The Fountain

 

 Sometimes I feel myself slowly fall into a sort of creative state. Observing becomes my trade and everything around me is something to take note of. I am sure painters feel the same way when they sit down with a blank canvas and a batch of fresh paints. Words roll through my head like the gentle torrents of the sea and my fingertips sort of tenderly caress the paper.

  I often feel myself fall into this state when I preside at a particular fountain in the city. In the winter it is replaced with a poorly maintained ice skating rink that sells hot chocolate for 25 cents at Christmas time. But when the summer comes they tear the rickety boards down to make way for the sprinkling fountains. I often find myself there in the heat of summer, while the aspens quiver in the glistening sun. I would begin to describe to you the location of the fountain, if that was my immediate goal. However it is not location that intrigues my curiosity, but rather the people.

 The children run wildly through the water, caressing their finger tips in the glistening streams. laughter, chattering, and the way the water springs into the air and slaps the hard pavement is the fountains profound symphony. And in the air hangs the sweet scent of summer.
  The lovers sit under the shade of the trees with their bare feet in the cool grass. They somehow think that they are invisible to everyone else; that their whispers go unheard and their giggles unnoticed. I love to observe the lovers because it is sort of funny the way people act when they're in love. As if all the world and time stops, and the only thing they hear is the beating of their hearts. 

 Every so often i will spend all day by the fountains only moving for the occasional lemonade. But it seems that when the summer air acquires a slight chill and the sun moves drowsily down on the horizon, the parents pack up their towels and call their curly headed children home. I leave as well, because i never like to be alone at night. But the promise of new adventures and a fresh sheet of paper lays just ahead, in the dawn of a new day.

Theater

    My question tonight is this: “Do we believe our children to be thoroughly incapable of understanding the true and real problems of life?”

    Being opinionated goes hand in hand with being a “blabber mouth” and unfortunately I plead guilty to both of those traits. But I have learned in my lifetime that there is a time to be critical and a time to.. well for lack of a better word.. not. As much as I would, so love to be truly honest about my feelings, I am afraid I will just have to hold back. Now before I runaway with my thoughts I will explain. Tonight I saw Stuart Little (the play). The tickets were free and I always say yes to any free show. As a child I loved to sit in the velvet theater chairs. I loved the sparkling lights, heartfelt songs, and most of all the passionate fervor seen on the actor’s faces. There was something that I just understood about theater. And as I sat watching Stuart Little I thought of how sad it is that we deprive our children of the true beauty in theater (Not in all cases of course). The acting was sufficient, but due to the fact that the given plot and script was lacking, an actor can only try. At one point I started to drool on myself but made a quick recovery before I got a disapproving glance from my mother. That always seems to instantly send my saliva crawling down my throat. My God the length was awful; too many scenes were filled with pointless scenarios. 

    And thus I have made a full circle back to my point. Why is it that we expose our children to “mindless” productions? I truly believe that children understand real life struggles and passions on stage. As I pondered this I remembered one of my favorite musicals, The Wizard of Oz. My father used to take me to the theater, as young as 6 or 7 years old. There was something about that show that I grasped; the true fear that engulfed the cowardly lion and the stinging loneliness that Dorothy felt while being in the strange land of Oz. Children can look at those characters and situations and feel what they feel in an innocent child-like way. 

We should never corrupt the minds of the innocent, but to deprive them of the true passion of life, that so often comes out on stage is completely wrong.

4th Quarter

4th quarter are two words that for the average adult, mean absolutely nothing, but to the common eighteen year old, scream's "Senioritis".
This is a short term disease that causes the average high school senior's productivity level to significantly decrease.
A while ago I got a lead in my school's musical. (yes, i promise i have a point). I have never considered myself to be "lead" material per say, but any chance that i get to go on a stage and act like a fool, i take. As a result school work lost it's standing rank as #1 on my list of priorities and made it's way to #2.
My math grade was not happy with this and frankly neither was my math teacher. I had already missed a whole unit and was forced to take the math test with no preconceived idea of how to do any of it.
I sat in the Library starring at the test and honestly the only thought that came into my mind went a little like this: "Dear Lord, I am screwed. K love you bye!"

As a reverent right brainer, i honestly had nothing to pull from my left brain. It seemed as though my left brain took one look at the test and said exactly that "Well it has been nice knowing you" or the classic robot malfunction "System overload...... shutting down.."So for the whole test i sort of pretended to write random number's and occasionally make a funny doodle. My philosophy for tests is, if you're absolutely completely hopeless, try and make the teacher laugh.