Sometimes, things fall apart, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
Sometimes, things come together, free from control or attempts to do anything else with them.
And sometimes, the difference between the former and the latter is that action was desperate and limited in the former, but honest and free in the latter.
Life sure is beautiful, ain’t it? 😉
Post-a-day 2017
A strawberry and a telephone – what do they have in common? They have both low-grade injured me in odd ways.
The strawberry – oh, that dear strawberry – actually drew blood instantly in its incident. You see, I was simply pulling off the green tops of my strawberries, and then eating each strawberry. On this particular one, when I grabbed the green leaves atop it, pushing the end of my thumb nail underneath the little green stem that sat in the middle of them for nowhere near the first time in my life, I suddenly felt an extreme, sharp pain in my thumb. Somehow, the strawberry had launched itself into the depths that appeared at the underside of my thumbnail, ripping apart the nail and the skin. I yanked away immediately from the strawberry, and watched the blood overflow from underneath my thumb nail. Despite the pain, I found the occasion a happy and hilarious one. I mean, who gets injured by a strawberry? Since when do strawberries draw blood? I’m not even clumsy, but they apparently do it to me. 😛
The telephone was what reminded me of the strawberry incident today. I was looking at the last bit of a splinter – or what looks like it might be the last bit of a splinter – in my hand just now, and thought of the insanity of what my splinter was: a piece of a telephone. You know the old black, rotary dial telephones, with the receiver that rested across the top? That kind of telephone. Something had fallen on one Saturday night, sending out shards of black telephone onto the black floor. I did not realize that the phone had even been injured until after I took my shot – this was in a photo area – on the floor, playing my ukulele. Hours later, it took some consideration before I discovered what the source of my chunk of black plastic-type material splinter was. When I removed the splinter, the spot bled a little, and then began to hurt. I mean, really, what kind of injury is that? Blood drawn by telephone, and no throwing of any kind was involved, nor were any other people. Silly.
So, an old telephone and a strawberry have a big something in common, see?
Post-a-day 2017
I bruised my pinkie toe today, it seems. It might actually be fractured, due to the style of pain, however, the impact didn’t seem to have enough force behind it to have caused a fracture, which is fortunate. Sitting here on my bed at my mom’s house, thinking about how that happen today, has me recall the last time something similar happened while I was living here.
I was on my way to Worlds, as we call it in the community. “Worlds” is short for United Country Western Dance Council World Championships. (See? “Worlds” is easier.) And it is relevant that I tell you the full name of the event. I promise. I had participated in and scored high enough in other events throughout the year in order to qualify for Worlds, and I was incredibly excited. It isn’t every day that one competes for a world title, and it isn’t even in every life, either – this was an honor and a privilege, and I was ready for it.
Therefore, when I managed to hook my toe underneath me on a stair as I rushed back downstairs after having run upstairs one last time to grab something small that I’d forgotten, my mind was reeling with concern. I was in extreme pain, and I curled up to the floor, crying, holding my foot, barely even able to make contact with the toe. I almost couldn’t think straight, or even at all, such was the disturbance. “If I just broke my toe, I can’t dance,” was about what I said to myself, asI was curled up around my toe. I prayed in a way that I didn’t know how to make selfless, and I also prayed that that would be okay for this occasion.
I realized, as my brain power began to return to me, that my fear and concern was compounding the intensity of my crying, and that the physical pain wasn’t quite so bad as I’d been thinking. Yes, it absolutely hurt, but a large part of any impact’s pain is the initial set-in, going from comfort and ease to pain. That is, it hurts really badly at first, but then calms after the initial shock, and then the pain begins to subside exponentially.
And such was the case. The extreme pain was real, but was not the full cause of my tears – I was dreadfully worried that I wouldn’t be able to dance, and all for that pair of socks, or whatever it was I ran up the stairs to grab. My toe continued to hurt for a while, – maybe even the rest of the day – but it was doing well by the time my day to compete came around. I have been forever grateful that my toe was spared and my dancing was blessed.
If you win at Worlds, you get a specific jacket, and your name is embroidered on it. I still have mine. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you’re going I’m going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end–
waiting ’round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.
© 1961 Paramount Music Corporation, ASCAP
So go the lyrics to the beautiful song that is sung by Audrey Hepburn in the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, and which was written for the occasion. They have been in my mind all night tonight. I likely still will be singing them and humming the song tomorrow, and possibly the next several days or weeks, too, imagining Miss Holly Golightly sitting on her windowsill in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, strumming her small guitar, singing the song while her hair dries in a towel on her head. That was her one genuine moment, where there were no airs put on and no facades blocking the view; dreamy longing and total honesty were there, coming to life in her music.
Why, you ask, is all of this on my mind? Well, because of just that. My cousin makes jewelry from guitar strings. (I do a little, too, but not to the same degree.) Since that particular scene had Holly being simple and honest, showing her core, she loved the scene. Since it included Holly’s playing the guitar, it became relevant to my cousin’s jewelry. You see, this neat art gallery in Galveston decided to do an “All About Audrey” exhibition, in which all of the selected pieces were submitted by various individuals in the community. The only requirements were that the art be vegan and be somehow about Audrey Hepburn. So, my cousin used guitar strings and fake pearls to construct her own version of the famous “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” necklace (with the aforementioned information taking part in creating the idea).
Tonight, the art show had its opening, and my cousin’s piece was part of the show. So, my mom and I attended the opening. The opening happened to be a costume party, with the theme being ‘your favorite Audrey’. I genuinely liked the honesty moment in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, and the fact that it directly related to the reason we were going – to support my cousin’s guitar string jewelry inspired by that scene – made it an easy preference for my attire for the event.
And so, I put together the clothes, had my mom help me with a white hand towel on my head (I had to take out the seams to make it long enough to tie correctly.), and looked up “Moon River” chords. I only have a full-sized guitar with me, so I figured my ukulele would do well for the completion of the outfit. Since I was going to be carrying around my uke, dressed as a character who sings an incredibly famous song, I figured it only fair that I make an effort to learn to play the song myself.
And it was a good thing I did! Not only was I requested to play, but I was asked to play three times. The third time was the coolest, because the second time had already been a sort of sing-a-long for a lot of the people at the gallery, but the third was everyone. I was on my way out of the gallery, heading to dinner with my family who had been in attendance, when a lady at a table complimented my outfit and asked me to play. The man at the table asked if I could play, because, of I could play, he could sing. And so I started up playing, singing with him, only to be joined after only a few seconds by the entire gallery. It was so beautiful, it was almost spooky. People had all different reasons for being there tonight, but we all shared the experience of true bliss and community as we sang together tonight. Reasonably fitting end to the week that included International Peace Day (Thursday), I think.
There are two other fun aspects to this. The first is that we the went to dinner, all of us dressed in our various outfits. Most everyone looked to be in normal-ish attire for our current life and times, and it was even somewhat high on the classy side, and all black and white. My mother, however, was in a genuine formal 60s dress that is just about the color of Tiffany’s boxes, and is floor length, polyester, and very 60s. I was in jeans and a sweatshirt, and had a towel on my head. Just imagine seeing our party at a casual restaurant – what on Earth would you think?
The second fun aspect is that this isn’t the first time we’ve done something like this. For the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, we attended a tea and luncheon that was tied to the Museum of Fine Arts’ temporary exhibit on the Titanic. The idea was to experience tea like back in the day at an actual teahouse in town, and then gonover to the exhibit. We did exactly that, but dressed in period-appropriate attire. Aside from the servers at the teahouse, we were the only ones dressed up. At the museum, someone asked to sketch me (and did), people took pictures of us, and we had several inquiries about whether we weren’t part of the exhibit. It was a grand old time, and felt somehow totally normal to me. I guess that’s just how we roll in my family. Cool, huh? 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
Sometimes I wonder about whether there really will be a place for me in our modern, developing world. There so many things that are becoming commonplace that go against so much of who I am. From the simplest tiny things to morals to lifestyle to core beliefs and thinking patterns, I notice a difference between so much of how the society functions around me and what is in me, myself. I realize that, somehow, I will have a place in the world, but I wonder if it is in the part of the world I already know, or if I will find myself in an entirely different society, somewhere else in the world… not in what I consider my home.
I just wonder…
Post-a-day 2017
I read books in the movie theatre. It’s true. I really do. Not during the film, of course, but beforehand, and sometimes even during previews.
It all started when a friend of my dad’s gave me a book called Staying Alive in Year Five. I think it might be an Australian book. Whatever its origin, I loved reading the book. I remember being so excited to see what happened next that I took it with me everywhere, so I could read whenever I had the chance.
This, naturally, included the movie theatre. We always get to the film early in order to get good seats, and then the movie itself never starts at the specified time, anyway. So, I sat down in my seat by my family members, and I opened up my book and read. I was excited for the film, but I was also disappointed at having to stop reading, when it got to the beginning of the film.
Nowadays, I still read before a movie, if I’m there at all, of course. There hasn’t been much to spark my interest lately, so I haven’t often been at the cinema. And Japan was different, simply because I wanted to learn as much Japanese and Japanese culture as I could, so I watched all the previews and everything rather avidly. Aside from those specific circumstances, I read. I almost always have a book with me. Living in Japan meant that I ended up always having my Kindle, since hard copies of books in not Japanese weren’t so easy to come by. I would read at work, on the train, and at home. While walking around (once I bought earphones I could wear again [Thanks, Korea!]), I listened to audiobooks. Occasionally, I listened to music, but typically not. I just love books.
Post-a-day 2017
I talked with my childhood best friend tonight. It was wonderful. We haven’t talked much in the past year, simply because she’s been busy as ever, and I’ve been over in Japan. We still weren’t in the same place tonight (Facebook Messenger video chatting), but being in the same city really helps with the timing thing.
Talking with her always brings up loads of memories from my early childhood, most of them wonderful. There are only a handful of not-so-good ones, though they were all rather impactful. Mostly, though, the good memories come to mind.,. Like the time she and I watched “Lake Placid”, shortly after seeing “Deep Blue Sea”, and we ended up jumping all around on her furniture after the film, somewhat joking, but also somewhat paranoid that a gator would pop out from under the sofas and eat our legs off… Or the time my mom was at work, and my friend invited me to come over, so I left my mom a message on her pager, telling her when and where I was going, and I very clearly stated the phone number of my friend’s house, and repeated it (even though she could look up the number in the school phone book once she was home, if needed), just as was desired if I were to go anywhere while she was gone…, even to be complimented on it later by my mom, but told that I unfortunately had given my mom my mom’s number, not my friend’s house. Those might have even been from the same day…, though I really don’t remember for sure.
For my birthday one year, she and her mom decided to give me some money and a gift bag of macaroni and cheese boxes. Almost every time I went to their house, I would end up eating mac ‘n’ cheese, so they decided it was a perfect present for me. I loved it, of course, for the pure genius of it, as well as the love and attention that went into the present, despite its being quite simple. I really did love mac ‘n’ cheese.
There are two sad memories that always come to mind regarding this best friend. Though, one of them was actually kind of happy, because of what it meant to me. The one memory, the more sad one, was when we were riding the bus for a field trip, and she and I were playing a hand game. She was sitting by the window, back to the window/wall, and I the same for the aisle. The game was this one:
That’s the way
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it.
Uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it.
Uh-huh, uh-huh
I got the looks.
You got the books.
Splish, splash
In your face.
Brick wall, waterfall
Girl, you think you know it all.
You don’t.
I do.
So *poof* with the attitude.
On the *poof*, my friends and I usually made an effort to face palm the other person somewhat, pushing her head away as part of the “Talk to the hand” gesture. However, not everyone did this, I discovered, so, shall we say, competitively as I did. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to face palm someone else, as I wanted to do it first, so as to avoid having it done to me. Well, when the *poof* came along, I was ready and prepared, and I pushed a little harder than necessary in my haste to be first, and my best friend’s head knocked backward against the window with a good noise. I was instantly remorseful, and her immediate upset hurt like no physical pain can. I still feel bad about that now, years and years later, though not in the same, sad way.
The other sad memory was the morning before school that she called me while I was showering. My mom came and brought me the phone while I was in the shower, telling me it was my best friend. I wondered why she was calling so early in the morning, it was even a little excited about the phone call. However, the news of the phone call was not good: angel, her dog, had died that morning. She was calling to let me know, because she knew that I loved Angel, too. Well I was incredibly sad about Angel, one of my favorite dogs, I was also incredibly grateful for the friendship I had – for that is a powerful friendship to make a call so early in the morning about something that could have waited until we got to school. But she wanted me to know before the rest of the world. I was and still am honored.
Gosh, now I have loads of memories piled up with this friend, and memories keep diving into the piles, turning them into something more like a mountain range. I used that only makes sense, when we’re talking about a childhood best friend – there’s so much time and joy and learning spent together as kids. Now she has kids of her own, and almost all I want to do is everything I can to help them have the best possible upbringing in the world.
Post-a-day 2017
I swam today! And I don’t mean just playing around in a pool. I swam laps. Half a mile did I swim, and, though this is nothing to what I once could accomplish in the same amount of time (a mile or more), I am incredibly proud of this half mile, because I have not swum a lap in at least four years. Not bad for starting out, I say!
In college, I discovered a love for swimming. Laps, that is. I spent about ten years on swim team as a kid, and I kind of hated most of it. I absolutely loved the social aspect and the fun of the meets on Monday nights, and even getting ribbons for my race efforts. But practice was something else entirely.
You see, I was never very good at swimming. I certainly was not bad by any means. However, put me against the kids on the team who were considered “good”, and I paled in comparison. I was better than the couple tubby kids, and I had decent speed, but my endurance just wasn’t there. Because of that, I was never at the front of the line in practice, and near the back was not where I wanted to be. I was also utterly exhausted before practice was ever even over. So, I didn’t much like swim practice, and even disliked it a bit…, which meant that I went less and less often as Ingrew older. This also meant that I get worse and worse, when compared to all the kids who actually attended every practice (and most kids had been on the team as long as I had).
All of that being said, I was truly surprised when I fell in love with swimming in college. I always respected and almost revered swimmers as glorious doers of beautiful sport. I always rather envied them (minus the really broad shoulders). But I also always disliked practice. It’s almost surprising that I did swim team longer than any other sport, but for the fact that my mom required us to do swim team. To this day, I do not know how I got out of swimming in Open (ages 15-18), but I was beyond delighted that my swim team days were finished before I had to be slower than everyone in my age group. 13/14’s were tough enough for my morale.
I wasn’t on the team in college or anything, but I did attend the meets that happened on campus, and I loved them. It wasn’t until my third (and final) year that I started swimming myself, though. I joined a water sports class and tennis class in order to fulfill my sport credits for school, and somehow also ended up going swimming in the pool during the nighttime opening hours. Perhaps my inspiring friend Genevieve got me to go with her one night to start, and then I kept going on my own after that.
In the water sports class, there were mostly non-athletic people in it, and so we often just had inner tube water polo on the schedule. I disagreed with the inner tubes on principal for the game, but the level of competitiveness actually got me quite irritated in class. This is not mean to be harsh, merely matter-of-fact: If you aren’t good at something, you aren’t allowed to be fiercely competitive in it. Some of these people were yelling and going crazy over this game that Inhad already passed as casual and fun, since almost no one was any good at it.
So, I eventually asked the coach if I could swim laps instead for class. He might have denied me at first, but then realized how desperately I wanted to do it instead of water polo, and so allowed me for any time we played that particular game (which was often). The first time he agreed to it, he told me that it was ‘okay, but only if you swim a mile.’ I honestly told him that I likely was incapable, but he chuckled and I realized that he was joking.
I trained at nights on the days we didn’t have class, and worked hard in my swimming. I still remember the excitement I had on the day I climbed out of the water near the end of class and told him, “Okay, done.” I had swum a mile during class, which was only a 45-minute class. I had barely done it in time, but I had done it. The coach was nearly baffled. He expressed that he had been merely joking about the mile. I told him how I knew that, but figured I’d go for it, anyway. He was impressed. He didn’t think he was capable of swimming a mile in any length of time. I had earned the recognition I had hoped in my silly endeavor, which only added to my joy of accomplishing the task itself. I was not a swimmer, but here I was, quickly swimming a mile, and able to rush off to tennis class immediately afterward.
One thing to add about that time swimming: My body was incredibly happy, and it looked great, too. Ever since then, I have been convinced that swimming is one of (if not the) the best full-body workouts around, with amazing results.
Here I am, years later, finally in a pool again. I have more to my body than I would like for there to be in certain areas, and not enough to satisfy my muscle goals for my body, so I truly hope I find a way to get this swimming to be a regular and often thing again, and that I do it. Because I really do love swimming.
Post-a-day 2017
P.S. A fellow ALT (assistant language teacher) recently mentioned how she had a student who was attempting to express that he was a swimmer, and so he wrote, “I am a breast stroker.” Gotta love things getting lost in translation. 😛
There’s something about rain that makes everything in life seem okay. Â Sure, when the rain is more like a torrential downpour that includes flooding all around town, things don’t seem so great. Â However, regular rain, rain like early this afternoon, with sunlight still visible here and there, that kind of rain is the perfect rain for life.
I never feel like a trapped kid on rainy days; I always feel almost liberated due to all of the creativity and possibility of life indoors for just one day. Â Board games and reading and art projects are a few of my favorite things, and rainy days tend to put them as the likely activities, removing the social expectation to be “more productive” with one’s time than sitting about, doing silly but fun things with ones one loves. Â Perhaps, too, I enjoy the fact that I can be certain that I am not “missing out” on anything out in the world when it is raining, because no one else it out doing anything either. Â Perhaps…
I remember a day a year and a half ago, when I lay on the floor with my cat, just hanging out while the sky released its water. Â We even went and sat on the covered walkway right outside the apartment door, watching the rain and the clouds together, smelling the sun-touched rain and its clouds. Â That was a beautiful day.
Post-a-day 2017
I critique the priests’ sermons at Mass. I don’t mean to do it. It just happens automatically for me. Just like how I automatically correct anything I read, people with whom I talk, and even the conversations I overhear, I critique the sermons at church.
Grammar is one thing, of course, and it is always being tracked in my mind. I regularly use a certain phrasing or structure that I know to be incorrect, but that I know is, essentially, necessary for understanding for the listener or reader. (I also know that errors show up on here all the time, but that’s mostly due to either the previously mentioned reason or the simple fact that I am writing on my phone, as I lie in bed, ready to go to sleep… Not the best time or means for correct writing, I know, but I’m lazy, so it’s often the situation I have.) For the sermons, however, my brain decided years ago to treat them like essays. I analyze their quality in terms of how they connect with the readings, how they connect with the audience (congregation), and how they create an inspiring message and clear means for doing good in the world.
It takes a true writer to come up with a sermon that would earn an A from me. Most of the time, unfortunately, sermons earn somewhere around a low C. Occasionally, there are bonus points awarded for specific tidbits within the sermon, but the sermons as a whole are not so great right now. (This was actually one of my main reasons a decade ago for why women ought to be allowed to give sermons at Mass, even if they couldn’t be priests – not everyone is good at writing and giving speeches.)
This isn’t to say that I actually award points as I am sitting in Mass. Certainly, I do not do that. My brain is just in a sort of passive automatic critique mode, coming up with ideas for betterment in the sermon each time it hits a rough bit. I do take care to focus on the actual sermon, especially since I know myself to do this critiquing so automatically. It’s kind of like background noice, really, and so I only end up fully focusing on it when the sermon is really terrible. (Fortunately, that isn’t too often.)
Post-a-day 2017
hannah ananas 