Notes:
Journal - This is the standard. The pen upon the page speculating about life.
P3 - For propose, poetry, painting. A place for the arts.
Dramatis Personæ - Of characters. A meta-writing exercise where I examine my characters and stories.

Last edited by Bird of Hermes on Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:46 pm; edited 20 times in total

So here I am. Another insignificant year in a host of billions. How time is but a human mechanism of change, I know.

As I toast to times past for times come, I hear in the distance among the chatter the words of resolutions. These promises, made year after year, are rarely fulfilled. Yet, we make them anew year after year at this time expecting different outcomes. Is it really insanity doing the same things over and over expecting different results? Apparently, not on this night.

I make one too, dispute the absurdity. I wish the same wish that I do on stars. It's a new moon. Rather appropriate. I wish for the knowledge of the ultimate truth. That same wish I make a resolution this year.

I hear explosives and see colored lights. It's almost midnight and soon I won't be able to hear my own thoughts over the noise and I will be blinded by my neighbor's childish displays. I secretly like them, as long as they are not too close going off.

Someone once said that wishing on stars can only take you so far.

Tonight, I think they are right.

Last edited by Bird of Hermes on Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:29 pm; edited 7 times in total

A few weeks ago, I was informed by my high school band directer that a colleague of hers had died. I keep in touch with her and her program and she has kept up with me and gotten me a few gigs here and there for musicals and such. She's even let me borrow her personal drum kit on occasions. I asked who had died, as it may have been a teacher I had studied under. It was. My senior civics instructor had died over winter break. It had been quite sudden. She had been taken to the hospital with chest pains and died of cardiac arrest during her short stay.

We all know that there will come a time when people we knew will start dying, their lives picked off one by one as we watch for our turn. But even so, we are never quite prepared when the first passes away. It forces us to think of what we had never said, never done, never wished for them.

I wonder what I would have said to her if I had known that she would die so suddenly. Perhaps I would have told her that I was following in her path, that I wanted to teach history.

I never had the chance to tell her that. No. I did have the chance to tell her. I just never did.

Last edited by Bird of Hermes on Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:46 pm; edited 3 times in total

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

So starts one of the greatest books of the 19th century.

It may as well have started as such: This world has winners, this world has losers, some will pass, some will fail. It is a fact of life. Some people win, but most of us lose.

Yet, we have entered an age that wishes to eradicate this "superlative degree of comparison". What a world it would be if there was no winners and no losers! But, that is not the world we live in.

However, some people want our children to live there. And they intend to create such a place. Sheltered from the reality of life, these people wish to create pens to shield the youth from experiencing the pain, disappointment and humiliation of defeat. They want to create a place where there are no losers, a world where no one fails.

But what is so wrong with that? That could be paradise for our children! Certainly, no one would be opposed to such an ideal.

I am.

Welcome to the world without winners and losers. Welcome to the age where no one fails. Here is a place where your actions don't matter. No matter what you do (or don't), you will end as the winner. Every test you take you will pass. There is no failing here. Everyone meets the same results: success.

There is no need to try. There is no incentive for striving. No use for working, no use for toiling, no use for motivation. This world rewards inactivity. This strange new place gives you everything... for nothing at all.

This world falls. Nothing is ever accomplished. Nothing is ever done. Nothing you do will matter. And when you find yourself flung into the real world, where the true winners take their prize, you will not be prepared for the heartache. You will not be prepared to lose.

Why would you do that to a child? In the name of protection, we hurt.

This does not have to be so. Let the children lose. Let them fail. Let them fall.

So, that one day, they may have the strength to rise and the desire to do so.

Last edited by Bird of Hermes on Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:46 pm; edited 4 times in total

I'm sorry that I had to do it
cut you deep with the knife
of hard truth and tough love

Indeed it is a rather blunt knife
that which I keep sheathed
for such honest and due occasion

But this was such a time
and you should have seen
that blade like a scythe descending

Where you stood so confidently
just a moment ago was on sacred ground
that which is made of men's words

And that which is made of such
cannot be tread on so easily
without dire consequences

There is a god of words
and she reigns with an iron fist
and a sharp and hardened quill

I am that angel of words
and I have seen your crimes and good points
and I shall cut you down all the same

Last edited by Bird of Hermes on Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:47 pm; edited 5 times in total

May. It may as well be called December.

It's the New Year's Eve of the warm season. When it finally crosses into that next new month, you get the same feeling of elation that came when December ended. The month carries no ill will. You are just glad it's over when the new block rolls around.

I can handle hectic in short bursts like this, but sometimes I go into May expecting something like November.

December and May. The months endings and beginnings.

At least my half-birthday falls at the end of it all.

"summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when september ends

summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when september ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when september ends

summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

like my father's come to pass
twenty years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends"

Five long years. I almost can't believe it has been that long. So long, yet I get the exact same feeling that I did exactly five years ago when I hear this song.

Perhaps some memories never fade.

I started school four times. I attended three different schools. Three different band programs. Four different history classes. Three lockers, one destroyed. Two drums, one in good condition when I left it, one pair of cymbals. So many textbooks, some new, some old, some waterlogged. Two uniforms, one bought, one given. Three dances, one canceled, one missed, one that I would have never gone to otherwise. One competition, one band, one sound, one pride. One mistake. One car and one guitar neck hanging out the window. Two highways, both going the same way. One room, four beds. No phone service. One long news reel, over and over. One free pass and one new reality. Many friends without goodbyes. Abandoned places, faces. Things lost, things gained. One radio and one song.

One day, one month, one year.

One feeling, one memory, one chord progression.

I can hear it again and again and again.

"Wake me up when September ends..."