Friday, January 6, 2012

Over the world like wind you fly,
Sweeping the earth with your opulent eye.
In love with the breeze, I am a stone
Waiting in peace on the shoreline alone.
You race through this life with a strength never ceasing,
But I know in my heart that it cannot be easy.
So tell me, dear tempest, by the blue soothing sea,
Won't you come and rest with me?

Monday, December 12, 2011

Philosophy of Life

First, you have to love things. Love them unapologetically. Love them so much that it hurts, and you cry at four AM over everything and nothing at all. Love things that you can go to when you fail your math test, when the rolls at lunch taste way too much like carpet, when everyone is too busy to give you the time of day.

Have opinions. Have strong opinions. Know what you're talking about, though. There's nothing worse than talking to someone who doesn't know a hairpin from a pretzel. Share your opinions prolifically, argue over them sometimes. But know when to keep them to yourself. It isn't always the right time to fight every battle. It's okay to be wrong. Accept it graciously.

You're stuck on this earth with seven billion other people, and you probably will be for a while. Treat them all well. Maybe stopping and helping someone will make you late, but not stopping just makes you a jerk. Play with little kids, and don't treat them like vegetables. Talk to them like people, and listen to them like friends. If they hand you a toy phone, answer it.

Bend the rules sometimes. Some of them, anyway. Sort of murdering someone is not alright, but maybe smuggling food into your room to celebrate your sister's new boyfriend is. Just don't leave crumbs on the carpet, and don't spill the orange juice. It doesn't come out. Go with the flow, but know where you're going. Don't be a passive observer. Take action, do things for yourself because you want to do them, but be willing to go along with somebody else from time to time.

Work hard. Do your homework before the night it's due. Clean the toilet and be happy about it. Or pretend to be. Do your best. Really. Try your hardest, put everything you've got into it. It makes all the difference. It's okay to fail, but if you've given it your best, that's something to be proud of. Work with other people. Work alone. Organize yourself and stick to the plan, except when the plan needs to change, or when you don't plan at all.

Play hard. Spend all night watching soap operas. Buy a Spiderman coloring book and do all the word searches in five minutes, then color the sky orange. Color the sky blue. Color the sky however you want, because no one else owns that coloring book except for you. Eat pizza for breakfast and cereal for dinner. Eat nothing but ice cream, and get chocolate syrup on the ceiling. It happens. Build a kite that doesn't fly so much as bump along the ground. Go out with friends and go crazy. Stay in and read that book. Do what makes you happy, because there's never a better time to love life than today.

Don't hide yourself. If you like Queen and everyone else likes Taylor Swift, you go and listen to Bohemian Rhapsody sixteen times in a day. Maybe listen to a Taylor Swift song once in awhile. It couldn't hurt. Cry in sad movies. Cry in happy movies. Laugh at yourself when you trip over your own feet and land in somebody's ranch dressing. We've all been there. If you think somebody's cool, tell them. If you think you're cool, that's great. Liking yourself is a journey that can take a lifetime. Just don't take yourself too seriously. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. You don't have to put everything out on the line all the time, but do it at least once, then maybe once again. You might find it's a better way to live.

Wait. It's okay to watch the pot, it'll boil eventually. But it's a lot better to let the pot be and start chopping your vegetables, as long as you don't forget about it and let it boil over. If you're making chocolate glaze, watch the pot. Burned chocolate is not something anyone should experience. Let someone else go first sometimes. Sit at a red light and watch the other cars go by. It'll turn green soon enough. Read magazines in the waiting room. Walk slowly, and look at the clouds. There's a lot to be seen when you're not always in a hurry.

Be the best you that you can. If you love nineteenth century Russian history, learn about it. Get to know someone before you decide who they are. Stay up too late, sleep until noon. Don't sleep at all. Make real friends. Do what makes you happy, but do things to make other people happy sometimes, too. Enjoy today for everything it's worth. Live up to your standards, and don't change them just because somebody else has different ones. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Get your heart broken. Feel everything that life has to offer, and learn from it. Take risks, have courage. Things always get worse before they can get better. Surround yourself with good things. Be yourself, because there's no one else quite like you.

Live.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Admiration and Mutual Dislike

Dear Obadiah Stone,

Mr. Stone. I have been watching you for some time. Well, I suppose that you are at this time deceased, but before that occurred, I was watching you. And sir, I am not fond of you. In fact, I spent the great majority of your movie shouting abuse at you through my computer screen. I may be quite biased, but that is about the size of it. You are not my favorite human being, but I suppose that there must be something about you that I can admire.

Uh.

Your height is quite impressive. As a person of more diminuitive stature, I can appreciate the effort it must have taken to grow so much. The amount of vegetables you ate as a child was probably shocking. The way you made your underlings quake with fear? Priceless. I guess your subtle machinations within Stark Industries were rather well thought out. Lying to everyone for so long must have taken some planning.

Your cunning and ill-will toward mankind in general were astounding. That time you went to Afghanistan and stole the Iron Monger thing from under the Ten Rings' noses was quite intimidating. The cut of your suit was nice and evil. I mean it. You were made for this traitor business.

Remember how you kept trying to kill Tony Stark? Now, that wasn't okay with me. I love Tony Stark. Probably too much. However, I can appreciate the effort of your first attempt took. I don't have that kind of patience. The second time, when you snuck into his house and quite literally ripped out his heart? Totally evil. To be that awful of a person must have taken a lot of practice.

Well, Mr. Stone, you are a man of many varied and most unsavory talents, I must admit. Your devoted efforts to being a thoroughly dislikeable human being has paid off. I don't like you, Mr. Stone, and will continue in my concentrated disdain for the forseeable future.

Stay dead!

Yours,
Jessica Dowding

Monday, October 24, 2011

Winds of Change

The measure of a man
Is not the color of his skin,
The wealth he possesses,
Or the land that he owns.
You cannot look
Into the ever-changing faces of human existence
And say that one is less
And one is more
Simply because of who they appear to be.
People are not furniture.
A chair is always a chair,
But a child who grew in a broken home
Can heal, and surpass all expectation,
Can become a force that encompasses the world.

The worth of a human soul
Cannot be measured, bought, or changed.
Each life has a value,
Greater than the mind can comprehend
And our differences
Are outweighed by our similarities.
We all have hopes and dreams,
Fears and passions,
Aching regrets, and breathtaking joys.

The potential of the human race is staggering
And it is wasted too often on hurting
Tearing down and destroying
And finding chasms
Where bridges could be.
But there is hope.
For if we can put aside our anger,
If old pains can be released and overcome,
If the lost and the lonely can find solace,
If we can look to tomorrow,
And once again rejoice in living each day,
Then slowly, inevitably, and wonderfully,
The things that make us weakest
Will bring us together
And they will become our greatest strengths.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Earthworms

Decomposers are an essential part of our food chain. They are the little guys, the ones who clean up the messes. After we've done all we have to do in this world, they finish off the last bit of us and convert it into new life.

In the deepest recesses of our souls, human beings fear death, and the end. We quell those fears in day to day existence, preferring to live in the here and now. But during the silent hours of darkness, insecurities creep in, and we wonder, what if it's all for nothing?

Still, light can be found everywhere. Everything is connected, and the possibilities of life are infinite. There will never be an ending, because there will always be something else that keeps living. In a universe that stretches on more widely than any mind can comprehend, nothing is truly over.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Good Winchester, is that a Duck?

Some people are normal
I have heard this
And I have seen it on the internet
So I know it to be true.
Thus far, I have not seen any
But they must be out there
Maybe in Iceland, the green country
Or Greenland, the icy country.

But everyone would agree,
Normal, Green, or otherwise,
That I am not among
The saner occupants of this world.
It is indisputable fact
And anyone you ask will tell you.

I am loopy as a bobbin,
Barmy as a Tribble,
Creepy as a red-eyed Ood,
And many other things
None of which are reassuring.

When I was a child, I had friends
Who only I could see
And I would act out what they said.
One of them was One-Eyed Spock.
He was very crotchety
But he meant well
As long as you didn't ask him
About the missing eye.

Still, there are moments
Rare ones, but still moments,
When I manage to be nearly, almost
A healthy member of society.
For instance, I am quite proficient
At cleaning wooden floors
And stacking cereal boxes stably
And passing tests on obscure topics
All of which I consider to be
Indispensable skills.

There is a point to this rambling
I am getting there, quick as a sloth
And it has to do
With my original topic
Or normalcy versus me.
This evening I went upstairs
And no one even blinked.

You know you are gone
Very far gone
When your family accepts without question
The fact that you want to wear
A rubber duck on your head.