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 Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland ** Image ID #1701066 Unavailable **   |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1903: January 31, 2018 Prompt: "All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there.” ― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park Change is perhaps the most difficult transition for most people. I'm not sure I would go so a far as to characterize major change as death-like. I think as humans, we are naturally creatures of habit and most of us operate better under a consistent routine. It is easy to see how even small disruptions to our set schedules can produce stress. The big changes; divorce, moving, changing jobs, new baby...are life altering certainly but surely only divorce might feel death-like? The old adage that "change is good" typically turns out to be true more often then not I think. Most change brings opportunity in its wake, even if it is forced upon us. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 1506 January 31, 2018 Prompt: "Life was reduced to it's 4 basic elements: air, food, drink and a good friend." Sue Grafton What are your views on this? Life reduced to its barest elements would be, for me... Air: The rare air of an early Fall afternoon, scented with crisp leaves and ripe with witchy anticipation. Food: Real Mexican tacos al pastor on those little round corn tortillas with a side of elotes (corn on the cob) dripping with chile and crema. Drink: A deep, dark Cabernet with hints of blackberry and aged oak A Good Friend: The oldest and dearest variety...that one of a kind friend who knows who you have been and loves you for who its made you today. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 1504 prompt-- January 29, 2018 Prompt: “Your calling is more powerful than your resume,” says Tama J. Kieves in the January 12, 2018 issue of Signature. In what ways can you imagine your writing to be more powerful than your resume? I have enjoyed the same career for about twenty years now in an industry that is as old school as they come. It is male-dominated, often unapologetically so. It can be demanding, draining and discouraging. Still, its in my blood. I have become at home with the quiet darkness of the early mornings when the fuselage of the aircraft stand like silent sentinels in the shadows. The smells of MEK and jet fuel have become as familiar as the whine of a turbine engine on run up or the way my office shakes when one of the big C-130's makes a landing. In twenty years I have become skilled at the nuances of the job but never 100% immune to the frustrations. I still write emails that never get replies, make suggestions that seemly are not heard, I still have to fight for every ounce of recognition and authority. I still battle with self-doubt and insecurity in a world where most of my peers are two decades older and male. My resume is weighted with highly specialized skills that may or may not be applicable outside the general aviation sector. Like most writers, I dream of a world where I could forgo the day job and write for a living. I dream about actually finishing a piece of novel-length fiction that kicks off my career as a bonified author. I'm mired in enough reality to know I've hardly the time or discipline to do any such thing. I do believe my writing is as powerful as my resume because it isn't bound by rules. It flows from some nature place in my soul and when its particularly effective, it can inspire feelings in others. When I write something that someone else can relate to, that is a powerful way to connect to another person. It is validation for my own feelings and serves as a testimony to my experiences, even my fictional pieces because they all contain my truths in some way. If my characters love, hurt, bleed, heal...its because in some way I have also done those things. While my career is a defining element of my life, my writing is the landscape of my existence. "Blogging Circle of Friends" DAY 1901: January 29, 2018 Prompt: What is your favorite song? Why? Does this song motivate you? Does it bring back memories? Music has been a constant companion in my life. I have always had a wide and varied repertoire that has accompanied all the major and minor moments in my life. It is extremely difficult to chose one favorite. I have several that are what I would call my milestone tunes, they have never faded in the obscurity of my playlists. If I had to give one song more weight than another in my heart, it would have to be Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes". The haunting lyrics and melodic musings have made it one of the most stirring songs, even before it became irrevocably linked to a former lover who would sing it to me so often. He told me it would be mine forever. I can't listen to it today without thinking of his hazel pools that dimmed too soon for this world. Even after my love for him faded, that song still allows me to remember the healthier days of our love and friendship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3kFPBtc9BE When you experience a loss of love, even if you had prayed to stop caring, you are wounded in a way that you don't believe you will ever heal. Then you meet someone, and it opens you up again. Mozella's "Can't Stop", is the song that reminds me that we are rewarded for having faith in love - even the most damaged. The simply stated candor of the lyrics nearly perfectly sums up the way I felt about meeting my husband, and they honor the way he waited patiently for my heart to realize my place was with him. "Speak to me, read my mind And fill your mouth with flesh and wine And I'll be yours, just give me time Give me time" "Cause you have everything I could ever want You have everything I could ever want" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbFDA9pAnXA Nat King Cole's "Straighten Up and Fly Right" is forever attached to my daughter. It was the song I'd play that I'd bounce around with her in my arms to comfort her. It was the song I could play to stop her fussing in the car. It was the song we would sing together as she got older. It will forever be the song of me as a new mother, tentative but joyful. It is the soundtrack of dancing barefoot with my new baby girl in my arms and feeling as if the whole universe, for at least four minutes and twenty seconds, was at peace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fVaP6dM1fs |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1898: January 26, 2018 Prompt: “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own "They published your diary And that's how I got to know you Key to the room of your own and a mind without end And here's a young girl On a kind of a telephone line through time And the voice at the other end comes like a long lost friend So I know I'm all right my life will come my life will go Still I feel it's all right 'Cause I just got a letter to my soul When my whole life is on the tip of my tongue Empty pages for the no longer young The apathy of time laughs in my face You say each life has its place" Lyrics from Virginia Woolf, by the Indigo Girls Virginia Woolf, mother of writers and poets, sister of the page...how much I have come to appreciate her words, the sentiments behind them - so much more poignant now in these days of social change, of pink hats and marching feet and #metoo. She understood the power of free, uncensored thought. Each time I have written something that has brought me pain or strife, I think of her. I think of that "room and a mind without end" and I understand that terrible and awesome responsibility of telling the truth always. I try to be an unapologetic and authentic writer in all things. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 1501 January 26, 2018 Pick a fun fact you've come across this week and share it with us. Adam Grant, Author of "How Non-Conformists Move the World", notes in his volume of work that; "Nobel Prize winners in Science are 22 times more likelier to than their peers to have performed as dancers, actors or magicians". Could it be that inside every scientist beats the heart of an artist, a showman who reveals in the creative pursuits of a mind so often bound by the rules of Physics, Biology and Chemistry? I'm not sure why, but I find this fun fact to be positively delightful. Some of my most favorite people have been scientists of one discipline or another. In college, I had an Organic Chemistry professor who was brilliant. He held class in the largest lecture hall at the university and despite the material, he was animated and engaging. I struggled, but I think far less than I might have had he been droll and dry. He was prone to be seen about campus proudly wearing a t-shirt with the chemical equation for sugar emblazoned in hot pink across the chest. He frequently attended the school's drama productions and turned up every so often at the campus coffee shop for to take in the live music and a muffin. I always had the sense he was something else completely outside that lecture hall. I used to imagine he was a closet punk rocker in a weekend garage band or something of that nature. In Hawaii, where I studied for a semester at the University of Hilo, my science professors came to school in board shorts and sandals. They popped into the occasional campus shindig. They were poets and surfers. They played the banjo and smoked clove cigarettes while they debated the merits of religion and modern art. I admired them for their knowledge but also their connection to self, to expression and creativity. These non-conformists and men of science shared much of my early life. This quote makes me remember them and it makes me happy. |
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