I've had a few strange things happen to me lately, regarding my health. And of course, WedMD and the like don't help with hysteria. After some blood tests, I'm perfectly fine. Chalk it up to some sleepless nights and stress, and our bodies and mind are quite in tune with one another. Sometimes, we need to put ourselves first. And while many people have no problem doing that, many of us do not. I'm not sure exactly what molds a person that way. I think mine comes from my childhood, something I've written about before, so forgive me if I sound like a broken recording. Growing up with a brother whose intelligence was way beyond mine, perhaps I overcompensated in other areas. That my accolades often came from "doing" rather than "being." The good daughter. The good dancer. The good student. It took me a very long time to get to a place where I understood myself. I'm still on that journey. Perhaps I will go to the grave that way. Maybe it's not about childhood at all, but just how we're born, wired. Maybe my work ethic, the way I like to stretch my body till it hurts, work until I see blurry lines in front of my face, stay up way past reasonable hours thinking and perfecting and sighing when I feel I'm not there, is just who I am. Maybe a little pain lets me know I'm alive. When a colleague told me, "We missed you at our meeting," I was reminded that I do love life but I'm not afraid to die. Why is it that people don't like to talk about that? Or mention it? I explained to her that I had to have some tests done. She was shocked. "I don't know anyone healthier than you." Yes. I am the picture of health on the outside. But our minds. Our minds have their own health issues. Show me any person alive, and I'll show you another world within them we don't get to see or hear the way they do. It's a whole universe in there. Alive and thriving some days; barely hanging on others. There are landscapes and dreams and color and black and white and roses and dirt; and sometimes, all at once. Maybe that's why writers must write. Or painters paint. Or dancers dance. Or singers sing. Or musicians play. We have two worlds, two lives. Maybe that's why we become exhausted, keeping up with both. I said: "Well...we all are going to die someday, right?" She was shocked and horrified and said: "Perhaps while you're at it, you might want to talk to a psychologist." I smiled, not offended in the least. "Perhaps I should. My mind certainly has a lot to say." But really. Besides being a notoriously rude person, she really didn't understand that I don't fear getting sick or fighting the inevitable. It's foolish. Haven't we read enough literature by now to know that fate cannot be avoided. As Shakespeare's Caesar's said: Of all the wonders that I have heard,/It seems to me most that men should fear;/Seeing death, a necessary end,/Will come when it will come." I'm not suicidal for goodness sake. But for all my romantic notions, there lives a pragmatist in me as well--sort of exactly like the two worlds that inhabit my mind within the same body. Maybe, I'm just an old soul with healthy, young eyes.
2 Comments
I have always been creative, artsy, one might say. From fashion to dance to writing, my mind seems to see the world in images and art. It’s an odd thing, or at least I used to think so. What can you do for a career with that though? Being "artsy" isn't practical. I’d often hear. So when a certificate course of study was offered for high school students to finish with college credit in Interior Design, I jumped at the chance. Of course, nothing is as easy as picking out pictures and furniture or paint colors and style, and so it’s one of those things that never fully took hold. When I dated an older man from a bit of a wealthy background, I found myself dabbling for people, first for free, and then for small fees. I think he just wanted me to have a “career,” but I was only just in college then, finding myself, discovering who I was, making sense of my urges, and growing into the person and career I wanted. What I discovered is there wasn’t much that was creative about it. In fact, it stifled creativity. It wasn’t MY creativity. It was THEIR creativity. I’m sure that brings people much joy, to exact a plan to specifications, perfectly to someone’s expectations, to watch their joy about the completion and fruition of a vision. It can be. Do not get me wrong. But more often than not, it was just frustrating. My taste and style may not be someone else’s, and frankly, it didn’t matter. If someone wanted things I found repulsive, I followed through. After all, that was the job. And more and more, people would say they wanted a particular style or time period, but really what they wanted was a page out of Pottery Barn over and over. This wasn't about me feeling satisfied with art or beauty or creation; it was about basically doing what I was told. And I don't like doing what I'm told (unless maybe in the bedroom. :) But I digress!) This concept is no different when it comes to writing, especially poetry. A creative person needs to create. Not for pay. Not for someone else. But only for herself. There are people who write for others. Some prompts make me feel that way. Write about THIS. But I don’t want to write about THAT if it doesn’t inspire me or touch me or reach me. It’s artificial to me. Instead, I want to write about the sky or the weather or love or my dreams or my thoughts or my fears or my fantasies or my relationships or my experiences or my self-discovery or my stream-of-conscious rants; in short, I want to write about whatever I want to write about or feeling at that moment. It’s a burning urge that is almost impossible to extinguish. I have stopped trying. I create because I can’t do anything else. It comes out of me. It spills forth, whether I share it with someone or not. I write so much, so much of it I’m afraid to share, the darker moments of my psyche for instance, but I have yet to fall prey to writing for what I think an audience wants. Perhaps that is a mistake. Perhaps that is precisely what I’m doing wrong. But for now, I see the interior design of my mind, and I try to convey it with words. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I don’t. But I never have to paint it orange when I want to paint it black. And perhaps that's not practical. But perhaps practical is overrated. Have you heard people use the term “love of my life”? Have you used it? And what is it really? What constitutes using that phrase? Can it happen more than once and therefore, an overused, trite phrase? Is it really “love of my life right now”? Or worse, do you only know that because it was someone you let get away? Someone you wish you hadn’t? Or have you yet to meet the “love of your life,” and are you still waiting? To me, this means someone you love wholly. Someone you don’t want to change, and someone who doesn’t want to change you in any way. It’s that someone who fulfills you--emotionally, sexually, intellectually. That person who makes you laugh. Who “gets” you. Who finds you beautiful even when you know you’re not. It’s acceptance. It’s that someone who makes you love yourself, even when it’s very hard to do. It’s someone who looks into you, at your scars, both figuratively and literally, and loves you anyway. And it’s symbiotic. To me, it doesn’t mean a perfect love or a love that is superficial. It is deep, fulfilling. It is a love that challenges you on occasion. A love that is passionate. A love that transcends anything you’ve ever felt before. It’s poetry really. It’s beauty but not in a physical sense. Not at all. It’s about souls connecting in another dimension of living. It makes you feel as if you weren’t living before. And it’s never jealous. Is this “love of my life” real? Fleeting? Just another romantic fantasy? For those of us who have been there, it’s the very reason for existence. i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) E.E. Cummings In my profession, I hear this a lot: “Everyone needs a bachelor’s degree. The bachelor’s degree is the new associate's degree. Most companies/professions don’t even care what the degree is, as long is there is a degree, that someone finished a program, can show they have work ethic and drive and some common set of skills." I’m not sure if this is true. Ironically, college enrollment is down everywhere where I live (myriad theories on that, including that most families are smaller than they used to be), and there are always those who find great success without finishing a bachelor’s degree, my brother being one, a computer guru who makes a helluva lot more than me. And I’m seeing a lot of the younger generation, not all that removed from me to be honest, coming up with all kinds of entrepreneurial things. But can they be successful? Truly? Are they really setting themselves up for failure? Or do MANY people do just fine without a degree? A lot of the jobs that people used to do without a degree seem to be morphing now as society changes. While some of the past are still present--factory jobs for instance, some pretty damn traditionally good paying ones--are being lost completely, plastics as an example or outsourcing as we know it. But plumbers and electricians aren’t going anyway; police officers and firemen too; and it’s interesting to see other things cropping up: uber drivers and others like them, grocery deliverers that didn’t exist, all kinds of food trucks, youtubers, online start-ups that never existed, writers (😊 ), poets, musicians, artists, and the list continues. People are different. People learn differently. But is a high school diploma enough to be well-rounded in things like the written and spoken word for most people? I teach in a field that doesn’t necessarily prepare anyone for a career, but instead, is supposed to prepare them to work hard, to think critically, to research, to discern credibility of information, to understand different cultures, to look at ideas and problems and issues from different perspectives and points of views, to be free thinkers, and so on. Isn't college supposed to be much more than the job it gets us? Shouldn't it be more? I think it’s important. Very. But how important is a college degree to getting us there, getting us to think? I, myself, don’t really know any different track personally. I didn’t stop my education until I became employed, and I’m still going! But wouldn’t traveling fulfill the same goals? But aaaah…that damn thing called money. How do you travel without that? Is college for everyone? Are we really doing so many people a disservice if we think this way? I think we are. Every day I see that it isn’t for everyone. And every day I wish I had answers. SHOULD it be for everyone? And is that just it? The way it’s set up, it isn't. And is that the crux of the problem? Are our educational institutions too traditional? My dad didn’t complete high school, and he managed to create a business that made him a wealthy man. Does it really just come down to drive? And work ethic? The desire to succeed? To have a dream and to follow it? I wish it were that easy. So many don’t have a dream, have no clue what they might find to feed their soul. In anything! Some days, I think I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. Do dreams always align with reality? And that is another issue in itself...
And so I ask you? Where do you land on this spectrum? And are you happy with the exact path you have taken? |
Details
I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
Categories
All
Archives
November 2022
|