Thankful

            It’s been a while. Thanksgiving was busy. But all of life is busy. I feel like Thanksgiving has lost some of its meaning. And I’m not just talking about the commercialism. I spent no time on that day really reflecting on what I am thankful for. As family arrived, I was glad to see them. It was about family and it was about food. I wish I had had some time alone to just sit and be happy for what I have.

            Recently I have become more aware of the fact that people rarely relax anymore. Yeah, we get lots of lazy time watching TV or reading books—that that those times are necessarily bad or unproductive. It’s just, when was the last time you just sat and talked to someone? Not planning to do something while eating, talking on the phone, or watching a movie with them, but letting them have your undivided attention face to face. I know I almost always have objectives when I talk to people. I want to learn more about them, I want to make plans, I want to talk about certain things. Again, those aren’t always bad but why do I feel like I need them? My Thanksgiving weekend was filled with eating, board games, and playing games on tablets and phones. It was done together, but how together were we really?

            We are a multitasking world nowadays. If we don’t know a little bit about everything we are considered “not well rounded”. There are often TVs in our gyms, kitchens, and bedrooms. If our phones can’t do almost everything they are nicknamed “dumb phones”. And with “smart phones” it is near impossible for us to leave behind the world that is not right in front of us. We have mastered being in two places at once. What are we missing by doing so?

            And I am no better than anyone else. I don’t have a smart phone, but part of me does want one. I told people “Happy Thanksgiving!” but forgot to be thankful. I went shopping on Black Friday and wanted more than I have (wanted things I may or may not need). I was distracted by cleaning and pleasing people instead of being with them. To the point where showering felt more like a break and quiet time than getting ready and cleaning up time.

            We go on retreats and vacations to get away from things or to visit people. Why can’t we live every day like that? Why don’t we live everyday seeing all the good that is in front of us? I want to smile at every person I see. I want to stop feeling lonely and left out and join the people I love and spend time with them. I want to start living and stop wondering where the time has gone.

            We’re all told “before you know it” or “it feels like just yesterday”. Well, I’m going to start living today, the right now. I’m going to stop living for today and start living for eternal life. The only things I can take with me when I die are the people who lives and eternal lives I have changed. That’s what I want my treasure to be. I want to live for love.

Describe a character’s personality as if it were a room

Yay for out of the box creative writing! I’m going to be writing about Garrett’s personality. He is from the same story as Hani, but he’s a main character.
            It is a large room with deep blue walls. There are floor to ceiling windows, but most of them are covered with grey curtains that block most of the light. From the windows that are open, you can see a thick forest of evergreens and deciduous trees. The trees are old, thick, and strong. It is autumn and the leaves are every color from green to purple including yellow, orange, and red. Some of the trees have already lost their leaves. A light snow is falling.
            At the far end of the room is a stone wall with a huge fireplace that is lit. A stew is cooking in the fire. The aroma mixes with the scent of the freshly chopped wood by the fire and the smell of the burning wood. The stew is thick with carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables but mostly meat.
            Other than the fireplace, the room is scantily lit. There are some torches and some sconces on the walls. There is a thick table with fine chairs around it. The furniture in the room is all a mixture of rustic and elegant. In someplace it seems mismatched but other areas look fine. There is a bookcase filled with thick tomes. It is hard to tell whether the books are organized in any particular order.
            Another section of the room has numerous weapons hanging on the wall and on shelves. There is also armor and other battling objects and training things in that part. There is one suit of armor that has obviously been used and abused. It is dull, scratched, but still looks like it would protect someone in the fiercest battle. There is another suit of armor that has fine decorative engravings and polished, but it is obvious that this armor is also strong and would hold up in battle. The weapons are mostly swords, but there are some knives, spears, axes, bows and arrows, and jousting poles. The weapons are well used and well cared for.
            In one corner are excellently painted portraits and a very intricate family tree tapestry. There is an old but comfortable chair that faces this corner. This chair is very worn and homely. On the chair is tattered quilt that used to be thick.

Flowers (Part 2)

Okay, so this will be less of a part 2 and more of a summary of part 2. I’m just not sure where I’m going with it. Well, it’s more that I don’t know how to get where I want to go—at least, not without making this way longer than I originally meant it to be.

            So, a man with the same eyes as the woman asks Julia if he get a flower too. The man is well dressed in a nice suit though. I guess that they would walk around and talk for a while. Maybe he offers to buy her coffee in return for a flower. Julia would be skeptical of him but agree. Maybe they go on a couple of dates. Anyway, eventually we all find out that this man is the homeless woman’s son. He helps her out as much as she will let him, but she has schizophrenia and is paranoid and has delusions. She does not remember her son, which makes it very hard for him but he loves his mother too much to try to avoid the pain.

            Or, if I had wanted to take an easy way out, I would have just had Julia continue down the street handing out flowers until they are all gone. She would be so happy to see the smile on people’s faces that her day would have been all better. Not as good as the first one.

            Speaking of the first version, be aware of mental disorders. They are real and they can be very tragic, especially if they are not handled well. Respect others. We are all traveling hard roads, and some have more burdens than you see.

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/

Flowers (Part 1?)

A creative writing story! Yay! Today feels like a good day to get away from real life, at least for a bit.

            Julia stopped by her friend’s flower shop. Henrietta’s shop did okay, but it did struggle. Julia also struggled, but would find reasons to come into the shop (Note: I keep writing “ship” instead of “shop” for some reason. Just thought I’d let you know in case you want to psychoanalyze or you just want the funny image of a flower ship in your mind. Maybe that’s the name of Henrietta’s store. Maybe that is why the store isn’t doing too well). Today had been an especially hard day for Julia; the class she had substituted had been very rowdy fifth graders who tried to lie to her about their names and she overheard a couple of girls talking about things they shouldn’t even have known about when they were supposed to be reading. Not for the first time, she wondered what role their parent’s played in their life—did they know what their daughters were doing? Did they care?

            When I have kids, I will really care about them. I will be a part of their lives. I will make sure they feel loved and feel like they can come to me about anything, thought Julia. If I ever have kids, that is.

            It had been years since Julia had gone on a real date with a guy she was really excited to be asked out by. Sure, there were a few dates here and there but none of them had turned into much of anything. Rarely did they even last long enough for a second date. Though she was fairly young still, Julia had a tendency to give into desperate thoughts. This was especially true when it came to thoughts of her and men.

            Julia decided that today she would buy some flowers for herself today. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to. Plus, she deserved them and needed something pretty to look at. They would sit on her table and bring color to her drab apartment, at least for a few days. She made small talk with Henrietta about Henrietta’s beautiful daughter and work. Julia ended up with a bouquet of sunflowers. Yellow had always seemed like a happy color to her, and she could use some happiness.

            On her way through the small town, she walked past a woman who was obviously homeless. She was unwashed, her clothes looked like they came straight from a dumpster, and her hair was matted. A voice told Julia to give one of her flowers to the woman. At first Julia dismissed the voice, but as she continued to walk toward to woman her heart was moved with compassion. As she passed by, she pulled one of the sunflowers out of the bouquet and handed it to the woman. “This is for you,” she said.

            The woman’s eye lifted and Julia saw past the dirt to the woman’s glowing eyes, filling with tears. She had the most amazing shade of green eyes Julia had ever seen.

Running Away

I’ll let you decide whether this is fiction or non-fiction.

            Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “I build walls not to keep people out but to see who loves me enough to break them down.” Or maybe the wording is “climb over them”… either way, for me it’s that I runaway to see if anybody loves me enough to come after me.

            The only time I can really remember someone coming after me after I ran out of somewhere was when a friend and I went to karaoke. We did a song together and sighed up to do songs alone. I never actually planned on singing solo. I figured there were enough people that they wouldn’t get to my song before I left. I was right—it was time for me to leave before my song came up. My friend didn’t want to leave yet.
            I left. I wondered around, trying to remember where I parked, for 15-30 minutes before my friend called to ask if I had found my car—she knew me well enough to know that I was bad with directions. I had been walking past the restaurant again when she sang her song—“Sk8er Boi”. She picked me up in her car and drove me to mine. I was so thankful to have a friend who knew me so well and cared about me like that. I even wrote her a letter saying so.
            But I look at that night now and I am dissatisfied. Sure, she knew me. But she finished her stuff first before taking care of me. I was less of a priority for her than her song. And thinking about it, I walked around for an hour before she showed up because she was late to everything. An hour walking around with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and feeling like an idiot because people must have noticed it. Life only has so much time, and she had wasted my time.
            I left for a few months, and the months leading up to that I held my breath hoping someone would ask me to stay. I at least wanted someone to tell me something other than the generic, “You’ll be missed.” All it would have taken was for one person to give me a reason to stay. No such luck. I left and returned without much fuss.

            All I want is for someone to show me that I am a priority in their life. I want someone to take a chance on me, trust me, love me, show me that I am worth it. Worth them potentially making a fool out of themselves to make me feel special. Worth a risk. I want someone to notice I’m gone and tell me I’m missed. Someone to think about me when they don’t need to be—when there is no reason for them to be thinking about me other than that they care about me. Someone who will take my hand and lead me where I want to go but am afraid to go by myself.

Music’s Role in the Hunger Games

Okay, one last post about music in the Hunger Games Trilogy. This one looks at the importance of music in the trilogy. Music is mentioned in the books more than just the places I note here, but these are the places where you really see how music shapes the characters’ relationships. Enjoy!

            The Hunger Games may not be about music, but its heroin, KatnissEverdeen, is identified as the Mockingjay, a song bird. From singing to her determination to survive, Katniss is very much like the bird the capitol never meant to exist. Mockingjays are the offspring of jabberjays,birds the Capitol created as a weapon in that they would repeat conversations of rebels, granting the Capitol information, and mockingbirds. Because jabberjays bred before dying like the Capital planned, mockingjays became somewhat of slap in the face for the Capital (The Hunger Games, 42-43). In an essay Mary Borsellino writes, “Suzanne Collins has explained that Katniss is ‘a girl who should have never existed,’ an unexpected outcome of a security glitch in the Capitol’s regime, just like the mockingjays. She is ‘this girl who slips under the fence . . . and along with that goesa degree of independent thinking that is unusual in the districts” (Wilson, 31). For Katniss, her voice is personal; singing is something she never wants to do for the Capitol (Catching Fire, 39) and does not intentionally do it for the Rebels (Mockingjay, 127). However, music is a major factor in some of Katniss’ relationships.

            Katniss is very connected to her dead father through hunting, taking care of the family, and singing. After her father's death, Katniss stopped singing. Katniss is connected to mockingjays, but she associates her father with them first because he would sing to them. Her father had a wonderful singing voice, which was part of the reason her mother left her wealthy family to marry him. This is similar to Peeta and Katniss’ love story.

            Peeta tells Katniss that he fell in love with her the first time he heard her sing, and after his hijacking, it is her singing on a video that is the first time he sees her and does not go into a rage. Peeta tells Katniss about her mother falling in love with her father because of his voice. He goes on to tell her that on the first day of school when she sang all the birds went quiet like they did for her father, and “. . . right when your song ended, I knew—just like your mother—I was a goner” (The Hunger Games, 301). If what Sarah Rees Brennan suggests is true, that “[s]he won his love from afar by doing nothing but being herself. . .” (Wilson, 5), than singing is at the heart of who Katniss is and itreveals who she is. After Peeta is hijacked by the Capitol, making him think that Katniss is a mutation, anything that reminds him of her causes him to become furious. When the doctors working on Peeta’s recovery play video of Katniss singing “The Hanging Tree”, Peeta remembers her father singing it in the bakery and listening for the birds to stop singing. Haymitch gives Katniss hope by telling her, “. . . it’s the first connection to you that hasn’t triggered some mental meltdown” (Mockingjay, 211). Peeta does eventually recover to a functional level and falls in love with Katniss again.

            Music is also why Rue becomes an ally to Katniss during their first Hunger Game. Katniss’ mockingjay pin reminded Rue of the mockingjays at home. She said, “I like to see [the mockingjay pin] on you. That’s how I decided I could trust you” (The Hunger Games, 212). Katniss chooses to trust Rue because she reminds her of Prim, her younger sister. Whatever the reason for coming together, Katniss and Rue become friends more than just allies, as the other tributes in the Games do. Rue is the only person besides Prim that Katniss says she loves, and Katniss says it with the lullaby she sings as Rue dies. In both the action of singing and in the lyrics of the song Katniss tells Rue she loves her.

            The act of singing to Rue as she dies has a much larger affect than easing Rue in her pain. Borsellino explains how this act begins to unify the Districts of Panem: “The affect of this tiny, humanizing act—singing to a dying child—has immediate and far reaching consequences. Rue’s district sends Katniss bread. Rue’s fellow tribute spares her life. . .  Boggs offers Katniss’ singing as a moment when he was touched by her” (Wilson, 34-35). The districts have no communication with each other, but the song that showed love for a friend when friendships cannot be afforded shows the districts that the Capitol does not control everybody.

Again, yoy can listen to the music I composed inspired by the Hunger Games on my youtube channel:http://www.youtube.com/user/LynneKlet/videos?view=0. Thanks!

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t make sense.

You see the world one way, then you find out you’ve only been seeing a small corner of it.

When we’re little, we think the whole world revolves around us. Anyone talking is talking to us. Other’s emotions aren’t as big as ours. Maybe we even thought that the people in the TV were just there for us—a private show for our entertainment.

But then we grow up. We find out that there is so much more than the neighborhood or country that we live in. There is even more than the earth, than the Milky Way. There is infinity all around us.

At that point, we learn that we are small. We are finite. There is a beginning and an eventual end to our lives. And we feel truly alone for the first time.

Everyone has shared similar experiences and feelings of the first time they feared death. Yet, once again, we feel like it is only us. We feel alone and it is once again all about us.

And the battle begins to rage inside us. There are so many people out there that we could help. They need someone to help them. But what would helping them cost us? Not just the monetary cost, or even the momentary cost. The cost of our comfort. The cost that our lives will change, whether we want it or not. The fear that if we truly cared for and loved those outside of us we might get hurt. They might abandon us. They might not love us in return. We might fail them.

And it hurts.

Is the cost worth it? Can they be trusted with the little piece of us we give them?

You want to wait for them to give a piece of themselves first. But the truth is, someone has to take the chance first. One of you will have to take the risk of being hurt first. If not, nothing can happen.

Love—like faith—is a risk. Life is a risk. You can huddle around the edges, curl into yourself. Or you can get hurt. You can be numb. Or you can feel excruciating pain.

And excoriating joy. Joy so uncontained it penetrates every area of your life. Joy so free and wild that you cannot contain it and it spreads like wildfire to everyone you meet. And like wildfire, it burns and destroys you. And lets new life sprout up in you. It kills all the dead things you have been clinging to as if they were your life.

And the pain comes back. You think you have died.

But you didn’t.

You lived. You survived. You were reborn.

Sometimes the pain is worth it. all.

Words

I’m sure we’ve all come to points in our lives where words seemed insufficient. A friend’s loved one dies and saying “I’m sorry” or anything else doesn’t cover your sympathy. The last time that happened to me, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything because it was only words. I wanted more than words.

            Well, something has happened in my life—kind of—that any words I try to think of aren’t enough. I tried to draw, but my hand didn’t know what to do. I tried to paint. I paint kind of weird. I’m diddle-daddle or write words with the paint to give the canvas texture and meaning to me. The canvas I was painting on today has had at least 5 layers, not 6. I wrote and the colors looked pretty (light greens, blues, with graying hints. Eventually some purple), so I blended it into a background color. Then I tried to do some swirls of something. It meant nothing. Most of my paintings are abstract and more about color and texture than anything. I never really know what I’m doing, but this time I couldn’t find a way to turn it into how I’m feeling. I ended up writing more to use up the paint, then blending it again.

            Last night I tried to write a poem to post here about it all. Half of the lines sound stupid and the other half sound like I’m trying too hard or not hard enough or am thinking about clichés (I’m not sure if I’m avoiding them or falling into them). Yeah, I’m not going to share that attempt at a poem.

            Even now, I want to try to write about it, see if I can do better now. But at the same time, it’s not something I want to share. It’s a good thing, for the most part. Well, maybe it’s not. It scares me but gives me comfort. I guess it’s like seeing two sides of the same coin at once or like a Picasso painting. I’m not sure what to make out of it or what to do with it. All these feelings are drowning me while I’m flying.

            I suppose I should just try to find a branch to land on while I try to sort through it all. But here isn’t the branch. Sorry if you feel like today was just ramblings. I know it probably doesn’t make much sense to you. I’m just going to stick with it being a Picasso painting. Stare at it until it makes sense and something burns with truth inside of you.