Sunday, February 28, 2016

Music feeds the soul


Music eliminates loneliness, heals a sad soul, gives power and strength to those who escape to its inner sanctum of reflection.  The words are poetry in harmony with musical notes.  Artistry to the ears as a painting is to the eyes.

Have a listen as you read on:



What a wonderful musical duet with Susan Boyle and her idol Elaine Paige.  What is magical is that I know more about Susan Boyle's transfor-mation from her first idol audition that astounded both the audience and judges greatly.



Dream a dream:  to be a professional singer.  I had loved this song for a long time, since I heard it from Les Miserables production in Calgary in the 1990s.

I can't say I heard the audition first hand because in Canada we didn't have Got Talent UK on the air waves.  But certainly, most of us, can recall the outstanding reaction that it gave to the world.  Played across all medias.




The lesson taught ::: Didn't this all teach us that looks are not necessarily an indication of talent?  It should have.  Watch the second video first then the one with her heroine Elaine Paige on the second. This performance taught us that dreams CAN come true ::: whatever the age, wherever one is nestled.

If you would like, you can watch The Susan Boyle Story on YouTube (60 minutes in length):




Susan Boyle was bullied, made fun of, and was considered slow.  She considered herself lonely, especially after her mother passed away.

A wallflower to be sure.   At the ripe age of 47, she became an inspiration and synonymous with courage :::  who would try to reach their dreams when most have ironed out their retirement path?

Even today, when I listen to the audition, I get chills.  When I'm in the mood to absorb music completely, tears will drip from the corner of my eyes.

To many, she championed that it doesn't matter how old you are or how small a village you hail from, you can reach your dreams.

She knew instinctively and honestly how people perceived her, yet her love of music :: shown magically by her own custom song:  "When I was a child".  Now that she had reached her true destiny, she is at peace.  Complete in her true gift.  The world in her hands ::: her turn to fly.

She may not have known the answers, she recognized when she felt free when she was who she was born to be.





::: _____________________________ :::
The greatest glory in living
                 
                                         lies in never falling,
                                   but in rising every time we fall. "

                                        Nelson Mandela

::: ____________________________ :::

I listen to music when I'm sad, happy, social, and reflective.  It feeds my soul.  Most songs are musical tones applied to poetry.  

Back in my 20s when I broke up with a boy I liked, I would search song after song about break up, broken hearts then move on to rebirth, strength and power:  from the emotionally symbolic to transforming rock and roll that became the emblem of recovery.  

As unlikely a superstar there has ever been.  It makes me wonder:  what is my unfulfilled dream?  Writing full time, people who follow my blog, not to cause popularity but because words can help and heal wounds.  Do I have that ability?  




Time will tell.  After all, I'm soon to be a "10".  Do you know what that means?  Those born in the 1960s probably do:  it was a movie from the 1980s with Dudley Moore and his love interest Bo Derek, highly considered the equivalent of a "10" how we'd be rated on looks.

Once I turn 55 in April, I will finallybecome a member of the "10" club :::  5+5=10!  Minus the beaded braids.  Been there, scratched that, during tropical vacations where rum-filled coconut I shed all responsibility of being a daughter, wife, mom or careerialist

I constantly look forward and reach out to live the dream ::: be my destiny.  Accompanied by music to cheer me on and feed my soul.  Or set me straight and calm me down.

Today's (Sunday February 28, 2016) top lyrics and song (copied from Metro Lyrics ) with video link from YouTube: 

Rihanna featuring Drake





Work work work work work work
He said me haffi

Work work work work work work!
He see me do mi

Dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt!
And so me put in work work work work work work!
When u ah guh
Learn learn learn learn
 learn learn
Mi nuh cyar if him
Hurt hurt hurt
 hurt hurting6
Dry! ...me a desert him
Nuh time to have you lurking
Him ah go act like him nuh like it
You know I dealt with you the nicest
Nuh body touch me you nuh righteous
Nuh badda, text me in a crisis
I believed all of ya dreams, adoration
You took my heart and my keys and my patience
You took my heart on my sleeve for decoration
You mistaken my love I brought for you for foundation
All that I wanted from you was to give me
Something that I never had
Something that you've never seen
Something that you've never been!
Mmmmm! but I wake up and act like nothing's wrong
Just get ready fi1
Work work work work work work
He said me haffi
Work work work work work work
He see me do mi
Dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt
And so me put in
Work work work work work work




Friday, February 26, 2016

Discover your super POWERS


::: ___________________________________________ :::
"Some days are summersaults
 while others need headstands"
                                  Jeannette Marshall
                                     Author of Meanderings
                                    SocialMEdia @optioneerJM
::: ___________________________________________ :::


I swear every time I'm asked to put up a BIO, I get more creative :::   


knowledgeJunkie +visualCurator+socialmediaEnthusiast+greatGal http://meanderingsabout.blogspot.ca/

http://www.pinterest.com/optioneerjm/
@optioneerJM #bestofeverything  #smilingwords 

::: ___________________________________________ :::




Have a little listen while you read or stop and have a watch 
these guys R fantastic #Canada 
PLEASE show em sum love :: 
discovered by U here on socialMEdia 
@New Swears 
::: ___________________________________________ :::

The more succinct you are the more you dig in to gain insight into who you really are :::  you are subconsciously creating your super POWERS.

Wit reigns supremely with rising stars  who surround themselves with the #positivevibe crowd and #smilingwords to represent the #bestofeverything.  

Why not battle with humor? ( humour in #Canadianeze ) instead of heartbreak, pain, violence abuse or whatever is bothering you on any given day.  



::: ___________________________________________ :::

Not that you're a victim or any sort of whiner or ranter ::: remove yourself and stay far away of the negative force you can get sucked in so easily on this #socialMEdia sensation.

Be a source to be reckoned with as in a creative force that circulates only among the IN crowd who are inspirational, humanitarian, motivational, super POWERs.



::: ___________________________________________ :::

Be the voice of many ::: the poor, the hungry, the bullied, the ill, elderly and the sick ::: never forgotten :::  the unlikely who would be paid much attention to on this new 

MEdiumDOM 


of me, myself, I buy.  Because I can, I want it, not necessarily need.  

Create a chain of unified voice who are synonymous with optimism, gratitude and honesty.  Who stifle the mentally unstable, negative, violent, bullies or terrorISMisms.

Show there is a unified voice to form a consortium of only the #bestofeverything best of anything circulated by #smiling words :::  

Where only the most peaceful, loving, humanitarians become citizens of a community.


This is pure magic ::: and I'm Canadian .... eh?

::: ___________________________________________ :::

The community is bigger than a country, continent, religion, culture, or company. 

Creating a culture that does not rely merely on one thing.  But a collaboration among many.

Dedicated to serving their fellow woman, man, child, and living things.

Reach your super powers hidden under-neath the surface ::: ready to be discovered and revealed to yourself along with others.

::: ___________________________________________ :::


::: ___________________________________________ :::



Please share if you were inspired and want to help others be the #bestofeverything by communicating #smilingwords
::: ___________________________________________ :::

Thursday, February 18, 2016

The one that got away ....





I was having this conversation with my sister the other day.  Heaven help me if I even remember what our train of thought may have been... do you have a sister that you really relate to even though your worlds may seem so far apart?  

                 STOP and have a listen, or play while you read on through 

My sister is as opposite of me as the world could even imagine:

  • she was born in the autumn and I in the Spring
  • we saw our growing up differently: she full of pain; me full of belief
  • while I can come across gregarious she could come across as calm and reasoning
  • our relationships, kids, friends are friends of each other too - they find it easier to like the other
  • you enjoy shopping together and would never imagine skydiving - although one would have if she thought about it while the other wouldn't have dared (me).
  • you both reach for the same things even if our home, our taste, would seemingly be different
Sidetracked again.  Apologies ... then what the heck do you expect of me by now?   It appears as though I have writing AHSD.  Thank goodness not in real life:  I can be excruciatingly organized and detailed while consciously trying not to be so the opposite is perceived.



This is what the conversation was about: the one that got away.  How bizarre eh?

Two sisters of 18 months apart in their fifties having an absurd reminiscence.  Opposite memories, no doubt.  She talked and I listened for a change.  Yeh, not a regular occurrence by any means.

My conscious memory a week later pops this into my head as I'm driving home.  I know I listened carefully.  I am really trying to be a better listener, which is not a natural state.  

She talked about this boy that she really liked when she had run away from home.  As much as she seemed like a radical from candy-coated pink 15-year-old eyes, I seem more like a rebel now that I've hit my 50s.

The memory went on in the manner that this sort does:  what would have or could have happened if she had not broken his heart and stayed with him.  

Astonishing!  The responsible, loving, caring mother, daughter, sister or aunt, was actually rewinding life to check back and check in to what she thought she'd be doing once she hit her 50s.  


STOP and have a listen, or play while you read on through 

So many wondrous movies are about going back in time, less about heading into the future.  It must be a creative dream, to take a situation and from the current state, to what had happened, and how things may have gone differently.  I now realize that the surprise in store for the reader or viewer, is will the hero or heroine return to the current state much differently or very much the same with differences.

That is such  a creative morsel of temptation.  Take a situation or moment in your life, and fast rewind and slowly play forward.  Taking the audience on a ride that even you may not predict.  Will you return differently or much the same with differences ...



What do I mean?  My sister  ... was doing that in a sense.  She was wondering if she had stayed with that very nice boy, not broken his heart, and stayed together.  She wasn't evaluating it, nor was she suggesting that she was disatisfied with how things turned out.

 It was a simple, honest meandering .... My sister  was highlighting what we go through when we hit or 40s and 50s.  We really aren't all that different than we were in our teens.  The ride we'd be on at the time would result in whether we are currently on the ride of our lives, or too conservative.  Or, some of us would recall that maybe they could have been a little bit braver or self-confident at our teens.  Others of us blossom as life and the years make us milder, more content.  While others of us become restless and want to step out.



What would your comfort zone and would you have done things differently then and end up different somehow? 

I am torn between staying the same or being more carefree.  How does one's homelife be the same and yet be reacted far apart?  

I couldn't have imagined things getting any worse so I would madly try to be an over-achiever.  Perhaps some experts would say that was because I was a fighter and did whatever it would take to have a life that would erase anything.  My sister may say that she was acting it out.  


Deal with it now is what most would applaud.  Get it out of your system so you can grow up and get on with life.  In a measured, grounded, spiritual way.  

If you bottle it up you may never know when it will sprout. Maybe that is what they mean by mid-life crisis?  When it hits or skips over anyone, would be a multi-zillion market.  

Many marketers, services or products  are divided into two groups:

ONE:  Going through mid-life crisis.

TWO:  Not.




Are you meandering about the one who got away?  Examine whether you think things would have turned out differently, or would have it made a difference.

Create a balance between the two:  Don't pine for what may have been.  Instead, create the life now that would be a different you .... or the same you with a little change.



Now this is how I really feel:




 


Sunday, February 14, 2016

When a KISS is not a KISS



The Kiss (Lovers) was painted by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his "Golden Period", when he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. The work is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance. The painting is now in the Ã–sterreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere palaceVienna, and is widely considered a masterpiece of the early modern period. It is a symbol of Vienna Jugendstil—Viennese Art Nouveau—and is considered Klimt's most popular work.[2]

Ahhhh, the kiss.  How fitting to begin meanderings about kissing for Valentines Day.  As a matter of fact, I do have a reproduction in my home and it is a favorite.  It sits outside our master bedroom, a subtle reminder of how wonderful the right kiss transcends love and validates "the one".

How you feel when you kiss ?

According to Psychology Today, one hypothesis is that the kiss has evolved as a mechanism for gathering information about potential sexual partners. A kiss brings us into close physical proximity with the other, close enough to smell and taste them. The face area is rich with glands secreting chemicals that carry genetic and immunological information. Our saliva carries hormonal messages. A person's breath, as well as the taste of their lips and the feel of their teeth, signals things about their health and hygiene, and thus their procreative suitability. 


Another hypothesis claims that the kiss functions primarily on the level of psychology, as a way to express and reinforce feelings of trust, closeness, and intimacy with another.
A kiss can seal the deal.
One thing I'm always thankful is having a position of trust with my girls.  As a mother, you have to guard the sacredness of having a relationship with your daughter in which she turns to you in moments of elation and devastation.  One can only hope that you can share her peak times and times of excitement.
In our home, it usually started with "I met a boy...." and would move on to the enrapture and description a daughter would go on to share in confidence while she would be exuberant with excitement and possibilities.
Imparting with excitement, as confidences go, I would be allowed into the secret world that women share when they are optimistic over the possibilities of meeting a great guy.
Of course, I would want to hear the details if she would feel comfortable sharing.  There is always a common thread in my line of questioning:
* how did they meet?
* was it a random meeting or among friends?
* did he treat her with respect?
* what did he do?
* were they drinking, at a club or a party?
* what did he do? (student, job, career?)
* where is he from? 
* how did his kiss make her feel?

Time does have a way of sorting out whether it was the joyfulness of being young, flirting, and being beautiful to the opposite sex.  Bias aside, all three of my girls are beautiful, unique to themselves, wired differently.  
Having external beauty and inner beauty is something I am always reinforcing to them.  I have always gone on about the fact that you can be beautiful on the outside, but your character is inner self is what exudes true beauty.  
They're all quite different and what is important to each is unique.  Yet with each one, I have asked:  "How do you feel when he kisses you?"  As though that is the secret to passion, life and longevity in relationships.
Movies have forever portrayed a swooning, toe curling kiss with fireworks to mean that you have found heaven with that connection.  It may not be as dramatic as all that.  
There is something to be said on whether it leaves one warm, safe, shared intimacy of that singular exchange.  Whether it holds the promise of discovery.  
I'm not talking about a saliva-sucking physical reaction of the moment that fools many unsuspecting ladies to think that the energy is a signal to yield all.
Nor does a friendly hug and peck depict anything other than just that.  More than a regular friend but not the deep connection that can be communicated by something as simple as a kiss.
A kiss can tell you whether he will guard your heart and not trample on it.  It can convey that he may be just as enraptured as you, while just as nervous of exposing his own heart and vulnerabilities.
A kiss is symbolic.
Many women who have been married for a while or for years can often reminisce about that first kiss:  how they felt, how they knew something was spectacularly special, that the exchange was deeply meaningful holding promise, some would say that it told them of a future with this person.
There are famous kisses that have withstood the test of time, even if the relationship was fleeting. The images rarely portray the feelings I've described or experts depict.  Nevertheless, they remain as timeless as the moment they were captured:

Image source:  New York Post

In August 1945, George Mendonsa was 22 years old, a Navy quartermaster on leave from the Pacific theater. He’d dropped out of school at 16 and worked with his dad, a commercial fisherman, in Rhode Island, enlisting in the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor: 


So on this joyous and unbelievable afternoon, George  grabbed the first nurse he saw, spun her around, dipped her and kissed her. 
The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.
Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.

Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance in Behind the Scenes, 1916

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in Red Dust, 1932



Clark Gabel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind 1939

Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity 1953 

Disney's Lady and the Tramp, 1955

Breakfast at Tiffany's kiss with George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn, 1961

Great love story: Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton Cleopatra, 1963




John Lenon and Yoko Ono 1971


Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia ~ Star Wars 1977


John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease 1978

Dirty Dancing starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swaze, 1987


Ghost with Demi Moore and Patric Swatze, 1990

Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet in The Titanic 1997

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook 2004


Madonna kisses Britney Spears during the 2003 MTV Video Awards

There you have it:  some famous and infamous kisses ~ some we may remember while others we may want to forget.  Most of the movies are favorites and come recommended as worth watching.

Regardless of who you may be kissing this Valentines:  make it memorable!