Ostriches

I’m duped, baffled. I feel as effective as a tree holding back the sea breeze from the mainland. Perhaps, if someone hides directly behind me, I might provide a modicum of shelter, but even so my tree is scarce, boney and bare. The sea breeze isn’t always terrible; on summer days it cools the world, and at nights pulls the heat out over the waters. But storms rise from its mystical depths, and its ferocious rains batter the mountainsides. Against these I, too, am battered.

Life can be hard, joyful, beautiful, and cruel. Everything is like an Escher painting, and my words follow a non-Euclidean progression, a backwards-sideways mumbo-jumbo whose incomprehensibility offers no solace for the wounded. Is there solace for the wounded?

But this is me. Some people can form massive, thin sheets that block much of the stinging storm, or towers that blot out the sky and shift weather patterns, or vast hillsides that form a rain-shadow against the mightiest of winds, but I am made for one small frame at a time, and even then I do little to stop the rain and the cold from getting in.

Ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand from fear, but swallow sand and pebbles to help them digest. I keep telling myself that, but who am I fooling?

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/08/ostriches/ ‎

Words

Every now and again, I stumble across words whose sounds and associated meanings surprise me. Pulchritudinous is an easy favorite, but recently I stumbled across the word crepuscular again. I've used the word, myself, but in the context I saw it in, the author meant it as a beautiful palette of colors - I always imagined it when describing a shadowy, creepy setting. It sounds creepy, cavernous, like the maw of a mountain seeking to devour you whole once the sun fully crawls beneath the horizon.

I'm excited, as I suspect that these next few weeks will prove more than interesting. I've pulchritudinous paths prepared before me, if you will. How is it already mid-August? Wanderlust August.

Some difficult circumstantiae have wandered past, and some blessings. Standard fare for the inexorability of time. It is a shifting season, but the crepuscular tides of even summon me to sleep.

-- this had a point.. but I got back home about 2 hours later than I was willing to fight with it. So I truncated the ending and slapped a disclaimer on the end. Victory. --

Ramblings - Nothing to see here

Today, I worked deep into the night. It is possibly my ego that drove me into it, for my boss might have been understanding had I returned to work unfinished, with a plausible explanation as to why. However, having said it would be finished, I counted myself tethered to that statement. It is this industrial "ant" mentality that drives me along creative strains also, however. I cannot complain about the results.

It is a rambling night. I'm not certain I have anything worth saying, and I'm a wee bit exhausted (I finished all of the work things I had to do at 10 instead of 5). I suppose I can at least discuss a little bit of my marathon continuation. Still, quite successful in all avenues. There may be another stage of the race I previously neglected: the camel's bump, the peak of the bell-curve. I don't actually believe marathons quite work that way, with everything being downhill after the middle. I suspect they run more like stories, with a steady rising action leaning into a steep climactic climb, and then denouement! We've crossed the finish line after a bit of falling action and an excited leap towards the delimiting flag.

Still, there is something about the middle that is not unlike a story. Sometimes, when reading a particularly difficult or intense piece of literature, the beginning portion of the story is overwhelming. How will I ever make it to the end of if I struggle so heartily early on? But once you reach the middle, it is like walking a trail halfway up a mountain. If I've made it this far, is it not just the same distance back? Might as well keep going, because I've already shown I can make it this far, and giving up now seems ridiculous. It is past the stage of early abandonment. At least I have that, right?

I think it's definitely sleep time. I'm not certain I've said anything remotely intelligible, or of any form of utility. I hope and pray you are all sleeping well this night, however uncomfortably warm it is. May your dreams be sweet.

Married to Words

A leaf in autumn watches it fellows fly, fly away and wonders where it shall fall. As they land jobs, or seed families, planting trees, my leaf gazes solemnly. The wind brushes by, soft as kissing butterflies, and still my leaf sticks on branches thick, rooted. When doth its chance come nigh, that it may join to spinning life or journey lands far and wide, afore it lose all leaves beside?
A baby bird must someday try - else married to the words, at least invent a life. And on these winds and in these times, I sigh and s'pose, I'm married to the words.