We Learn Differently

lindastudley5 Comments

A little prosy piece of encouragement for my dear friend.

Young minds absorb like sponges sucking
all available data into a seemingly bottomless vat but wait for it…
soon life will apply the filters, the experiences, the pain, the memories, the joys
that imbue each new packet of information with a network of connections,
with shadings and a depth of understanding that the straight sponge method cannot apply.

Young minds become older minds and new things are learned but must traverse the filters.

Which is better?
Learning with no filters is faster but
learnings that come after the filters are tempered,
have frames of reference that a younger mind cannot impose.
Learning with no filters may last longer but only instinctively,
not viscerally,
not with the same depth of understanding that happens when the filters are on.
And if, God forbid, learning that happened while young must be rewritten,
modified… it is a difficult task – changing the instinctive is like dropping a bad habit.

So, my friend, if you are learning with an older mind
don’t even bother comparing it to the younger minds around you.
We learn differently.
If you are learning more slowly, or seem to have to work harder at it, remember
you carry a lifetime of wisdom with you into every learning experience
and although it might make the journey longer,
it will inevitably make it more rewarding.

 

With love to Cynthia.

The Amalgamation of My Many Selves

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Dear Reader,

Today I am going to make a concerted effort to begin the reconciliation of  art, word, and music on my blog.
As some may know, in addition to being a writer I am also a musician/songwriter and a visual artist. Finding homes on the web for my different selves has been a challenge.
This writing blog has been such a happy place for me; easy to manage and with immediate contact to readers, that my music website has probably suffered from neglect. However it is a good website for a musician because it offers widgets that work for a musician, including streaming music and a roll over schedule of upcoming events…
The art has been uploaded to Flickr.

But I find myself wishing it was all in one place and I find myself liking this place the best (it could be because it doesn’t feel so solitary here – what with all of you popping in and commenting)

So please forgive me if the site looks a little disjointed for a bit as I am working towards amalgamating my many selves on this one piece of internet real estate.

Thanks

Linda

Underwater Burn

lindastudley2 Comments

Is happiness just the ability to hold depression at bay, to stay tears or at the very least to reach down into your last receding well of ‘oh well’  and pull up one more pail of ‘I’m fine’ to pour on the demons who unfortunately have learned to hold their breath and burn under water.  Hold your breath just one more time and see if you can outlast them. Hold your breathe, no ‘maybe’ about it, just grit your teeth and sink beneath the confusion hoping for a foothold so you can run like Hell for shore. There’s always ‘tomorrow’ – blessing or curse it can always be worse, it’s a matter of ‘will’ that won’t matter if you don’t care, so sleep if you can and hope for dreams of what could ‘be’ if the demons would just drown and wash away, feel the salt water purge them from your soul and try to find the urge to try just one more time to find something ‘better’

 

If you string together the words in quotations = ‘Oh well, I’m fine. Maybe tomorrow will be better.’

Soft Blue

lindastudley5 Comments

The sky is such a soft blue today,
like watercolour seeping from a loaded brush,
creeping across the horizon.
If I could I would lay my head
down upon its lap,
close my eyes, and drift
eider clouds tickling my nose
as they scud past.

I’d look down at naked poplars,
their skritchy-scratchy calligraphic limbs akimbo;
mute supplicants awaiting the slow explosion
of green ruffles and pollen confetti.
A time-lapse collapse into rustling
sighs but oh, my,
the sky is such a soft blue today.

Coconut Man

lindastudley2 Comments

Chop, chop, chop.
The machete falls.
He trims off the top.

Chop, chop
He flattens the bottom.
A deft twist and out pops a plug.
We pour coconut water into a travel mug
Gracias.

A peso, a smile,
and he pushes the coconut laden wheelbarrow
to the next tourist,
the next peso and smile.

Back from Cuba

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I feel bad for not posting anything for so long, but I no sooner got back from two weeks in Cuba (where internet connections are not even worth bothering with) than I contracted a really nasty cold and only lately have I felt that I could write without sounding whiny, lol!

I managed to store up a huge amount of inspiration during my trip. This was my first time in a tropical clime, and I have to admit, it made me wonder what the heck I was doing going home to minus 20 c. sigh…

Cuba was amazing, the setting, the people, everything… I’ll probably be posting a lot of Cuba writing for a while!

 

 

The Stone Without Moss

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I’m the stone without moss, slowly rolling uphill,
the pebble the stone kicks aside.
I’m the lake far below waiting patient and still,
watching the pebble’s long dive.

I’m the last rippled echo that runs from the pebble
and dashes itself on the shore.
I’m the hands in the water, cupping and dripping,
to the mouth where the water is poured.

And I stand up again and I gaze at the mountain
And begin my eternal ascent.
I’m the stone without moss, the circling ripple,
till eternity’s utterly spent.

Counterpane Counterpoint

lindastudley3 Comments

In the dark of the night,
when I switch on my light,
my bedside window is an echo of white.

Like a dim extension
of my room, it blends in,
reality merging with bedroom reflection.

At a glance I don’t know
what is quilt, what is snow,
and out of my bed a poplar tree grows

as the snow sings again
its mirrored refrain,
a white counterpoint to a white counterpane.