Steps that Rap like Rain, Guest Hosting for #WQWWC

Tags

#WQWWC, Abstract, Black and White, Cinema, Existence, Experimental, Florida, Grief, Hope, Nature, Night, Ocean, Photography, Quotations, Sunset, Water, Writing

I gaze into jukebox skies.

Sun-blotted days have bleached my shoulders. My mane is turning white. Hunch-backed, I grasp a scallop-shelled walking-stick, ambling along on driftwood legs.

“My characters are drifters and searchers and they look for something. The journey is a state of mind for them.” ―Wim Wenders

Details peel from my face and trickle away into the citrus breeze.

(Sometimes, I can hear atomies skitter across the metalled sands of apathy.)

“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” ―John Milton

A froth of dinoflagellates sparks electric blue ‘round my stubble-feet. Each step is measured, defying suction as I trace along the arrow of time.

“It all looks the same. You can’t imagine anything anymore. Above all, you can’t imagine any change. I became estranged from myself. All I could imagine was going on and on like this forever.” ―Alice in the Cities, 1974, Written by Wim Wenders and Veith von Furstenberg

(There’s a black maw gaping in the back of my brain.)

“Today was a gloomy, rainy day without a glimmer of sunlight, like the old age before me. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such gloomy sensations; questions still so obscure to me are crowding into my brain- and I seem to have neither power nor will to settle them.” ―Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

I used to retreat into the zebra-striped dusk beneath the sagging porch of childhood. Heaps of detritus gathered ‘round like friends- termite-mounds of frass, sparrow bones, and mulberry seeds.

(The subtle sounds of decay became my life’s refrain.)

“Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one.” ―Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Mewling cries swarm like midges inside my weltering mind. I turn away from the virason gasping off the sea.

Flailing like a killdeer, I struggle toward the lavender dunes. A wide yellow moon grins overhead.

“I don’t take care of myself. I think, if I don’t take care of myself and I sit still and I don’t move, maybe they’ll forget about me. But then I’m scared of that too, because I think maybe if I sit there too long, maybe when I want to move, I won’t be able to move.” ―Mikey and Nicky, 1976, Written/Directed by Elaine May

Memory microfilms at the margin: Coarse sheets forming little mountain ranges of wet, crimson-black spires. Cloven hands of ivory clacking against shiny metal bars. Hillocks of pillows burning like red coals against a dried-leaf body.

“Sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void.” ―Brian Greene, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

I can hear the wail of a train from across the lagoon, punctuating the still-water-night. The cloistered whine of mosquitoes quickly throttles the noise. And then, the sound of my quickening steps.

“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.” ―Harold and Maude, 1971, Written by Colin Higgins, Directed by Hal Ashby

Steps that begin to rap like rain. And thunder through the frenzied lights of the howling causeway. Steps that are heading north.

“I’m glad we went to the Rhine. For the first time I see myself…as someone who’s gone through a certain time, and that time is my story. [Pausing] That feeling is quite comfortable.” ―Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit, “In the Course of Time”), 1974, Written/Directed by Wim Wenders

Determined to run into myself again.

“We all talked about leaving, but only one of us, one morning, without a word to a soul, actually left.” ―I Vitelloni (“The Bullocks/The Layabouts”),1953, Written/Directed by Federico Fellini
…………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A little over a year ago, I traveled north and did something I’d never done before. Toured a series of universities.

Here’s to new beginnings.

“I have to go on makin’ a livin’…so I can die.” ―Pickup on South Street, 1953, Written/Directed by Samuel Fuller

…………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This effort was created for Marsha Ingrao’s Always Write: Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge (#WQWWC).

This week’s theme: New Beginnings.

I invite you to accent your own post with a quotation or two that expresses your own sense of New Beginnings.

Here is further information on How to Participate in the Wednesday Writers Challenge.

Previous contributors to last week’s theme, Celebration:

• It’s Tradition by Myrna Migala
• Here Comes the Holiday Season by Tina Schell
• A very Merry Christmas by Sadje
• Beach Walk Reflections by Frank who included some music via YouTube Fantasia on For All the Saints

Thank you for drizzling by,

Autumn Jade

Song by Improved Sound Limited, from Kings of the Road

Every Crushing Step

Tags

Black and White, Fall, Floral, Florida, Hope, Introspection, Nature, Photography, Poetry

A humble path,
furry with
emerald moss
and splashed
in blue shadow.

A shiny-backed beetle
suns himself
on a cold
molar-sized stone,
then shuffles off
into a copper sea
of leaves.

So many
roving feet
traverse here.

A horse gallops by
bold and solid
his chestnut sides
heaving.
He is followed
by the stab
of deer hooves
swift in flight.

Now comes
my own restive shoe
hole-pocked
and pebble-filled
to bumble through.

Yet there you grow
tiny purple bloom
as if every crushing step
will always miss you.

“The World in All Its Tainted Glory”

Tags

Abstract, Abstract Photography, Black and White, Grief, Hope, Literary Quotes, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Sadness, Swan, Water

“Everybody is supposed to be quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.”
– Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

“His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an illness.”
– D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to man has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”
– Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

“I had a dream. I was walking a beautiful street. On one side were white buildings with columns. On the other side, a park. And under the trees along the street was a dark green band. Then I came to a high wall, covered completely by roses. A plane came and set fire to the roses. It was not such a bad thing, since it was so beautiful. I looked into the water. How the roses were burning.”
– Ingmar Bergman, Shame

“It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
– Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

Embracing the Squirrely Kitten Within

Tags

Beauty, Exuberance, Healing, Hope, Inspiration, Introspection, Kitten, Life, Pets, Photography, Quotes, Reflection, Thoughts, Youth

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”
-Victor Hugo

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

“What happens when people open their hearts?”…
“They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

(Saga captured whilst out kitten-walking amongst a sea of squirrels)

P.S. More of the model, Fyodor Kitten, in Sir’s lovely and charming blog post here:  The Kitten That Rescued Himself)

Many jubilant cheers,

-Smiling Toad

In Afternoon Thought

Tags

Black and White, Hope, Lao Tzu, Light, Nature, Peace, Quotes, Tranquil, Woods

“She does not show herself, and therefore is apparent. She does not affirm herself, and therefore is acknowledged. She does not boast and therefore has merit. She does not strive and therefore is successful. It is exactly because she does not contend, that nobody can contend with her.”

-Lao Tzu

Is This Surrender?

Tags

Bitterness, Hardship, Hope, Inspiration, Optimism

(The following is a small narrative based on true events.)

It was a cold, gloomy February day when I saw the picket signs piercing the sky, rhythmic, up and down, swaying, all around. Ardent, pinched faces screamed into the deaf air. Six weeks into the semester, and the professors were on strike that threatened to consume the rest of the semester.

From a student aspect, this might be a bit disturbing. I had a choice as I returned home. How would I deal with this situation? Would I merely see loss before me? Would I adopt a hardened, cynical, entitled attitude as a result? Would I project these feelings onto others? Onto fellow students? Adopt all the feelings of injustice? Was I going to allow this event to tarnish my spirit? Was it going to be yet another series of traumas to calcify my heart, enhancing the tumor of bitterness within me?

I clenched my jaw as a small, penetratingly calm voice said to me, “No!”

Temptation into the realms of victimization and drudgery and bitterness evaporated. I decided to not go straight home. I drove onward to the prairie, where I could amble in the reticence and somber beauty of this melancholy season ‘neath a granite-grey sky, listening to that inner voice I had been so long estranged with.

I got out and climbed that first knoll of the swaying prairie. I turned my collar up and absorbed the strange beauty all around. The murmur of the town below dissipated, and I was finally alone. That voice returned to me, “I am opportunity, I am Life itself.”

I needed to find something edifying to fill this void with. I had been struggling for so long with “idle time”, as I saw it. I wanted to run away from stillness, as I perceived it as idle. But really…the truth inside said, “You crave chaos, like an addict, to distract, to consume all your time, because, you are afraid, afraid of doing something bold, something powerful and terrifying, afraid of the dramatic change in your life that you need.”

I needed something better. I could not evaporate into the tide of college life this time, to escape the demons, the troubles that have been fraying my life.

“It is time to give,” the voice said, “I am your Opportunity.”

Suddenly I stopped, and watched, marveling, as a tiny wren balanced delicately on the long, brown stem of a dead, decapitated flower. The beauty of that moment filled my heart. The small almond-brown bird was so tiny and so full of life and joy. Her eye shimmered so brightly, and then, with a gust of wind, she was on the wing, yet again, vanishing.

“I will volunteer, I will exude a positive attitude, I will open my mind up to the whole world of possibility,” I said to myself, “I am not a victim, and I don’t crave vengeance and battle. I seek peace, now. I will go out into the community and do all I can to serve, and find myself again. I am not going to be idle, or bored, I am going to do something of substance. I am going to give of myself. I am going to relinquish judgment. Everyone deserves to be helped. I will help the strangers of this town, and see them as friends, even if they are mean and bitter in return. I cannot go through life this way anymore…I am not a victim. I am not unreliable. I am not sick, and weak. I am strong. I am thriving. It is time to work on myself, and find a comfort with stillness again, and find my purpose in life, again, without fear or narrow-mindedness, without distraction or masochism or victimization. It ends now, I am changing, I have changed.”

These new beliefs overwhelmed me, and I felt an onslaught of intense feeling as I fell to the ground, so cold and lovely, and I cried. Suddenly, opportunities seemed to fly into my mind. I had a future! One of my own making! I could do whatever I wanted with this life! There was hope in doing something creative, innovative, and new with my life. I was no longer a victim. I could do something, anything, for the good of my future, and others. I was so excited, I wanted to kiss that dull, brown earth so frozen beneath me. How enthralling everything seemed. How vibrant and lovely was life, now!

“Is this surrender?” I asked, “Is this acceptance?”

The voice merely said again, “I am opportunity, I am Life itself.”