Points Of Light, life is funny. I just re-listened to a song today and with fresh ears, my hearing discovered something new that asked my fertile mind to consider my life lived. This caused me to think in many directions; one being how a hummingbird named Fuga once asked me a question about my written stories. "Why," she asked me, "in the stories I write and share with her, do I sometimes refer to stories I've previously written." Even though she prefers short, succinct answers, I'm writing this as a long answer to her question, because I'm me, and I enjoy doing me.
I want to publish a book. About that, a candidate to be my editor said this to me about my book's intentionality, "Your concept is very intriguing". I asked her to expound on why she chose the word "intriguing". She responded by saying, "I’m interested in your story and the lessons you can share with readers. I particularly enjoy your concept of “word paintings” and using art elements as metaphors for life." With her answer, I felt silly. I wondered how I never considered I've always been writing about my "life lessons" and how it never occurred to me that beyond merely writing beautiful little anecdotal / анекдотичний stories, I was always beautifully writing brief stories about what life has taught me? Now that I get this, I see and understand my lived life's big picture and why to it, I'm constantly changing and adding lighting and color, that in their turn add new, daring, and exciting colors to it, which add a more developed and richer beauty to my big picture.
So, this is my direct answer to Fuga's very direct question. Within any story I write, if I refer the reader to one of my previous stories, it's because life's lessons are never over. They continue because, as I said, life is funny, or life's not simple nor simply understood. I refer to previous lessons I've written about, because, guess what, I've finally learned more, or I’ve gained more insight and the lesson continues.
So, with that in mind, in 2020, I wrote this about the Sting song, "Fields of Gold". This is what I said, "It's a funny thing that happened as I listened to my friend tell his story about finding true love. I just allowed that that's an experience some men are allowed to have just because. It doesn't matter what that "just" refers back to, it just is and it belongs only to those men. I acquiesced to the realization that what he held in his heart, he held because beauty happened to him in the realm of warm flesh and blood and that for me, I'll always hold that same kind of experience in my mind, in the realm of words, a narrative of a tiny two-paragraph story. I felt a contentment in this revelation. Somehow, somewhere in my story, my mind can experience a lesser form of his when he told me,
"See the west wind move like a lover so upon the fields of barley. Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth among the fields of gold". My story will read another way, with other words of less clarity of beauty, but the story in my mind will tell something as nice". In this previous story, I was saying that as I listened to his song, I felt like he was personally telling me this very exquisite story about how he met this very wonderful woman and their physical, close relationship that was constantly filling his heart with exciting happiness, and with her as his true love, he had found complete contentment Then I was saying how I'd given up on even the mere thought of a consideration that I would ever meet a woman and have a relationship with her. I was saying that I felt as long as I look inside my heart to write my brief stories about love and emotions that happen when one might experience a perfect relationship like Sting's, my stories could keep my heart just as happy. With this, I thought I’d completed that life lesson, I thought I had received a mark of A+ on that lesson. I thought I was happy and content to always experience this lesson over and over.
Yeah, I was happy with my completed lesson, but then a hummingbird entangled her lived life into mine as she added her light, color, and beauty into both my lived life and big picture. Points of light, this hummingbird asked me one simple question, "So why you always have to dig to find something bad in beautiful things?" Bathed in honesty, with this question she asked me the one poignant, inspired question I had waited my entire life to hear. This beautiful hummingbird had no idea she was insisting the Sting lesson not only had to continue, but it must also continue. It was as if she lovingly said, “Tod, there's more to learn, much more.” So because this hummingbird pushed me to reopen my previous lesson, when I listened to this song with fresh ears, I heard this... "And just when one might feel so perfectly alone, there's someone else's stuff to trip on besides one's own - Thanks to you." As my fresh ears heard these brand new words, my mind raced to remember the life lesson I wrote about the Sting song, about why the hummingbird wondered why I write stories and refer back to previous stories I’ve written, and about a candidate editor who clarified for me that to help people - I write beautiful art about my own life lessons. In this song’s lyrics, there are so many words and turn of phrases that I suggest my hummingbird, and all you Points Of Light look at. You see, all these words and turns of phrases suggest looking at life in a brand-new way with a new life lesson that’s extraordinarily unexpected... “Where moving over to make room once seemed impossible, It's not impossible... That one handed applause - That unspoken word -That treefall in the forest someone finally heard...Thanks to you.” I like these words because in them I finally see and feel what I never thought I'd see and feel in the realm of warm flesh and blood- my beautiful wife and my extraordinary life partner who gives me this familiar song and story to share with others, "See the west wind move like a lover so upon the fields of barley. Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth among the fields of gold" - and it's a life lesson that I get to learn simply because of my hummingbird's sweet, kind, and considerate involvement.
Love and Peace,
Tod w/only one d
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