Slow News Week

It is difficult to come up with something brilliant to write week after week. Both hyper critical and competitive (I mostly compete against my own personal best, which one might think makes the game a win-win every time. Alas. That is not the case.), I agonize over word choices, sentence variation, tone and cohesiveness.

Often times I desire to deliver a sagacious message – food for thought for my readers – that will inspire just one person to make the world a better place. Other times I think of writers like Dave Barry (I can remember reading him in the Miami Herald and thinking how cool it would be to write for the newspaper) and I want to be funny – to throw out some zinger that people talk about at the proverbial office water cooler.

This happens to be one of those weeks where the thoughts that will eventually translate into words on this page feel stifled – despite the fact that there is certainly a lot of fodder for conversational writing both nationally and in our community.

I don’t have much to say about the recent election. Somehow an “In your face!” seems juvenile and inappropriate albeit funny (something my editor might secretly edit out of my work much to my dismay).

Truth be told, I am one of the few in the upstate who voted for Obama (there must have been a misprint because it didn’t say anti-Christ on my ballot). That said I also voted for many Republican candidates in Pickens County. As if I had a choice! (My editor has made me so paranoid about offending our readership that I have to add – People, that is supposed to be funny).

While it is possible for me to maintain objectivity and a balance of voices when I write, I can’t help but shake my head and laugh about the ensuing Dog Debacle in Easley.

Seriously!?!?

I cannot wrap my brain around how surreally this entire ordeal continues to unfold right before my very eyes. I still don’t understand why, between law enforcement, magistrates, council members, and our mayor, something cannot – has not – been done to return this dog to the family who unequivocally owns her when that ownership has been publicly conceded by the people who refuse to return her.

Of course, I could also comment on the factions at war over the old, abandoned Doodle Line. Pickens and Easley would like to combine their efforts and turn the old rail line into a safe, aesthetically pleasing and pedestrian friendly path where families can ride bicycles, run or walk and not only enjoy the out-of-doors but also reap some of the health benefits associated with physical activity.

 As there is any time a current of change surges through the county, certain groups are appalled by the notion that tax payer dollars would be used to groom Pickens and Easley into anything remotely like the Sodom and Gomorrah of Greenville. Put in a pedestrian friendly trail and what’s next? Brothels? Sunday alcohol sales?

I shudder at the mere thought.

Yep. This has definitely been one of those weeks when my thought well has been depleted and dehydrated. Here’s hoping something interesting happens so I have something to write about for next week!

Practice Kindness

I have been on a journey of self-discovery for as long as I can remember. As I have said before, we are all works in progress. Some of us actively seek to learn more about ourselves to improve our lives and relationships with others. Some of us fall into circumstances that wind up teaching us applicable life lessons. Others ignore the idea of self-improvement all together and are content to move through life in a state of blissful ignorance.

Over the last several months, I have been afforded a variety of opportunities to learn more about myself and how I interact with other people. There are some fairly simple, fundamental truths I constantly attempt to put into practice daily. Sometimes it is more difficult than at other times, but if we could all practice the most basic principle we learn growing up, imagine what a better world we would help shape.

Em and Ella have each experienced conflict at school lately. It seems each of my girls has been faced with a bully of a classmate. When I pick them up after school, I listen to stories about recess play gone awry – degraded into name calling and petty meanness.

Before I begin to wax philosophical, let me say this: I am not one of those parents who believe that my daughters are saintly or should be considered as candidates for canonization. I know that they are not always on their best behavior, and I know that they are not always polite. I know they don’t always speak with kindness or act selflessly. Thankfully, they are children and I have time to help shape and mold their characters.

By the way, I am not perfect either. However, I do attempt to be an example for my daughters when it comes to treating others with kindness, compassion, understanding and unconditional love. While I might be idealistic, I don’t think it hurts to smile at someone even when I am having a bad day.

When I hear my girls talking about other kids that have been unkind, I emphasize that the people who are not nice are often the ones most in need of random acts of kindness. After all, most of us treat other people the way we been and have learned to treat others.

As children, if we grow up in a home where we aren’t hugged, loved and nurtured how would we know how to treat other people with kindness and compassion?  

We wouldn’t.

Bullying of any kind is absolutely unacceptable; yet I imagine that kids who bully other kids are probably victims of bullying themselves. Most kids are not inherently mean-spirited. They are taught that behaving in this way is ‘normal’ somewhere along the line. It seems to me, then, that the best way to combat unkindness is to shower one with love and understanding.

I’m sure this all sounds like hippie-dippy, tree-hugging, leftist rhetoric, but I think my thoughts have some merit and I would challenge my readers out there to give kindness a chance. What is the worst that can happen? Put a little love out there and, hmmm, you might get a little love in return?

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” ― Mother Teresa

Confession: I often find that when I do the math, I am older than I think I am!

Ruminating about what I was going to write and compile for this week’s B-Front, it seemed liked only years ago that I graduated from high school. I was thinking about the palatial digs all these kids are going to high school as they enter any one of the four majestic buildings in Clemson, Liberty, Easley or Pickens.

I had the opportunity to tour the new EHS and walking the halls was more reminiscent of being in a museum than my old high school.

Beach High (that really is my alma mater’s name – Go Tides!) had what one might describe as an institutional feel: cinderblock building construction painted a drab sand color; dimly lit hallways; beat-up, dented in lockers; linoleum floors that had ferreted so many dirty sneakers to and fro no amount of bleach could make them look pristine.

We were lucky if there was a television in each room, and I don’t mean the flat screen variety. I can remember feeling like I had won the lottery if selected for the task of going to our library to check out the reel-to-reel film projector and wheel it, atop massive cart, back to whichever classroom I was in at the time.

Thinking about all this, I heard my voice echo in my head “I only graduated in 1994. That isn’t that long ago. Then I started doing the math in my head and, I won’t lie, on my fingers: Voila! My twenty year reunion is just around the corner.

Yep. Not only do I feel old, without the aid of an incredibly talented stylist, I would boast a fair amount of grey hair to prove this fact.

An old friend once told me that I was like a bottle of wine in that I only got better with age. I’ve chosen to ascribe to this theory.

While I might get older, there are still some things that never change. For me, one of those things is the excitement of Back to School.

A self-proclaimed nerd, I loved (I love) preparing for back to school. One of the neat things about having children is getting to relive exciting moments, such as these, with them.

Picking out book-bags, pencil boxes, binders, glue sticks, crayons, paper, and pencils was a thrill a minute. Getting home from Wal-Mart, putting all of the new supplies out on the kitchen table, organizing and packing them up always brings back fond memories for me.

I wish I were going back to school too.

"'This Year's Love'"

I wish that I possessed a knowledgeable vocabulary or deeper understand of music such that I could talk about it in an intellectual way as opposed to simply saying  ‘I really like that song.’ I’ve always been an avid music fan, and if it had been possible for me to memorize chemical or algebraic equations the way I have managed to remember song lyrics over the years, I would be a freakin’ genius.

Seriously. It would be amazing if there were a way to look at my brain memory the same way I can pull up the pie diagrams that display the way my computer memory is allotted among various programs. I would love to know how much of my grey matter contains song lyrics compared with, say, geometry. I imagine the results would be sadly astounding.

We all have favorite songs that become part of our life sound tracks. Songs that, regardless of how much time has passed or how much we might grow and evolve, we will always love. Music, I believe, becomes ingrained in our sensory memories – they become part of us and who we are. There are pieces of music I love because of the lyrics and because of the instrumental sounds. I love voices, especially those with that earthy, scratchy, gravely kind of tone.

People who know me would tell you that I love Dave Matthews. He would be an example of the many ways I love music. There is something about the quality of his voice that resonates with me. Add to this the lyrics – the longing of his love songs – the multitude of instruments like flute, saxophone, violin (or fiddle?), guitar, drums … it is an amazing explosion of sounds and words that “get” me.

Running through my mind the last couple of days has been David Gray’s “This Year’s Love.” The first time I heard this song I was in graduate school – snuggled into my bed watching Felicity. The scene for which this song was the back ground took place in winter time New York. I recall a couple, who had struggled earlier in the episode, embracing as this song echoed in the back ground.

As soon as I heard the song, I loved it.

I wish there were some way that I could write about it in a way that would convey how it makes me feel, but I think I lack the tools and capability to be able to do so.

The song is simple – piano and Gray’s voice. What makes it so powerful is the timing – the pauses between words – the emotional ache in his voice as he sings. When I hear it, I can feel exactly what he is describing. Does that make sense?

This year’s love had better last
Heaven knows it’s high time
I’ve been waiting
On my own
Too long

Then piano….

When you hold me

Like you do
Feel so right
Ah now
Start to for-get
How my heart
gets
torn
when that hurt
gets thrown
feelin’
like you
can’t go on

Turning circles

when time again
It cuts like a knife
oh yeah
If you love me
got to know
 for sure

Piano....

Cos it takes something

more this time
Than sweet, sweet lies
ah now
Before I
open
up my
arms
and fall
Losing all
control
Every dream
inside
my soul

And when you kiss me
On that

Midnight
street
Sweep me
off my feet
Singing
ain't this life
so sweet
So whose to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

The way I’ve broken this up is the way it sounds in my mind – where the pauses are between words – the way the emphasis sounds. Again, there is something about the longing ache in Gray’s voice. It captures a feeling that I have felt before at times in my life. In various relationships.

I guess it is the longing that I love. The sense of urgency. I have always wanted someone to feel that ache for me – the longing to be near – to know that love is real and that it isn’t going anywhere.

It should also come as no surprise that, hopeless romantic that I am, I am in love with the idea of being swept off my feet. I can imagine literally being picked up, held and kissed in a way that makes me breathless – shoots my heart rate through the roof such that, in any other context, I would be terrified I was having a heart attack.

Really, I have not done this song justice. I know. I’m certain there are technical terms, musical language, that would more accurately convey what Gray does as a singer that causes listeners, like me, to have such a visceral response to the music. If I were compiling a sound track for my life, “This Year’s Love” would definitely be on the list.