Month: August 2017

I used to cry and yell out of anger, whether it was out of frustration or heart break. Now here I am, barely glancing at negative situations. I’m far too old, and well, I’ve come entirely too far for setbacks such as people. I am steadily progressing, someday I will even reach my full potential. I am a flower bud that will continually sprout regardless of weeds and pesticides. I am the phoenix, I will burn and be re-birthed, nothing will stop me. I am the persistent snail on the mission of life and I am the shark that will keep swimming. I could just as easily be overly angry about every last thing on this earth. I could be the most monstrous person in the world. I am the universe, still good, forever progressing.

Before this transmutation in my life, I was an extremely hateful person. I held grudges for years and would even consider people who had crossed me as dead. I was truly an unpleasant person. Spoiled, a rotten apple, I was great on the outside, but if you so much as looked to me sideways, my mouth would become a weapon of destruction. But luckily, I’ve changed for the better, but all the while, still a work in progress. 

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Two Tyrannosaurus Rex-es push an RV off the cliff with our main characters in it: Sarah, Ian, and Nick.  Eddie Carr rushes to try to save them, and they scream at him for a rope.  When he asks them if they need anything else, they sarcastically order cheeseburgers and meals.  This is the same mocking of the poor, barely mentioned side character has been met with the entire movie.

Eddie still struggles to save them, slipping through mud to try to connect the RV to the car, having to pause midway to secure the rope that slipped off.  In the torrential weather, he is a true hero because the task seems impossible.  He finally hook the cable to the car, reversing the vehicle to try to pull the RV back up.  When the T.  Rex-es return, he has ample time to run; instead, he crouches down in the driver’s seat, foot STILL on the pedal.  He tries to save the people he has been berated by the entire movie with his entire heart.  Yet watching the movie in passing, you would barely even recognize his heroics. What is his thanks?  He is thrown into the air and torn apart.  Everyone should know about Eddie Carr.

I can remember sitting in my third grade science class, reading from my textbook,  and having trouble pronouncing the word “eclipse”. What did it mean? It sounded pretty scary to me. Later on in the year I would find out that an eclipse is, in my teacher’s words, “when the moon swallows the sun whole and then spits it back out”. I was intrigued, and made sure to find out when the moon was planning on doing this. She told me sometime when I was in high school, around 2017. It was a long time away, but I always remembered to keep an eye out for this natural phenomenon on the news as I grew up.

it’s finally here, and I’m so excited. My family bought glasses to watch the sun disappear in the sky as the moon attempted to “swallow” it. I’ve been on NASA’s webpage all week waiting for the livestream of the eclipse. This is a rare event that only occurs about once every thirty years, and were lucky enough to experience it with the help of modern technology. The eclipse supposedly will pass over Oregon around 10:00, traveling over entire states in less than thirty minutes. The passing of the eclipse over America should last around ninety minutes, expected to be in the Carolinas around 2:45. Mississippi doesn’t have the ideal spot to see the full eclipse, but Brookhaven should be able barely make out the black dot over the sun as it passes us.

Millions of families and travelers worldwide are expected to travel to the heart of North America to see the eclipse. One of the most optimal places to see the eclipse is around Nashville, Tennessee.

Travelers must know the rules of viewing the eclipse to safely watch the amazing event. The sun’s harmful rays are actually heightened around the corners of the eclipse, making retina damage a serious threat to all who gaze at the sight. You should avoid looking directly at the sun during an eclipse, rather, opt to watch via NASA’s satellite camera recording the entire process.

I’ve been waiting for this since I realized what the word eclipse even meant, and now that it’s here, I don’t know how I will feel about it once it’s over. This is a historical event, and it could only happen once or twice in someone’s lifetime, so make sure everyone you know is ready to witness the moon swallowing the sun and spitting it back into the sky.

(Spoiler Warning for Reservoir Dogs.  Please do NOT read this until you have seen Reservoir Dogs.)

My favorite moment in a movie is a scene from one of my absolute favorite movies.  That movie is Reservoir Dogs.  The specific scene that I like more than any other is not the most well known one.  In fact, it immediately follows what most would consider to be the most well known scene in the movie, that scene being the one in which Mr. Blonde cuts off the cop’s ear to the tune of the song “Stuck in the Middle with You.”  I really like that scene, and to this day, I cannot hear that song without thinking of that specific scene and cringing just a little bit.

The scene that I like is the one that happens a little bit later.  Once Mr. Blonde cuts off the police officer’s ear and is preparing to burn him alive after soaking him in gasoline, Mr. Orange, who we’ve thought was unconscious, shoots Mr. Blonde killing him immediately.  This still is not my favorite moment.  After Mr. Blonde is shot and is dead, the rest of the remaining criminals come into the warehouse where all of this has taken place.  They see Mr. Blonde dead, and question Mr. Orange because he is the only one that could have shot him.  He confesses to what he’s done and explains that Mr. Blonde was going to burn the cop alive.  One of the criminals that has come back in and is now questioning Mr. Orange Nice Guy Eddie says, “Who, that cop?” and immediately shoots the earless, gas-soaked police officer.  That moment is my favorite in the movie, and at the time of writing, my favorite moment in film that I can think of.

The main reason that I love it so much is how many levels it works on and how many previous scenes we’ve seen that it plays off of.  To start off, we know that Mr. Orange is the rat within the group of jewelry store thieves, so we are already waiting to see the rest of the gang figure out who he is throughout the movie.  At this point, we see Nice Guy Eddie shoot this cop that Mr. Orange killed another man to save.  Regardless of him being an undercover cop, we are terrified for Mr. Orange because of what we now see that Eddie is capable of, and we can feel just how far in over his head Mr. Orange is.  We are scared because most of us feel that Mr. Orange made the right decision in shooting Mr. Blonde who was torturing and planning to kill in the most excruciating way available a man simply because of his occupation.  We feel like we might have made this same decision, and so we understand that Mr. Orange probably would have too if he was truly a criminal and not an undercover cop.  Knowing that he’s actually a cop and might be at serious risk of being killed for a completely unrelated reason just doubles the suspense.

Another reason is that we already understand the relationship between Nice Guy Eddie and Mr. Blonde and can relate to it also.  We know that Mr. Blonde had just gotten out of jail, and Eddie’s family was helping him to get his life back together.  We see them talk like old friends and wrestle like kids together when Mr. Blonde first goes to see them.  They are quite clearly very close, and this is only further nailed home by the scene.  We see Eddie immediately shoot the cop that Mr. Blonde was killed for.  We understand the emotions within Eddie.  We understand that Mr. Blonde has just become a part of his life again and has now been jerked right back away from him forever, and in response, Eddie is lashing out by killing part of what he blames for this loss.  He is getting revenge, but we know that his vendetta is not settled because the cop did not directly kill Mr. Blonde.  We know that that falls on Mr. Orange.  This allows the emotion that we understand is there within Eddie to be applied to Mr. Orange to make us more anxious to see what becomes of both of them.  Overall this is an excellently crafted scene and a great payoff for hours of build up that would  still keep the audience invested purely on its own merits without those that it builds off of from previous scenes.  That is what makes it my personal favorite movie moment.

Honestly, I’ve read a lot of books, and I mean a lot, probably hundreds, if not thousands, of online blogs, countless amount of short stories, poems, you name it, but I would have to state that the best I have ever read is one I just recently came into possession of: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by don Miguel Ruiz.

The Four Agreements is a Toltec wisdom book and discusses four agreements (obviously) that the author, Ruiz, believes every human being should promise to themselves.  I came across this book when I was told to read it by my psychiatrist, after I had told her that I was having a difficult time with personal issues I have struggled with for years, and she believed this book would really help me.  And she was right.

The first agreement is “Be impeccable with your word.”  By this, the author means that you should only say what you mean – do not purposefully mislead a person with your words, so as to confused them.  He also states that you should never use your Word to speak against yourself or to “gossip” or spread rumors about other people, and you should not use the power of your Word for any other direction besides toward truth and love and to speak with integrity.

The second agreement is “Don’t take anything personally.”  Ruiz believes that if a person is intentionally speaking negatively about you or about anyone other than themselves, then it is not about whomever they are intending to hurt with their Word – it’s about the one insulting the other.  He says that we all live inside of a dream, and their acting negatively is a projection of their own reality, their dream.  When you built yourself up to immunity of others’ opinions and actions, you will no longer be the victim of undeserved suffering.

The next agreement Ruiz discusses is “Don’t take anything personally.”  Ruiz says that with this one agreement, you can completely change your life.  This agreement consists of: finding the courage to ask questions about opinions and customs you are not adapted to, expressing how you really feel about another person, a belief, or even a controversial topic, and communicating with others as clearly as possible, so as to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and most importantly of all, drama.

The final agreement is “Always do your best.”  The author states that your best will change from moment to moment, depending on both your physical and mental state, such as, your best is better when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick.  He believes that doing your best will result in avoiding self-abuse, self-judgement and regret.

“When you feel good, everything around you is good, when everything around you is great, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything that is around you, because you are loving yourself. Because you like the way you are. Because you are happy with your life. You are happy with the movie that you are producing, happy with your agreements with life. You are at peace, and you are happy. You live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and everything is so beautiful” (Ruiz).

(I couldn’t find any page numbers online, so please don’t think I’m plagiarizing).

Loose buttons,

paint stained hands and sand filled hair.

The love for someone that shouldn’t hold hold his heart,

time taken from a family too soon.

Stone cold heart turned to mush turned to stone,

turned human.

Disguise ridden life idled at the sight of a crooked smile,

ghosts talking through destruction, through the voice in her head.

Time taken to heal was almost too long,

Some love stories aren’t just about other people.

 

I carefully selected a cardboard carton from the cold metal shelf.  Peeping inside the stiff, brown, container, I made sure none of the eggs were busted.

With just one vastly uncoordinated motion of my foot,  I was sprawled across the dirty gas station floor.  I glanced over the eggs still balanced in my arms.  I had saved all but one from my clumsy, doubtful feet.  She was cracked.  The veiny cracks were barely visible, but visible still.

This egg was no different from the rest.  She was no weaker.  She just chose to wear her scars proudly upon her bleached shell.  They told the story of her past.  They told the story of what hurt her.

The others were no stronger than her, only less proud of where they’ve been and where that’s lead to–cradled, shaken in my arms.

She was the strong one.

so i love knick-knacks.

knick-knacks and keepsakes and mementos and little things that may not mean anything but can still contain multitudes. i collect ticket stubs and doodles from my notes in class and fortunes from fortune cookies. i collect bits and bobs and everything in-between.

i collect things.

i collect memories.

now call me sentimental, call me a hoarder, call me whatever you see fit. i collect the things that help me remember. i collect confetti and tickets and wristbands from concerts i’ve been to because i can still see the confetti falling through the air and the ticket being scanned and the wristband being secured onto my wrist. i collect paper fortunes to remind myself of the little proverbs that keep me grounded. i collect the things that help me remember.

i don’t know when my little knack for keeping these things started. maybe it was keeping the fortunes in my phone’s translucent case after forgetting to throw them away. maybe it was the little build-a-bear heart i used to carry in the front-right pocket of my jeans on test days because i was sure it would give me good luck.

maybe it was seeing all the little bits and pieces of life that no one seemed to bat an eye at and decided to give them purpose after all.

the little plastic and metal bits are only enough to fill an old jewelry box, and the paper fortunes house in a little starbucks frappuchino glass. but i also have the glass bottle from the very first orange cream soda i had after my grandfather died. i still have the glass coke bottle i bought from the coca-cola museum in vicksburg where it was first bottled. i still have the glass dr. pepper bottle i bought at the piggly wiggly across the street on the last day of msa art camp.

i keep the things most people throw away because i tie far more meaning to them than i should.

there’s this quote that goes “nostalgia is a dirty liar that insists things were better than they seemed.” it sticks with me years after first reading its words. i’ve always been one to romanticize, to idolize, to reminisce. the past has always been this distant little paradise, a vacation destination i revisit only in late nights and dead silences.

so, maybe nostalgia is a liar. maybe keeping all these little trinkets is just my way of telling myself things were better than they actually were. maybe keeping the happy things is how i try to forget the sad things.

maybe i just like having little reminders to show me how far i’ve come since first collecting this or that, and maybe they remind me of all the happy little things i have left to collect in my life.

 

I think there may be something wrong with the world. For some unknown reason, the world seems to waver at times and distort in front of my eyes. There are moments when I can see everything for what it is. There are others where reality mixes with my imagination. At these moments dragons walk to work on Tuesday mornings. Fish wave to friends from across the street as they wiggle their way onto the bus heading for a place that only leaves my dreams, and my peers don’t seem real. They’re a haze a figment of my hyperactive mind. I will touch their skin and feel warm flesh underneath my fingertips, but can’t dream seem that way as well. Pain and longing and happiness are not limited to what we deem to be the reality. What type of space am I in at the current time, a limbo of mismatched world or too tired to deem anything real from the way my mind mingles with that of my nightmares?

I walked through a school of giants and pixies, fairy’s with God complexes and werewolves that told way too many jokes. Wizards disguised as band instructors waving their magic wands, making us dance to a repetitive beat. I didn’t think anyone else saw this world, I was alone to walk this school of monsters and ghost-like friends. At some point, I even was sure that I was kidnapped by aliens. I swore if I looked out the back window of my bus I would see everything melt away and maybe then could I get a glimpse of far greater technology proving my theory correct, but I saw no such things.

I jump at the chance to make this world true. And maybe it is in different ways I can’t prove that it is false. Very similarly how no one can prove it to be real. This is just the way everything is for me and I come to accept that. I am in a fairy tale world of most peculiar circumstances and ways. But I believe that to be better than any normal day, despite that fact that as I grow older that the world fades away ever so slightly I can still see the traits of what it still is. Even now I’ve seen a poodle disguised as a teacher as a lioness writes about her deepest woes. I wonder if they themselves know what they are but probably not.