Friday, February 20, 2004
This is True...
Yeah, I'm on a blog maintenance binge. Scroll down and you will see that I've added a daily feed from the "This is True" website. That site has consistently been among the funniest on the net, and they just started their feed so now you have yet another reason to visit us every day.
Enjoy. Laugh till it hurts.
Permalink: 2/20/2004 12:14:00 PM |
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Thursday, February 19, 2004
Trackback Enabled, Cap'n!
Just a note, this blog has now enabled the new Haloscan Trackback system. Out of 100,000 users of Haloscan, we should be about number 20 linking back to their initial post, assuming I can work the steering wheel...
Permalink: 2/19/2004 11:55:00 PM |
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Standing on Stars
idea
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin, from Greek, from idein to see -- more at WIT
1 a : a transcendent entity that is a real pattern of which existing things are imperfect representations b : a standard of perfection : IDEAL c : a plan for action : DESIGN
2 : a formulated thought or opinion
3 : thoughts and plans generated in people with bipolar, by the bucketful
I can vividly remember my first moment of doubt, the first moment I realized that there was a stranger in the mirror of my mind.
A diagnosis of bipolar disorder, particularly when it is made later in life as mine was, is a life shattering event for anyone. Beyond the obvious difficulties of learning to live with the meds and repairing the damage done before diagnosis, there is even a more integral problem.
You no longer have any idea who you are.
At diagnosis, a person has been functioning for some time with what I call a "broken thinker." He or she has probably been operating under some false assumptions and pursuing some grandiose goals. It is only natural and human to sit back and say to yourself, "Whoa! I can't really do these things!"
And that's wrong. As a person with bipolar disorder, you can do these things. Your dreams can happen. Now I'm going to tell you why, when everything around you says it is impossible, you can pull it off.
Even though you are ill.
Actually, make that because you are ill.
Statistically, study after study has reached the same conclusion. People with bipolar disorder are far more creative, as a group, than the general population. This creativity frequently expresses itself in artistic endeavors, for example the following artists had/have the illness:
- Edwin Landseer
- Michaelangelo
- Vincent Van Gogh
- Francesca Goya
- John Turner
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Pablo Picasso
- Paul Gaugin
- George Romney
- Dante Gabriel Rosetti
- Sir David Wilkie
- William Blake
And its not just artists. Here is a list of composers, who reportedly did their very best and most creative work while they were experiencing the mood swings of bipolar disorder:
- Bach
- Beethoven
- Berlioz
- Chopin
- Elgar
- Handel
- Holtz
- Lizst
- Mozart
- Mahler
- Rachmaninoff
- Rossini
- Schuman
- Tchaikovsky
- Wagner
Writers and poets aren't excluded either. Here are some who were able to harness the intensity of their moods and create incredible works of prose and poetry:
- Honore` de Balzac
- James Barrie
- Charlotte Bronte
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- John Bunyon
- Thomas Carlyle
- Joseph Conrad
- Charles Dickens
- Alexander Dumas
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- James Grassic Gibbon
- Maxim Gorsky
- Kenneth Graham
- Graham Greene
- Henrik Ibsen
- William James
- Samuel Johnson
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Leo Tolstoy
- Mark Twain
- Thomas de Quincy
- Tennessee Williams
- Oscar Wilde
- Virginia Wolff
- Charles Baudelaire
- William Blake
- Rupert Brooke
- Lord Byron
- Robert Burns
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- T. S. Eliot
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Victor Hugo
- Samuel Johnson
- John Keats
- Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Lowell
- Boris Pasternak
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Dylan Thomas
- C.E. Chaffin
- Patricia Cornwell
Scientists and inventors? Sure. Statistically people with bipolar disorder have higher than average IQ's:
- Charles Darwin
- Thomas Edison
- Albert Einstein
- Sir Isaac Newton
- James Watt
Actors and musicians are a natural occupation for a group of people who end up "on stage" every day of their lives. Here are some who have taken that talent and made a living with it:
- Jeremy Brett
- Vivien Leigh Butler
- Peter Cook
- St. Francis of Assisi
- Peter Gabriel
- Tony Hancock
- Howard Hughes
- Margot Kidder
- Martin Luther
- Madonna
- Spike Milligan
- Liza Minneli
- Florence Nightingale
- John Ogden
- Nicola Pagett
- Axel Rose
- Robin Williams
- Ned Beatty
- Maurice Benard
- Lisa Nicole Carson
- Robert Downey, Jr.
- Carrie Fisher
- Linda Hamilton
- Kristy McNichol
And a few other names you may recognize:
- Buzz Aldrin, astronaut
- Shelley Beattie, athlete (bodybuilding, sailing), artist
- Robert Boorstin, writer, special assistant to Pres. Clinton, State Department
- Art Buchwald, writer, humorist
- Tim Burton, artist, movie director
- Robert Campeau, financier (Canada)
- Dick Cavett, writer, media personality
- Rosemary Clooney, singer
- Garnet Coleman, legislator (Texas)
- Francis Ford Coppola, director
- John Daly, athlete (golf)
- Kitty Dukakis, former First Lady of Massachusetts
- Patty Duke (Anna Duke Pearce), actor, writer
- Thomas Eagleton, lawyer, former U.S. Senator
- Robert Evans, film producer
- Larry Flynt, magazine publisher
- Connie Francis, actor, musician
- Kaye Gibbons, writer
- Kit Gingrich, Newt's Mom
- Shecky Greene, comedian, actor
- Kristin Hersh, musician
- Jack Irons, musician
- Kay Redfield Jamison, psychologist, writer
- Daniel Johnston, musician
- Margot Kidder, actor
- Peter Nolan Lawrence, writer (England)
- Rika Lesser, writer, translator
- Bill Lichtenstein, producer (TV & radio)
- Jay Marvin, radio personality, writer
- Kevin McDonald, comedian, actor
- Dimitri Mihalas, scientist
- Kate Millett, writer, artist
- Spike Milligan, comic actor, writer
- John Mulheren, financier (U.S.)
- Robert Munsch, writer
- Ilie Nastase, athlete (tennis), politician
- Margo Orum, writer
- Nicola Pagett, actor
- Susan Panico (Susan Dime-Meenan), business executive
- Jimmie Piersall, athlete (baseball), sports announcer
- Charley Pride, musician
- Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), musician
- Jeannie C. Riley, musician
- Lynn Rivers, U.S. Congress
- Alys Robi, vocalist (Canada)
- Axl Rose, musician
- Francesco Scavullo, artist, photographer
- Lori Schiller, writer, educator
- Frances Sherwood, writer
- Scott Simmie, writer, journalist
- Alonzo Spellman, athlete (football)
- Muffin Spencer-Devlin, athlete (pro golf)
- Gordon Sumner (Sting), musician, composer
- Lili Taylor, actor
- Jean-Claude Van Damme, athlete (martial arts), actor
- Mark Vonnegut, doctor, writer
- Sol Wachtler, judge, writer
- Tom Waits, musician, composer
- Brian Wilson, musician (Beach Boys), composer, arranger
- Jonathan Winters, comedian, actor, writer, artist
- Luther Wright, athlete (basketball)
At first glance, this looks like a list that spans every area of life and achievement, and it does. But there is a common basic thread that ties each of these people together, a common reason for their individual successes.
Creativity.
By the bucketful.
Perhaps it is because, as people who have bipolar disorder, we spend our lives fighting our disease (and thereby learning how to struggle) and then combine that tenaciousness with our ability to intuitively see farther and clearer than other people, particularly during a hypomanic or a manic phase when we have what feels like unlimited energy and drive.
In other words, we can and do come up with grandiose ideas. The silver lining is that a lot of us can make these dreams come true. Check out the lists above. They all did it.
I have seen figures that say that up to 80% of poets and writers have bipolar disorder or major depression. Compare that to the fact that less than 1% of the general population has bipolar.
So, it all boils down to the initial question....after I find this out, who am I? I've had a year to work through this, and this is what I have learned so far.
- First of all, I am still all of the good parts of the person I was before my diagnosis. If I was good at something, I still am. If I had a particular talent, I still do. If I was capable, I still am. This is something I lost track of for a while.
- Second, many of the ideas that formed during manic and hypomanic phases may actually be good ones, and deserve a second and third look.
- Lots of other people have harnessed this thing, and so can I. It's not a death sentence, it can be controlled in most cases.
- I can learn to recognize the "flags" that tell me that I am entering one phase or another of my illness, and get help before anything is really out of whack.
- What we are is not what has happened to us.
And that, my friend, is who I am, so far.
Glad ta meet ya.
As a person with bipolar, at times I can feel deeper, think faster, see farther and have more energy than a lot of people. All because of some brain chemicals.
We place stars in the sky, and then we have the ability within us to travel there and stand on them. We really do.
We really do.
The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.
J. Arthur Thomson
Permalink: 2/19/2004 01:24:00 PM |
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Hold the definitions and quotations, it's time for this blog's
Blogger Idol top picks for week five!
A lot of cool entries this week. Here are my picks, in chronological order or something:
- Deneice ? Picture This...Glimpses of my life! My heart just weeps for this lady, but her courage always inspires, her writing always stays intense. Yet again, welcome to the top five.
- Lyton Village ? Pictured this life how it is, not how I wish Wow, what a talent for photography this young lady has! She says that she has self esteem problems and battles with her weight.... looks like she is winning, from here.
- ed ? Almost too hard to picture... Here in our cloistered society we seldom let ourselves think about what people in other countries face every day. This entry brings it home.
- Uptown Girl ? For a moment picture a nation that is war-torn. This is the first political entry to make my top five, and it is exceptionally well done. Way to go, Uptowngirl!
- Seasons of Violet ? Bet you didn't know that dogs could write Blogger Idol entries. Well, picture this . . . Warm, heartfelt, cozy. Almost made this cat person like dogs. Almost.
- Ryan Cordell ? Picture This I do not think I will ever forget this nun!
Yeah, I know, that is like six and not five. I could go farther and do ten, or even fifteen, there are that many good entries worth mentioning. But I won't.
Click on the icon above to get the full list, think of this as a grammer school book report, and "read the blog to find out!"
Later!
Permalink: 2/18/2004 08:22:00 PM |
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Exotic in Thin Air (Part 5, the Andes Express)
ad-ven-ture
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English aventure, from Old French, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come -- more at COME
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks
2 : an exciting or remarkable experience
3 : riding along the crest of a mountain chain on top of a railway freight car
(Please Note: This section describes a train trip taken in 1987. The conditions and events described here may not be representative whatsoever of the current accommodations on the route, which is now far more heavily traveled.)
The day had arrived, and there were no hummingbirds, but that was OK.
Last night at our lodge the tour guide had told us that there were hummingbirds in the eucalyptus forest behind our lodge, so we got up early and took a quick walk.
The air was brisk and biting at the high altitude, but we did not see any hummingbirds. What we did see was one grumpy alpaca or llama or something and, typical for Ecuador, a scraggly ostrich. Why this one bird had ended up in a pen on the wrong continent, I have no idea. Neither did it, obviously, and it was really tee'd off about it.
We had breakfast and headed for the terminal.
Well, the word "terminal" may not be precisely the right word here. It was more like just a field with some train tracks running through it. There were five or six freight cars scattered around, a caboose, and one beat up locomotive pushing things to and fro seemingly randomly.
From what I had gathered, the spot we were in at Riobamba had been the point where the train from Quito had met the "train" from Quayaquil on the coast. I put the word "train" in quotes on purpose, because the actual Riobamba to Quayaquil run had been done by a modified school bus. Essentially, they had pulled the tires from the rims and then ran it on the train tracks.
It would descend down the side of the Andes by an incredible set of switchbacks, not even turning around between each one. So, for a bit you would go forward, then when the switchback came up, you would back up to the next one, and so forth.
At the time, it was the steepest descent for any "train" on Earth, assuming you didn't mind sharing the bus with a few chickens and the occasional odd piece of livestock.
The year before we arrived, the track was washed out by a particularly bad El Nino, so we couldn't do that part of the trip. Shame.
Back to the present, and there in the middle of the railyard were two ladies running towards a freight car. Wait a minute, that's my fiance and a friend she made yesterday!
They started to clamber up the side of a rail car at the precise moment that the locomotive decided to hook up to it. WHAM-CLANG! The car lurched backwards from the massive impact. They swung wildly from the ladder, then scrambled up to the top of the car.
'Her mom is going to kill me,' I thought, as the car began to roll through the railyard, both of them gleefully hanging on for dear life.
My fiance's friend was a nanny for the British ambassador. She had a plum of a position; she was getting paid as if she was in Britain, but living in Ecuador, which meant that she could do anything she pleased and still put most of her money away. And she had one of those happy go lucky devil-may-care personalities that said to her new friend, my fiance, lets go ride on top of the train!
Of course, in Ecuador, there are no railway laws, so it was fine. (Note: they still think it's fine.)
Eventually they figured out that they were on the wrong car, so they got back down until the train assembled itself. Finally we were ready. We had one locomotive (check) one coal car (check) one freight car full of cement (check) and a caboose full of tourists (check).
And for Ecuador, this was the Orient Express.
We rolled out of the station, slowly building up speed. I don't remember anything about the outskirts of Riobamba except that it was completely unrememberable.
But soon, we began to climb into what is called the "Avenue of the Volcanoes." During the day we would be treated to spectacular views of Chimborazo, Tungahuroa, Cotopaxi, and several more of the world's most impressive active volcanoes.
The train would go for a while, then stop for a bit, then go for a while, etc. Whenever the train came to a stop, my fiance would bop in from whatever part of the train she had most recently ridden in (or on) and grab a supply of beer for everyone.
I chose to ride inside the train, thank you. Well, inside I could hear the tour guide. And there was not so much dust to get in my contacts. And, and... oh heck, I dunno, riding on the top seemed a little too radical for me. (Just for the record, nowadays I would be up there the entire trip.)
Now, I might get some of this out of order, forgive me if I do, its been 15 years.
We pulled up to a station called "Urbanna." It was really nothing to look at, just a little tiny building standing all by itself in a field. However, it has the distinction of being the highest train station on Earth at over 9,000 feet.
The air was so thin I could not walk across the train car. And, I was looking up maybe a couple of thousand feet at fields that the Andean Indians were tilling by hand!
Amazing. I couldn't breathe and they are hauling truckloads of grain on their backs a thousand feet above me. What an incredible people.
When the train came back down in elevation a bit and stopped again, my fiance popped in and grabbed a supply of beer, saying that they had been in the locomotive riding on the cowcatcher, and it was great I really should try it goodbye see ya next stop.
I thought about it as the train lurched back to a slow crawl.
You know, why the heck not. Besides, I should spend some of the trip with my fiance.
The next time the train stopped, I hopped out and ran up to the locomotive. For some reason, the train only stopped for about a minute, so they started rolling as soon as I climbed the stairs.
I walked in, and there were two Ecuadorian railroad engineers. And that's all. Nobody else.
Did I mention that we had lost our Spanish phrase book?
I quickly said "I berg your pardon," which was the single phrase from the book that seemed appropriate. "Happy Christmas," "I've often headache" and "Bring me roast cow with mashed potatoes" seemed out of place, and I didn't need a "chiffon" at the moment. At least I didn't think I did.
They nodded back, smiling broadly. We smiled back and forth for a while, seeing as how our conversational abilities were exhausted, and I tried to use sign language to ask them where my wife went.
They were baffled. Or at least they looked baffled, it's not like they could tell me they were baffled. Or they could, I guess, but it wasn't like I could understand them if they did.
They did not even make the attempt, saving both of us some energy.
I tried describing my fiance to them with gestures (you know, the hourglass one), and suddenly one of them lit up and said something, motioning me towards a door in the front of the cab. Cool, I finally got my point across! They were through that door! So I walked through.
Uh, no, no fiance here.
I found myself perched on a very little ledge, feeling like a human hood ornament. We were rattling down the track and I was right at the front with a very little guardrail.
By myself. On the cowcatcher.
Wondering what sort of hand gesture I had made that made my fiance look like a little ledge on the front of the train.
I stood there for a minute or so just to say I did it (otherwise these last few paragraphs would have been really boring) and retreated back to the cab with the two engineers.
I looked around like I knew what the heck I was looking at, which I didn't, and found the absence of a steering wheel to be a bit disconcerting, although I don't know why exactly.
We all grinned at each other a bit more, and they began to talk among themselves. I don't want to guess what they were saying, but every so often the two of them and I would launch into another grin fest just to keep the conversation lively and all.
At the next stop I returned to the caboose.
We passed through a town called something like "Mila flores". I know I misspelled that, but it means "millions of flowers." And it was as beautiful as the name implies, with flowers everywhere, in the immaculate yards and hanging from the balconies of gorgeous homes. I was told that at that time, a large home could be purchased in that town for about $35,000 USD, and for another $1,000 a year, you could hire an entire family to keep it up.
I think it was when we were pulling out of Mila Flores that we broke down.
The train ground to a stop with an awful grinding noise that we had not heard before. Steam wooshed all over the place while the engineers walked back and forth scratching their heads. Pretty soon, out tour guide went out there and scratched his head with them.
After some serious head scratching and some involvement with a few new people that showed up, the tour guide came back and told us that yes, the train broke, but the engineers knew "this guy" in town that might be able to fix it, and might have the part that broke. Now, I'm thinking, this country has one train, and we randomly broke down in a town where they know "this guy?"
Well, apparently that was precisely what had happened. Who knew.
Now, in the meantime, my fiance and her friend and a couple of other people were riding on the top of the cement car. The car was now parked right under a bridge, and a group of people were gathering there and everybody was staring and smiling back and forth, since they were only feet apart. During the hour that we sat there belching steam, a fairly large crowd of onlookers gathered, mostly ladies and kids on bikes. They all had a good time waving and smiling back and forth.
Finally, we started rolling again, only an hour behind schedule. Hey, it was Ecuador, that was close enough.
A few miles out of town, we were slowly accelerating only going about fifteen miles per hour or so. I was standing on the back deck of the caboose, where I had been most of the trip, and saw an Indian run out from the side of the tracks and start running after us.
Pretty soon, he caught up and then started waving at us. I waved back.
We smiled and waved again, hey I was getting good at this.
Then he grabbed the rail and hopped aboard. That rather caught me by surprise.
For the next mile or so, we chugged along while the Indian guy took turns waving and grinning at everyone we passed and looking at me with one of those winky "Hey, can you believe how cool and clever I am look at me" expressions.
Then with one final grin, off he went.
What a country.
We stopped for lunch in a bit, and had some chicken TV dinners that were all sticky with a side of frozen vegetables that had gotten soggy in the packages. It was great (We were hungry.)
When we started rolling again we were in mountainous country, going through passes and cuts in the rock. I think it was during this period that my fiance, from her vantage point on top of the train, saw a family of Indians literally living in a cave on the side of the tracks, and they had come out to grin and wave. No one in the caboose saw it, only the ones on top.
She also says she saw a herd of wild llama. What I saw was a whole bunch of trips for beer, so we'll take her word for it.
The train began to slow down again, and rolled to a stop in front of a traditional Ecuadorian homestead. We saw a mud hut, some milling livestock, and an authentic Indian family came briskly to the train.
I might want to mention here that, aside from postcards, this was the only authentic mud hut we even so much as glimpsed our entire trip. The family, who was dressed in really authentic clothes, lined up for some really authentic photographs, they smiled and waved, we smiled and waved, then we all had to tip them with really authentic money.
But we got some good pictures.
About now we were heading into a national park. Cotopaxi was looming large above us. This is really a magnificent mountain; it looks like Mt. Fuji, but is bigger and on the equator. It is snowcapped, and it is still very active.
I remembered an article I had read about a man who made his living hiking up the side of Cotopaxi early each day to harvest a backpack full of snow. Then he would bring it down and sell it for snowcones in the local markets. Think about that, hiking all that way every day just to get a sack of ice. Never complain about going to the grocery store again, OK?
Suddenly, my reverie was interrupted by train brakes engaging. I went out onto the deck, and we were surrounded by soldiers.
With submachine guns, of course.
Fortunately, they were just drilling. Our train had stopped because they were spread out all across the tracks. We watched them do some pushups and run in place and attempt to do some drills. Let me tell you, if we ever go to war with this country, we can certainly out drill them. Oh, they were all in time, just not with each other.
We left there for the last leg into Quito. The sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. The sunset was astonishing.
The fiance, still on top of the cement car, was freezing. But happy.
That night, we slept like stones.
The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.
Louis L'Amour (1908 - 1988), Ride the Dark Trail
Permalink: 2/18/2004 07:52:00 PM |
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Monday, February 16, 2004
Exotic in Thin Air (Part 4, Guano)
ad-ven-ture
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English aventure, from Old French, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come -- more at COME
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks
2 : an exciting or remarkable experience
3 : What you can find anywhere you share the road with goats
All afternoon, we were surrounded by volcanoes.
We continued our bus ride to Riobamba, where we would spend the night and catch Ecuador's only train the next morning. As we pulled out of the Latacunga market, the horizon was soon dominated by Tungurahua, an active volcano at the crest of the Andes, and Cotopaxi, the worlds highest active volcano, snowcapped at the equator.
Our next stop was a convent. The Catholic church has an almost exclusive foothold in the Ecuadorian culture. But what we discovered inside the convent was disturbing to say the least.
We gathered in the central courtyard. It was paved with...uh, something odd. We looked closer, and it looked like some sort of two inch beads or something... No, wait... Those are vertebra.
The entire courtyard was paved with bones. They were laid out in intricate patterns like the finest Italian tiles, and polished smooth by many years of nuns walking through the courtyard. (It turned out they were goat vertebra, which only made it a little less creepy.)
Then we went into a special room where some older items were stored. There were several crucifixes here, with gore being the order of the day, as well as the overarching theme of trying to make the indians think the crucifixes performed miracles. One crucifix was designed with an open view of the heart of Christ, so delicately balanced that it would "beat" with the slightest breath of air. Another was designed so that it could be "posed" from day to day. Another would bleed on command, and another was designed so that a priest could secretly remove the prayers that the indians placed within it each day.
Such chicanery. I felt sick to my stomach.
Then they showed us a heartbreaking collection of little glass houses. Each one was filled with toys. We found out that when a young girl was given to the convent, she was allowed to keep one toy. On the day when she took her vows, she had to give up that toy and it would be brought here.
We soberly boarded our bus and headed onwards.
Our next stop was the little town of Guano.
Yeah, I know. The town was named for the stuff that comes out of the rear end of a bat.
What a place to live. There's a lot of jokes I could come up with here, but let's just go on, shall we?
Anyway, we visited a carpet factory there. Inside that factory, women would sit on benches and hand weave a carpet all day long on an upright loom, tossing the spindle with lightening speed back and forth between them. Then, in another room, a man would take electric scissors and carve it into a design.
We calculated that these people made less than a dollar per day. Way less.
Not being interested in buying carpet, we left some of our fellow travelers inside to haggle and walked outside for a smoke. Traffic was heavy. It consisted of a cow and two goats, walking slowly down the road in the center of town.
You don't see that much in the United States.
Back in the bus, we rumbled towards Riobamba, our destination for the night. Tungurahua faded into the distance, and Chimborazo, another live volcano, rose into view ahead.
Chimborazo is a very ill behaved volcano.
This is demonstrated by the fact that in 1795, an earthquake associated with volcanic activity in the area caused the local cathedral to collapse and be buried under ash. The stones were excavated, and the cathedral was rebuilt just as it was before.
Well, almost. You see, they had turned it 90 degrees. Now it faced east instead of south.
Which meant that the celebrated sundials on the front of the cathedral no longer worked. But apparently no one noticed.
And that, my friends, is Ecuador through and through.
We settled into a "country lodge" (obviously never slept in by any Ecuadorian, but it was pretty) for the night. The rooms were constructed out of huge timbers, even the furniture. It was probably one of the nicest places I have ever stayed. At dinner they had some folk music, including the authentic Simon and Garfunkle song "I'd Rather Be a Hammer Than a Nail" which we all sang along with like it really belonged here.
That night, we went to sleep to the smell of eucalyptus.
Tomorrow, we would ride on the highest train on earth.
Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.
Miriam Beard
Permalink: 2/16/2004 08:48:00 PM |
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Sunday, February 15, 2004
Picture This
This week's Blogger Idol topic is Picture This.
re-call
Function: transitive verb
1 a : to call back [was recalled to active duty] b : to bring back to mind [recall those early years] c : to remind one of : RESEMBLE
2 : Flipping through the scrapbook of your past
Memories
Light the corners of my mind
My mind stores my memories in pictures, snapshots of moments that burn themselves into who I am, what I am, and what I will be. Memories that go so far back that I can see myself sitting in a high chair, eating spaghetti on a winter's evening. I can remember seeing the Mickey Mouse show on TV and not being able to understand what they were saying.
I can remember going to Swan Lake in Sumter, South Carolina and looking up at a swan.
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were
There is a time in each of our lives when we are innocent, when the most important thing is to watch the road crew outside our window dig a hole, when we can spend an eternity watching ants. We run and capture fireflies in our jars, fascinated by their glow. Our days are filled with imaginings; we are heroes, cowboys, spacemen, superheroes if we like.
A bike is a motorcycle, a towel tied around the neck is an excuse to fly.
Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
And then comes the moment when the world hits us like a battering ram, and innocence is lost forever. Those moments scar us forever. Death, violence, wounding, we spend the rest of our lives bleeding in some way.
Our smile is never quite the same after that day.
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were
Our first loves, the first times we smile and the smile comes back to us, the first time we look into the eyes of a beautiful girl and they sparkle right back with magic. The butterflies in our stomach fluttering so hard we feel we could die of bliss.
We spend our lives trying to relive those moments.
Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
Remember the good times, the sunny days, the fall breezes, the spring flowers and the beautiful snowy mornings. Forget the aches, pains, arguments and dissapointments. Wash over them with the rosy tints of the years.
Life was good, it really was.
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me - Would we? Could we?
Turning the pages in my mind, would I do it the same way? Regrets always have their places, but all in all, yeah, it's good. Even the worst moments seem to have turned into blessings.
Could I do it again? I am not sure I would be brave enough, if I knew what lay ahead.
Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply to choose to forget
Some moments I wish I could erase from my mind, the death of a cat, the crash of a car, the phone calls that changed my life forever. The letters I wish I never read, the places I wish I had never been, the people I wish I had never known, the moments so terrible I can't even bear to mention them.
We hurt, we grow, and we go on.
So it is the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were
Waves breaking on a pristine beach, sun streaming through early morning clouds, fresh breezes caressing my face, God's presence all around me. Those are the moments that define me, the good ones, the treasures.
The smiles, the laughter, these are the important things to leave behind and to take with us, for they are the only thing of value on the Earth.
(lyrics for "The Way We Were" from The Columbia Pictures, Rastar Production "The Way We Were", as recorded by Barbra Streisand, composed by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Marvin Hamlisch)
Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)
Permalink: 2/15/2004 11:11:00 PM |
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