Monday, August 31, 2009

Where the women hear the washboard rhythm in their bosom when they say

Author's Note: The story below was created with the same foundation idea as Petrified flower's post. They are opposite sides of the mirror, the two people are connected. We did not talk to each other in planning the stories aside from laying out the main idea, so they are just what two writer's imaginations have wrought from one simple plot. Here's one half of the story, and if you want the other, go here. Enjoy.


They said that before I could walk, I was dancing. They said that I sang in my sleep, wordless rhythmmelodies, much before I said my first words. They say that even now, if you listen close while I sleep, my breathing has a tune. I was born with music in my veins.

My name is Sef. Short for Josef I guess, though no one has ever used that name. Not that I know too many people. When I was just a baby, my mother and father, immigrants from Jamaica, died. They had won a cruise in a lottery sweepstakes, and then the ship went down on a stormy night. Neither could swim. My aunt came to look after me then. My parents had had no other children before me, and Auntie neither, so I was alone. Didn't bother me. I had lots of company; the music in my head. I lived next to the beach, out in Jacksonville, Florida, and every day after school I would run there. I loved it especially in winter. The cold had never stopped me, all I needed was a wetsuit and some string to tie back my dreds and I was in the water. And in winter, no one was there, crowding up the beach. Since I was a child, I swam, learning as soon as I began to dance. I was always in awe of the wave's power, the way you could just wade in and it would swirl about your hips, inviting you in. . . And then you were in the thick of it. The waves crashed and shivered over you, and fling you straight out of the water, water droplets flying everywhere. I loved being right by the breakers, feeling the wave's full strength smooth over me, feel it break by my toes as I dived through, knowing that much power was rushing past me. It made me feel special. And it wasn't the only attractive thing about the water. it deafened the senses, so that I could hear what I was always listening for within me: the heartbeat. The beat drummed on in my head, a steady thunk~thunk~thunk, day and night. It was as constant as the waves, pulling in, out, in, with the tide. I relied on that beat, to keep me breathing, to keep my spirit alive. I don't know how, but I knew it was a heartbeat, and I knew it was mine. I knew it was someone else's heart beating along inside their own chest, this endless drumbeat echoing inside the cavity of my mind. I had thought that everyone had a beat inside their head, just as they had one on the left side of their chest. But when I talked of it with Auntie, she just dismissed it as a young, lonely boy's overactive imagination, saying "I have no time for this now. Go play in the beach, Sef." So i would go down to the sands and warm my feet and dance to the beat, thunk~thunk~thunk.

When I finally figured out that no one else heard a heartbeat aside from their own, I learned not to mention it in front of Auntie. To keep it to myself, and to keep myself to myself, and just be at the beach. Auntie didn't mind letting me run wild, she had other thing to bother about. One of those days at the beach, dancing to myself with the wind whispering other people's secrets in my ear, the Drummers found me. The Drummers were all at least 17; I was 8. But when they saw me, they saw my talent, they saw what no one else could, or would see. "kid," Baz, the ringleader, told me, "Kid, do you know the rhythm! Can ya drum?" Dumbly, I shook my head no, but the look in my eyes said teach me, and he saw them. Baz, with his short spiky blonde hair and graygray eyes, spent that summer teaching me. He was short, but when he leaned over his drum and pounded his life out into it, he was the tallest of them all. He told me I had the strongest natural talent in anyone he had ever taught. I never told him about the heartbeat. The Drummers, all six of them, not including me--spent their nights lighting incense, and playing out a beat, a song, an offering to the night goddess, as the waves lapped at their tapping feet. I spun to their rhythm some nights, others, I created my own, the moon lighting my brownbrown skin from the inside out, lifting me up to where it shone in the sky.

Fast Forward nine years. All the drummer shad left, after graduating college and heading off for deadbeat jobs during the day in the middle of nowhere, having wild drum sessions at night. For the past few years, it had been only me here, me and Fiona. She was the younger sister of Ria, one of the Drummers. She was a year older than me, and she didn't drum. But could she sing! She would get into these trances and just sing in tongues all night, her green cat eyes becoming filled with light, her face becoming flushed, her graceful fingers rising and falling with my beat. When people danced to my music (which was always based on the underlying rhythm of the heartbeat) I felt more like the rest of the world, as if instead of becoming like them, which was impossible, they had become like me, and they could hear the heartbeat as well, as long as I played it to them. I was convinced that I was the best drummer there was, and Fiona told me so too.

At seventeen, I had just finished high school, barely passed. School had never interested me. Even music class, because it had rules, and times, and everyone-work-together-just-as-we-rehearsed-it. That's not what music's about: it's about spontaneity, about just doing your thing and everyone else does your thing and when you work with the right person, the things you're doing just mesh, without having to plan it all out. My music teacher did not agree, nor did this philosophy work in any of my other classes. Needless to say, I was not going to college. I thought I had taught myself all I ever needed to know, so there was no use for "higher education". So Fiona and I decided to go to the mixing pot of America--if there were anyplace my talent would be appreciated, it would be New York City, who thrummed with so many separate beats enmeshed to form one big working hustling bustling city. And so at seventeen, Fiona and I headed to NYC.

And that's how I found myself in the underbelly of the greatest city awake. Fiona and I had used our life's savings to get here, and now we worked for our meals playing an echoing beat that found its way to the ears and hopefully the hearts of the commuters constantly coming, going, this way, that way, little ants in stiff black suits. Joey, 21, had found us feebly trying to set up in a corner at Grand Central Station. He showed us the way to sit in the thick of it all, to smile, to hold out your hat for donations, to look exotic to these people who came from everywhere but here. Joey played soulful sax at the 51st street station, was always looking for newcomers at Grand Central and Times Square. After a week or two of playing in the subways, Fiona showed up less and less to accompany me, and after a month, she was gone. She had probably run off with Joey, the old badger. So I moved out of the one room apartment we had been renting at the end of that month, and went underground full time. I played somewhere different each day, taking the train to whichever stop it led me to, and settling there for the day and night. Winter came, and I just curled tighter into the forgotten crannies and nooks of the city. I never minded the cold. By spring, I was able to go swimming in the hudson river, where people would stare at me as though I were crazy, and move away. I probably looked crazy too, My dreds reaching to my hips, a wispy soul patch starting on my chin, my trusted beat-on drum always tucked under my arm. No one else swam in the rive, but I liked things best that way, just the water and me. The heartbeat still kept me company, fading in and out to the comings and goings of my life. I called Auntie once a month, jammed during the day, spent a few dollars on food each night, and saved the rest. This schedule went on for some time until one day I just sort of woke up.

Every time that I drum it is with the beat--thunk~thunk~thunk, ba dum, ba dum, ba de de dum. I never play unless I'm feeling it, which is why the sound is always so glorious. But one day I woke up and realized it had been almost a year of this, and that I had to stop. I had to go somewhere and do something, something with an actual purpose. But the only purpose I could find in life was the heartbeat. I was never free of it, and so it habituated my thoughts and movements so very thoroughly. The mystery of it, who it belonged to, called to me with every beat. This resounding question had really never occurred to me before, I was so wrapped up in myself. I had always just accepted the heartbeat as much as I did my right leg. But now I needed to know. What controlled it? Who was on the other end? Could they hear my heartbeat, just as I heard theirs? And the last, most important question of all: If my heart stopped, would theirs as well?

This last question consumed me, until all my time was spent puzzling over the answer and its implications, or trying to lose myself in my music. But to no avail. As the days wore on, burned in my mind, hotter and hotter, until I could bear it no longer. I must find out for sure, though I was almost positive I knew the answer. I was in denial. At around this time, I found that my Auntie was sick, and almost certainly on her deathbed. I made plans to see her as soon as possible, and hoping that the change of scenery would do me well.

With what little money I had saved, I bought a plane ticket to Jacksonville and boarded it that evening. The quiet chatter amongst the cabin thrummed in time with the heartbeat in my head, with my restless fingers, and with the relentless question that hounded me night after night. By now I was almost certain I knew the answer, and boy did I not like it. My new, even more urgent question was: Which heartbeat would stop first--the one in my head or the one in my heart? I arrived at Auntie's in time to bid her one last loving farewell before she ascended the golden staircase heavenwards. In grief, having lost everyone I had ever loved, and knowing no one nor anyone knowing me, truly, I blindly stumbled to the beach.

And there I realized: what was the use of staying on this world, to be lonely and only hear the lonely heartbeat in response, when my family waited for me in paradise, in Zion? Why have to worry about dying because the heartbeat's owner died? I could end it now myself, and that's what I was going to do. I loaded rocks from the surf into my pockets and prepared to swim out a never return, my body weighted to the ocean floor. How foolish I had been to not even consider the life of the other person connected to me, how their heart would stop when mine resounded its last beat in their head. How foolish I had been, but no matter, for at the moment I was readying myself to be flung out at mercy to the crashing waves, I heard something. Or more rather, I didn't. The heartbeat no longer screamed it's threat within my mind. I cocked my head to one side, listening; but it was true: it was gone! I was overjoyed, in ecstasy, and then I remembered that when it failed to beat out its presence in the world, then so most definitely would I. And at that very moment I felt a pang in my chest; I gasped for breath--and then everything fell black.

It might have been an old woman, slowly slipping away while she slept, it might have been connected to a youth born the same day as I all the way across the world, hit by a car, or it may have been someone as troubled as I by the heartbeat and its implications that he or she anded our lives before I had the chance to. Perhaps I will never know, all I know is that now, the heartbeat is gone.

The newspapers said I had died the night before from sudden cardiac arrest, but there was no one on this earth who knew the true reason, no one who cared at all.



Title Quote: Iron and Wine, Peace Beneath The City


Saturday, August 29, 2009

Never had me a name They just gave me the number when I was young

Ok, so here I am, finally getting together my long, and probably two part post about my summer camp. It sits up near the mountains, in pretty much the middle of nowhere, which is not a bad thing at all, because the air is sweet, the grass is green, and you have only the best people for company. Though, really, I could only wish they were the best people. But many of them are amazing. My camp is non-competitive, non-sexist, non-racist, etc., and also makes some of the best food around. Almost as good as my father's. The food is delicious, home-made (not frozen and re-heated), and well balanced (which is important to me, being vegetarian). There is always a delicious salad bar on the middle table as well as a vegetarian and vegan option that all the meat eater's only wish they could have. We have had quiches, we have had veggie potstickers, we have had goulash and cornbread, we have had the best grilled cheese and tomato soup ever, we have had goat cheese, arugula, and dried cranberry salad, and other divine dishes.
Just needed to obsess on the food first.

Here is how a normal day's schedule goes--
7:30-wake up
8:30-breakfast
9:00-optionals(I'll explain below)
10:15-freetime
11:00-optionals
12:20-lunch
1:15-rest hour
and so on until
5:20 time (another sort of rest hour)
6:20-dinner
evening program
circle
(for us) 10:30 sleep

now, let me explain. An optional is what it sounds like. Your options for the period. The camp gathers around and each counselor presents what they're going to do that period, and you choose which one you want to do and go. For example-making sculpey cakes at arts&crafts, feeding the animals at farm&nature, playing ultimate frisbee, going to the barn and listening to each-other's music, etc.
The A-frame where we met for optionals.
The camp believes we shouldn't just be on a schedule to here then there then elsewhere, but that we should choose what we want to do, when we want to do it, with whomever we want to do it with. Awesome, right? Rest Hour and 5:20 time are times where you go to your bunk to relax, nap, read, write letters, etc. During rest hour you get any mail for the day and are allowed to go down to make a weekly phone call. We are not allowed any cell-phones, computers, game systems, or even videos on ipods or video cameras. Which is all right to me, as long as I get to listen to my music and take my pictures. And evening program is after dinner, when the whole camp gathers to do something together, as in a camp-wide game of tag, watching a play in the theater from a traveling acting troupe, etc. And circle time is when the bunk sits in a circle with cookies and milk every night, and talks about a topic, answering in a circle, as in if you could rule the world with one other person, who would it be?, or, your happiest moment ever. And then we do Moment of the Day, where we each share our personal highlight of the day. After that, it's quiet reading, dancing, playing cards etc. until bedtime, and there's our day! Ok, re-reading this, it seems as though I'm getting a little over-excited over something as mundane as the schedule. But seriously, this camp is amazing!

We have animals. I'm really into animals since I have no time, money, room for them at home, as well as my father being allergic to anything that sheds. My favorite pets in the whole world are bunnies. I love them for being soft, and quiet, and vegetarian, and clean, and small, and comforting. We had three bunnies this year. We named them after Beatles lyrics -Sadie(sexy sadie), Lucy (in the sky with diamonds), and Penny(penny lane).
Sadie the Bunny with Lucy in the back
Then we had four turkeys, and sticking with the music theme, we called them the Jackson Four--Thriller, Billie Jean, Mira (fem. ver. of man in the mirror), and Jackie. They all looked the same, so we used their names interchangeably. They laid maybe 3 or so eggs a week, between them. Large, speckled beauties.

One of the Jackson four turkeys
And then we had 3 sheep, whom I named after Jimi Hendrix and his songs--Izabella, Jimi, and Isis (and yes, I do know isis is actually a bob dylan song, but I love it a lot and couldn't think of anything else.) We also had two sheep, pre-named Malia and Sweet Pea. And then the garden we had, the other half to farm and nature. It had peas, lettuce greens we used in the salad every night, potatoes, and a couple of other things just coming in when I left. We had horses and ponies, too, and one dog that came with a counselor and one cat who was pretty much our disapproving, fat mascot--Ratcat. When ever he walked, his belly swung back and forth. So we've got the animals accounted for.

Malia the Goat
We also had water, lots of it, which is also very important to me. We had a pond with goldfish and tadpoles, we had a solar power heated pool, we had a lake that farted, and we had a long running river with beautiful slippery rocks throughout. I went in the water all the time. So we have animals, and water. Lets get tot he music, shall we? We all know I love music, and this camp had tons of it, mostly old hippie tunes from the sixties and seventies, and even some eighties songs. We sung a lot of Beatles, the Police, Johnny Cash, and the Grateful Dead. My favorite thing was to play ultimate frisbee in the rain to the Grateful Dead. Wet Ultime is one of the finer joys in life. To look outside with the whole camp and say,"hey, it's raining. Who wants to play wet ultimate?" And then running outside and getting soaked and chasing eachother up and down the field and almost losing grip on the frisbee when we finally grab it. Now that is an experience. I played a lot of Ultimate at camp, but not many
other sports. I did spend a lot of time in Woodshop, making a wooden rabbit (what else?), and at arts and crafts making beads and other things, and at outdoor living doing hemp and macrame bracelets, and other camp stuff like that. Some of the funniest things happened there, but I don't think they would be funny unless you were there.

One cool thing though--I brought a swiss army knife, and for the first half of camp thought myself ridiculous because I used it for absolutely nothing. But then our bunk went out to spend a night in the woods and we got packed for nine girls, not eleven, so I used my handy dandy skills to shave some sticks into chopsticks and guess what???? They got used! For real! I was useful! It made me so proud and happy like a little kid but it was the coolest thing ever to a city girl like me, believe me!
The cabin where I spent 4 weeks with 27 girls.
Ok, seeing as how much I've written and how much I'm missing camp now, I'm just going to end it for now. Any questions about my wondrous spectacular camp? Write them in the comments.

Love, Lola


Title Quote: Thirteen, Johnny Cash

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Even my henchmen think I'm crazy

I have found a very talented artist named Alex Andreyev who I would like to tell everyone about. Here are some of my favorites(these are from A separate reality 4 gallery):
Pearls

Spring Supervision of Stars

Late

If you want to see more of his amazing work, here's the place to go: Alex Andreyev. Scroll tot he end of that gallery and there will be links to others. ;)

Title Quote: Jonathan Coulton, Skullcrusher Mountain

Friday, August 21, 2009

but I don’t want to write a love song for the world

Everybody: I miss you. Everything: I miss you. I miss you, green trees and murky river blending with the concrete, thriving within our concrete jungle. I miss you, grocery store that is by the corner so you can get your choice ingredients in a second without having to get in a car and drive. I miss you, different people, different faces, different sights, different smells. I miss you, city. I miss you, friends, school, and omn can you believe it Ms. Jones retired!--I miss you family, I miss you home.
(did you know that when I get home from a long trip away, I always greet Home. "Hello, Home!" I say, "Hello, Room!" Even when no one else is there.)
But I love you countryside, I love your space and air and beach and quiet. And I'm scared and excited and angry and so incredibly happy for the new school year and the things it will bring, too.
How can I be so full of contrasting emotions, and so full yet so empty?


Title Quote: Michael Franti and Spearhead, Say Hey

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away

This post will be about hippie culture in general, in honor of Woodstock's 40th anniversary yesterday. And yes, you may be snorting and glancing at my title, for they are NOT the lyrics to Woodstock, by Joni Mitchell. You may be thinking that Lola is uneducated for all she seems to know her music... why wouldn't she use it? Well, for one, I already did, at the very beginning of the blog, using my probably all time favorite lyrics that I am busy at the moment embroidering on a shirt that I will post about later. And for two, everyone is quoting it, and unfortunately it is becoming cliche for this topic. Excuse me. Long ago has BECOME a cliche for this topic. And this lyrics omission for the title brings me to what I want to talk about in Hippie culture today. I would like to state one thing.
I am not a hippie.
This said, let me explain. Most people in America, especially people reading this sort of blog, know what a hippie is. The dictionary's definition is this- "(esp. in the '60's) a person of unconventional appearance, typically of long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs."
WRONG.

It says unconventional appearance. And yes, I concede that, for hippies, especially hippies in the '60's, to wear clothing and have an appearance that is, to say the least, "unconventional", was helpful in getting across a message, their ideology. But you don't HAVE to look different. All you have to do is believe in what you do, and do what you believe in, even though that belief is radical and is often "a rejection of conventional values". OK, beginning to ramble here. What I mean to say is, You don't need to look crazy or smoke weed or grow your hair out to be a hippie. And doing all of that does not make you a hippie, either. What makes a hippie, in my mind, is exactly what I said above about believing and doing. It's rebellion, it's life.

Hippyism is a way of life. A way of living, perhaps a way of dying, if you look at it from a cynical standpoint. But our current culture has transformed it from a way of living life to a way of wearing clothes. And it goes against all hippie ideologies. It's consumerism, it's overpriced merchandise that everyone wears that was made in a sweatshop in a third-world country. When people wear bags with rhinestoned peace signs, do they really mean they want peace for the world? Do these sort of people even understand such a concept? Or do they just want to look cool and "hip", coincidentally coming from the same root word that hippie came from, hipster. Do the teenagers who wear shirts that say "love" over tye-dye and sparkles actually practice such a thing? Do they love their parents, or do they scorn them? Do they embrace outcasts or bullies, or are they mean and exclusive be bullies back?
And they wear such things so that people can call them "hippies", for reasons that no actually hippie would be recognized for. Needless to say, I don't do this.
There are always labels put on people--my friends get the "wackos", the "freaks", some of us get the "hippies", including me. We wear these labels proudly, too. But like I said before, I'm not a hippie. I just sympathize with their culture, their values. I believe in Love, but I believe we need more than that to save people. I believe in peace, but I realize it is a flawed concept, at least for the nature of human beings. I believe in being calm and cool and relaxed, but I also believe in activism, in doing something about the problems hippies didn't like about society (which I might point out, so did some hippies). And I believe there are issues with the government, but instead of shunning them and scorning them, we should use them to show the flaws, have them help us save the world. Of course there is a different government today than in 1969, but still. And just by looking at the music I choose for my blog post titles, I think you understand I approve of that part of their culture scene.
And so I do my own thing, I don't conform to society, or at least try my hardest not to, and I wear what I want to wear and say what I say. But I do what I do because I want to do it, not because that's what hippies do. But that is what I am sometimes labeled anyway. Which brings me back to the beginning. I didn't use the woodstock lyrics as the title because, most importantly, they are exactly what a hippie (wannabee?) would use, and I am not one. So please, enjoy the Beatles in all their glory instead.
Whoever went to woodstock, I hope you had a good time, and I kinda wish I had been there yesterday. To everyone else, point made. I just hope that now you might see the world through my eyes, which I guess is the point of this blog. Well, revelation to me!
Have a good rest of the summer. Enjoy it while it lasts....

-Lola

Title Quote: She's Leaving Home, the Beatles

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I hear her voice In the mornin hour she calls me

Oh, what I would give to be a cat. Not a fat cat, who all her owner does is pamper her and feed her and pretend she's her baby. Nor a skinny to the bone cat, whose owner kicks her and shouts at her and uses her as a stress ball and never feeds her. Nor would I like to be an alley cat, alone. But what I would give, at some moments, to be a cat. A cat who was fed just enough and lived in the country, and was allowed to come and go when she pleased, a cat who always had someone there to half absent-mindedly rub her belly, but wasn't always after her, screaming and catching her tail so she would sit on her owner's lap. And then, as that cat, I would make a deep purrrrrrr of happiness. I wish humans could purr like cats can. It would release so much contentedness into the world. And did you know that certain purrs can help heal cats? I know, a bit off topic, but seriously, what other animal can make a noise that literally makes them better?
So where was I? Oh, yes, I would purr with joy, the noise running straight up my throat and finding it's way straight to my owner's heart. Then I would pad off and find a nice warm sunbeam and stretch out and nap and warm my fur. And at night, I would find my owner's head or feet and curl right up on them and sleep right there. When I (as a human) go someplace with cats, they are always attracted to me. When I stay over the night, I often find them, a reassuring warm weight, curled up on me. One of my most favorite things is to read a book and feel that reassuring weight purr on my lap. And I love that cats couldn't care less, that they do what they want, and when they want to. Not all of them in a spoiled sense. Just in a disinterested in the consequences sense. And I appreciate that. To not have to worry about how you act... what you look like... If I believed in reincarnation, I would most definitely wish to be a cat. And sometimes I do stretch out on the floor and soak up the sunlight. Sometimes I do place my head in someone's lap and feel them play with my hair.
But it's just not the same.

TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS WHAT ANIMAL YOU WOULD BE IF YOU COULD CHOOSE?
Title Quote: Country Roads, John Denver

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Hey, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home

Roadside Thistle

She leaned over the

roadside, and found

the flower

snipped it gently between

thumbnail and forefinger

raised herself and

delicately placed it

between the folds of her ear

a curve

an overlap

a furl

ears are

so intricately complicated

yet solid and corporeal


with the

flower

tucked behind her

ear, she sighed

the wind blowing her raven hair

back, away from

the flower

its bloom pushing

up for air

amidst this sea of dark

just a roadside

thistle, purple petals

bloom even when

there's no one to see


but she saw

the plain beauty of

an ordinary unique

creation

purple speck

amongst so many other colors.



Title Quote: Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I've got soul but Im not a soldier

You know what's interesting? Look straight into a baby's eyes. The younger the better. Now what do you see?
There is a blankness in their eyes, a clearness. You can see that they know so little, they know next to nothing. And that makes them so pure.

But look a little closer. Hold out your arms and pick them up, look deeper. Isn't it funny that, when you look even deeper, there's so much intelligence? A wiseness that coexists with the blankness. They are so wise because they know so little. Because they know so little, they know so much. They just know it in ways that old, wise men don't. Because the have no boundaries, no rules. Everything is possible.
Pablo Picasso said that everything you can imagine is real. And that must be what babies see, what they think, what they know. If only they were able to speak, to tell us what they know, I think it would be revolutionary. But by the time they're old enough to speak comprehensible sentences, they have become accustomed to the rest of the world's way of thinking.
I think that instead of trying to teach the babies all the time, we should try and see what they have to teach us.


Title Quote: I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier, The Killers

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

We can bomb the world to pieces But we can't bomb it into peace.


Isn't it funny to think, that while you're in a car, traveling at least fifty mph down a highway, so are all these other people? That there are just lots of little metal boxes with fragile human beings in their fragile little lives which pass you for a second and then are gone forever? That in one car, two babies scream for more milk in the backseat, while in another car, a boy is taking his first drive with a license, a dog panting on the seat next to him, and that in another car, unbeknownst to them, a couple takes their last drive together before one finds out that the other had been unfaithful. That such intricate dramas, romances, tragedies, and comedies can take place, and all of them confined in little metal boxes all on one stretch of long road is almost mindblowing. And even more so the fact that all these little complicated scenes are playing out on a few feet away from you, and then you pass them, and they are most probably never to be seen again.
But here's another thought--maybe one of those cars that you once passed on one of the many car rides in your life, held the most important person in your life, someone you might not see again for many many years? It's possible.

Title Quote: Bomb The World (Armageddon Version), Michael Franti and Spearhead

Saturday, August 1, 2009

it's a joke nobody knows

This morning, my grandparents and I took a drive out to get some things. We picked up ingredients for dinner and a new pair of jeans for me, and then we drove back. (We're in Long Island, you see.) On the way back, I stuck my head out the window and let the wind pick up my hair and blow it backwards. All I heard was the rustling of the plastic bag beside me, the breeze blowing by my ears, and the murmur of my grandparents in the front seat. We passed by field after field, one with romping horses, the next with little buds of green poking through the dirt. We stopped at a little stand by the side of the road and I stepped out, barefoot, and carried beets and carrots, fresh from the ground, back into the car with me. As we flew down the road, a car going in the opposite direction passed through a puddle and it leaped up one side and over the other, a giant wave for an instant. As we passed by it, it was still bubbling and foaming from it's momentary action. Everything was so simple, and I thought it was so lovely as well. And then we got back to the house.

I am surrounded by green. Green trees, green bushes, green hedges, green grass. Green is the color of growth. It pairs with love. When someone is loved, or when they are in love, I could just imagine their heart sprouting little green buds, which bloom and let loose little seed pods of love, which float about and perhaps fall on someone else's heart, and the flower of love grows there too. And it goes on, in a cycle. So green can also be the color of love. I don't really know why people are always choosing pink and red, because if they're trying to be literal, as in the color of blood, then why are they drawing these strange upside-down teardrops sandwiched together? That's what I want to know. Green is a much better color.



Title Quote: Lenka, The Show

Where did it go?