Friday, February 05, 2010

Bad Day at Black Rock

That's what my father used to say when I was little, and we'd had a bad day fishing. As I get older, though, I tend to think of that phrase, wryly, when my mood matches the sentiment.

As of today, I have 18 days let to be 47. Once again, I feel wiggy and weird about the approach of my birthday. Another year, and what have I accomplished?

If acceptance of the fact that life just has not worked out at all the way I thought it might back in my semi-optimistic youth is an accomplishment, then so be it.

But I'm not there yet. I'm still in kicking and screaming mode. Railing at fate one last time before my star -- if I ever really had one -- has faded, and I sink into anonymity.

I only know I have to say this somewhere. I don't know where else to take it but here. So, for what it's worth...

Coffee Break Musings

Be still; stand by respectfully; bow your head and doff your hat

And hearken to the wind that carries my sigh.

Listen a moment and hear,

O hear my feeble cry,

Borne on that wind as my dreams die.


Time and years have swept on by.

Why was I so unaware of their passing?

How did I come to be so old,

With my songs unsung and my tales untold?


Or is it simply

That I have sung and I have told,

But no one ever really heard?

And why do I think they’ll listen now?


Does anyone really know or care to pause and listen

As the wind blows by, bearing my sigh?

Do they matter to any, these tears that I cry

While the cruel wind tears away my last sigh?


O, won’t you acknowledge this moment at all?

Be still; stand respectfully a few small seconds,

And hear the wind fleeing away with my sighs?


Will you bow your head and doff your hat,

And hold it close against your breast

While you stand still and silent and grave,

And mourn with me as the wind swirls by?


Hear, o hear that sighing sound.

Stay close by my side and hold my hand,

And assure me there’s reason to carry on

The moment after my dreams have died.


~CP Warner~

5 February 2010

1 comment:

Rachel Nguyen said...

Hey Paula,

Just happened to swing by your blog today and found this post. I just wanted to check in and say that stars are way overrated, as far as I am concerned.

I grew up with two semi-famous (at least locally, LOL) people... and labored under the illusion that I had to be 'unique' in order to be happy. I had to be exceptional somehow. At this stage of the game, I don't think that is true anymore. Now I get to be mediocre and have found great joy in that. I am a mediocre mother, a piss poor wife, a crappy drummer, a half-assed Christian, a mostly terrible friend and I probably really suck at my job too.

But one day I went and made a formal confession. (In a box, with a priest, you get the idea...) and for that brief time, in an overheated confessional, laying out my sins one by one, a lifetimes' worth, I felt, for the first time, what it was like to be LOVED unconditionally. (By God, and by the priest on the other side of the screen.) I saw myself through God's eyes and he didn't give one whit about the fact that I was basically a goofball. And a sinner, to boot. All he saw was love. All I felt was love. (Not judgment.) And though that feeling quickly faded, I have never forgotten what it was like to feel it. And I think that was the moment when I gave up having to be anything to be happy.

I just am what I am, as God created me. And it is ok.

And you are too.