sunshine, lolipops and rainbows.
are you ever tempted to wish yourself back to childhood? i have very specific memories of growing up. some of them are quite fabulous, like making tin-can stilts with the neighbor kids and madly stomping up and down the block in the rain. my best friend grant lived two doors down. i used to climb over the partitians between the porches to ring the bell and hope my mom didn't see me because i was supposed to go down our front steps and use the sidewalk to get to grant's house. we rarely followed this rule because it took like one thousand years to go around when all you really had to do was scoot across the porch of the people who lived in the middle. grant and i played together virtually every day when we were little. i loved going to his house because he owned a vast army of GI Joes and dinosaurs. plus he had this unbelievably magical contraption called a water bed. WATER BED. it was too big to climb up on without the aid of the step-stool but since we each felt a compelling urge to outdo and out-cool the other, actually USING the step-stool was absolutely out of the question. We would scurry and scramble around trying to hoist ourselves up on to the water bed as quickly and with as seemingly little effort as possible to create the illusion that it was all off-handed and casual and, upon completion of this operation, hastily glance over to see if we had won. winning meant automatic supremacy. grant won more often than me. i made sure to loudly proclaim (to the GI Joe ranks...?) that it was because he practiced more since it was his house. then we would get bored and move on to the Tanks and T-Rexs. i would bring my barbies over sometimes but since i did not have barbie cars we just used the tanks. one day we made up this game where the GI Joes were going to parachute in and save the barbies from being eaten by the dinosaurs in the back yard sandbox. (*NOTE* the back yard was roughly 10x15 ft of grass/cement.) grant and i went upstairs to the small balcony on the second story of his town house and prepared the men for their mission. we stood on our tippie toes peering over the railing to see if the GI Joe parachutes would open in time. one by one, most of the small green men heroicly sailed into (or around) the sandbox to fulfill their duties. this gave me a brilliant idea. why not give a parachute to one of the BARBIES?? of course. why had we not thought of it sooner? off i ran to get a barbie while grant set to work detatching a parachute from one of the good ol' joes. together we tied the chute on to the barbie and tossed her over the edge. she didnt make it. we looked for several pregnant seconds. "Hey you wanna see my new legos?" and just like that, we were off. ...being a kid isn't easy, but there is something magical about the childlike ability to bounce back. if at first you don't succeed, you've probably already lost interest in it anyway so it doesnt really matter. some parts of childhood are care free because there simply isnt the time to remember them all. that's what i miss.
note
actually the part i want to highlight in the previous post is "so what is love then? is it dictated or chosen" love the indigo girls. their songs spring to mind over and over this week. been a rough few weeks for me. but i am able to trust that it is a good thing that the ultimate plan is not up to me. whew.
Mystery, Indigo Girls
each time you'd pull down the driveway i wasn't sure when i would see you again yours was a twisted blind-sided highway no matter which road you took then oh you set up your place in my thoughts moved in and made my thinking crowded now we're out in the back with the barking dogs my heart the red sun your heart the moon clouded i could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer's beginning to give up her fight and every thought's a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery so what is love then is it dictated or chosen does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years or is it just pop emotion and if it ever was here and it left does it mean it was never true and to exist it must elude is that why i think these things of you but i could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer's beginning to give up her fight and every thought's a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery oh but you like the taste of danger it shines like sugar on your lips and you like to stand in the line of fire just to show you can shoot straight from your hip there must be a 1000 things you would die for i can hardly think of two but not everything is better spoken aloud not when i'm talking to you oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight breaks a bottle to christen her basking in the exploits of her thief she's a very good listener and maybe that's all that we need is to meet in the middle of impossibility standing at opposite poles equal partners in a mystery we're standing at opposite poles equal partners in a mystery
exerpt from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Act V Scene III: A Church
Claudio:
[Reading out of a scroll]
Done to death by slanderous tongues/
Was the Hero that here lies:/
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,/
Gives her fame which never dies./
So the life that died with shame/
Lives in death with glorious fame./
Hang thou there upon the tomb,/
Praising her when I am dumb./
Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn./
[Sings] Pardon, goddess of the night,/
Those that slew thy virgin knight;/
For the which, with songs of woe,/
Round about her tomb they go./
Midnight, assist our moan;/
Help us to sigh and groan,/
Heavily, heavily:/
Graves, yawn and yield your dead,/
Till death be uttered,/
Heavily, heavily./
oh, COME now.
for real, people. i tell you, sometimes things get a little ridiculous. in those moments i find that i waver between "smile and nod" or "break the wrist and walk away." ah well. today is a new day.
of mice and men
the other day, i noticed little things that i feel like i "have" to do before i can move on to the next part of the day. for example, i enjoy getting up in the morning, checking my email, cooking breakfast and watching the news. this is a cycle that i am in. i even go so far as to cooking the same exact thing for breakfast every day for weeks at a time. this kind of ability to create habits extends to the rest of my life, and it is not always good. some systems work beautifully and others cause disaster. even when i visit people, i create small routines that i operate from. at noah's house the other day, i decided to step outside for a few minutes in the morning to eat breakfast. what was NOT part of my plan was nearly stepping on a very dead trophy mouse that the cat had left for us. i seriously stood there for several minutes because this was, for some reason, rocking my little world. but anyway. right now, i am in process of breaking unhealthy cycles. and honestly? it's tough. really tough. one of the toughest issues in my life is learning when i have done enough and when it is ok for me to let something go. Patty Griffin says this wonderfully: "there's no mercy in a live wire, no rest at all in freedom/ of the choices we are given it's no choice at all/ the proof is in the fire you touch before it moves away/ but you must always know how long to stay and when to go" the progress is slow. the past week has been equally freeing and discouraging. i guess the best laid plans of mice and men do not always work out to be so smooth, but i'd rather the road be rocky and full of rich life than smooth and sedentary.
it's * the * girls' * night out
na na night out * it's * the * girls' * night to play * so don't wait up for me. * sigh. (my memory of that song takes me back to summers in the early nineties at the local swimming pool. back when new kids on the block were hip.) anyway, current application of that song makes reference to this past weekend. i drove to philly on saturday for a friend's bachelorette party. we had a wonderful time. we cocktail-partied it up at one girl's apartment, then hit the town. and really, i can't complain--i was only clearly groped once during the course of the evening. this prompted noah to speak the following jewel: "So...i have one question. why did we buy you a ring if you aren't using it to gauge out fascist eyes of people who grab your butt in bars?" ah. well spoken. but i digress. it was funny. the fact that andrea was wearing a mock-veil attracted so much MORE attention from men. i suppose it is because she is "off-the-market" so to speak. none of them feel obligated to follow up. she is, in fact, unattainable. which reminds me...i have been giving a lot of thought to the definition of respect recently, especially in regards to women. most of my conclusions are still works in process. but i have discovered that just because a man might talk alot about how women need to respect themselves and how he wants to build women's positive self-image does not mean that he actively practices this on a daily basis. theoretic principles do not = practical application. i have cyclically recovered from this since early in high school. but GOOD NEWS!! i may be close to a breakthrough. wait for it...wait for it...
