So here’s the challenge that a few my friends and I started around the bar stools the other day.
These are pretty common questions, but there is always interesting answers.
1) What are the 5 musical artists (complete works) you would want while stranded on a deserted island? ( Yes you would have some way to listen to them)
2) What are the 5 books you would want to while stranded on a deserted island?
3) What are the 5 movies you would want to have to watch while stranded on a deserted island? (Yes you would have a way to watch them too)
And yes you have all the other key stuff to survive. No you don’t have any idea when or if you would be rescued so these have to last for potentially the rest of your life.
I know it is standard issue kind of question. But waiting for your answers, then I can share mine too I guess. Just wondering what others would say.
I look inside myself and see my heart is black I see my red door and I must have it painted black Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue I could not foresee this thing happening to you If I look hard enough into the setting sun My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
(Thanks Mick and Keith)
Black and Red. Kind of like there are those contrasting days, those moments that we come up against when things change. I think they are my favorite colors (is black a color anyway?)
It reminds me of the song in Les Misarables ( the great musical) Red and Black.
Red – the blood of angry men! Black – the dark of ages past! Red – a world about to dawn! Black – the night that ends at last!
Change happens, sometimes for change-sake, sometimes because it has to. But it is.
You can change things from red to black. You may end up changing it back.
There may be times you just feel like painting it black – but red will have to do.
“Some people say life’s like a merry-go-round I think it’s more like a ferris wheel ‘Cause sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down Sometimes you just don’t know what to feel” (Todd Rundgren)
It is just the way it seem to be. When you ride life’s wheel you have to be ready for the motions that make up the turns. You have to be prepared to know that there will be downs before ups, and know that the ups may not just be the opposite of the downward ride. It may be a whole new place to rise the height of the wheel.
Part of the trip ahead is the anticipation as things start to change. Not worth resistance it is the place you should enjoy as the wheel turns. When you see it heading down you can do things to help turn it faster the other way. On the other hand, when it is turning up you may not be able to slow it down, or it may take more time to get to the top.
“We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.” – James Freeman Clarke
Sometimes hearing the expression “just roll with it” reminds me of that. Making sure to roll with the changes, move with the day as God provided to us. Do the most with it, because how we spend each day is how we spend our lives.
Some times it seems almost hard to believe. I am not really good at remembering dreams. I wake up and I can recall a dream for about 5 seconds, and then it starts to fade. But there are a few that keep coming back, like a late nite movie that keeps showing up every week and you can’t stop watching it.
There are a few things that are in black and white, and a few that are in color. I noticed that they seem to incorporate a lot of things in “real” life, but things that are not really connected that way. They are associated somehow in my sub conscious I guess, and so they get thrown into the soup of the dream.
What dreams do you have that keep coming back?
Okay so there is a huge psychological process to interpreting them and having them end up determining what kind of person you are. Not so into that, I think there is some merit to it, but really. Some of my dreams just come up because I have weird food before I go to sleep (like Frito-Lay products with spicy flavors-can you say “Doritos”?) or because I saw a strange movie (anything by Stanley Kubrick) or listened to some music (like Explosions In The Skyincredible music). Some are just there for whatever reason. But like I said they disappear in the morning fog of the first cup of coffee.
So this one dream. It has a soundtrack and a mysterious lady. The song (perhaps the inspiration after all) is Magic by Ben Folds Five written by Darren Jessee [see below]. It seems like a mysterious song on its own, perhaps about someone who has passed on, or who has lost their life or perhaps their life’s memory (through Alzheimer’s perhaps)… but it is always the sound track. I am watching it from above and it plays out with a lady dancing by the light of this huge moon (some times it looks like it is my wife, sometimes someone I don’t actually know). Along the way I the whole thing becomes distant, and then again really close. I am sad but happy at the same time. In the end it makes me calm that the world will continue and this person is in it somehow.
That’s it. All you dream interpreters can have a hey day on what that all means, and I guess I could spend a lot of time in analysis to discover my mom or something was at the root of all of it. But no matter what I do, it just pops up.
What dreams do you have that keep coming back? How do you deal with them? Where do they take you?
Magic by Ben Folds Five
From the back of your big brown eyes
I knew you’d be gone as soon as you could
And I hoped you would
We could see that you weren’t yourself
And the lines on your face did tell
It’s just as well
You’d never be yourself again
Saw you last night
Dance by the light of the moon
Stars in your eyes
Free from the life that you knew
You’re the magic that holds the sky up from the ground
You’re the breath that blows these cool winds ’round
Trading places with an angel now
Saw you last night
Dance by the light of the moon
Stars in your eyes
Free from the life that you knew
Saw you last night
Stars in your eyes
Smiled in my room
Maybe I’m amazed by the way we can make “something” out of “nothing”. And sometimes we like it and sometimes we hate it.
Maybe I’m amazed how there are always two stories to everything, and then there is the real story. Looking through our own eyes, we see them through our own lens and it has so many colors.
Maybe I’m amazed that after 30+ years of marriage I am still in love with the same person. Love is not negotiable, it has ups and downs but it can be always and forever.
Maybe I’m amazed that more people don’t know about how find the beginning of something new, and stay stuck in one direction wondering when things will change.
Maybe I’m amazed that we only have a certain amount of time here on Earth, but we treat it so poorly- letting days go by without appreciating our time and using it to do what God has expected us to do. The rewards are endless.
Maybe I’m amazed that there are so many beautiful, wonderful people in this world, yet so many people are attracted to the negative things around them.
We all have a path. For us so fortunate to be able to make choices, we can. Yes we have the ability to change. We can choose at any moment to make things better.
So with so many in the world that cannot choose, we need to take that power and choose for the better. Help show others the way.
Tracks In The Dust 