These are the days, Of our lives

Rummaging through a few old photo albums over the Christmas period has got me thinking about where we have come from and how people progressively change in a expedient attempt to search for their true calling, their own choices or dreams and how change itself effects not only an individual, but the entire outlook on your life and where you have come from.

I love that my parents can still look at these photos, laugh and joke about it all together, even though things have changed. Completely.

I spent a small amount of time in my hometown over these holidays and things felt somewhat different.
While it was still the place I grew up, where we would walk down to the Muarry river banks and swim through the reeds or the place where we would spend countless nights laughing in each others backyards, plotting and scheming about random nefarious things;
it – or ‘I’ for that matter, had changed.

I looked around at a familiar setting that felt somewhat detached and hazy to the person I was and had become. I had definitely outgrown the shoes that fit over the years, into something bigger and much more comfortable.
Even though this was a place where I had come from, it’s not me, nor does it define the person I was or the person that I am becoming today.

Looking back at these images makes me smile, makes my family laugh and the stories all start to roll in about ‘the times when’ and the ‘remember how we used to’.
These images are simply fragments of who we were – the past – of a life in making. Yet will continue to be an adventurous story that each of us could never forget.

me.

A heart’s dream.

I do not need a symbol
Of love, a common heart shape to decorate a cake.
The heart that is supposed to belong, or break.

All hearts are meant to pound,
This is to be expected, the hearts
normal struggle against being drowned.

Most hearts live small,
But some hearts dream further; they force you to listen,
to dream past the front gate.

It’s a constant pestering in my ears,
A caught moth in a burning flame,
A burst water main at the end of your street.

Because it’s not enough to dream that small.
Its not enough to wait by the wall.

Unless you follow, the heart will ache and the hearts true mystery still awaits.
You’ll find it at the boarding gate.

The Stuff of Social Media

...Picking up the *social* card...

“Oh… it’s only a blog,” she murmured.
About this blog. Your blog. All blogs for that matter; we were talking about the stuff of social media.
I didn’t have a response at the time. I guess I was stuck searching for a rightfully witty comeback.

I couldn’t come up with anything, and later realised that this person- this ’so called’ critic I was speaking too, didn’t even have a blog.

Pfffft.
WELL.

How can you possibly understand the concept of social media if you’re really not a participant?
And that is my question.
Of course you can understand it all on an intellectual level. Like, I understand heart surgery even though I’ve never studied it or needed it.
But you can never really get it unless you’ve really been in it. And unless you’ve been in it to win it in fact.

So let’s clarify something in my mind here for a minute. The blogosphere, I think, is one of the most valuable and personal forms of social media that exists out there.

And when people talk about authenticity, transparency and its engagement or some hot new social media tool, they’re really talking about that personal relationship of social media. That is, being less confined and alone in this great big world of teh interwebs.

So if you’re not participating and yes that means responding to blog comments and other blogs out there -or if you’re only talking to yourself on Twitter, you lose.

If you don’t actually participate, you’re not really a part of social media. You’re last year’s season.
Pretty much obsolete.
Outdated. Old-school.

And oh yes… traditional media.

‘Doing it’, or interacting is a big responsibility. This is why a lot of people – and a lot more companies – fail at social media. Because we all want to connect to people and ideas, but to do that you have to go ahead and open up. You have to expose that hidden secret, the stash of dark choclate in your desk, or the undisclosed plans for the mysterious year ahead. …Ahem…

But people fail because it takes alot to get yourself out there. I’m not that great at it, but I’m trying to be better because I understand that vulnerability is a good thing. Which in my books, is a start. But practicing it is something different entirely.

Social media is about analysing and defining your own ideas, opinions and passions.
You know, a two-way conversation, or more often than not those racy three-way+ comment agruments that YOU have started with a single opinion/blog post. And in being any way but alone, you discover value and a true understanding that is difficult to grasp if you’ve never even participated in the conversation in the first place.
So, bring it on.

*Image thanks to compfight.com & user Scr47chy.

A typeface to remember

The letters continue to fall
like quiet rain along my way.

The letters of all that lives
and dies,
our letters of the light,
of moon,
of silence,
of water,

I love you,
and in your mysterious face
I gather thought.
not only careful consideration or combat,
but an immaculate form,
your adorn,
senses start to fade away.

every sound in this letterset playground we once called home.
Still surrounded with the colour of a dream I once had.

Image courtesy of [the pretty, new] Compfight with user Lord Jim.

Between the stars and the earth

Sandwiched that night between the stars and the earth I felt so small and insignificant.
I remember once looking out through the window of an always open mind, thinking how giant mountains seemed to be only as high as the ridges of your fingertips, while the deepest valleys hardly seemed to scratch the surface.

It keeps me asking everyday what is all the fuss about?
The world can become so small, but I can’t drop that sense of wonder.
My eyes will always lift to the horizon, the heart will always hear the story unfold.
And just this once I’ll let the comfort of my smallness hold me as my thoughts drift away and I fall asleep into this night.

Glory bound

Life is a growing expedition
Through the twisted and tangled, unfilled in parts.
What happens when I leave this place?
Because of the fear we don’t trust
Our own choices?
our story? our colours?
Be afraid and leap regardless.
Keep watching, waiting, take the leap.

Push into the questions of our lives when nothing feels clear.
We have a chance to do absolutely anything, to reach out to another, vulnerable and true.
To dance on the rooftops in euphoria, to sing in the ocean, to dream proud and loud. Take it.
Just let go.

What are you afraid of?

This chance is not every moment, but it is mine, and now it is yours.
Take that ticket, board that plane.
I’m taking a chance on the wind.
I’m packing all my bags
Making a mistake I’ve got to make
And I’m glory bound.