I Wrote this little bit Saturday night

I think/hope the person it's about (the last part anyway) reads this blog.  If you still do, you know who you are.  :^)

She and this girl had come to the same conclusion at the same time.  I'm better than this...but I won't pretend I'm not going to visit from time to time. 

It wasn't about where she lived anymore, but where she was.  And this young girl knew it too.  But at least she has time to enjoy and hate the lessons learned.  Time to allow it to mold who she really is. 

I've already been there.

Done that.

Time to take her place where she belonged.  With someone who already knew and cared what she wanted and what she was.  The throwback.  Throwback being such a harsh term, she didn't like it.  Because he was better than a throwback.

Four years and two miserable wake-up calls later, maybe they were both ready to grow up.  Together this time.  They would never allow each other to sell out in the process of grabbing hold of their lives.  They'll pick out the most colorful pieces and weave them together with their baby blankets and prom pieces.  That vital self-knowledge that comes with age will serve them as long as they pay it heed.

Why stay so young when you know you'll never allow yourself to fade away?

So she said goodbye and I'll see you sincerely.  But she carried away a much lighter heart.

(copyright 2010)

What do y'all think?

My Writing Journal's Dust Layer Shall Be No More

I was outside smoking a cigarette this afternoon watching the tiny blossoms fall from the Bradford pears flanking the parking lot of my office building. I love things like that. Nature at its most graceful. I wanted to write down the description, but I stopped bringing my writing journal with me everywhere.

I figured out why as I enjoyed the cool breeze on this gorgeous spring day, feeling the writer in me come back to life. I don't know if it was the season, the house I was living in (I moved last weekend - YAY!), or just my general state of mind; but none of these things was right. None of them made me content. As a matter of fact, I've been in a darkness for quite some time, and I'm just coming out of it.

I'm not going to go all emo on you and say I was in the depths of despair because I simply wasn't. My mind was dusty. It needed the spit and shine of a new house, a new season, and a new view of the world. These things are so important for a person's sanity. Things come in stages and every time one of these things changes, a new stage starts. When they change all at the same time, it could be a life-altering one. I think that's where I am.

I unpacked the journal last night, but it didn't occur to me that I need to start toting it again until today. So welcome back you wonderful little Classic size "Cafe Terrace at Night" covered wonder. I missed you. I think you missed me too.

Happy Spring kids.

True Bling

I watched “The Sound of Music” tonight for the first time in a long time. 

I saw it at Wal-Mart among various other titles I might have bought, but something told me to buy “The Sound of Music.”  I have fond memories of watching it when TV was still cool enough to show things like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Ben Hur,” and of course “The Sound of Music” once a year.  I don’t know about y’all, but that was a big deal in my family.  We REFUSED to miss any of these films the one night a year they came on because we didn’t have a VCR until I was nearly in high school.  As an adult I’ve looked on it simply as nostalgia.  A breath of fresh air for my polluted adult attitude. 

But tonight, “Aidelwiess” in particular made me rather misty.  I never get misty at movies.  But something struck me about all of it and I didn’t know why until a few scenes later at the ball Captain Von Trapp throws right before Maria leaves for the convent again.  In the scene, Maria and the captain dance an old Austrian folk dance.  And nostalgia grew into something like regret. 

Why aren’t folk dances appreciated anymore?  Why does everyone feel the need to booty dance and grab-ass at a party?  Yes, it’s true that people still do folk dances and ballroom dancing, etc.  But not MOST people.  We don’t grow up learning these dances and the folk songs and stories that used to keep the whole of humanity from spiraling off the deep end of despair. 

There’s such beauty in these things.  Real beauty.  Not what we think of as beauty today:  the glitz and glam of false airbrushed beauty.  The whole “ooohhh shiny” mentality has never set well with me.  Shiny has no substance.  All it does is reflect something back that we like to think we are, but aren’t.  What we are lies in folk dances, beautiful melodies (like “Aidelwiess”) with simple lyrics that say nothing of sorrow or how messed up or angry the singer is or how they’d rather be bumping booties with the ho up the block. “Aidelweiss” is a song about a flower.  A flower, people.  And it nearly made me cry.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I’m all for freedom of expression and my ideas and thoughts are generally fairly liberal and always open-minded.  Yes, I love Tool and The Afghan Whigs and The Beastie Boys.  But all this needs to be balanced with something purer.  Everyone needs to try to find their innocence again – or at least some part of it.  Like gemstones or precious metals, innocence is rare and it should be treasured even if you only take it out for special occasions.