Flashback Friday. That has to be a thing, right? 🤔I was reminded of this wonderful gem of a song while watching “This Is Us” The keyboard loop gets me every time, such a hauntingly beautiful quality to it. One of Lauper’s best. Have a great weekend from Cyndil, the 80s, and me, myself and Tucker 💕
“We have no past we won’t reach back
Keep with me forward all through the night
And once we start the meter clicks
And it goes running all through the night
Until it ends there is no end”
Poetry is all about perception.
It’s what we perceive, not what
we see.
It’s all in the rhythm.
The arrangement of the poetic
notes.
It’s about loosening those
syllables until they roll off our pens
in a dance of self.
We release our whimper and watch
it turn into a roar on paper
We write for preservation.
We write to empty the emptiness.
We write like we eat, to live
We spend our nights out on a limb so we can fall into the melody of our craft
Our souls writing on. Finding salvation in verse
-Tosha Michelle
Hey y’all. Happy Thursday! Isn’t October such a beautiful month? I love the cooler weather. I hope you all are enjoying it too. I appreciate your continued support of my blog. WP is such a lovely community. I’ve really lost my taste for social media recently, but I always feel at home here. Thanks for that.
Okay, now just a few random things for today in my typical list fashion.
1. I am having outpatient eye surgery in January. I’m really excited because it will help my vision and also remedy this awkward head tilt thing I do. I’m all for anything that gives me more vision and less awkwardness.
2. Flying to Boston a week from Sunday. Going to spend a few days in Salem Massachusetts and Portland Maine. I’m really excited because it looks so pretty. Lots of travel in the works. Planning a trip to Seattle and Vancouver in the spring. Scotland next fall. I’m a homebody by nature, but I do have a bit of wanderlust in me. There’s so many places I want to see.
3. I’ve mentioned this before, but over the last couple of years, I had kind of lost my soft demeanor. I was really starting to become jaded towards people. It felt like there was just one betrayal after another. It was starting to make me bitter and really untrusting. There was a hardness about me that had never been there before . However, something has started shifting in me recently and I feel more like the old me. I’m learning to let go of grudges and bad feelings. I’m really feeling my humanity again and my empathy is in the driver’s seat, but what’s with all the idioms? Geez.
Look we are all screwed up. Sometimes people hurt us and sometimes we hurt people. Hopefully, without intent or malice, but it happens. In our society we are so quick to cannibalize someone simply for making a mistake. It’s really disturbing when people find joy in the downfall of others. I wouldn’t wish pain even on my worst enemy. Negative energy just breeds more negativity.
I’ve always worried that I was too soft and empathetic, too much of a sucker. Mostly because other people labeled me as gullible and too Pollyanna-ish I realize now that I would rather be soft and kind, than angry and petty. I just want to love people and be giving. Just don’t make me hang out with them. Still clinging to my antisocial self. Ha!
5. My lovely penciltastic frienf Eric has a new book out. It’s titled Pantheon and it’s a must read. He’s such a gifted writer and a wonderful human being. A little about the book:
“Eric Syrdal’s Pantheon is the novel told in free-verse that you never knew you needed to read. Epic in scope but always deeply rooted in its humanity, it defies genres and expectations. “Pantheon is a thrilling philosophical journey exploring the depth and meaning for one passing through a metaphorical world of inner demons and dragons, goddesses of the soul, of warrior and poet. A journey that crosses boundaries of time, space, and perception. I am captured by the intimate revelations of this intuitive and sympathetic protagonist battling the dark ages of his subconscious moving instinctively forward into innerscape, relying upon and exalting the virtue goddesses that guide and deliver him from barbarity and trial by ordeal both physical and spiritually as he transports from one state of being to another, from one point of time to another”Holly Rene Hunter””
You can purchase this little gem by clicking the link below.
Pantheon
Quote for the day
Happy music 💕
I just recently watched the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me” and thought I’d share a few of my favorite neighbor’s quotes. See below. What an exceptional man he was. He definitely changed my childhood for the better. The world could use his wisdom and kindness right about now. Miss his goodness.
My favorite Mister Rogers quotes:
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like “struggle.” To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of.
There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
“It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have.”
“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”
And…
Better Days
Happy Sunday. Y’all, oh my gosh, “A Star is Born” is amazing. Lady Gaga gives a Judy Garland worthy performance. I could gush all day about it, but this isn’t a movie review blog. However, my cat’s been wanting to get into the WP game and he’s always considered himself a bit of a critic, so…. Although, I think he’s better suited to be a food critic.
Anyway, a poem for you. Oh and. Tucker says you really should see “A Star is Born” Honestly, he thought the film was going to be about his birth. Silly boy 😜💕
Tell me why everything
is rarely enough in a
world that is collapsing.
The sky nothing more
than cornbread crumbs.
Why do we not
notice this?
Tell me how we got lost
in a word of logins, of likes,
of tweets, a web of passwords?
Tell me why people are disposable,
and we are constantly
judging our life
by the lives of others?
When I hear music,
my life shifts.
Layers of overstimulated
brain cells shed
their skin.
Dress me
in your melody.
Let your tune speak
of shattered knees,
barbwire fences
cutting into roads.
Sing me
your pain.
I’ll share my song
with you.
I’ll tell you in notes
both high and low
how I’ve suffered
and survived.
How peace is the
county I want
to live in,
but I sometimes get
stuck in customs instead.
How hard it hurts
to fall, to fall,
but each bruise,
each disappointment is
a testament that
our system is still
functioning and
there are melodies
still left to be sung.
I’ll sit beside you as
you serenade me
and I sing the notes
back to you
as we finally pay
attention to the
sky.
The evening opening
up like a meteor,
a tail of a comet
waves to us as it
touches the sidewalk.
Satellites fall. For the moment,
heaven comes closer,
entranced by our song.
-Tosha Michelle
So many things in life are temporal,
even friendship and love
Yet we never stop searching for
someone to hold onto when the
streets flood and our peace
becomes a distant shore.
We still love, love even when
we have no boat and are left
with one cracked paddle.
We remember times better
The days of umbrellas
and raincoats
Splashing in the mud.
The days before
the river overflowed
The backyard deep with
water and regret.
Sunken hope and sunflowers
crushed
We recall only the beauty
of an embrace,
the lovely cadence of
heartfelt laughter.
We find a bittersweet solace
in the pain of two souls divided
Tossed in different directions.
We wonder why we were
chosen to live
this life and not another.
Why do foundations slide?
Why do rivers flood?
Then left with the morning after,
we know we must put our
questions aside, understanding
that enduring loss sometimes
is the only way to start over
We clean up, rebuild.
taking note of the
sunshine and bright skies
And if we’re lucky we finally
find the warmth that’s meant
only for us.
-Tosha Michelle
If you liked to help children in SC and NC effected by Hurricane Florence, you can donate here:
Due to the current political climate in America, I’ve watched myself become increasingly more angry and disillusioned. I was finally able to take a step back this weekend and realize how unhealthy that is. It’s so easy to let bitterness take over, not just with politics but in our personal life too. We always want someone to blame, but usually the fault doesn’t belong solely to one person.
Extremism whether in politics, religion, personal relationships, or social movements is dangerous. It creates this hostile environment where resentment breeds. It eats away at compassion and tolerance . There becomes this “us against them mentality”. There’s no room for shades of gray. People are either good or bad. Victim or villain. It’s ironic, given that we see ourselves as so progressive and forward thinking.
Extremism doesn’t provide clarity. It simply blurs lines, the line between civility and chaos, the line between sexual assault and harassment, the line between misogyny and chivalry, the line between what’s actually right and our need to be right. We must remember that rarely are people all good or all bad. We are all flawed, we all make mistakes. Imagine, if we could look beyond political and religious affiliations, beyond race and gender, and just see the humanity that resides in all of us.
I’m tired of defining myself as a Democratic liberal. I’m tried of seeing Republicans as the evil enemy. We as people are so much more than how we vote, or our gender, or who we pray or don’t pray too. I’m tried of labels and assertions based on emotions instead of facts. Yes, we have to fight injustice and follow our moral compass, but if we lose sight of our humanity in the process, than we’re no better than the injustices we are fighting.
End rant.
This blog will return to poetry on Wed.
If you haven’t seen NBC’s “This Is Us” you are missing out on one of the best shows on TV. The plot centers around married couple Jack and Rebecca Pearson and their 3 children. The timeline shifts between the present and the past. You’ll see the children as adults with significant others and kids of their own. We live in an era where so many television series appeal to our sense of adventure, but “This is Us” goes straight for our heartstrings . This is a show all about the beauty and messiness that is family. It will make you appreciate your own in all their imperfect, perfect glory. Sometimes, in this fast-paced world, I think we lose sight of just how important family is and those complex ties that bind, sometimes bend, but never break. It’s nice to be reminded to hold close and cherish those who are dear to us. Family in some ways is forever, no matter how you define it.
“This Is Us” themes of love, suffering, happiness, forgiveness, the passing of time, really speak to the human condition. Who hasn’t wanted to punch their sibling in the nose, only to turn around and hug then a minute later? Who hasn’t experienced heartbreak or fallen in love completely? Who hasn’t felt nostalgic for younger days, or found a new appreciation for their parents seeing them through grown up eyes? “This Is Us” is all of us, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife. It’s a show about commitment, kinship, romantic love, the love of family, and just how sacred life can be. Warning, you can’t watch the show and not cry. Here’s the trailer for season one. See after quotes. Just last night, season three began. I was fully stocked up on tissues.
Some of my favorite quotes from the show
Season one trailer
Hey y’all. Happy Monday. As sone of you know I’ve been working in the research fiekd of criminal justice. I’m hoping to move on to a job with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I really just want to make a difference in the lives of hurting people. Sometimes I think we get too caught up in how others can help us, or we want to impact the world in a way that has more to fo with our egos than the greater good. It’s such a selfish way to be. I don’t want to be that person.
There’s something beautiful in stewardship. I’m always more content with my life when I take the focus off myself and place it on others. Self reflection is needed on occasion, but self absorption will just makes you a selfish jerk. I can’t spend that much time inside my own head, it’s bell jar material. Listen, it’s okay to be pro you but we mustn’t forget to be pro others too.
On a lighter note, Kelly is my queen. Love this song. Het range is incredible It’s an empowering tune. Back on Friday with a poem. See you xx
Everything I Never Told You 
