Easy Go

Aside ~ November 30, 2017November 30, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

Before I’d even had a serious love affair, there were things I seemed to understand about them anyway.

There were songs about breakups that for whatever reason captured my imagination and moved my emotions. My heart knew what they were about.

One that really resonated with me then, and still today, is a little known song “Tell Me on a Sunday” from the musical “Song and Dance,” with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The musical is not great, and it’s not a great song musically (sorry, Mr. Webber,) but what the song says is lovely, and it always comes to me when I think about how difficult it is to end something that was once beautiful.

Tell Me on a Sunday

Don’t write a letter when you want to leave

Don’t call me at 3 a.m. from a friend’s apartment

I’d like to choose how I hear the news

Take me to a park that’s covered with trees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Let me down easy

No big song and dance

No long faces, no long looks

No deep conversation

I know the way we should spend that day

Take me to a zoo that’s got chimpanzees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Don’t want to know who’s to blame

It won’t help knowing

Don’t want to fight day and night

Bad enough you’re going

Don’t leave in silence with no word at all

Don’t get drunk and slam the door

That’s no way to end this

I know how I want you to say goodbye

Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze

Tell me on a Sunday please

Don’t want to fight day and night

Bad enough you’re going

Don’t leave in silence with no word at all

Don’t get drunk and slam the door

That’s no way to end this

I know how I want you to say goodbye

Don’t run off in the pouring rain

Don’t call me as they call your plane

Take the hurt out of all the pain

Take me to a park that’s covered with trees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Here’s a nicely acted version by Marti Webb:

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: zoo

Highway Robbery

Aside ~ November 28, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 5 Comments

Life is a one-way road

Cannot go back, only forwards

So why do I feel stuck in time

At times moving backwards

Or worse yet, stalled

on the side of the road?

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: One-Way

One of my favorite songs from the early 90’s was Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway.” I love the lyric and the music. It always made me feel so full of hope and youthful joy, and still stirs that up in me upon listening today. So when I am feeling a bit stalled, I put it on to wake my hope up!

Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind

There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore

We won’t hesitate to break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
Well, I want to drive it all night long

Through all these cities and all these towns
It’s in my blood and it’s all around
I love you now like I loved you then
This is the road and these are the hands

From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver’s lights
Knock me down and back up again
You’re in my blood, I’m not a lonely man

There’s no load I can’t hold
A road so rough, this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Tell ’em we’re survivors

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long, yeah
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long

There was a distance
Between you and I
A misunderstanding once
But now we look it in the eye, ooh yeah

There ain’t no load that I can’t hold
A road so rough this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Tell ’em we’re survivors

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
Well, I want to drive it all night long
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Come on, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
(Yeah, I want to drive it all night long)
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
All night long

– Thomas William Cochrane

Heart Beat Ditty

Aside ~ November 26, 2017November 26, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

Lay your hands on my body

Play me like a drum

Let our bodies’ percussive rhythms

Make our hearts begin to thrum

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: percussive

A Family Affair

Aside ~ November 25, 2017November 25, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 8 Comments

I am taking a wee break today.

Not from life. From post writing.

I have relatives in town and tonight they are gathering at my home, and I have created a meal from scratch. I do not do that often, but I love it! I have been running around all day from the kitchen to the store and back again! Cooking, cleaning. I am so excited to have loved ones in our home. But I am taking a moment before they come to sit and express gratitude for the abundance to do this, and to have a home in the first place.

I would love to be writing about how much I love the underdogs of the world. My tag line is “Fan of the Underdog.” I am an underdog. I believe in us. In our strength and our spirit. We are not the obvious choice, but we are a wonderful one.

Tonight I hold all of you underdogs out there in a special place in my heart. I hope wherever you are, you know that you are important and your life is important.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: underdog

Exhalation

Aside ~ November 24, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

How can I release this grip

This clinging on to everything good

As if my life depended on it

It feels so dangerous to release

All that I’m attempting to control

It is exhausting to hold on so tight

But it’s all I’ve ever known

Learned early to clutch and grasp

At what little good was parsed my way

If I loosen my fingers, if I let go my grip

Will I slide into the Void

Disappear into Nothingness

Or will I float into better climes

And find out what Life really feels like

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: clutch

Gratitood

Aside ~ November 23, 2017November 23, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

I practice gratitude every day, so when Thanksgiving comes around, it is just like brushing my teeth to take time to acknowledge all in my life that I am appreciative of.

You see, I am a member of a tribe of gratitude list makers. I post what I am grateful for (and why) daily.

The “Grat List” that I am a part of was the brainchild of the wonderful fitness expert and life coach Erin Stutland. I joined it in 2011, when I regularly took a live Shrink Session class she was teaching at the time, and it has been a blessing ever since. (More about Erin’s class and how it changed my life here.)

The Grat List is a place to share gratitude, as often as you wish.

Some, like me, post pretty much daily.

Others pop in as they want or need to. “Need to grat!” “Feeling down…time to do a grat list!”

It is so much more than a space for expressing gratitude. There’s no one way to share, but somehow the format has evolved into writing a list of ten gratitudes, ten things to be excited about, and some brags thrown in for good measure.

What’s beautiful is how the list has become a virtual safe space, a place where we share wishes, heartbreak, fears, dreams, successes, prayers and, above all, love and support.

We ask “the list” for good thoughts or prayers, advice and help. We hold each other’s dreams and hold each other up.

I am ever grateful today, and every day, for the Grat List and its magic and power, and all of the souls- past, present and future – who make it the beautiful safe space it is. (Super extra gratitude for Erin, who is about to give birth to a real living child soon!”)

Here’s my list today:

I am so grateful:

To be alive, for my health, for my returning vibrance so that I may do the things that give me joy, for the wisdom of my body because she has healed so many times, for my huge heart because it keeps me loving this life, for my husband, who is so loving and wise, for Miracle, our cat, for her furry love and unconditional love, for the ever-flowing abundance within and without me, in every area of my life, for our warm, live-filled home, for fresh, healthy food and clean water, for the privilege of being able to do what I love for a living, for music, and how it connects me to my soul

I am excited:

To be flexible and of service today, to pick up the Irish family members at the airport, to see my sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, to enjoy a beautiful home, to share a loving afternoon and evening of laughter, to get there and back safe and sound, to make cole slaw late tonight, for Julia and her exciting audition Monday, to help her prepare, to get off book for the web series shoot, to work on the audition sides with joy and ease, for JC going to Hawaii, for Shayna’s song to win the contest!!

I brag that:

I love Life and Life loves me

I am enough just as I am

I am connected through words and this blog to amazing people like you!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: gremlins

Calling All Introverts!

Aside ~ November 18, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

I love this article so much, I had to share it today!

(I am emailing it to my husband and close friends, so that they can finally understand some of the things that make me, well, me. )

Pop over now to read “12 THINGS INTROVERTS ABSOLUTELY NEED TO BE HAPPY.”

The author is Jenn Granneman, the founder of IntrovertDear.com and the author of the bestselling book, The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World. From her site:

She blogs for Psychology Today, and her writing has been featured on Quiet Revolution, The Huffington Post, The Mighty, The Muse, and elsewhere. Speaking as an expert on introversion, she has appeared on numerous radio programs and podcasts. For most of her life, Jenn felt weird, different, and out of place because of her quiet ways; now, she writes about introversion because she doesn’t want other introverts to feel the way she did

Boy am I glad she writes about this. It is so spot on.

Numbers 6 & 9!!!

I have read many articles on introvert behavior, but this was the first mention of having difficulty putting things into words and needing a room of one’s own or time in a space on our own. We are moving into a new apartment next year, and I am thrilled that I will have one room that will be all my own. I cannot put into words what this means for me!

I thought it was just one of my idiosyncrasies, but it seems I am not alone.

I have already ordered her book to read more.

My fellow introverts, what do you think?

More Life by Blanche

Aside ~ November 18, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

Life Lesson Two:

It’s not a lie if it doesn’t hurt anybody.

– Blanche DuBois

Estate Wagon Dreams

Aside ~ November 15, 2017November 15, 2017 ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

Francine was beyond tired. The kids were being brats in the back seat and she had more important things on her mind than who was putting buggers on who’s arm.

Just one more errand to do, and then she could drive back home, get the kids started on their homework, and head back to the bedroom to have some alone time. She had a new mystery she was dying to start, and she just wanted to lay there, read, and finish the half-eaten jumbo candy cane pole hidden in the bedside table drawer.

Just as she was about to make a left into the library parking lot, some car from the next lane over pulled in front of her. She jammed on the brakes, which sent the kids flying into the back of the front seat and her heart into a flip-flop. After the shock wore off, she rolled down her car window, and honked the horn, yelling after the car, “Freak!!”

Hearing the shrillness of her own voice, she was surprised that that was what had come out of her mouth, but it was the worst thing she could think of to say in front of the kids. She looked back to see if they were OK, only to find that they were actually more than OK. They were cracking up over it all.

As she rolled the window back up, she quickly decided that they could forego the library for today. She gunned the gas, heading straight home to that bed and that candy as soon as humanly possible.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: honk