Words worth more than gold

After a discussion over the phone with a college student calling to ask for my monetary donation to the study abroad scholarships at her school, – which I exchanged for encouragement to the girl and for sharing with her various specialties related to where she would be studying abroad this coming spring semester (for which she continuously thanked me delightedly, and which she declared was a million times better for her life than a monetary donation to the fund would have been, anyway) – I wrote a sort of poem.

You see, she recommended I write it, because what I was sharing with her, she said, sounded like poetry.

So, find in the following photo the first draft of the poem we discussed today, which I said I would write for my weblog tonight, and which I tapped out on a typewriter(!!!) this afternoon.

Post-a-day 2018

What Hannah Found

I began reading last night a book that I had loved as a young girl… and I have found many similarities between myself and the main character…

Have I developed myself based on this character, though most of the details had long been forgotten, or did I originally like the book because I already related so much to the main character?

It kind of feels like I’m asking myself the deepest of psychological questions…

But it also feels like I’m asking myself a ‘chicken or the egg’ kind of question…

Post-a-day 2018

Not because it was hot

Why did I read the book Love in the Time of Cholera?

Because Sara, in the movie “Serendipity”, pulled it from her bag, and wrote her number in it, so that, after she sold it to a used book store the next day, Jonathan would have a chance of finding it and contacting her, if fate – serendipity – allowed it.

And her character in the film has always reminded me of the girl I want to be.

So, since she had it for some reason, likely to read it, I thought I’d have it and give it a read.

And I did.

And that isn’t the oddest of reasons I’ve read books, either.

(… just in case you were wondering…)

Post-a-day 2018

Call me Ishmael

If another adult – recalling that I am, in fact, an adult myself – insists that I call him/her “Dr.”, because he/she ‘worked so hard for that degree,’ or because he/she is ‘so proud of having earned it,’ is that not quite comparable to my saying that people must converse with me in French, because I worked so hard to learn it and I’m so proud of being able to speak it?

(I’m not saying that it’s the same, but just comparable oddities with the same reasoning.)

It’s just a thought that came to mind today, and it has me a bit flummoxed.

I grew up in a world where we are all people, not classes or ranks, so I’ve never really been able to understand people’s required uses of name ranks (beyond someone’s voluntarily being respectful in addressing another, I mean [though even that gets me sometimes]).

Post-a-day 2018

And a dash of Indian

I have an organized (-ish), color-filled explosion of Indian outfits on my bed and desk chair right now, and it feels, somehow, really, really good.

I’ve never even been to India, but I feel this strong connection to many parts of its culture…, my mom was Indian in her previous life, so perhaps I was, too…, or perhaps she merely passed the culture down to me in this life… ;D

Whatever the case, I’m entirely delighted about these clothes, which is why I still haven’t started putting them away, since I pulled them all out to see for the first time this afternoon. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Writing

I’m beginning to feel, after someone asked me about my writing this morning, that the main reason I like and am drawn to writing so much, is that it is an opportunity for me to express myself without being interrupted, put down (directly), or even ignored (noticeably)… I get to be myself and to express myself, no matter who might be nearby.

I’m not sure if I like that or not, though…

I’ll ponder for another day or month or so, and see where it gets me… perhaps it’ll be breathtakingly phenomenal, when I have a breakthrough out of what I find in that pondering.

Post-a-day 2018

The person I want to be climbed rocks

I went bouldering in an indoor rock gym tonight.  It hurts now in my hands, in a very ‘ouch’ way.  My palms felt like fire when I showered in the warm water, and it felt like I was rubbing them raw when I was merely soaping up my body and washing my hair.  I imagine that even more of my body will ache tomorrow, in a good way.  I’m glad I went climbing with this old friend.  Apparently I am terrified of jumping down while facing a wall… I’d never noticed that it made a difference to me, jumping down from something forward versus backward… I guess I just hadn’t ever considered a blind and backward jump for anything before tonight.  Anyway…

And now, since I gave the girls an assignment on it today when subbing for creative writing, I’ll throw in a bit of free poetry, slam style, but typed…

I got a few scrapes and bumps,
and even drew blood on one skinning spot.
But I climbed a lot
for having done
little comparable activity
in the past several months.

And it felt good.
And I felt like I was being
the person I wanted to be.
The person I want to be.
Yes.  The person I want to be.
Me,
myself, and I are good people,
but there’s more to me
to who I want to be.
And she
yes, she
stopped in to smile tonight
to show how I might
could be.
Truly.
Would that she
come sooner
and wait no longer,
but it is I who must go to her.
Let it go, let it go, just let it all go…
Or Beatles-ly
let it be…
then shall I be she
proud and powerful and humble and beautiful
as can be,
being the person I want to be.

 

Post-a-day 2018