[ Anita ]

From the entry by PookyTam:

‘If it’s important to you, take the time to do it.’

That pretty much sums it up and is great advice even for things beyond writing.

Sometimes it’s good to take a look at life and calculate how much time you spend on different things each week. Then add it up to how many years it will be over the average lifetime (76 years). It’s shocking and can really put things into perspective.

For example, how many hours do I spend in front of the TV vs. doing something I love? Or do I love TV so much that the amount of time is justified?

And at the end of my life will I be happy with having spent x amount of time watching TV vs. x amount of time writing?

So I was sleepily browsing who knows what on the internet and stumbled on a site called Prelinger Archives. It’s basically a collection of old movies, ads, propaganda, and other generally derelict footage that probably would have been lost forever otherwise. A lot of it is from the 40’s-50’s-60’s, which really clicked with me since I’d been watching a lot of TCM at the time. I started to think about maybe doing a YouTube video that incorporated some of that footage.

Whenever I was listening to my iPod I kept an eye out (ear open? mind…well whatever) for a song that might work with something from Prelinger. ‘They Won’t Have Me’ by The Indigo Girls with all it’s imagery of old farmers and new subdivisions seemed like it would be fun to try. I wasn’t sure if it would actually pan out, but it turned out to be pretty easy. A few minutes of searching came up with all sorts of footage of farms, farmers, suburbia, and even the Subdivision Man lol. Awesome. I need to do more of this in 2009.

The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-ryeOjR24

The relay was great, this was the first time that I stayed for the whole 24 and it was a lot of fun.

Our team sold ‘lap trackers’ to help people count how far they walked during the Relay. The best part about the whole thing was that I got to meet a lot of awesome people :). I posted some pictures and blogged about it…

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=53239722&blogID=406196433

The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.

I had read a few books on mindfulness but never truly understood how to put it into practice until I ran across this video on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc

It’s still a struggle, but at least I’ve been pointed in the right direction now…

Right now I’m reading this book called ‘Leap Into Darkness’ by Leo Bretholz. It’s a true story about a Jewish boy who evaded the Nazis and survived the Holocaust by crisscrossing Europe.

Awesome book. The best thing about it isn’t the story itself, but the striking insights of this young man caught in the insanity of those times:

I stood at the edge of one crowd, held back from interfering, yet knowing there was nothing I could do to stop the cruelty. I watched people on their hands and knees forced to scrub the street. They kept their eyes downcast in fear and humiliation. I glanced nervously about and wondered if some bullies might come for me. Those on their knees struggled for some sense of dignity; I watched them, because to turn away was to cease witnessing the overture to acts of murder.

‘overture to acts of murder.’ To me those words are a reminder of what the true implications of prejudice are. And how important it is to be real about prejudice in my own life and within myself.

Murder can take different forms. You can murder someone physically. You can kill their spirit. Or strip them of their humanity. This book illustrates in heartbreaking detail how the Nazis became experts in all the many shades of murder.

A sad tale’s best for winter.

The Winter’s Tale, 2.1 (Shakespeare)

It’s a nightmare in there. We don’t even use most of that stuff. It’s time to get rid of all that old furniture and junk and start over.

I want to be inspired in life. I want to see things differently.

The most life-changing songs and books and movies challenge you to view the world from new perspectives. What if you actively sought out this kind of experience in your day to day life?

I want journal writing to be a daily habit for me. Like coffee in the morning. Or checking email. I plan on writing something in a journal every single day that I can get to it…even if it’s just one word or sentence.

It’s hard to imagine something that’s so easy, yet can do so much to enrich life. I’ll mark this goal as ‘done’ when I reach for my journal on a daily basis without even thinking about it. Good luck to everybody else who’s trying this too :)