Boots

Ah, music.  How just the sound of a song can take you back to a particular time and place.

Yesterday, SS and I were talking about . . . something . . . and it reminded her of the song, These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, and I started to sing the song.  I could hear it so clearly in my head, and I was four or five years old again, in my memory.  I had to smile, and then I downloaded the album, Boots, by Nancy Sinatra.  Go ahead; listen to some of the samples of some of the songs.  If you’re close to my age, that sixties sound will be familiar and I hope will take you back to pleasant memories.  If you’re quite a bit younger than I am, or young enough that your parents are close to my age, you’ll probably be rolling your eyes and laughing.  My sister showed this picture to her husband this morning after I emailed it to her and he made a joke about her stylish clothes.  She said to him, “Hey, don’t talk.  All your childhood pictures have people with beehive hairdos!”

But man, what great memories that album brings back for me.  Sister had it and played it fairly often.  The Amazon page I linked to above says it was originally released in 1966.  This picture is from 1968.  Sister had just turned 11 and I was 4 1/2.  See her boots?  Aren’t they cool?  I grew up following her around like a puppy, adoring her and thinking she was just the coolest human being ever.  She’s still one of my very favorite people.

After I downloaded the album, I played some of the songs and couldn’t stop grinning and dancing in my chair.  I remember, especially when hearing the music at the end of These Boots, after she says “Are you ready, boots?  Start walkin’”, standing in our living room with Sister and doing The Pony and The Swim.  Anybody remember those dances?

I especially remember the part of The Swim, where you hold your nose and raise your other arm above your head and “go under the water”.  I loved that part.  I could really wiggle those hips when I was little.  Or at least I thought I could.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

And in other news, I wrote my first 1733 words of NaNo this morning between midnight and 1:10 am.  Woot!  Woot!

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Wready To Wrimo

I am Wready to Wrimo!

I have a murder (both method and motive), a person living under an assumed identity, a love story, a breakup, a child with questionable paternity, and a lot of other exciting stuff.

I have my yWriter file set up with chapters and scenes ready to write, as well as notes and character bios created.

I have my NaNoWriMo 2009 t-shirt, my NaNoWriMo mugs, and my hat that says, “Oh, this is SO going into my next novel.”

I have lots of Dunkin Donuts coffee (the kind you make at home), and my this-year’s-writing-snack (I’m having Johnsonville Beddar with Cheddar this year (gluten free – SS checked them out online the other night when I was in the grocery store and we were on the phone).

I’m inspired, I’m excited, I’m as prepared as I’m going to be, and I’ll be well-rested after the nap I’m going to take tonight, waking up at about 11:30 to make coffee and get prepared to start writing at midnight.  (I like to get my first couple hours in right after midnight.  Just a fun tradition, especially when November 1st falls on a weekend.)

When I was looking for a file on the computer earlier, I came across some NaNo-related graphics I made in 2005 and 2006 for my old diary.

The web site I used for my old diary was set up so users could make banner ads and run them on the user’s section of the site so that other users could click them and read each other’s diaries.  I made some ads for my NaNoWriMo entries, including some that I ran in the days leading up to the start of NaNo.

P.S. I’m adding NaNoWriMo to my Bliss List.

Counting down . . .

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Desiderata

I was organizing some of my links today, and I came across this post in Beyond Meds’ blog.  It’s Desiderata.  I first heard it spoken on an old Leonard Nimoy album I had as a kid, called Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy. The track was called Spock Thoughts.

My sister used to have a framed copy of Desiderata hanging on the wall of the house where she lived with her first husband, and she could quote it in its entirety.  It’s been something I was aware of for years, and grew up with, but I’d never really realized just how powerful and amazing and profound it is until today, reading it again, after so many years.

I sat down and started to organize my links while taking a bit of a break from my apartment decrapulation (borrowing a word from My Pre-Blog, who I am so hoping will start posting again soon!).  It’s going pretty well and making me feel more and more hopeful that I can truly dig myself out from under my clutter issues.

I think, once I have things the way I want them in my apartment, I will print and frame a copy of Desiderata to hang on my office wall, and I’m adding it to my Bliss List as well:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.  Especially do not feign affection.  Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.  But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.  Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.  You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.  Strive to be happy.

- by Max Ehrmann

Ten on Tuesday – Favorite TV Characters

I’m participating in “Ten on Tuesday” today.  Since the most recent entry is Ten Things You Think Are Cool, and I recently started a Bliss List that I would just end up repeating if I did that one, I decided to look for a topic that would be different.  I found the August 4th entry, 10 Favorite Characters From Television.  I started the list a little slowly, until it dawned on me that the characters probably don’t have to be from current shows that are still running.

So, here is my list (not in order of preference):

1.  Bianca Montgomery, All My Children

2.  Tad Martin, All My Children

3.  Melinda Gordon, Ghost Whisperer

4.  Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

5.  Allison Dubois, Medium

7.  Audrey Penney, Ellen

8.  Regina Newly, Samantha Who?

9.  Samantha Stephens, Bewitched

10. Dharma Finklestein Montgomery, Dharma & Greg

Like Dominoes

I truly didn’t believe there could be anyone out there who was this perfectly suited for me.  I mean, what were that chances of that?  In every relationship, there are compatibilities and there are differences.  There are the things that work out easily and the obstacles to overcome.  In each of my past relationships, there were those issues that I had to ask myself if I were willing to accept and work with, and I’m sure each of the people I had relationships with had to ask themselves similar questions about me.  In each case, the final answer was “no”.

Fast forward through several years of my being unwilling to trust again or allow myself to be vulnerable; my shutting down of so many parts of myself connected to the passion and joie de vivre that I’m rediscovering now; the unraveling, layer by layer, of the health issues I’ve been dealing with and what works to lessen the symptoms of each; two-plus years of therapy; and my beginning to pay attention to and appreciate those things that bring me bliss . . . and like dominoes, everything else fell into place.

One night, while having a great visit with my friend RB, I brought up the topic of asking the Universe for what one wants.  We talked about how some people make a list of all the qualities they would want in a mate and put it out there for the Universe to find that person.  I was actually joking when I said that if I were to want someone in my life (and I quickly qualified that I did not, although that may have been the moment I peeled the very tiniest tip off of the corner of my anti-relationship resolve), I would want someone like a physicist (because I figured a physicist would be willing to ponder with me about the sorts of things I like to ponder about; the things that cause most people to look at me with an amused or bemused or bored expression, like time travel and multiple universes and astral projection and energy fields).  I added that I would prefer a person with Celiacs as well, so that gluten and the sharing of a kitchen would not be an issue.  We then began to build (in a joking way) on what other qualities this Celiac Physicist Person would possess.

I went home and began to compose a list (complete with a disclaimer at the top, saying that I wasn’t actually ready to ask for this person, just in case the Universe was reading over my shoulder).  I wound up with 58 carefully thought-out items on my list.  Items such as “Is a good communicator”, “Is a night owl like me”, “Understands therapy”, “Appreciates compromise on both our parts”, “Understands ADD but does not have it”, “Understands fibromyalgia but does not have it”, “Respects boundaries”, “Is not controlling or manipulative”, “Level of mental health, self awareness, and personal growth is compatible with mine”, “Spiritual / religious views are compatible with mine”, “Moral values are compatible with mine”, “Political views are compatible with mine”, “Sense of humor is compatible with mine”, along with many items that were more personal.  Many of the items on my list came from what I learned was wrong for me in previous relationships, but many also came from what I learned had been right.  I used the phrase “compatible with mine” to indicate that I wouldn’t want to be with someone who was “just like me” in too many ways, but that it’s possible to hold differing but compatible views, opinions, and qualities, and often those things tend to allow one to enhance or balance the other.

Well, I wrote my list and then put it away.  I figured if I ever reached the point of really wanting someone in my life, I would get it back out and dust it off then, and polish it, before putting the request out there.

But the Universe was evidently reading over my shoulder.  And it turned out that I already knew this person, who is not a physicist and does not have Celiacs.  She does, however, ponder things the way I do (and even on similar or compatible topics as the ones I love to ponder), and she has decided to become completely gluten free, for me.  That touches me so deeply, the way she so matter-of-factly and willingly decided to do that.  For us.

I’ve always believed (with the exception of those times when I was too emotionally constricted and cut-off from my feelings to believe in anything) that things happen for a reason, and at the time they are supposed to happen.  This certainly feels destined or fated, and I would not have been ready for this six months, or three months, or even three weeks, before the time when it began to develop to beyond-friendship feelings.

Even though I’m not normally one to quote biblical verses, I keep hearing, in my mind, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, American Standard version).

Bliss List Item # 10

Private jokes.

A.M. Radio

This song is just plain fun, especially if you are near my age.

Bliss List Item # 9

Bliss List Item # 9 . . . When one specific person’s laugh has the power to make you feel hugged . . .

See other Bliss List entries

Me

Continuing on with my list of songs and entire CD’s that have moved me over the years, here is another.

I love to listen to Paula Cole’s This Fire (1996) very loudly n the car.  In fact, in the “thanks” section in the little booklet in the CD case, it says, “P.S. to the listener: I recommend playing this record loudly.  I hope it sends you on a journey.”  And it does.  It most certainly does.

One song from that CD that has always felt particularly powerful to me personally is called Me.  I have loved, for years, to sing it at the top of my lungs (and completely ignore the fact that I’m not a singer), and I have rarely gotten through the whole song without choking with emotion at least once.

My favorite verse is the one that begins, “I am walking on the bridge”.  I remember, once, listening to it with someone I knew.  That person said she thought the song was about suicidal feelings, but I never got that at all.  I always felt it was about facing fears and taking a risk for positive change.

I was kind of surprised to realize that this youtube video was just recorded a week ago, on the very day that Good Friend helped me get sound on my computer again, which prompted me to start digging through CD’s all week and re-experience all the music I have loved so much over the years.  It’s all kind of synchronistic.

Paula Cole
Me

I am not the person who is singing
I am the silent one inside
I am not the one who laughs at people’s jokes
I just pacify their egos

I am not my house or my car or my songs
They are only stops along my way
I am like the winter
I’m a dark cold female
With the golden ring of wisdom in my cave

CHORUS:

And it is me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence

I am carrying my voice
I am carrying my heart
I am carrying my rhythm
I am carrying my prayers

But you can’t kill my spirit
It’s soaring and it’s strong
And like a mountain
I will go on and on
But when my wings are folded
The brightly colored moth
Blends into the dirt into the ground

Chorus

And it’s me who’s too weak
And it’s me who’s too shy
To ask for the thing I love
And it’s me who’s too weak
And it’s me who’s too shy
To ask for the thing I love
That I love

I am walking on the bridge
I am over the water
And I’m scared as hell
But I know there’s something better
Yes I know there’s something better
Yes I know, yes I know, yes I know

That I love (5 Times Overlapping Chorus)

But it’s me
And it’s me
But it’s me

See other Bliss List entries

If No One Will Listen

I’ve been reacquanting myself with my favorite music lately.  A good friend helped me get sound on my computer again (ahhh, sound!  Thank you, Good Friend!) and I’ve been organizing my music files and treating myself to some new downloads of old favorites from Amazon.  That prompted me to get out some favorite CD’s and listen to them again.  The CD player in my car has been broken for months and I haven’t played my turn-it-up-loud-and-sing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs favorites in so long.  I’ve been in withdrawal.

Well, last night, one of the CD’s I played on the computer while I was working on stuff was Keri Noble’s Fearless.  It is very high on my list of my favorite CD’s ever made.

This is one of my favorite songs on that CD.  I always kind of thought of it as an anthem to friendship, but listening to it last night, after not having heard it in a long time, it feels even more personal now, as an anthem to friendship between friends who have done or are doing therapy.

The verse that has always moved me the most is “No one can take you where you alone must go / There’s no telling what you will find there / And, God, I know the fear that eats away at your bones / It’s screaming every step, ‘Just stay here’”.  To me, it’s about the fact that therapy (and what it takes to achieve real change) isn’t something anyone else can do for you, no matter how supportive they may be, and it’s about that fear of pushing through the hard changes and the fear-induced desire to just stay stuck (it seems easier, less threatening), or to go back to that place before therapy, where we used to be able to turn it off and not feel so much.

And the whole song is about someone who has been there and knows those feelings, being there for support for a friend / loved one.

I will be here, still.

It’s an amazing song.

See other Bliss List entries