Tag: surprise

How far we’ve come

I saw the light
I’ve been baptized
By the fire in your touch
And the flame in your eyes
I’m born to love again
I’m a brand new man

As these words rang out across the stadium – quite clearly, surprisingly, seeing as where we were – my lips were already moving in synch, silently matching every word since the initial “I”… and tears welled in my eyes, beginning almost immediately to overflow.

I was attending the Brooks and Dunn concert at the rodeo tonight in Houston, kind of as a celebration of my life, for my birthday – something for me, on my own.

I’d asked my mom to stick around with me, but she was ready to head home, so I was okay hanging on my own for the musicians and their music.

When I was about eight years old, I attended the Brooks and Dunn performance at the Astrodome, also for the rodeo.

During their performance, when walking around on the dirt, they pulled two ladies out from the audience to dance with them.

I remember distinctly being upset and embarrassed as the one lady proved, after two quick but failed attempts, that she could not do any sort of partner dancing, let alone the by of two-stepping one of them wanted to do with her.

Rather than rejecting the lady, reading her out for a better model – that’s actually how my brain analyzed it at the time – he just grabbed her around her waist/hips area, and swung her around in a circle or few.

My frustration at this lady for having been unprepared for such a monumental opportunity – dancing with Brooks and Dunn – was not only projected blindly, but had me consider how I would have done, if I’d been the one pulled out onto the floor…

I was rather confident that I would have been able to manage it.

However, I fully acknowledged that I was not certain.

And so I made it my business immediately after this event to make certain that I knew how to two-step and could do it with just about anybody on demand.

Fast-forward a couple decades, and see me at the concert tonight… I found it almost ironic that, though I never anticipated to be pulled out to dance with Brooks and Dunn, here I was, two decades later, likely one of the best country western dancers in the entire stadium, knowledge, ability, and a world title to prove it.

Isn’t that at least a little bit totally crazy?(!!!)?

Anyway, so I can dance, and extremely well, but that’s only part of my mentioning all of this.

When the guys began playing and singing tonight, I was in instant and somewhat constant tears (even throughout the whole show!), right?

Right.

And it occurred quickly to me, This is the power of music.

I was somehow transported to my life when I listed probably daily to Brooks and Dunn music, as I simultaneously saw all that had happened between them and now, how what felt like a lifetime and ten different people ago had somehow led me to today, to who I am today.

There was a lot of good and a decent amount of bad in there, especially early on, and it was a very, very full time all throughout.

And, somehow, here I am, experiencing it all again, while feeling empowered by the open bliss and joy for life I felt back then, reminded of the sadness of what I went through off and on, and encouraged by the fact that I have made it to here so far, and I’ve plenty more wonderful expansion and beautiful growth yet to come for myself in my life.

All of this from music, specific songs and notes and voices and instruments all put together in a certain way, as though, almost, specifically and intentionally with me in mind.

It was of the best kind of medicine.

And this reminds me of how my high school band director always used to tell us that music is a language… tonight, their music spoke directly to me, throughout every place within me.

Post-a-day 2019

Friends in action

There is a bit of a tizzy going on amongst those sitting in the director’s circle, just after my friend begins her solo song. I hear something like an ‘I don’t Know,’ from the circle as Blue Sweater turns ’round, shaking his head intensely with an air of sighing disbelief.

“Are you talking about the rag that was left behind?” I ask, since she had just had to step over a dropped white rag from the previous scene.

“What?”

I repeat.

“No. HER,” he says, somewhat dramatically, tipping his head toward the girl on stage, toward my friend. “She’s …perfection. She’s… she’s just perfection,” he says, hands flying with something like exasperation.

‘Oh.’ I agree… a few moments of silent awe follow, as everyone watches her on stage.

Shaking his head, “I mean, she has to know how perfect she is… she Has to know – I Have to give her the note,” and he flips open and begins writing in a notebook.

Everyone watching the stage is smiling, and they are smiles from deep within.

🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Uninvited overnight guest

Not the messages you want to be sending anyone at three in the morning:

Not great news: 80% certain that there is an animal in the attic right now. I went out front to look on the wall, and saw no creature there (just some old vines). There is a hole in the roof by the porch, though, and I can hear it going crazy right now.

It sounds like it is genuinely destroying boards inside the wall. I hear things falling down the wall.

And yet, I just sent them.

And it is terrifying me just a little bit, because this creature sounds totally capable of breaking through the walls within definitely a few hours…. so I’m nervous to go to sleep, and risk having a creature fully in the house when I awaken with a jolt at its entry.

……. 😦

Post-a-day 2019

Girl Rising

Tonight, I finally watched a film recommended to me by a couple of high school senior girls, called “Girl Rising“.

Before it even was finished, I found myself rather wanting to find a way to get myself funded to go over somewhere where teachers are needed, and to teach children (girls especially) everything I possibly can.

And I am now somewhat worried that I might actually end up doing something radical… like just that… or even finding a way to find a girls boarding school here somewhere, to bring girls who otherwise can’t afford anything, let alone education, and that will be this school I have considered and discussed so much in recent years, the one I have though about founding…

That seems even more absurd than my just going somewhere… somehow…

P.S. I recommend the film.

Post-a-day 2019

Gullible

Back in high school, there was, as is likely often the case with high schoolers, a phase of everyone telling each other that “‘gullible’ is written on the ceiling.”

In the middle of that phase of adolescence, I was hanging out one day with a couple or few friends, just outside the school theatre.

Outside the entry doors to the theatre, the building’s roof continues to the sides, creating a large concrete-based overhang/roof over the walkway immediately surrounding the theatre.

We were hanging out in this area, stage left of the entry doors.

Being my usual self, I was browsing my surroundings, including the ceiling above me.

Curiosity struck me, when I came across something unique.

“What does ‘gullible’ mean?” I asked those with me.

They paused to look at me and scoff, or something of the sort.

Having received no useful answer, I explained the reason for my question.

Pointing at the ceiling, I told them, “It’s written up there, on the ceiling.”

The irony of the event and my statement finally struck me, when I learned the definition of the word later on, but I was met with little interest in looking to where I was pointing at the time – no one trusted or believed me.

I eventually – not sure if it was almost immediately or weeks or months later – started telling people about this incident, always chuckling at the whole affair, and was usually met with disbelief and distrust – only on occasion did someone believe me and share in the hilarity of the story and situation with me.

I worked usually in vain to explain how someone could go find the very word himself or herself, always wondering if it even was still there.

Today, more than a decade later, I went back to that same area, and dropped my head back to scan the ceiling…

Over to the side, just as I remembered it, in its pencil-lead-looking ink and terrible handwriting that was likely snuck up there in a huge hurry while teachers were out of sight, was this:

(And a slightly zoomed-in version:)

Snazzy, huh? ;P

Post-a-day 2019

Nerding into the finish line

Tonight was great.

I turned in the hard copy of my paper (digital copy was earlier today – I just couldn’t get to campus until after work), and then somewhat spontaneously went to dinner with a friend from college (finally, it worked out for both of us).

Dinner was great.

The restaurant we picked, which the friend had picked at random from the two options I gave, was shut down, and so we went to the other option, and the pumpkin red curry special was just what I’d needed and wanted on this cold and windy night.

I ran into an old friend from dance while having dinner, and that was fun.

The friend and I having dinner together talked a lot about boats, because he works with boats and art, and then we finished a crossword puzzle.

It was a nerdy affair, and I definitely loved it – a rather perfect end to the semester for me, really.

Post-a-day 2018

Dream it, girl!

I am bursting at the seams with joy and delight tonight!

Remember just the other week, how I kept running into 渡辺 謙 (Ken Watanabe) things all over the place?

Remember how one of them was that quick-change from the Tony Awards, and how it made me really wish I could see that performance of his, in “The King and I”, even though it ended, like, over a year ago?

Believe it or not, due to a reason I know not, that production is, for two nights only, being shown in select movie theaters here in the USA.

Obviously, I (re)arranged everything, and I attended tonight’s showing of the performance.

It was spectacular, and almost even better than an actual live theater performance, because everyone and everything was so much bigger and easier to see, up there on the big screen. 😛

And, let’s be real here, I hadn’t seen the show since I was itty bitty, so I totally balled my eyes out at the end…

Also, the curtain call always makes a show feel complete – this one was no excuse – and I think that’s what’s missing from regular films, is a curtain call… a tiny nudge back to real life after the show, and a chance to show one’s extreme appreciation for the performance just given.

Plus, clapping and cheering and hollering, with a glint of tears in the eyes, is a totally fun way to end the event.

Anyway, thanks, whoever you are, who decided to show this performance for me tonight – miniature dream just came true! Woohoo!

Post-a-day 2018

Life

The Universe gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

Period.

Today, I needed a reminder of the magic that abounds, and I was granted that reminder thoroughly and beautifully.

I was even declared an interpreter by someone who didn’t even know that languages are a prominent part of my life, nor that I know more than one language.

And, on my way home this evening, just to let myself free in having fun, I sang a free-flowing song in a language I don’t entirely understand (yet, anyway)…. and it, too, was magical.

Yes, today has been magical, magic-filled from the Universe.

Thank you

Post-a-day 2018