Spin Cycle

Spin cycle by rcw

Some days just feel like a whirlwind....like every thing that could possibly go crazy or lead to confusion does and the poor recipient of such luck is left in a crumpled heap on the floor.

That's me, sitting cross legged, head in hands, rocking....just rocking while the world spins.

Mercury in retrograde?  Perhaps.
At least that's a good excuse.
It's one I'm gonna use today at any rate.

So for today, Fifty Five Is The New Spin Cycle....round, and round and round I go...just one of those days.

Life in 3/4 Time

Music has always been part of my life. From perhaps enutero, melodic strains have been an almost constant oompanion. I remember Johnnie Mathis' "Chances Are" waifting across my brow when I was at home from school one day, sick with the somethings-or-other.
My brothers and sister, father and to some extent mother have been struck by the muses as well.
Mom moreso the artist and craft person, Dad had music and art, writing and journalism. None of us kids fell too far from the tree.
When we've been together as a family, guitars and harmonies flowing, good gawd!
You'd think we were the King family or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and So-On.
We'd be camping and the other campers would gather 'round to listen. We attracted so many people, a neighbor with a larger site offered their campfire for evening serenades. Oh! To have been able to bring that talent to the right people back then.
My prayer is that any child (or anyone at any age for that matter) who wishes to explore their creative side be permitted, nay, encouraged to follow their dream.
So for today, Fifty Five is going to be done in 3/4 time, in memory of songs sung and in anticipation of songs yet to be written.

272

As a real little kid I had quite the imagination. Sometimes I was a rabbit, eating bits of grass from a neighbor's lawn....sometimes I was an angel of an elf, and Mom would make wings for me out of paper towels and fix them to my sun suit with bobbie pins.

That wasn't the worse of it.  There were times I'd go up to complete strangers and tell them I was Casper the Friendly Ghost, or start gibbering in some curly-cue sounding language...insisting I was from outer space. To say the least I was a normal child, on the surface that is.

But inside, where all the secrets rumble around, I always knew I was a completely different animal.

Most girls my age(we're talking between five and eight here) were busy playing House and Dolls. I did that too sometimes, but most of the time I liked to be off by myself, exploring.  And when the fellas were playing Army I liked to be part of the action.  When I got to be about nine they let me join in the game...before that I was just another one of the little kids.  A pain...nothing more.

Even when I was accepted in the games of older children, I didn't always join in.  And once I was able to ride a bike, I was usually out on my own....ranging further and further away with each opportunity.  It's like I always knew there were other sights to see and things to experience. 

My dreams have been with me for a very long time....from Whitby Avenue to Sheffield Road where Iived my childhood and first felt California calling.

For today, Fifty Five Is The New 272...my childhood address on Sheffield Road....remembering how it first felt to hunger for adventure.

Belief

Who or what made us is a question not limited to college students and book worms. 

It's a question that's been asked since time's beginning and will no doubt be with this world at its end. Is it all big bangs and gasses, or is there a Great Architect?  So many cultures, so many interpretations of the same thing...and so many wars over it all.

Like we have nothing else more pressing to worry about?!

Some religions bring it on themselves, claiming to be the "one true faith" 'til everybody else in the neighborhood gets mad and starts throwing eggs. Personally, I don't think religion's supposed to be starting discontent. It just runs contrary to what most of them preach.

Pipe, Feather, Drum by rcw

Now there are a few religions out there who do preach hatred and violence, so at least their elitism is based in honesty....not that I agree with their whole hatred and violence thing. 
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I'm more closely associated with a combination Physics and American First Peoples' philosophies...at least that's how I've explained it so far.

I believe.  That's enough.

So for today, Fifty Five Is The New Belief...you have yours, I have mine...but all the same, we're both divine.

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Puberty at Fifty Five

Who am I today? Old or young? Active or passive? Don't know. Can't put my finger on it. Caught between being satisfied with life and wondering what the hell I did with it! Is there an age comparison to this?

Fifty five feels like the weather today, sunny and stormy....windy and mild...everything all rolled into one. Topsy-turvy, tutti-fruitti...like puberty without the satisfaction of a well earned giggle.
For me that started around age 11...everything happened all at once. Flat chested tom boy when I went to sleep, well endowed and womanly when I woke up. Talk about confusion. Okay, well maybe today's not that bad...at least I don't have to deal with that mess anymore!

So for today, Fifty Five is the new whatever it is....because like puberty it's too much of a mystery and, for right now at any rate, can't get over with soon enough!

1040 Is Just A State Of Mind

It's that time of year again, right after the holidays when our pockets are most likely to be empty. That is, those of us who have anything to begin with, but that's another story.
In my examination of Fifty Five being The New, the clock goes waaaaay back as well as just my lifetime back...sometimes VERY far back. Sometimes it's a pleasant journey, full of colorful perhapses and whynots....and believe it or not there's a bit of that here as well; in spite of the fact that road signs are written in IRS-speak. Well, the good news is this chore is almost done.
I wonder what it was like back then....when there were more trees and less people.
Would my temprament have fit in, or would I have been an outcast?
Seen in that light, I'm glad to be here and now...so we'll let Fifty Five have a few moments with the WayBack Machine, grateful for the key to get back home.

Thirty

At thirty I was determined, committed to a no regrets kind of life. There were things I wanted to do and I just somehow did them. I had courage, wasn't cynical, believed things were possible.
I still have those feelings, sort of...still believe in possibilities, still have a bit of courage and am fighting my personal battle against cynicism.
To that end, I declare today as the new Thirty!
I'm gonna drag those dreams out of the attic, brush off the dust and believe in possibilities.
Who says I can't trust anybody over thirty?