Search This Blog

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Get To It!

Okay, get to it. Settle down here. Nose to the grindstone. Wear those fingers to a nub, your pen to a nib. The subject doesn't matter. The topic is irrelevant. Just do it! (That's me with my Nancy Reagan impersonation. No, my Nike impersonation. Nancy said, "Just don't do it." Or rather, "Just say no!")

 

Too many imperatives. Too many people who know better than anyone else. Isn't that annoying as all get-out? And truth to tell, where do I stand among this hierarchy of know-it-alls? Well, not at the very top, of course, lacking any real authority, but pretty high. I am an advice machine just waiting to be plugged in. (Once upon a time I didn't wait to be asked, but I like to think I've learned one thing at least: there's nothing as unwelcome as unasked-for advice.)

 

Now I was going to segue here into homemade cosmetic products and how I make them and how a friend recently made my day by asking for advice on how to make her own. But I apparently can tell that entire story in one sentence (see directly above), so it isn't a suitable topic for a long-term bit of writing.

 

I find myself caught more and more firmly in a personal net woven of old songs, advertising jingles ("you'll wonder where the yellow went . . ."), nursery rhymes, and sayings. And it reminds me of the observation that volunteers who work with Alzheimer's patients often comment that even people who do not speak or who don't recognize their own children join in with great enthusiasm when there is a sing-along of old songs. Words and melodies from the past have worn such deep furrows in the brain that they never disappear.

 

K-k-k-katy is there when you want her. Playmate keeps calling, "Come out and play with me." Little Sir Echo always answers back.

 

These and hundreds of others float through my own brain and are coughed up to the surface faster than any more "normal" response to a stimulus. I repress these inappropriate comments as often as I can, yet am still surprised at how often I find myself wanting to blurt out "you belong to me" or "I'd love to get you on a slow boat to China" or "when your heart's on fire, smoke gets in your eyes." There is a distinct possibility that one day these songs will be all that remains of my brain, everything else having been eroded by the daily friction of too many stimuli.  Perhaps that's it: would the wear and tear on my brain be reduced if I stopped submitting myself to my daily barrage of external stimuli, if I just stayed home knitting? Would my brain then last longer, allowing me to maintain functioning neurons beyond the ones that keep bringing me "Mairsie doats and dozy doats and little lamzy divy"?

 

I had another thought on this topic but it disappeared before I could capture it.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor
www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

No comments: