6/15/2013
6/11/2013
Stop. Look. Listen.
One of our kids, at preschool age, learned this phrase incorrectly and would utter "Stop. Look and Licken," when we would prepare to cross a street. In loving and nurturing parental fashion, we never corrected her and soon we all had a new phrase for practicing safe crossings.
There are all kinds of crossings in life.
The saying stays with me. Stop, look and listen. My life is busy. I plan each day for a busy life. I enjoy it. Living is a lot like showing up at the Sunday buffet and having to chose what you are not going to taste. I'm not particularly good at saying no. I want the entire feast!
Last weekend I spent some time in Asheville, NC. I had two wonderful days with nothing planned. I went for a hike in the mountain woods, visited the Folk Art Center, took a long sit at a Blue Ridge Parkway overlook, and tarried for hours in a local coffee shop writing, reading and relaxing. I stopped, slowed down, looked at the world I was in and savored, listened, to the details and nuances of my living - that one day. It was a beautiful day. I think I'll do it some more.
When is the last time you followed the simple direction: Stop, look and listen?
6/07/2013
Miasma Episode I
NOTE: This is a creative writing piece and could be one of a series that creates a fantasy character to allow for observational prose...
My name is Miasma. Actually, Miasma isn't my real name and if I tried to tell you my real name your ears would not hear it nor would your mind grasp it, so for you and the world you see, I am Miasma.
I am a watcher of people and their things for in my watching I find some degree of comfort, some measure of essence that I would otherwise lose and soon I might fade beyond the reach of this world. I cannot touch it or you anymore, so I watch. My presence is veiled to you, no more than the wisp of a cloud or the last mist of a spring morning. I can only watch. I watch the beauty and the ugliness.
Today I watch her, this child with brilliant blue eyes, dancing with light. If you would see her you would most likely be so struck by the particular shade of azure blue brimming from her eyes that you might miss the truly brilliant light that is her eagerness of being as it radiates into the world around her. Yes, I see this radiance. Some might discount her shine as youthful and untainted enthusiasm, but I know better. I have seen this before and today as I watch her trace her fingers along the cracked mortar between the smooth wall stones, I know that this youngling is a rare and delicate version among your kind. She hums a simple tune, one that rises from her inner being and as her wordless song touches the air and all around her I feel the urge to bow, I and every form of life around her would sway upon her song if she only wished it so. She doesn't, for she doesn't know how, yet...
5/26/2013
5/20/2013
Words! Get You Some!
Word Smith – Beat the Crap Out of It
word (wûrd)
n.
1. A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.
smith (sm
th)
n.
1. A metalworker, especially one who works metal when it is hot and malleable. Often used in combination: a silversmith; a goldsmith.
2. A blacksmith.
3. One who makes or works at something specified. Often used in combination: a locksmith; a wordsmith.
word·smith (wûrd
sm
th
)
n.
1. A fluent and prolific writer, especially one who writes professionally.
2. An expert on words.
Turning, Spraining and Breaking Phrases
I love a well turned phrase or saying. Be it of colloquial origin or something crafted in context, clever phrases interest me.
My mother punctuates many of her statements with, “Don’t Ya Know?” It isn’t intended so much as a question as a way of emphasizing a fact as she has stated it.
My grandmother is known for coining the phrase, in a moment of Southern Bell disgust second to none, “That just makes my ass want a cup of coffee.” I’m not sure how it means what it means, but there is no doubt what it means.
One of my colleagues often would say he was, “Frosted Flakes Great!” That one needs little explanation.
And, although I’m not sure of the origin in my own family mythology, somewhere I picked up the proclamation that one can be “Finer than frog hair.”
Do you have any such turned, twisted or mangled phrases you can share? Feel free. Why it would be “gooder than snuff and not half as dusty,” I’m sure!
