What do I desire? A question loaded like a Remington 12 gauge. Knee jerk, off the top of my head response? An inexpensive, rich cup of coffee, the perfect trumpet mouthpiece, my eyesight back and if it ain’t too much trouble, throw in more libido. I desire a food market that has affordable beef tongue, chicken livers, faux lobster and oh yeah, peace on earth.

I can’t ask for a good relationship, got that in spades. I can’t desire fresh air, clean water, and the peace that only comes from living in a temperate rain forest, check. I desire more abstract, intangible, impossible things like more “get real gravity” with a supersize order of zeitgeist responsibility. Does that make any sense? I desire positive resolution. I desire an end to all predatory competition. I desire Nature to reclaim planetary common sense.

Seems all my desires are in a committee, collaboratively chaired by Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny… are my naive, altruistic roots showing? Tough, suck it up buttercup.

I belong to a species genus that isn’t top of the food chain, contrary to my species’ delusions. I don’t have a problem with that, I don’t make rationalizations and excuses that argue that position. I desire, all that claim to be top of the so called ‘food chain,’ to “shut the F up.”

I’m lucky. I’ve received a couple things, conditions I’ve longed for most of my life. It exacted a high price. Following the path here was worth the pain and suffering. Yeah, now that I’m here, I wish some of that pain and suffering would fade a bit. No chance. Still it was all worth it, I wouldn’t do anything differently, although I wish some others along the way would have chosen differently, but hey, not my circus, not my monkeys.

After reflecting a bit more, I’ll add I desire all passive/aggressive types to magically either get a clue or disappear off the face of the planet. I hear Pluto is just fabulous this time of year….

Seriously? What I desire is wrapped up in a little saying, a little conundrum I learned a couple lifetimes ago. “It’s not what you want that makes you fat, it’s what you get.”

Take a lifetime to think that over, apply it like so much school paste, and then see if your own desires don’t refocus.

#Challenge #Desire #fiction #life #personal #opinion #satire #william_calkins

I think, in a way, despite each tragedy I have endured, the mechanics of my heart remain hopeful.

Despite it being chewed up, spit out, stepped on... I believe that it can still recognize the good in people. I believe that it can still reach out and warm others.

It is cautious, and the bricks that make the wall to guard it take lots of time to chip away at now. The work is taxing— though I truly embrace the idea that it can bounce back from any casualty. I have made it that way. I have grown in faith. My heart has its scratches and its bruises. But don’t we all? Don’t we each have our own wear and tear?

It is how we choose to fix it that matters. It is our resilience that matters. When somethings breaks, we make the choice to pick up the pieces and place the gears back where they belong. Repair torn belts. Find replacement screws.

We must take care of our hearts and in return, they beat for us. They work for us. They love for us.

And even though we may each face situations that cause us damage, we must choose: do we pick up the pieces and mend them together again? If we don’t, the world grows awfully lonesome.

So in spite of the pain... let us choose to be hopeful.

#theheart #resilience #hopeful #faith #love #themechanicsoftheheart

As a child, I was told there was a house inside of the rainbow that I could fly to in my inspiring dreams. It was my mother who prompted me to believe that the shortest distance between two friends can be measured in a hug and we helped each other. It’s as though our mutual dreams owned a coloring book and there was a story to tell. We knew that our stories had a right to live and breathe.

We had seven times seven thousand unfolding prayers, finding seven thousand promises to share. When she was pregnant with me, she heard my voice speaking to her in the womb and she interpreted my smile language. She intuitively knew I’d grow older and there would be many tears in the spinning wheels of time though. Some days would be hard and there would be puddles that I couldn’t always walk around.

“Embrace your confusion and let it teach you.” She said, as she dried my teenage tears when I was struggling. She knew that words alone were not like pretty nick knacks lined upon the shelves of a curio. She didn’t just tell me, she showed me the answers.

The life of a young person isn’t always a dancing song, with life captivating pauses of time reflections to medicate. Life can be scary and bullying words can be like a dragonfly that stings. It was Mama who wanted me to imagine that fate orchestrates life into a musical and destiny leads the band. I was hurt by other kids my age and mother taught me something valuable: The harsh words from school yard bullies do not even matter. I simply needed to learn the beauty of living inside of the rainbow.

I’m a senior citizen now and, when I think of the pure waters she drank in the white light, I see the torch she carried. No star shines brighter than the starry eyed wonder of a Yuletide child on Christmas morning. Now is the time for all good holiday feelings to grow new memories out of the older Noels. EVERY day of the year was like Christmas to Mama. I cannot help but feel inspired to follow her ways.

The silvery moon is a dancer and the man inside of it is an ageless wonder to a child. To me, it's all charismatic and wonderful, much in the same magical way that time arches over the rainbow. My mother is in heaven now and yet with me on earth, as I pour her inspirational quotes into the dry wells of time and she fills my life with poetry.

Lara started building her first ship in a bottle a month after she met Steve.

He sailed. She didn’t.

He fished. She hated seafood.

He swam. She sank like a stone.

He dove from cliffs. Again, she sank like a stone.

But when they stepped into that souvenir store in Annapolis and saw those elaborate wooden ships constructed in glass bottles—she swooned.

She painted. He didn’t.

She sculpted. Statues unnerved him.

She curated a gallery. He preferred galleys to galleries.

She once curated a museum. Again, he preferred galleys.

She picked a medium-sized bottle off the shelf. It contained a schooner. She knew this because Steve looked at the bottle and said, “Hey! Check out that schooner, would ya?” And immediately it seemed like the perfect activity to bond them as a legitimate couple: art and water. He could pick the boat, the bottle and the materials and she could piece it all together and add more maritime décor to his houseboat way back on Lake Union, Seattle. Beautiful there. Such a nice change of pace.

So, faster than an encroaching Nor’easter, they bought plane tickets and commenced collaborating.

He complimented. She worked even harder.

He dreamt about that perfect wave. She obsessed over that brass porthole.

He stepped out for coffee. She skipped breakfast.

He flew to Annapolis for that thing he needed for that other thing. She said, “Huh? Oh! That’s nice. You, too!”

Now, two years later, she put the finishing touches on her 8th ship-in-bottle project. And did so while living in his houseboat on Lake Union. She made her own workspace: a heavy, wooden table with a magnifying glass wider than her head and thicker than her forearm.

Though the boat in a bottle collaboration became a little one-sided, Lara loved the process. Unlike Steve, she drank up details and projects like they were tequila and she the worm. He was more of a big-picture man.

She filed, sanded and stained the slivers of Boxwood making up the stern and bow. She used pipe cleaners to adhere glue to the garboard strake and developed a soldering iron technique to make sure each pintle fit securely in their gudgeon without popping out. She found the simplest way to complete the task was to rig the masts of the ship and raise them up once securely inside. Masts, spars, and sails worked best when built separately and then attached to the hull of the ship with strings and hinges, and…Lara built these hinges from scratch. Tiny hinges from bits of brass and copper found in discarded heaps at Lake Union Hardware, back when she used to leave Steve’s houseboat to go to Lake Union Hardware.

In the meantime, Steve sailed. He fished. He swam. He travelled wherever water could be found.

He met another artist who loved to paint and sculpt and curate. Another artist who was just as taken by the ships in the bottles in that Annapolis souvenir store—the tininess of it all, the details.

Lara turned off her soldering iron one day to find that Steve wasn’t there. He actually hadn’t been there for quite sometime, but Lara hadn’t noticed until she popped the cork in Viking ship circa 900 AD and placed it on the shelf next to Courageous, Ted Turner’s America’s Cup Yacht circa 1977 AD.

“Steve?” Lara was alarmed by how muffled her voice sounded. She cleared her throat. “Steve? Honey? I finished if you want to grab dinner or something. Indian, maybe?” She stood and leaned towards the deck complete with planters and plastic begonias. Her knees wobbled and popped as she walked for the first time in however long. “I could go for tika masala anything: chicken, lamb, shrimp…”

It was easy to tell he wasn’t there because this particular houseboat was easy to search in one glance. Lara merely had to stand at the stairs and look up, then out and side-to-side to know that she was completely alone. Steve’s was a tiny boat: Lake Union Houseboat, circa 1930, Renovation circa 1968.

Lara liked tiny.

“Uh…hon?” Lara’s voice caught when she stepped on deck. It was still so beautiful. Perfectly sanded planks of mahogany, ending at hourglass-shaped fence posts above the outboard motor. The water was rocky, but the houseboat didn’t even bob.

And when she reached out to flick away what she thought was a dangling spider or speck, she realized that the speck was a leaf on the other side. It hovered just above Lake Union Houseboat, circa 1930, Renovation circa 1968. Hovered starboard of the perfectly sanded mahogany deck. Lara’s hand hit glass. Her fingers rubbed the curve of what felt and looked like hard air. The leaf stuck there. Mocked her. It able to fly away if the right breeze came along, where Lara was left to wonder where her air might be coming from, much less the right breeze. She thought about yelling but then realized that the women in the houseboats on either side of her were concentrating. And not just on either side, but hunched, focused women worked on projects in houseboats extending indefinitely from either side of her neighbors—all focused intensely on the boat parts and bottles spread out in their respective workspaces. Lara swallowed, though whatever was caught in her throat now didn’t go away.

The woman immediately on her right crafted a Spanish galleon scaled larger than most models Lara had researched, probably meant for a magnum or a Jeroboam. The corresponding lighthouse next to that vessel was a detail she’d yet to consider. Lara thought about waving, getting that artist’s attention, just for an unobtrusive second, and issuing a thumb’s up for such masterful work. Then she noticed how little sun was left.

Pity.

Sure, the twilight sky was nice and, yeah, she had a few questions for Steve. But there was another box of gathered bits of fine wood and metals on the table inside. And Staten Island Ferry, circa 1819 wasn’t going to build itself.

The End

Conceived in confusion,

Born with enlightenment,

Elevation ever increasing,

But yet, remaining-

Distant.

Barely attainable.

Seemingly Unreachable.

The limits of my mind,

Wrought forth from nebulous thought,

Yet you fly above,

And across,

And finally through,

Reaching every alcove of my mind,

Drawing ideas and thoughts,

Even from the deepest crevices of my personality,

Until finally, you reach the clouds.

Cordial and yet taunting,

Flying beautifully close,

But ever so far away,

You twirl and you leap with grace,

Small wisps of your essence floating down to my perch,

My spirit escalates to attain you,

Rising and fluttering.

As fatigue rises and determination falls,

I look upwards,

Your sight a beacon,

A calling for my duty.

Flying beautifully close,

But yet, still, ever so far away,

Large wisps of your essence rushing down to my holding in the sky.

Rising up higher to meet thee,

I leap,

Floating and fluttering,

Bounding off of air,

Finding a place to perch,

While resting on hope.

Inspired by your near presence.

Dancing beautifully close,

And getting closer yet.

My spirit settles upon your swirling cloud,

As you dance with sheer content,

Your image ever warping,

Shifting to become brighter and more substantial,

Until finally, my spirit joins with you.

You reach towards my hand,

Dancing beautifully close.

Finally within my grasp.

You twirl and you leap with grace,

Large flares of your essence amassing on my hands,

I leap once more,

Descending with you,

My feet landing lightly on the land below.

My eyes clearing from your beautiful world.

Torn away and placed on firm ground,

I awake from my mesmerized merriment,

My spirit growing from experience;

Brimming with uncontrolled pride.

Only to realize,

I’ve traveled but one stride.

And yet, the universe has changed.

We live in something called ' universe' which is as much science as it is an art. Even before prompting this particular challenge you should have known that anything and everything in this crazy world is interconnected...

Science and art - no exceptions here as well. You say "Life is science." I agree to disagree, because without the art of word you would not have been able to speak out, or in the first place you would've been unable to write the challenge! Life is a confluence of art and science.

Without one the other can't live. Without one the other can't breathe.

Art and science, they are the same thing. What differs is the 'perspective'.

When you look at a person or an object or a scenic vista - what you first comprehend depends on how you think, scientifically or non-scientifically. By non scientific I precisely mean, observations based on emotions, feelings etc.

When you express an art, it is verbally or manually or maybe just something going on in your mind. Any kind of action can be linked with a scientific evaluation.. You speak or think or write or paint because the nervous system is at work with your hands, your mouth, and so on. Life is moving on as the entire system of your body is so busy.

The earth is rotating and revolving, you will definitely say it's different from a piece of poem, perhaps?

I am here to prove you wrong and that is why I believe : Everything is same. Whether you speak of art or science, it really doesn't matter.

At the end of the day you express science through art and you design art through science.

If you haven't yet got my point and still lost in a dilemma, just step out of your house and look up at a tree.

You will see a living system thriving on photosynthesis, nonetheless a creation that is home to life and nurtures life. Look at anything and you will find art and science melting into one another.

The stars, the sky, the fields and flowers. The technologies and inventions.. Investment and business.. They are art in creation and science in method.

They are the same.. Everywhere the same.

A sentiment I hear often is that fear must be overcome.

Fear doesn't need to be overcome. It needs to be understood.

At its very base, fear is what allows us to survive. The future survival of any species is determined by how well the species knows danger, and how well the species can avoid it. You won't run from something if you don't know why you should.

Humans developed fear to keep us alive, but we began using it less and less as society progressed. We developed ways to avoid danger without ever seeing it, and as such, we didn't need to fear it anymore.

While humanity managed to overcome most necessity for fear, we started to think about what fear was. Without using fear to keep us alive, we only saw that it made us feel bad, helpless, and weak. We shunned fear.

But this approach to fear is not ideal. Fear is a basic part of the human psyche, and for good reason. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense, but it also plays a role in our current lives.

Fear is what makes us reconsider out decisions, perfectly crafting them to avoid danger. We could never have put a man on the moon if we didn't spend years creating the perfect system to keep him safe in the harshest environment in the universe. Fear is what makes us help those less fortunate, out of worry towards what might happen if we don't, or, perhaps more selfishly, out of fear that some higher power will be displeased if we withhold assistance. It makes us want to live our lives to the fullest, because above all we fear death. Fear is, essentially, what makes us human.

So I argue that we shouldn't try to eradicate fear. We should try to understand this crucial part of our minds.

We should see what causes us to be afraid and why: whether its more self-explanatory fears like heights or spiders, or more complex ones-the fear of falling in love, or being alone. For some these are mental disorders that need treatment, and I would never discourage someone from seeking help. But for fears that aren't born out of traumatic experiences or psychiatric problems, examining why we feel this way about certain issues can help us understand ourselves and our society.

Understanding fear is the key to understanding what we care about and why. So don't try and destroy fear. Embrace it, and see where it takes you.

The worst place to be is without a home. Way over middle age and sleeping on a roll away in your sisters house. Sharing a room with the cat litter box. No place of your own and no job. Family members thinking you are less than because you have no home. All of you things packed in boxes in the garage. Asking for money to pay for gas and car insurance. Feeling like no one really cares. The nieces and nephews think they are better than you. You have no hope, feeling like a failure, wanting to leave, having no where to go. Being embarrassed by circumstances created by the economy and death of a spouse. No on should ever go through this. This is the worst place to be. Without a home.

“Oh, what a beautiful baby girl.”

I don’t quite remember that one, but I’m sure someone said it. I’m sure you’ve said it to some new mother proudly beaming while holding what appears to be a second cousin to ET or one of the shrunken heads in the science experiment kit you used to have once upon a time. Hey, everyone loves babies. I get it.

“What a lovely young lady you’re becoming.”

Said at various stages of development when the mirror lets you know quite clearly that you will never be on the cover of any magazine except perhaps Dermatology Today. And that the paper bag over the head joke is not at all funny because you’ve contemplated wearing one more than once.

“You sang so beautifully.”

I couldn’t remember the words although I had known every one before Ms. Ross took my hand to sing with her on stage. And I couldn’t sing one note in tune though she provided me with every line.

“Why are they lying to me?” my seven-year old embarrassed, miserable-self asked my mother. She just smiled and said something like, “Oh honey,” and gave my shoulder a squeeze as we exited the theater, smiling at all the well-wishers who recognized the lucky kid who couldn’t sing to save her life.

“I’ll be your best friend,” said the ten-year old girl who was always mean but was suddenly saccharine sweet…eying the bag of candy I had bought at the corner store with my allowance. I gave her a piece as I replied, “No, you won’t.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I swear,” said minutes before everyone in the school knows your secret crush.

“I promise,” said for the umpteenth time while you sit with shoulders hunched, phone to your ear, your mom looking on pityingly, knowing your dad is not going to show. Again.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” he insists but then you see him kiss the pretty blonde between classes.

“I called you.” Funny, my phone never rang.

“I was thinking about calling you.” That’s nice. Yeah, I was thinking about calling you, too. And then I did.

“I was going to call you.” And then you forgot?

“I love you.” I love you, too.