SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

when exactly did I write this piece?  -not certain, but, I do remember I read it out loud during an event   -perhaps an open mic, at towne center books in Pleasanton.    and in the audience that day, was Karen Hogan

and after hearing me read this, she invited me to come be a guest reader/speaker at the 4th Street Saturday Salons in Livermore and that ultimately lead to a variety of my writings being published in her annual Livermore Wine Country Literary Harvests.    -so, more gratitude...    "Thank You!"

and so, I can only know this was written sometime prior to 2005..  my guess is,  2003 or 2004, but I think the same way today, as I did when I wrote it. 

and the reason I am reposting it this morning/retyping it, is because during my operation radical declutter phase IV, I came across the plastic children's rainstick toy that inspired the writing, and that I used when I read it out loud at towne center books:

***

 Listen.

humor me by closing your eyes and listening     -or not-

[turn rainstick upside down, so the audience can hear what sounds like sheets of falling rain]

When I close my eyes and listen.         In my imagination this is the sound of a million different thoughts falling from the sky.   Each and every drop

-a thought.

Thoughts  -like water in a constant cycle.  Land. Atmosphere. Ocean.  Condensation.  Precipitation.  Evaporation.   Yes!  That's it.     Evaporation.

Vapor Thoughts!   Thoughts in a constant cycle no different from water.   -and how do you change the state of water from a liquid, to a solid or a gas?

You Change The Temperature!

Change the temperature in the room.   From warm and cozy friendly thoughts to better keep it cool thoughts.  Watch me heat things up thoughts.   Private thoughts.  Steamy thoughts.  I'd die if you knew what I was thinking thoughts.

Random thoughts.  Heavenly thoughts.  Under the influence of Mozart thoughts. 

And as time goes by, there are those clever hide and go seek, senior moment thoughts.   And mean and nasty, vengeful thoughts coming to a slow, full boil.

-boiling water, by the way, evaporates more quickly.   I had to stop and share that thought.

Then there's the man with the sexy smile.   The sight of him makes me so nervous.  He looks at me and if I can speak at all, it comes out in a stutter.  He makes my heart race and my brain slow down.  Seeing him always makes me lose my train of thought.  

Where was I anyway?

Oh yes.  Thoughts like water.

In liquid state:  I see free flowing conversation.  Words pouring out from our lips, reaching ears and touching hearts.  Beautiful music.  Interesting stories read aloud.   And I hear his voice..

Thoughts in solid form:  every single thing you see.  The clothes you're wearing, the chair you sit in, the shoes you stand in, the car you drove to get here.  

-every single thing you see, touch, taste, smell...      was first! a thought.

It's all so romantic.  I see a library and the museum of modern art.

And in my imagination, it is our passing thoughts, that just like water, evaporate into vapor thoughts   -but unlike water, impurities are not left behind.   No thing filters the thoughts leaving our minds and entering the atmosphere.

Millions and millions of unedited, uncensored, raw and wonderful vapor thoughts travel every second into the atmosphere and gather together to form

IDEA CLOUDS.

Good ideas, bad ideas, brilliant ideas rise above us, invisible to the naked eye, they travel by wind, pick up new ideas along the way.  They talk amongst themselves, listen, share, debate, argue, have sex, reproduce until new understandings are born and bring rain.

-sometimes in the form of a light sprinkle.  Sometimes a heavy storm.

Open-minded people, I think, live in rain forests.

I have a picture in my head of some people I know but don't like much.  When new ideas come along, they run indoors and start complaining.  But when I picture the people I love, my family and friends, open-minded sensitive, and compassionate people, artists and poets, singers and actors and writers.  I have visions of them singing in this rain.   Leaning their heads back, sticking out their tongues and drinking it up.  And I see them gather to splash in the big, muddy puddles left behind.

Just as plants absorb water from the soil   -we absorb ideas into our minds, our souls.  Our roots; key nutrients for sustaining life.   Wars born form a collection of destructive, unchallenged thoughts.  Violence from a collection of angry thoughts.   Cancers and fatal diseases from exposure to too many hopeless thoughts.

But brilliant ideas   -these manifest into civil rights movements, paradigm shifts, cures and solutions, a blend of philosophical and tangibles that contribute to our evolution.

Passing and unused thoughts recycle back into the atomosphere.  Old ideas mix with new ideas creating novel ideas and then it rains again.

When I open my eyes,

I see an 8" plastic toy.    Inside the clear plastic cylinder, a collection of tiny, colorful plastic beads pulled by gravity through an arrangement of triangular slots in 8 thin, colorful plastic disks.

When you turn it upside down, the toy makes music.   A sound similar to falling rain.

Or,   -if you are stressed out, short tempered or in a bad mood.   It just makes noise.

Either way, this little plastic toy is the result of a clever thought.   and often.   one clever thought leads directly to another.