin’ out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet ribs
and strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
Girl I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
babe I want to know if love is real
Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss
The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
but there’s no place left to hide
Together Wendy we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don’t know when
we’re gonna get to that place
We really want to go
and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us, baby we were born to run
by Bruce Springsteen
Now comes your part. Join in with your own beloved song because the lyrics are poetry to your soul.
BYOM and remember: It Don’t Mean A Thing If You Don’t Send That PING!
Music is the Medicine in my Soul and I hope yours is as healing and nurturing as mine!
Day 11 – A Song on the soundtrack from my favorite movie
Once again, I find it difficult to pick just one movie as my favorite, and more importantly, since this is about music, it almost is more about a favorite song from a movie I loved.
Harry Potter spanning all of the films and the music
Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
But the winner is… because I loved the movie, and equally so, loved the music:
Star Wars A New Hope Chapter IV
The Throne Room/End Titles
Here is why this made it to numero uno.
I recall, back after the movie came out, I was living in Colorado. This was just around the time where they were opening theaters with more than one screening room. Having seen the film quite many times, was typical. Not so typical is that when I would go to the theater to watch another movie, where Star Wars was playing as well, when I would leave the first screening room, Starwars would just be ending, and I’d go inside and stand at the back of the theater to just listen to that magnificent soundtrack end credits.
Thanks to Karl’s Weird Image Wednesday for giving us the opportunity to see the world from a different perspective.
I’d say, seeing the sun out today is weird, but we knew it was bound to happen. Also weird, is that all of those icicles are gone! I thought they’d never leave! They were like homesteaders!
Without a trusty camera to keep me clicking, I had to dig deep into old family photos. And I did find something. In fact, I have no earthly idea exactly what this picture was all about. I mean, first, it’s right out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie! But that weird darkness in the middle of it all…
I imagine that it’s some photolab glitch, but that still doesn’t explain the birds!
Quantum Hermit 