I go through stretches wherein my daily routine is to be seriously concerned, first thing in the morning, that my arm died during my sleep. It’s unnerving (pun intended) to have my feeling be limited only to its weight.
At some point, in order to become who you were born to be, you must find purpose on the other side of inexperience and fear.
Of course, we put a lot of weight on the idea of “purpose.” The truth is also that you must also cross the barriers of inexperience and fear to learn any skill – whether it feels like purpose or not.
The fix is in We left nothing to chance The fix is in We’ll sing and we’ll dance The fix is in You’ll know us at a glance The fix is in
They’re closing in All our rocks overturned They’re closing in Our dark secrets they’ve learned They’re closing in Our legacies burned They’re closing in
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Now I’m imaging Bob the Builder and his buddies all going to jail on some RICO charges.
I wrote this initially without realizing from whence at least part of its words were derived. After reading it a few times, I decided to go look for the potential source of my inspiration. It did not take too much searching.
It turns out that my brain conjured up the lyrics to a song by an English rock band called “Elbow” (I’ll link a video below) which I had not heard in several years. I do know the song though and I definitely must have ripped it off in writing this. Their song “The Fix” is about rigging a horse race… but you’ll see that the similarities are pretty obvious.
I confess all of this to you because I am fascinated by the way memory works and how mine drew from something creatively without my overt intention. I also just like this song and I want to share it.
All of the above said… a lot of this poem is my own work, too. I was thinking as I wrote it, about how most of the people who steal something probably feel absolutely confident after… until they don’t. It all just seems so stressful to me.
Freddie Kaminski blows ten birthday candles out at the local Chuck E. Cheese, in front of a crowd of six that includes his older sister, Julie, and both of his parents. Despite no school absences from any classmates the day before, his parents spent the morning fielding numerous barely apologetic phone calls from other parents proclaiming the sudden onset of an illness, or some other unexpected circumstance, and thus an inability to attend.
Freddie thinks to himself, as he observes the continued surprise, disappointment, and worry of his family, that he had told them he did not want a party this year.
Is this how villains are made? Or is this how parents are made aware of the fact that a villain has already been made?
This story is mostly just a projection of parenting anxiety.
Social adjustment is probably more important than anything academic you pick up when you’re young (though not being able to do academic basics can be an obstacle to social adjustment.) It is my experience, based on several interview and hiring experiences, that homeschooled kids are often far more well-adjusted than their peers. There is something to be said for inculcating emotional security until it permeates a person’s self-identity.
This scene is the moment in a relationship wherein the rubber meets the road. No. There needs to be a better way to phrase it than that. When push comes to shove? No. That doesn’t quite work, either, as I hope shoving is avoided. When the Rubicon is crossed?
Maybe an idiom doesn’t work here (I’m open to suggestions.)
There is usually a point in a relationship wherein the two parties either decide to pursue a long-term relationship, or not, and the “I love you” conversation is often that point. I once dated a girl for several months when we hit this moment. I was the one who delivered the “I’m sorry” part of that conversation. It went as well as was possible, but it eventually became part of my own personal mythology. While she cried, for a very long time, I… did not. My friends – when I told them this story later – thought the mental picture of me sitting there stone-faced while she cried on my shoulder was hilarious. The laughing was at my expense, not hers, as most people who know me well seem to agree that I am unusually disconnected from the up and down of human feelings.
I enjoy haikus and wanted to write one featuring an event from nature. Both lightning and insults are things to hurl. “Barbs” felt like a good descriptor of lightning. Thus the theme of an argument emerged.
I wanted to write a “fight or flight” story and this one illustrates that it is possible for one’s impulsive instincts to go too far.
When I was a kid, my family was once awakened to the sound of about 10 firetrucks parked on my street, blaring their sirens, putting out a fire two houses away. The neighbors who lived there were out of town and apparently their aquarium caught on fire while they were gone. I assume – but cannot say definitively – that this was not an elaborately staged spider removal tactic. Either way, the blaze is well-etched in my memory.
Burning the house might be one of the few fail-proof ways for an arachnophobe to know for certain that the spiders did not survive, however, there are undoubtedly better approaches to dealing with a eight-legged infestation.
It can be useful information, before living with another person, to find out whether and to what degree he or she is afraid of spiders. If so, having contingencies in place to help that person, in the event of a spider encounter, could be in one’s best interest. Reasonableness in fighting or flighting is key. Since a fire is self-defeating and a basilisk might bring about more harm than good, a housecat or a pet lizard might help to keep down the local arachnid population.
The neighbors of the upscale Carlisle Creek suburban housing addition gather outside, in their yards and along sidewalks and streets, to witness the home-shaking display taking place in the distance above them. The sky is alight with explosions that color the heavens like too many fireworks.
It had been a surprise to humanity that the hostile extra-terrestrial visitors considered the recent passage of the Voyager 2 space probe through the outer solar system a breach of their sovereign space.
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I have always thought it was a bit brazen to send space probes into outer space, especially with a bit of encouragement to come find us. One person or agency’s sense of exploration could quickly lead to an extra-terrestrial annihilation of all humanity if we just so happen to meet the wrong ETs. Our own past here on earth tells us as much. Is a vigorously enforced “sovereign space” unrealistic? Our own history her eon earth suggests that it is not.
Of course, if ETs showed up en masse, I suspect many of us would stand outside and watch.
We travel in trains and cars Stare up at the stars Build rocket ships to Mars
But we can’t map the space between two hearts Don’t know where that journey starts Can’t build the vessel, don’t have the parts
Love rides in us, like a ship on the sea It pushes us to go, and commands where to be It connects earth and sky and you and me.
A lot of our greatest achievements are motivated by love in one way or another. You do the work and make the journey (literal or metaphorical) hoping to find something better and very love-like at the other side of the effort (accolades, beauty, a sense of accomplishment, etc.)
In short, love is always trying to connect with itself. We are the means by which it makes the voyage.
The quiet of a house undoubtedly feels different, and deeper, when the other people who contributed to its sound are not coming back.
I’ve always been kind of interested in that type of scene. Despite never experiencing it myself, and after putting some thought into it I now think I know why.
You always used to know you’d reached the end of a TV series when you got to this scene. The place where the whole show has taken place is now empty and one person is left to reminisce before turning the lights off.
Dusty Writes 