|
Always Love"To make a mountain of your life Is just a choice But I never learned enough To listen to the voice that told me Always love, Hate will get you every time Always love, Don't wait til the finish line" ___ What of you had a great life and didn't even know it? Lately I've been asking myself that as a reminder of good things. Tragedy is to be so caught up in what you're afraid of that you miss all the beauty directly in front of you, all the opportunities to love on people. And we are all afraid of so many things, some more than others. We're afraid our needs won't be met, that we won't matter, that we will be disliked, that we have fumbled things so badly there is no recovering. And if you are a writer, chances are you feel things a little more keenly, for both good and ill. I think a solution to this is to be present. In this very moment what do you have? Who can you bless? I regret things I have done, but I've never regretted showing love. Not in the common sense of the word, but what it means at its foundations. Love is not being nice, it is being kind. It is not ignoring faults, it is seeing them and forgiving them. It is not doing what feels good, it is doing what's right. It is not placing yourself beneath another, it is removing your self from the equation entirely. Love is hard and it will not allow your pride to survive. It is the crossroads where you decide it is of more worth to value another person and their needs than to be right, heard or important. I have not always been true to this. It is no easy task, but then real love wouldn't be so powerful unless it was a thing deep and high, something that enfolds all. Love has jurisdiction in both a kind word and a profound sacrifice. Sometimes, people we can influence enter our lives and we spoil this opportunity. We use our power to wound instead of encourage. As I look at my sleeping husband, I know he is in my life for a reason. He is a... [ Continued ] 1 Comment Viewed 1011 times Sharks in the PoolMy family likes a good yarn. They usually involve some cringe worthy event featuring one of us performing our usual roles. The tellings conclude with us laughing and non-family members trying to console the star of the story. (Who usually enjoys the narrative as much as the others, even if it was at their expense).
One of tales featuring me is the swim-team saga. When I was a bitty thing, between 5-7 years old, my parents signed my brother and I up for summer swim team. The day before instruction began, I disobeyed my parents and watched the movie Jaws. Sharks are my favorite animal, but they still frighten me. With the image of a ravenous 30 foot great white still in my head, I was introduced to a very long lap pool and a particularly suspicious grate on the floor of the deep end. Using my substantial logic, I deduced that if Jaws was coming for me, it would be in that pool over that grate. He would sneak in some water pipe like the Jersey Devil snuck upstream and in a magnificent burst of concrete and metal he would surge from the bottom of the pool and eat me. Needless to say, I hated swim team. I was convinced Jaws had my number. Everytime I swam over that grate I would be in a panic, sometimes I tried veering into other people's lanes. (If there were two of us to eat, I had a 50/50 chance of making it.) Add to this I was very small and a terrible swimmer in general. My brother was a little aquaman, while I swam in circles. No lie. It was bad enough at one swim meet that a parent, fully dressed, jumped in the pool and tried to save me. My parents waved away concerns and assured the crowd, I'd finish. And strangely enough, I always did. While I swam, I had no idea I was that awful. When an improvement in my scores was mentioned in the paper I was thrilled, unaware I had become the underdog mascot. Any improvement was reason for celebration. So what's the moral of the story? For three summers, I did something I hated and was terrible at, and it never dawned on... [ Continued ]
Last edited by Colombina on February 3rd, 2010, 7:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
3 Comments Viewed 1056 times In the Spirit of the Season: FearI do most of my thinking in three places: my car, the shower, my bed. Today's thought was brought to you by... the bed. I was laying there contemplating characters and a thought struck me. There is a less lauded trait that makes a character real for me, that separates an average characterization from a masterful one: Fear.
I'm not talking Scooby Doo and Shaggy level fear, but a healthy understanding of a character's psyche. It's easy to fall into the trap of building a character around what you admire. I use the word "trap" loosely, this can result in some great characters. (I like to write what I know when it comes to personality. A character is often a portion or mood of me, amplified and distorted past easy recognition. But I digress.) We admire courage, fortitude and general kick-assery: the strong silent type, the mouthy woman who will defend her friends at all cost, the bold native who defies cultural norms, etc. But in perpetuating that I think we miss something. Real people harbor real fears. Not phobias, not quirks, but lingering apprehensions. Even outspoken people who step beyond their boundaries have something they battle with. Otherwise their actions should not inspire admiration. In past rp-ing, I have seen characters that don't bat an eye at strange occurrences, rare races or inhospitable lands. Sometimes it suits them, but mostly I feel they are missing something. There should be a greater wonder or awe if this is an adventure. You lose sight of how fantastic something is when you treat it with the same level of shock as a pair of socks. (Unless your socks are terribly exciting). And Mizahar is the kind of place that has maybe three safe havens. It's fractured, and the races are dangerous, old, rare or just plain strange. Now these are more general ideas of fear and surprise, where real rp-ing comes in are the internalized thoughts. A rich inner thought life can give some amazing characters. I love to see a writer... [ Continued ] 3 Comments Viewed 3085 times Something Truly ImportantSome of you may be thinking, what is this thing, and why does it look so beatifically happy. But that's not the important question. The query that really matters is: Why don't I have one? I am now looking at my exceptionally small pomeranian. I love her, but she just doesn't cut it in comparison to this doe-eyed capsule of joy. You better shape up and stop crapping on the rug, pomeranian. Or your days of being the cutest thing in this house are numbered. 4 Comments Viewed 11766 times |
Registered users: Bing [Bot], Google [Bot], Yandex [Bot]