3 songs

Commit to a Writing Process – A Challenge

“Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you? and
Today, try free writing. To begin, empty your mind onto the page. Don’t censor yourself; don’t think. Just let go. Let the emotions or memories connected to your three songs carry you.”

Three most important songs is easy.

PUT YOUR HEAD ON MY SHOULDER

When I was 13 and about to move from senior Public to High School we had a dance club at our school. It was called Club 78 and was held in our gymnasium at J.F. Carmichael Public School and was held once a month I think.

 Paul Anka 1959 – A Canadian boy who struck gold.

Now 13 is a strange age for kids.  Girls are often taller than boys.  A boy asked me to dance (which was a good thing back when girls lined up against one gymnasium wall and boys lined up against another.  I remember that dance and that I was tall enough that when we came together on the dance floor I could almost taste the Brylcreem (of the ‘little dab’ll do ya’ fame).

I don’t remember the boy – how I wish I did – but I remember the dance.

HOTEL CALIFORNIA 

When I lived in South Texas for two years this was a popular song sure to be played on every jukebox. At the time I found the red-neck attitude of many rather charming and working in Health Care different but rewarding.  Everyone had their own bar they went to after work. Doctors, lawyers, and judges gathered for a drink and hors d’oeuvres daily.  Never for a long time but it was a ritual.  

After the first year and a half constant sun, wind, bad tempered rattlers , scorpions and homesickness started to wear on me and whenever I heard this song I started to feel like a prisoner – ‘You can check out any time you  like./ But you can never leave. 

I knew it was time to return to the flora and fauna and family in Canada.

I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR

Personally I am getting a little sick of the fight and plight of women.  The struggles are real but the constant in your face blah blah blah of it all is tiresome.  Having said that, Helen Reddy’s song released in 1972 strikes a chord of eternal strength.  Time,  and fashion has no effect on this song about wisdom, failing, overcoming, and strength.  Words like ‘you can bend but never break me,’  I know too much to go back an’ pretend,’ ‘And I come back even  stronger’.   No loud shouting or braying but soft and steely.  I stand a little straighter when I hear this song.

A Surprising Saturday full of changes – subtle as they may be

 

Sometimes change surprises me.  And I ask myself, If change is not planned, is it then chance?

I think there are subtle changes constantly as time goes on.  It may be a subtle as adapting to how we do things.  Perhaps due to physical changes as we grow and age, or it may be a change in attitude or perspective.  With or without external influence because, of course, it could be due to internal influences.

I was surprised to realize changes I had made.  Without consciously planning – I think.

On this moist Saturday morning here in sunny southwestern Ontario, humidity was 100%, I awoke to some thoughts.  Of course.  Those who have followed me know I have this thing about first morning thoughts being the best and brightest of the day.

The most astounding change, which for some reason only occurred to me during the ‘brightest thoughts of the day’ moment was realizing MY changes of late.  For example, FB gives a voice to anyone who signs on, billions I think, and it gives a voice without thought or reason.  No filter necessary.  It’s a reactionary voice.  See a post – react.  Reminds me of the instructions on shampoo bottles – shampoo, rinse, repeat.  Reactionary posts, in my mind, are most often inflammatory.

I had gotten into a despicable habit, thought to really be a public service, until I really thought about it. Damn, ‘thought’ does change things.  Whenever I read a news article about some outrageous thing I would post it on FB.  And as you know while I used to call out perceived injustices in many things, there suddenly appeared someone on the world stage who  provided fodder not just daily but sometimes hourly.

The end result was I felt like um,  well you can guess.  Then I came across some more positive things to share and without realizing it I discovered I was feeling much better about the things.

See?  Change without planning.  Quite nice.

Another change that just seemed to evolve but I did not realize until my ‘brightest thoughts’ this morning is the way I carry out my day.  I am a huge advocate for  GOALS.  But only thought about them daily and never really and truly did anything about them.

Then as simple as rolling over in bed I started doing somethings differently.  My usual routine had been to wake, pick up  my iPad, check emails etc, play a game and contemplate my schedule for the day. ( A biggie when one is retired.)  Then one morning a few days ago a ‘brightest’ thought drifted across my brain – what if I did not look at my iPad but first got up, had breakfast, and carried on.  The first couple of times I chose to ignore said thought, but one adventurous morning followed that thought.  And it has made quite a change to my creativity, which is always best first thing. *Since I am blogging instead of vegging – it seems it was a good idea.

There are quite a few subtle changes I realize, and I won’t list them, but there are a couple of wise thoughts that repeat of late:

‘Do not believe everything you think.’ As Louise Penny’s, Armand Ganache says, in ‘A Great Reckoning’

‘Three things to take care – Of whom you speak, To whom you speak, and when, and why, and where,’ A paraphrase from Judith Baxter  of ‘I choose how I will spend the rest of my life’ when she spoke of sayings her mother taught her.

There is a new project of sorts I have started.  It came from one of those blurby things on FB and I can’t refer you to it except it was about Headlines we read.  Pretty grim these days and instead of READING headlines to MAKE your own headline each day.  For instance: AGING WOMAN DISCOVERS CHANGE FOR THE BETTER NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT RELATIVELY PAINLESS.

Junkie by Robert P. French

Book Review

Junkie
Robert P. French

Junkie is the first book in a series about Cal Rogan. I admit to some reluctance to read a book where our hero was in fact a Junkie. Encouraged by my friend Judith Baxter I turned to the first page and was hooked.

What’s makes Cal our true hero is the clear crisp writing, realistic and believable, without any of the self pity and whining and moaning often associated with first person addiction stories.

His path from functioning valued member of society to loss, homelessness, and recovery of sorts, whilst solving obvious and less obvious mysteries makes this a story difficult to put down.

His love/hate relationship with himself and those around him, particularly Roy, and his dead best friend whose relationship with him may or may not have been what he interpreted it as, strikes a chord of the reality we live with every day.

French puts a human face to a population in the shadows. Successes, failures, and in this case mysterious deaths.

The easy path to substance addiction is chilling and leaves one with a ..there but for the Grace of God…type of reaction, and an awareness that all that can change in a moment.

His relationship with his daughter and ex, his desire to be more, to be better is woven through out, partnered with the inability to succeed.

This is a story about perseverance, struggle, being right, being wrong, succeeding and failing. Failing is not the end of the story. This story is more than anything, about HOPE. The thing that drives all of us.

The humanness of the tale, and the characters, the truths both recognized and not recognized are the the truths of our own lives.

French is an excellent story teller, weaving suspense and surprise twists in a delicious fashion that is sublime.

Falling Off the Map

My Octobers and Thanksgiving have little change from year to year. And that is something to be grateful for.

And special thanks given to those original commentators of six years ago who today are even more a part of my life, now sisters and comrades in life: Judith of New Zealand, Snipewife,  Eliz at Mirth and Motivation, and of course Colleen the Chatter Master,  and Joss who was a Crowing Crone back then and now author, and Winsome Bella, and dear dear Celi of Kitchensgardens and the Farmy,

bridgesburning

Falling Off the Map

It’s amazing how one day of not blogging turns into two or three.  I started a number of times each day just to wander off either physically or mentally.  The notes below I did on Sunday basking in the warmth of a true summer like day.

‘Canadian Thanksgiving

This is my favorite holiday of the year, unsullied by commercialism, and stress, a true time of thanksgiving.  Most years it is cold, many times snowy and the odd time like this year it is warm and sunny.  When I say warm I mean like 70ish which is warm for the frozen north.  I am outside, reclining under a cloudless sky, so blue it could be it could be a vast warm ocean, wearing summer togs and listening to leaves rustling from a gentle breeze.  Somewhere distant there is the drone of a lawn mower.

This is the…

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Writing about Writing: Those early morning thoughts

Darned if best intentions, scheduled schedules, and even well thought out plans, don’t  just go awry on a whim.

It’s Tuesday and here I am thinking about effective time use and scheduling my week.  I did mention it is Tuesday didn’t I?  And most of the world is already almost half way through their week, you know Wednesday being hump day and all.

Judith, way down under New Zealand way and I spend a fair bit of time, either during our weekly Skype visit, or by email, or Messenger talking about scheduling our days to allow for all we want to do: writing, blogging, reading, socializing, chores and cleaning (rubber gloving as she calls it).  She even has a neat Excel Sheet to schedule our activities and one to track our writing success on a daily basis.

Now Joss, our accomplished Canadian writer, living in Cuenca Ecuador also joins this little group and we chat and discuss and at times solve all the world’s problems, unbeknownst to the world of course.

Aside from Beta reading for Joss, talking about writing and schedules we also talk about writers and their routines and schedules, as we did last week.  I read a lot about successful people, not so much as to try their style, as much as hoping that just the act of reading about it will make it stick to me somehow.  Alas, I have come to the conclusion that if one want’s to be successful, one must work for it.  There is no sticking by association.

Part of last week’s discussion was about writers who go outside their homes to write. (Joss writes this way).

Jeffery Archer: 

Describe the room where you usually write

I have a home in Majorca that has been built into a cliff. The study is separate from the house, and I love its calmness. It has 20 foot-long windows and overlooks the sea. There is just a desk with pens, pencils, a rubber, an hourglass, paper, pictures of my family, and me. (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/one-minute-with-jeffrey-archer-novelist-7545587.html)

Oh also Stephen King’s Top 20 rules for Writers (article here) from a Barnes and Noble Blog is just to good to pass up.

Stephen King

Oh yeah, writing outside your home.  Mr. King has written anywhere and everywhere, but once when his children were young he rented an apartment across town for six months.

There are many writers who write outside their home but now I have come across this article about Detroit Nonprofit program for providing homes for writers called

A Room of Their Own: How Write A House Is Putting Writers in Vacant Homes

from Electricliterature.com, and my mind if off in a few more directions.

Oh yeah, and about writing about writing – it occurs to me that that may be my expertise.  You know, rather than actually writing something.  Time will tell.