Trip to Florida: Day 2

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Day 2 on the journey with my parents to Florida…..

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Lookalikes!

Johnny Damon looks like a nutcracker.

No, literally, like one of those Christmas nutcrackers with the fancy red uniforms.  Think that’s weird?  Read on.

Ryan Garko looks like a Muppet (still trying to figure out which one).

Travis Hafner reminds me of Edward Kowalczyk from the band +Live+.

Jaime Pressly looks a bit like a frog — a very beautiful frog, which is odd and cool at the same time.

And best of all, I have a friend who looks across between Andy Roddick and Adam Lind!  🙂

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Prose

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I feel much better now

written out humour in tangible form

dedicated hours to rhythm and prose

and who knows?

maybe someone will laugh

but it’s nice to just express

everything, though nothing

that sits heavy on my chest

these words, yet so fickle!

but tickle my lips

as if speaking them brings out

the positive in this

it’s beautiful, you know,

all this tangible prose

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Copyright L.M. 2008.

Miles Away (lyrics to a song by Sleep the Season)

This is a song done by one of my best friends’ band called Miles Away. I might’ve screwed up some of the lyrics but here’s my best try:

I made a thousand mistakes and baby you’re one of them
with your eyes and your smile
and the way that I’ll never get to see you again
cuz you’re 10,000 miles away
and I cannot speak to you
I am lost
you seduce with your mind but your heart is saying “leave me alone”

lady I made up my mind
that you were no good for me
we’re drunk, and alone
and you’re holding on tight with the hopes that I’ll turn into something I’m not
and something I’ll never be
to you I am flawed but to someone I’m God so just go
and leave me alone

I feel like I’ve been here before
oh
I feel like I’ve been here before
oh
so leave me alone

      

      

I’ll admit tonight when I first heard this song I almost cried.  Please, go to http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=14734215156&ref=share  (I hope that link works for you, please let me know if it doesn’t!  If it doesn’t, search for the band “Sleep the Season” in Facebook and you should be able to find the band’s site that way) and give it a listen…… it’s a beautiful song and personally I really feel the lyrics, which just adds that much more to it.  Please go, listen, and enjoy.

Day 2

Today was Christmas!  Merry Christmas everyone!

It started with me waking up late, daydreaming myself awake.  Kinda lovely to do sometimes.  I got up, had a small breaky, sat on the balcony.  We’d already exchanged gifts beforehand (since my sister couldn’t come with us, we had our celebrations last week), but my dad still had a couple gifts to give to my mom, so after that we sat on the balcony and took in some sun with our coffees.  After a nice morning walk around the Pass with my mom, we went back to the condo for bacon & eggs and cleaned the place up for our dinner company….. then another walk …… and another….. then friends came over for Christmas dinner and we had a blast.  Such fun people.  I hope I’m that fun when I’m their age.  Of course, they’re my parents’ age too but umm…… no, I really don’t have a way to get my foot out of my mouth there.  New topic!

So today on the beach I was walking mostly in the water to search for the bigger shells, so I didn’t see as much interesting stuff today, but here’s the daily list anyway:

• dolphins several times, lots of them including the mutant one!  In years past, we noticed a dolphin with a sliced dorsal fin….. we suspect it was from a boating encounter.  There very well could be hundreds like that, but we like to think it’s the same families that stick around the area, with his sighting meaning all is well with them.
• several decent-sized shells with their residents still alive inside…… I threw them back into the ocean to hopefully have a few more days (or more!) of life
• a large shell with resident inside…… I’m gonna research what kind he was, because I’ve seen the shells before and they’re beautifully decorated, so I’m curious anyway.  I’m told I found a sunray venus shell….. go here to view and learn: http://www.shellmuseum.org/Sanibel/shells_nimbosa.html  I had seen it near the beginning of my walk, and was dumbfounded when I couldn’t find it after the initial sighting (I’m a pro at shelling…… I don’t often lose a shell to the waves once I’ve seen it), especially since it was so large.  Anyway, after giving up (doesn’t come easily to me), I continued my walk, well, shelling session anyway haha….. and on my way back I was about to leave when I saw it again.  I’m sure it’s the same one I’d been searching for earlier because it was like a rose in a field of thorns — nothing else had been that large, and that particular type of shell wasn’t even found in pieces anywhere where I’d walked….. so I went to get it, and sure enough I lost it two more times before I finally grabbed it.  The problem was that it was so heavy it only strayed to the visible area on occasion — otherwise it stayed where the waves were crashing (hence the water was sandy and I couldn’t even see my feet in less than a foot of water) and there his colours blended in.  But I got him.  And of course threw him far into the ocean again.  I have to admit, there’s something kinda humbling about holding an entire creature in your hand who created this beautiful piece of art to house himself….. used to living almost entirely at the hands of the ocean.  He really has no defenses besides his shell….. anyway…..
• Maddy and another heron!  …… they weren’t hanging out though.
• fishermen
• seemingly more people…… I think partially because it was a fair bit warmer today, plus everyone’s done their Christmas shopping!
• (earlier, by the Pass) ~12 foot tall bird of paradise plant!!!!  seriously incredible.  I vaguely remember discovering it last year but boy is it impressive.  The flower parts are different colours from the regular bird of paradise wild oranges and purples….. I found out from here http://www.mgonlinestore.com/Juncea/  that it’s the white variety…… much larger than the regular orange kind.
• 2 dogs in motorboats, 1 laying down for a nap, and 1 riding at the bow of his boat.  It’s not that uncommon really, but I always find it amusing.
• 1 dude paragliding?  I’m not sure the term for it.  Yup, turns out that’s it.  Only this dude was motorized.  And boy was he flying LOW!

Well that’s all I can think of right now, mostly because I’m tired!  If I remember more, you can be sure I’ll get back to you with it.

Again, happy holidays to you, and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas  🙂

Beautiful Blue, Beautiful You

In high school, I came up with a shade of blue.

It was beautiful — a combination of sky blue, light mauve, baby blue.

Every day as I’d walk through the hallways, I’d look up through the windows as I passed to see if today was a Beautiful Blue day, and, if it was, it was a good day.  It became difficult in winter to keep my spirits up, as the cold depresses me sometimes, but if there was a patch where I saw Beautiful Blue skies, it would lift me up and give me strength.

I love nature like others love religion.  In fact, to a certain degree, I equate the two.  This is really very personal but why not…… in my egotistical mind, I would see the colour showing up as a sign, a spiritual offering of a hand to help me stand again — or, if I was already standing, would help lift me to happiness — or, if I was already happy, would help lift me to elation.  Natural beauty is something that never replicates; each instance really is a moment in time to treasure.  You will never have that exact opportunity again to feel its presence, its power, your part in it all.  All you can hope for, if you shun that moment, is another chance.  It is likely for this reason that I have become a fervent advocate of spontaneity; part of carpe diem requires the ability to forgo plans and live for the moment as it presents itself.  Part of beauty is unpredictability.

Beautiful Blue might look different to others.  As much as I describe it, I will never know if anyone else sees the exact shade I do — not that I believe myself to be the only one capable, but when you take into account differences of perception, differences of colour receptor cones in the eyes, differences perhaps of data transmission between cones and the brain?…… but this Beautiful Blue, to me, is nothing less than hope itself, embodied in a shade of pure beauty.

    

A couple years after I’d begun this tradition of sky-searching at school and elsewhere, I was listening to the radio and heard the DJ mention a new song was going to be played by an artist whose songs I knew and liked.  The artist: Holly McNarland.  The title: Beautiful Blue.  This initially stunned me.  Then, my senses came around and I realized: to others, they were simply two words strung together, and could be used to describe a multitude of things…… I suppose.  This is what she has to say about her song:

“The big song [on the cd], ‘Beautiful Blue,’ came a week before the
last time we went into the studio,” she says. “That was shortly
after September 11.  It’s not about that, but the whole vibe, the
whole doomsday thing, was pretty apparent, and I was just
hanging out with my son.  In the middle of all of this tragedy,
I would wake up and have this perfect little angel by my side.”¹

It’s a beautiful song; I loved it immediately, and not simply for the connection I had with it.   One day I’d like to perform it live — in a way, to realize another dream of mine, as I’ve already recently been given the opportunity to realize one of my life dreams of being part of a band.  I don’t want to suggest it, as it’s not particularly in the style we perform, but I figure that the opportunity will somehow present itself at some point in my life — just like the song did initially — if it is meant to be interpreted by my (in comparison) highly unqualified voice.  This is not a case for carpe diem, after all; this is a chance to see just where my Beautiful Blue will guide me next.

      

So, my dear readers, after I expose my vulnerable nature to all your mysteriously faceless souls, I ask you: what is your Beautiful Blue?

      

      

If you would like to comment on this, you need to click on the title to load the post anew, where you will be given the option to leave a comment if you so desire (and I hope you do!).

¹ (http://umusic.ca/hollymcnarland/)

Harbour

if you ask me I will tell
the story of my chance
sentences strung as one
beautiful words taking turns
to paint the scene
of immortal love

if you ask me I won’t hide
won’t push the thoughts aside
you’ve always been light
ever since the first
and I sense till the end
oh to be there, with love

if you ask me I will say
truth to you, one
do you know I’ve been there?
just ask and I will say
like a stem grows each day
to hold its beauty high in the air

yes, love, I’ve been there
I have seen what I should not
and I didn’t want to return
but you — yes, you frighten
I could swear on my life
you take my breath away

love, have you been there?
I want to change your mind
I want to show it could be
love, I beg you to tell me
someday you’ll join me there

      

        

Finished: 6:18 a.m., Tuesday, November 20th, 2007. (adjustments 6:26 a.m. to final verse, same day; further adjustments 6:32 a.m., again to the final verse, again the same day).
Copyright L.M. 2007. (see note on next poem. perhaps exaggeration, emphasis on feeling, not necessarily definition).