Wings

Wings, I believe, are an almost universal symbol of what is positive and inspirational.

"On the wings of a snow white dove.." "You are the wind beneath my wings." "...rise up on the wings of angels..." or of eagles; "You lift me up so I can walk on mountains. You lift me up to walk on stormy seas." I am actually not sure that last 2-sentence one is actually referring to wings; but in my mind it goes along with all the others well, and upholds the continuity of my feeling of the positiveness and power of wings. All of the images that come to my mind in connection with the word and concept of wings are very positive and uplifting; religious or near-religious; holy and/or inspirational. Many are the stories in which rescue comes on wings, whether on the wings of great birds, like Gandalf's rescue from imprisonment by Sauron; or whether the rescue is a med-evac helicopter. Even the wings of an airplane, and the concept of airplane wings which originally lifted the Wright brothers into international fame, are always positive images to me.

Flight almost seems holy to me. I remember the first time I flew in an airplane among the clouds and thought to myself that this must be what heaven looks like. I love flying. I always have. Maybe it makes me feel closer to God. Maybe it is just the wonder and awe I feel about what I can see, about what we are doing that 400 years ago no one thought any man would ever do, or about how those wings can take me anywhere in the world. How close wings have brought our friends and family, and all the beautiful places on the other side of the world.

Wings promise us magic or adventure or escape or pleasure. From Icarus's wax and feather creation to Tinker Bell's magic pixie dust that helped Wendy, John, and Michael join Peter Pan in Neverland to the hyperberic (I am neither sure I have used the right word nor that I have spelled it correctly) chamber in which Steven Hawkings this week escaped the bonds of his paralysis and his wheel chair, wings free us to exploration and adventure and delight.

Whether our wings and flight are literal or figurative, we should all take at least some of the opportunities that come along in our life to spread wings and fly. By doing so, our lives are enriched, often beyond conceivable measure.

Bravo and congratulations, Laini! You have set us a marvelous example!!

Antipathy

I know it is possible to love someone but to occasionally, possibly frequently, not like that individual. But is is possible to love someone and hate that person at the same time???? It is not for me. I truly believe that! In fact, I cannot imagine how that could possibly be. But then, I never had someone blood related who abused me heinously. I have been lucky enough or maybe optimistic enough to feel that none I love have ever seriously abused me, at least not for any extended period and not with vicious malice or intention to do me harm, and none at all has abused me physically or sexually.


Now it's May 13th and I looked back at this assuming it was a Sunday Scribblings prompt I never finished. Being unable to tell from rereading it what in the world the topic had been, I went back to the SS prompts only to discover that this was between #57 & #56, wings and rooted, I believe. It was not fostered by one of Megg or Laini's well thought out prompts but, apparently, by something I heard of in our news---local or national---and must have had something to do, I am supposing, with some awful family killing family story. In any case my original motivation and even line of thinking has completely evaporated, and if I am going to publish this at all, it might as well be done now just as an incomplete, musing log entry.

Roots

Roots can have quite a number of meanings and interpretations, but to me, they all have positive connotations. Deep roots go far into the ground, producing increased stability and reaching far for sustenance and greater support. Family roots have the same function.

Roots are your grandparents and great grandparents and all your deep and broad extended family; but your roots also include your faith and all the values you were taught growing up and still accept as valid once you have become adult. They include, as well, those tenets of personal belief that you have embraced, on your own, as being important and vital.

Sometimes your roots can include physical items also---such as a family Bible or other book, or an heirloom piece of jewelry or art. Roots could also possible encompass property/land (as Tara was for Scarlet in Gone With the Wind), perhaps a specific homestead, the place you were raised, your grandparents home, or even an entire small town where much of your family lived and proliferated, maybe even named for or by your family.

But whatever "roots" mean to a specific individual, they are vital! As with a tree or flower, through roots come your individual characteristics and your life sustaining force: essential nutrition and strength and stability. We all need to cherish our roots.

Secret Identity/ second chance

"Hey, Ms. Stanley, what'd you do this weekend?" Kurt started class with this outburst while I was trying to get the whole group settled and working.

"Heard you went to a party Mr Kinsey gave for the faculty Friday night," Steve joined in before I had time for any reply.

"Heard you danced all night long and drank a bunch of the others under the table," their compatriot Matt added.

"Nothing so exciting," I commented dryly. "Now will you all please get quiet and do the bell work assignment which you know is due in 5 minutes."

"Those three will do absolutely anything to pull the class off task and waste time. What are they doing in an 11th grade honors class?" These things I mused to myself as I took attendance and entered it into the computer, then began to circulate, trying to be sure they were all attempting the grammar challenge on the overhead projector. If they paid attention as we went over it, they'd get more out of today's reading of James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

What I did this weekend..... if those guys only knew.... if any of them had any idea what their apparently average, middle-aged English teacher did on the weekends. They would NEVER believe!!!!

Kaylee Kralle --lead singer for a nightclub dance band, and sometimes actress, at those dinner theater jobs with one or two name stars that do summer stock in the Poconos or other resort areas ...... the band has our own jet and we book gigs all over the US and Canada, we do more weddings and expensive private parties than concerts of any kind ......... in the summer, we take jobs on cruise ships and abroad.... but every fall I return to my ordinary existence as high school English teacher and Beta Club sponsor. I plan lessons and grade papers as we jet to weekend gigs. Then during the week I strive to teach them to love literature and appreciate the nuances of grammar and language use. The classroom is my stage and they my usually less-than- appreciative audience.

I smile at their effort to insinuate their idea of excitement into what they presume to be my average, boring, middle aged life.

"Come-on, Guys, as soon as we finish going over this grammar worksheet, we are going to read a story of a little man with a grand imagination, one sufficient to save him from the boredom of every mundane situation. We are going to talk about "stream of consciousness" style of writing. Then I think we will each write a little Mitty-type episode of our own. Maybe I'll write one too and we can share what we've written."

In the News

News---the awareness and knowledge of current world, national and local, events---is critically important to our world and its citizens!! At least it should be. We should pay attention to what is going on around us and care about it. With cable television and the Internet added to the information sources that were around when our parents were the adults whose votes chose our leaders and representatives, we should be the best informed and savvy citizenry the world has ever known; but we aren't!

We are told what to think and often how to think and many cannot tell what is actually news and what is opinion, or what is news and what gossip. I am not sure whether we are a world of ostriches or of busybodies. It seems to me that a lot of people don't want to think for themselves. They want the government to take away all the risks and responsibility of living; and if someone tells them how/what to think along the way----what's the problem? they are just taking care of us..... Why is Anna Nicole's death more important than the death of soldiers and even innocent people in Iran or Iraq or than news of starving children anywhere? Is it that the general public really cares more about our Hollywood figure heads and their dirty laundry, or that they simply don't want to hear about ugly events that really matter???? Apathy is a frightening concept, too, when used as a possible explanation of this phenomenon. I must admit, I lean toward that to explain why media stories seem so skewed away from hard news. Then there's also the horrifying possibility that people today really don't comprehend the difference between real news and the society gossip.

My default TV channel is always a news channel, but it is usually local news, unless there is something HUGE "breaking." Because I have always felt like I had so little free reading time (because there were ALWAYS writing papers that needed to be graded) I have always guarded my reading time jealously. I presume that is why I have chosen to get most of my news, all types of news, from the old "boob tube." I acknowledge, this is my own weakness and problem; guess that makes me the boob. But in the last 5 to 10 years, I feel that the quality and integrity of broadcast news have declined to near death. I am not sure where to start to overcome this deficit for my own education.

So much of what is out there just makes me angry. In fact, often, that seems to be its purpose.

Does anyone out there have some truly informative and unbiased sources to suggest. Is it too much to ask that it might be presented in a positive or hopeful light. I am afraid if I start something that basically indicates, as I am tending to dread now at times, that we are all in the proverbial handbasket on a fast downhill slope to you know where, I simply won't finish reading it. I gotta have hope.

I have blathered on too long. Have a happy Easter, or I hope you had a blessed and meaningful Passover, or just have a great day; and hug a friend. Peace to you all.

Deepest, Darkest...

Deep can be either good or bad: deep feelings, deep blue eyes, deep rich baritone, or deep guilt or a deep sink hole. Dark seems to be a bit more negative generally: dark mood, a dark pit, dark as the inside of a goat's stomach, dark wilderness; but dark can also be positive: lost in the desert they longed for the approaching cool of darkness, rich and smooth as dark velvet, dark chocolate (my favorite). However when the superlative form of both words occur together, most of the familiar completion responses are negative, or at least, suggestively ominous.
Deepest, Darkest.... :(most popular responses--in alphabetical order) Africa, fears, forest, secrets.

Overwhelmed by the oppressive darkness,
She suddered with silent sobs,
Pushing away the shadows and her fears.
Isolated by guilt, she struggled with the knowledge
of her sin and of its unforseen ramifications.
Never could she have suspected the involvement
of her sister, her sweet baby sister;
Never have guessed the impact on her best friend.
Now it had all exploded.
Everyone was hurt and no one trusted anyone.
But only she knew it was all her fault.

In that guilty knowledge
Was the deepest darkness
And the sharpest pain.

Would it all finally heal over for the rest
If she kept this bitter secret to herself?
As she bore the guilt, could she also bear the pain?
Oh, what a deep dark pit or cave
She felt herself entrapped in.