ME! ME! ME! / [Mare's Musings]

Voices scream yet remain unheard.

Hearts are sobbing in vain.

Souls are hemorrhaging and nothing stems the flow.

Agony beyond imagination 

is the only companion.

Emptiness echoes as it bounces 

around in the nothingness.

Meaningless, it is all meaningless.

Millions of people living in a vacuum of self, unwilling to hear what ails another, 

let alone care!

I am right at your expense!

I care not for your journey, heartache, need, opinion.

Mine rules supreme!

It must, lest I fall victim to you and your needs, opinions, heartache, journey.

I cannot, will not admit that there may be some validity to your concerns, your pain.

I will only assert mine for they are far superior.

I must not, nay, will not confess to anything that may validate you at the expense of ME!

Compassionate heart, ha! What a weakness!

Admit to sympathy? Too risky!

I will not be taken advantage of!

I will remain stoic in the face of another’s agony!

The dust will not settle until I have stamped out all who would oppose me!

Even if my opinion be wrong I would not admit it nor give anyone the satisfaction of pointing it out.

Bearing with one another is for the weak!

Rightly or wrongly I will stand and pull everyone else down with me!

This world is dog eat dog and I will be the most ravenous!

Do not try to touch my soul, it is dead to you, to your arguments, your pretenses, your pain!

I will reign supreme in my own universe, in my own sphere, in my own mind,

until I finally rot away in my own cold hearted callousness

and come to realize that all I have won is a hollow victory that leaves the stench of death.

I Hear Thunder! / Mare's Musings

Mare's Musings are Merely the Meandering Meditations of the Mind of Mare

There’s a storm brewing somewhere! I can hear it in the distance. I can feel it in the air. I can smell the sweet scent of rain drifting on the breeze as a few spots start to plop here and there from the clouds that hang on the extreme edges of the slowly moving beast. I hear it’s roar, all be it muffled, as it lopes its way across the ever darkening sky, gradually increasing in strength and volume, stirring the trees into a frenzy, until it reaches its magnificent crescendo and passes overhead, unleashing its full wrath on everything in its path and then passing on leaving the air fresh, the earth saturated and silence in its wake.

I’ve always loved thunder storms, even as a child. There is something exciting about them. The air feels charged with anticipation as a storm approaches. The usually noisy birds outside the window seem to become still and you can hear dogs barking in the distance what seems to be a warning of impending danger. The trees move with the breeze coming from the distant storm, gradually increasing in intensity as the storm approaches.

Karen and Merrion (I'm the cute one)

My sister and I used to love sitting at the back door of my Mum’s house when we were small, peering through the screen door watching the changing sky, awaiting the approaching storm with excitement because there might be hail in it that we could scoop up in plastic cups.

My children seem to have inherited my love of rain and thunder storms, at least when they were little, even though in particularly severe storms the excitement would sometimes turn to fear and panic, especially when the lights went out eliciting screams from the dark corners of the house where each child found themselves at the time of the blackout.

More often than not, especially during the evening storms, at the first flash of lightening followed by the predicable clap of thunder, we would all gather in the lounge room to sit squashed together on the lounge and watch the storm through the large window that looks out over the scenic hills and into the distance. Many an interesting conversation has taken place on those evenings when we would sit in the dark, watching the lightening with 'ooohs' and 'aaaahs' whilst screaming and plugging our ears at the booming thunder then laugh ourselves silly over the way one of us had jumped at the sudden noise.

What wonderful memories I have of those times, tucked away in the back of my mind and brought back to life simply by the distant sound of thunder as I sit here at my desk.

There is something cathartic about a good storm. Especially in summer, the way a tropical storm often clears the air and leaves a gentle breeze to dance amongst the trees and soft rain continues to patter on the aluminium roof over the veranda with a soothing rhythm, replenishing the parched ground and finally you are able to breath deeply the refreshing cool air after the stifling stillness of extreme heat and humidity.

As I sit here and watch the clouds in their varying degrees of white and grey, swirl around the sky, pushed ever forward by the eye of the storm, I find myself willing it to come this way and fulfil it's promise that it has been teasing with all morning and unleash its wares on this spot of ground. But, alas, I fear it has other destinations in mind and that we will once again only be in the peripheral of the beauty of the storm.

Do you love a good storm?  What happy or scary memories do they conjure up for you?

Cheers!

Mare

‘A Blog By Any Other Name’ / Mare's Musings

I find it interesting how people say ‘Your name suits you so well’ or ‘ I couldn’t imagine you with another name’. I mean think about, if your name has been Melissa for 25 years and suddenly you changed it to Renee, it would take people some getting used to and people would probably struggle with seeing you as a ‘Renee’ instead of a Melissa and say things like ‘Renee just doesn’t suit you, you are such a Melissa’.

But what if you had always been ‘Renee’ but for some unknown reason, always went by ‘Melissa’, which, is in fact, your middle name. You only seem like a ‘Melissa’ because people have only ever known you as ‘Melissa’. It doesn’t really matter what your name is, people can’t imagine you as some other name because you’ve always been Your name. I always wanted to call my first born daughter Kiralee but for reasons I won’t go into, she became Kylie and people always say it suits her so well and they can’t imagine her being anything else, but, if I had had my way and called her Kiralee, then they would be saying the same thing about that name. You get my drift? No? Well, never mind, I tend to have these rambling, incoherent thoughts from time to time.

The cover of Mum's Major Work 

I only mention names because of the issue of naming this Blog. I’ve thought about starting a blog for quite awhile now and the name that always came to mind was ‘People Colour My Life’ because that is the name my mother gave to her Major Work for her degree in Communication, a collection of stories, poems and anecdotes based on her observations of people she encountered throughout her life and as I wanted to post some of her stories on the site, it seemed like an appropriate and fitting name and in some ways a tribute to Mum.

But when it came to actually choosing the name when I started to build the Blog, I hesitated and thought of a whole lot of other names that I could possibly call it such as, ‘I Was Just Thinking’ (not very original), or, ‘Merrion’s Ministrations’ (Hmmmmm). Then I chewed over ‘Mare’s Musings’ or ‘The Musings of Mare’. I toyed with ‘The Mare of St Andrews’ (my nickname is Mare and I live in St Andrews), and ‘Much Ado About Everything’ (I’m sure Shakespeare won’t turn in his grave at my poetic licence). I tried on ‘What Are The Chances’ (said in a real nasally, high pitched kinda way) and ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Insanity’ was definitely on the list (I did raise 5 children after all), and in the running was ‘Fair Dinkum!’ (I once knew someone who used to call me Fair Dinkum because I said it so often. Still Do) and so it went on.

But I kept coming back to ‘People Colour my Life’ because, well, that’s what I’d always thought I’d call a Blog if I ever had one and I just couldn’t imagine it being any other name. I’d grown used to thinking about my blog as that name and as much as I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing else would suit quite as well. So I stuck with  ‘People Colour My Life’ with The Musings of Mare tacked on for the description thanks to my daughter Kylie’s suggestion.

So maybe my opening observations aren’t strictly correct, because you know, I really can’t imagine this Blog by any other name. Thanks Mum!

Cheers

Mare

'To Blog or Not to Blog'... (My First Post) / Mare's Musings

I’ve always liked to write. I’m not very good at it but I’ve always enjoyed putting my thoughts and ideas down on paper. As a teenager I used to write poems and stories about all sorts of things. I’ve kept a Diary of sorts on and off over the years and I’ve always felt more comfortable expressing myself through the written word. In later years I’ve written a couple of songs, mostly for my church on a particular topic but my forte seems to be writing funny songs about people for milestone birthdays, farewells, anniversaries etc., I really enjoy this and have a lot of fun and laughs putting something clever together using a popular tune and sharing insights into the person through the words.

My Mother was always writing a new story about something. She taught Creative Writing at her local Community College and she also held a degree in Communication at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College. She was a great observer of life and a lot of her stories are written about actual people and incidents. She travelled a lot on Public Transport and spent a good deal of time in hospitals and doctors surgeries due to ill health and always came back with a tale to tell that would inevitably end up becoming a story. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit her ability to pen a good story, but my daughter did and has her own quite successful Blog.

So what has that got to do with anything, you ask? Well, I must confess that I’ve always had a bit of an unflattering opinion of why people blog, namely that they are mostly opinionated, egotistical, narcissistic, trumpet blowing, pontificating, blowhards who like the sound of their own keyboard clicking’, not to put too fine a point on it.

Now hang on, before you go screaming obscenities at your computer screen at this insult to bloggers everywhere, just hear me out. While there definitely are some of the aforementioned bloggers around, the more I contemplated and investigated the more I came to the conclusion that the majority of people that Blog just like to write, to talk, to communicate, to share, to engage with others, to invite reflection, to have an outlet for their creativity, and connect with people and events and happenings that make up their life.

Before I wrote this post I googled ‘Why do People Blog’. Lots of sites came up entitled ‘ 9 Reasons Why People Blog’ ‘ 15 Reasons Why People Blog’ ‘5 Reasons Why You Should Blog’ ‘The Psychology of Blogging’ just to mention a few. I read through some of the reasons but most of them didn’t really ring true for me except two that struck a chord 1. To tap into and satisfy my creative side and 2. To create a record. 

I especially want to share some of my Mum’s writings and share a bit of family history while maybe meeting some new people and learning some new things.

So, here I go, wading my way into the world of blogging and quite looking forward to the journey.

Cheers,

Mare