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A new blog to contain answers to prompts |
Since my old blog "Everyday Canvas "  became overfilled, here's a new one. This new blog item will continue answering prompts, the same as the old one. Cool water cascading to low ground
To spread good will and hope all around.  |
| Prompt: New Ideas In what ways can one make room for new ideas to emerge and grow for any situation in any area? ------------ Just as a garden needs space, light, and nourishment for plants to grow, my mind needs openness, stillness, and curiosity, which I can't get all the time, but I do get it in bits and pieces. Maybe that's why my ideas take root in bits and pieces. Then, just maybe there is a reason for that. Sometimes, my mind is too full, with opinions, feelings, pro or con, and old and weary assumptions. Then, I try to give it a rest and disconnect. A while afterwards, I empty it...my mind that is... from clutter as much as I can by asking myself, "what if I'm wrong?" And I search and listen, just like I did with today's prompt in "Dew Drop Inn" , I hadn't even heard of death cafes before. My first reaction was, "Why are people so stupid to discuss grim subjects like that? Don't they have any guts to accept life as is?" But then, I thought it over and came to the conclusion that, as human beings we are entitled to use any means in order to face difficult subjects. It was like playing in a play space, and I enjoyed writing that poem. I like play because play invites experimentation without the pressure of results. This is when ideas often arrive when I am not trying to force them and I am patient with uncertainties. This puts me in a receptive mode. Then, clarity comes with time and a bit of work. Sometimes, what emerges isn’t a new idea but a new question, and this is fine, too. Now, that I'm almost done chewing the fat on this subject, my kitchen waits for me to cook for the day. Although cooking is not a new idea, but a distraction to ease and keep my mind on a simpler more user-friendly job. |
| Prompt: Imagine you’re a detective. What’s the most bizarre case you’ve solved? --------- Dexter is Missing? What was it about this case! Bizarre? That word isn't even enough to describe it. I knew something was up when there was a knock on the door of my office. Since the secretary was out that day, I opened it myself. Here was Mrs. Winslow with a short-cut, salt and pepper hair, standing in front of me. She was a thin woman of average height but with knotty fingers. Arthritis, I guessed. How did I know she was Mrs. Winslow? Because of the appointment calendar. That's how. . I showed her in. So far normal, right? Nope, not after she told me what she came to me for. It was her missing cat, Dexter. Nothing unusual so far. So an old lady has lost her cat. So what? But, that wasn't all. At first, I snickered (totally, inside me) about this weird situation, until she told me more about what I, at first, didn't believe. And why should I believe her! She was old, and though her hair was lush, her mind might be thinning.. Mrs. Winslow swore her tabby, Dexter, had vanished into thin air, casually walking into her kitchen wall...and disappearing. No cracks, nothing, the cat was just gone. I raised my eyebrows and humored her. Honestly, I didn't believe her, until she opened her big bag and shoved a VHS tape in front of me, saying this was from her security camera. 'Oh, my! Who ever uses those things, anymore?' I thought. But being a pack rat myself, I pulled out of the storage my old friend, the VHS player. Yes, the security camera had captured it all! So the next day, I went to visit Mrs. Winslow in her home. And yeah, it was the same kitchen, the same wall the cat, Dexter, walked into. Mrs. Winslow might not be lying or hallucinating. I didn't know what to do. So, she asked me to stay the night and watch that wall. I did. Just as I was dozing off, on the armchair I was sitting on, the light shimmering from the wall alerted me to open my eyes. A very strange light... I checked my watch. It was 3AM, and out of the wall, strolled a huge tabby cat with a tiny gold crown on his head, followed by two other cat attendants. Was I hallucinating or what! I pushed the button on my watch for recording, so I could show it to Mrs. Winslow. When she watched my footage, her eyes opened up like sink holes and she nodded. "That's why I asked you over for the night," she murmured. Bizarre? Yes, but it might be more than that! It turns out, that wall might have served as a portal to some cat kingdom, and Mrs. Winslow's cat Dexter was, in fact, royalty. I told Mrs. Winslow to go along with whatever the cat wanted to do, as some mysteries don’t need much solving — just respecting. And I'll never ever take another missing pet case again. |
| Prompt: Use these words in your entry: blank, margin, definition, startle, maneuver, roads, and click. -------- No More Blank Page! I sit at my desk relaxed, since I'm in no rush but a *blank page waits in a *margin's hush then suddenly I *startle, my thoughts take flight I swiftly *maneuver on a *road of light no clear *definition yet, but the ink flows free I let the keyboard *click for lines to be many twists and turns, and my words are in place such a shock, for a poem's born with a yucky face |
| Prompt: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It's loveliness increases and it will never pass into nothingness." Write about this in your Blog entry today. ------------ I smiled when I saw this quote. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It's loveliness increases and it will never pass into nothingness." For it was the catch phrase or rather motto often uttered by our art teacher in school, Miss Blatter (RIP), who said it all the time. That was more than or about 65 years ago, If you ask me, though, everything passes into nothingness, eventually, but I digress. Coming back to Miss Blatter, she was an old woman, then, and she had taught art in China for thirty years, and she was very strict. If she wanted to tell us something, she'd say, "Pencils down, hands up!" And we were all expected to raise both hands in the air as she spoke. Nowadays such strictness by a teacher would get the local school district's attention. Not then! In those days, we were the clay the teachers were there to shape and mold us into whatever they wished, and in any old way they wished. Now, while I think of this quote, this bit of memory in itself feels like a thing of beauty. The quote is from John Keats's poem "Endymion," and it signifies that beauty, whether natural or man-made, is a lasting joy and pleasure, with its loveliness increasing over time. Endymion, in Greek mythology, was a shepherd, whose beauty was of such joy to the moon Goddess, Selene that she requested Zeus to make him immortal. In fact, so many beautiful things exist in nature to give us the feeling of immortality, such as the sun, the moon, the old trees, the roses and other flowers, the forest, the ocean...but are they really immortal? After all, even our planet is not immortal, and I suspect nothing is. Still, just about everything in nature can bring smiles to our lips, be it mortal or immortal. If we can only raise our hands up and pay attention, as I and my classmates did in Miss Blatter's art class. |
| Prompt: "Like a familiar melody recalls a beloved song, the sweetest perfume of blossoms sprouting from the earth reminds our hearts that spring has arrived." Write about this in your Blog entry today. -------- I gather this quote is all about sensory experiences. Sometimes, with me, a few notes or bars of music can trigger a recall of an entire song or a memory attached to it. Just maybe, there's something deeply human about comparing nature to music, but also other senses can come into play. Now that I have allergies, my nose isn't as effective as it used to be, but a whiff of spring flowers awakens more than a sneeze in me. It awakens something that belonged to my much younger years. So, possibly, my sense of smell might have been messed with, but my heart remembers. What I and others usually experience through our senses is like taking snapshots or suddenly coming across old snapshots of earlier times. This makes me wonder with awe at the depth of the memories of our sensory perceptions. Just where does a mind store all that? How does it bypass our logical brain? Why does it stir deep emotions, to boot? Does this mean one spring was the mother of all the others that came later? It is as if my senses are writing my autobiography and digging up stuff I would never have recalled consciously. Maybe what my mind cannot remember exactly, my heart always will. And yes, spring also has arrived to just about everywhere. |
| Prompt: April Fools Day? "Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than erver." Charles Lamb What are your thoughts on April Fools' Day? And do people need to wait for April to act foolishly? ======== I'm not much into pranks, hoaxes, and deceptions, playful or otherwise. Then, this quote suggests, even if humorously, that each passing April brings on more fools. Being a fool myself, however born in March, I am not too keen on other fools. Each April 1, I'm on edge and don't know who'll throw what on my lawn or on the top of the roof. I have read somewhere that when the beginning of the new year was changed from April 1 to January1, some people kept on celebrating the new year on April 1. Thus, they were called the April Fools. Or otherwise, this may also have something to do with the Romans of the old days, but I was never too keen on Romans either, except for Seneca. I am now fearing all the fake stories online and elsewhere and companies announcing absurd product launches, as if their products weren't absurd already. So today, I'm not getting out of the house. And my son from NY who is visiting me at this time, is out to enjoy the sunshine for a few hours. I hope he is safe from any pranks, also, since he isn't too keen on them like his mother. But then, what can we poor fools who cannot take weird jokes and pranks do? I guess, we either sharpen our skepticism or embrace the humor in being the butt of others' so-called jokes. On the plus or rather the minus side, the heat has descended on Florida, today, and the AC came on full blast. No wonder, today is April Fools' Day, and the weather is pulling a prank on us, but I fear this prank will last until the end of November. |
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Pumpkin! So cute! I so love cats.
