Inspiration?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Ok, check it out. I mention a topic, or perhaps a question or a quote, and you guys write something inspired by it. Your piece can be anything, from a haiku to a short story.

Let's start with a broad topic for our first shot at this. I'd love to hear poems and stories that have to do with The Great Outdoors. Any climate and topography is fine.

Have at it - I'll throw something into the mix later.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The title The Great Outdoors triggered this memory for me. I may have mentioned this to some of you before...hell, I may have written a story on it before.

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I used to work at an insurance agency.

Exciting, I know. I worked my first real good "I'm an adult" job at a small family owned/operated place in Calabasas. They took a chance on a kid with no experience who was willing to take anything after working at a Chuck-E-Cheese type place.

For me, it was exciting. I breathed paper dust and covered paper cuts with more paper cuts. I read the manuals to the fax machine and copier and was the only one who could replace the toner and find those elusive paper jams. I put things that were in disarray into order - I was in on the meetings - my opinion was valued and I was treated rather equally, even though I was 19. I bathed in the florescent lights and the constantly ringing phones.

Yet after a morning of this, I sure could use some air.

Money was short and every penny saved went towards moving in with the love of my life. I’d bring homemade lunches or cans of soup and Rubbermaid dishes to warm it in. I’d chat with the old agents, acting like goofy kids making faces at each other in the small, friendly break room.

Eventually I’d wander my way outside. The roads in Calabasas wind around the hills and leave pockets of quiet, even though you’re always close to the 101 freeway. Yes, the air wasn’t perfect, but an LA child like myself takes little notice of that. I remember there were nice breezes though, breezes in the tree…

We had a tree. A tree in the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by a tiny oasis of grass. It was just enough to sit on and feel taken away from the pavement. The grass was well tended and always green and fresh. Out came the Peanuts blanket from my car, the one covered in Snoopy and Charlie Brown and Linus riding hot air balloons.

I’d sit under the tree and write in my journal. I’d write letters to my beloved, letters to other friends. I’d think. I’d lie down and stare up at the branches, waving in the breeze. I liked that perspective best, since all I could see was sky and tree, and I could be anywhere. I imagined myself in a park, or a field, or a nature preserve. I’d restrict my field of vision until I really believed I wasn’t in the center of a cement ocean any longer. I’d daydream and blink slowly and forget about paper cuts and toner.

I’d take naps. Dream of a day far beyond this. Or just dream of the coming weekend with lazy afternoons spent snuggling.

I’d wake to realize I was late, fold the blanket (damp from the grass) and toss it in the car, then jog back in to face data entry and relieving the receptionist. I welcomed the air-conditioning and sometimes remembered to comb my hair.

I’m glad it’s a moment like this that I remember clearly. A moment breathing fresh air and seeing animals in the clouds.

May we all find a small spot of grass in a cement ocean and daydream a moment away.

[blueerica]

As I sit here, in my haze of anti-histamine, I try to think of something fantastic to say about the great outdoors. And I'm zzzz....

All I can focus on is the here and now... The light tinkling of raindrops.

I love getting caught in the rain. I fear I don't get caught in it nearly enough. I love a good downpour. I love getting drenched, and for no good reason; spinning circles in the rain, dancing as though I was Debbie Reynolds waiting for my Gene Kelley... Dodging raindrops like bullets, but finding myself shot anyway...

Though I may look like a drowned rat, I feel like a cleansed soul. Then there's the point at which the rain stops. A quiet night full of freshly-fallen sprinkles, glittering softly upon the asphalt outside my door. The streetlights lend their odd grace to the surface. Crisp, refreshing... Just a dare waiting to happen... A puddle ready to pounce in...

[AllyOops!]

That was absolutely beautiful, CP. I really enjoyed reading your post and your descriptions put me in the moments you described. I could read your post over and over again.

The Great Outdoors makes me think of Yosemite. I spent a long Christmas Holiday weekend vacationing at the Awahnee in December, and it was absolutely breathtaking. The air was crisp and thin, and challenged my lungs. Witnessing what is truly God's country, and every wonderment created by Him, and the Heavens, soothed my weary and citified soul. Leaving my man-made, concrete frenzy never felt so good.

I'm a city girl. I thrive on controlled chaos and the noise that accompanies it. However, that weekend the heart I forever leave in Los Angeles I unknowingly packed with me, and I gave it freely to the beauty of Yosemite. The falling leaves from countless trees were as golden as the silence that I came to know and surprisingly love. The tiny gurgles pronounced from crystal streams born of melting snowcaps were as precious to me as if they were coming from a newborn baby. Bucks and does grazed sweetly in the fields that I hiked through, and I finally sat on the edge of a smooth rock overlooking a clear, glacial stream. So clear that I could count the slate and cinnamon coloured pebbles blanketing the sediment beneath the glassy waters. Parts of the stream were frozen from the icy, brittle December air, and I could see that the plant life below was encapsulated in time. Little shards of green being embraced by nature's frozen diamonds. Everything standing still until the air warmed once again.

Later, I strapped on my skates and twirled around on the ice. With the spellbinding awe that is half dome as my backdrop, I linked hands with my sweetheart until our noses and earlobes turned crimson, our legs rivaled butter and we were in desperate need of a roaring fire, each other's arms and hot brandied coffees.

And for the first time, nautre so took my breath away that it also brought tears to my eyes.

I can't wait until the day I return.

[Gemini Cricket]

The "Great" Outdoors
A Play in 27 lines by Gemini Cricket

Brad and Ralphie stand by a metal pipe railing in the middle of the stage. The rest of the stage is bare. They gaze fondly into the audience.

Ralphie: Aren't the outdoors...

Brad: Great?

Ralphie: Yes.

Brad: No.

Ralphie: Isn't the view of the Monterey Bay beautiful up here?

Brad: Swell. You know what needs to happen to it?

Ralphie: No.

Brad: It needs to be filled with cement so I'd finally have a place to park our truck.

Ralphie: Don't you love the Grand Canyon?

Brad: It needs more Starbuckses.

Ralphie: Isn't Big Sur wonderful?

Brad: Firewood for miles and miles. Do you know what Death Valley needs?

Ralphie: Air conditioning?

Brad: Exactly.

Ralphie: Yosemite's nice.

Brad: Half Dome needs an ATM half way up it.

Ralphie: Why?

Brad: So I'd have money to spend at the mall I'm going to build on top of it.

Ralphie: You hate the outdoors.

Brad: Not totally. It does make me appreciate staying home a great deal.

Ralphie: I'm going on a hike.

Brad: Call me when you're lost.

Ralphie: You know... some park rangers can be handsome.

Brad: I'm coming with.

FIN

[€uroMeinke]

I'd never been camping
Before Big Sur
What was I?
Maybe 25?

There were four of us
Old yellow volovo
the swedish chef
The other three, veterns

They told me of the beauty
the sleeping outdoors
under the stars
magesty

But one by one
the trip took it's toll
Allergies
Hangovers

It was Memorial Day
Crowded with RVs
The Smell of Diesel
And it was cold

Two couples crowded
In a tent for one
Huddling for warmth
In the bitter cold

Shivering, Drunk, restless
We woke having never slept
Coffee on an open flame
Neighbors giving cups out of pity

The other three pleaded
That this wasn't camping
As it ought to be
And they appologized to me

But I loved every second
Despite the crowds
I walked the beach and forrest
of Henry Miller and Robinson Jeffers

I got a taste
Of the great outdoors
It's decadent inhabitants
And it's overwellming beauty

[Tref]

The Great Outdoors

The great outdoors
Blue sunny skies
A ranger named Tom Frankel
A rake, an ox,
Some jagged rocks
A twist upon my ankle

Ole Yellowjacket bee
A friend to me
The snake says
“How you doin’?”
A red ant scout comes round to say
“I like your chocolate puddin’!”

The bear looks mighty hungry
The rabid squirrels so fine
A rusty nail will find ye walkin’
Through poison ivy vines.

Mother Nature
Hare Krishna!
A river nymph named Mindy
The great outdoors I love you best
When looking out my windie.

Finis.

[blueerica]

I am really liking how this is going... Are we going to change the theme weekly?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Ok kids, thanks so much for the fantastic entries. You people are oh see kay.

Time for a new theme. Let's use this quote for inspiration:

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. ~Carl Jung

Again, use this however you wish - you can include the quote in your piece, or take ideas from it, or what have you.

I'll be back later with my submission.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

and inspired by my filthy glasses, the lenses of which never seem to stay clean...

Tortoise Shell Negotiators

Without the glass, it is a meaningless interstice
Between my face and what’s in front;
The lenses through which I view this country askew
Are necessaries that right the angles and sharpen crystallized light
Into objects I can identify with the weaker of my senses

Essential to me is this unblurring that
Happily erases the halo from this world;
Me, I like my sinning in sharp focus
Me, I like the hedonistic throng of Man
That flails against that which would puppet master our inhibitions

I want to inebriate the populace with language,
The vibrancy of a human thought in voice or ink:
Word with a lowercase ‘w’, and not in anyone’s name but Ours

I want to drink the nectar of happenstance,
I want to get so sick on luck and coincidence,
Vomit up the definitions I have for “fate", “destiny”,
And the rascally “expectation”

So I’m thankful for these glasses that let me see the world
In its way and mine, though it’s a wrestling act each time
I blink the crying back

And possibly it’s true that I’ve been given rare visions
Of things as I would have them be and not as they are,
But I wonder if these moderators,
Between my face and what’s in front,
Make me a hostage to my inner dreams and thoughts

Also in the wondering,
Do other people’s glasses gather up the world refuse as mine do?
It’s as if all the grime and speck of life need a place to rest
And have taken a shine to me -
Sweat that’s condensed and grease from the forelock,
Ash, muck, fingerprint and glue

The filthy detritus of bodies keeping my loneliness company,
Fvcking up my pretty views