Picture This: Pathways

 

Did you choose your pathway or did your pathway choose you?

Have you ever jumped from one pathway to another?

I became curiously aware of how pathways can be taken for granted or unusually challenging one day when Judi and I were walking in Deep Cut Gardens in New Jersey. We wanted to take advantage of beautiful weather and wander among many varieties of plants. It's a large garden. There is more than one way to navigate its many twists and turns. As it turns out, most of those pathways are challenging for someone with joint pain. As we grow older, the joints call attention to themselves. Those knees! Those hips! Those (yes even those) ankles!

Fortunately, I am blessed with unusually great health and while my knees will mindfully remind me that pick-up basketball is a sport from my past, and now a current avocation, I do not feel restricted or limited much. I walk, and I walk, and I can walk about all day even with hills and narrow stones to walk on. 

Judi, facing knee replacement surgery, is not so nimble on narrow pathways. We did our best to stay on level ground and avoid stone steps, but it was still a challenge. It slowed me down enough to appreciate each step even more. 

We take so much for granted on our current pathways. Slowing down to see more clearly is more blessing than limitation. It is indeed, all good.

Picture This (writing prompt)

1. Find a random picture.

2. Write non-stop for 5 minutes and only 5 minutes.

Picture This: Journals on My Bed

 

I've changed morning pages to evening pages, when I do them, because other things have gotten in the way of writing first thing in the morning. I still do sometimes, but mostly the journal writing comes at night. 

Is that a good idea?

I'm not sure. I've written so many volumes over such a long time. They prod me, the comfort me, they process me, they inspire me. It's some little bit annoying to think that no one will ever read them. For goodness sake, I don't even have time (or the inclination) to read them so why would anyone else? Unless there is value in the work and a joy in the treasure hunt. 

That could be fun.

Lately as the ticking of mortality peppers the soundtrack of my psyche, I think about once greatly well known people who you hardly ever hear about any more because they are gone (no, dead not gone. They didn't go to Cleveland for the week and they aren't missing.) Bernard Shaw. Gertrude Stein. Salvadore Dali. Ginger Rogers. Hellen Keller. The list is endless. High quality and successful folks now blips in the radar screen of eternity. 

That's life.

Some long gone folks have even passed from fame to loss of favor -- not just forgotten but officially cancelled for non-currently-acceptable ideas. Maybe that makes sense, and maybe its hubris to arbitrate now. But we do that a lot now, don't we? We judge. We criticize. We arbitrate. We decide.

That's premature.

We don't know how it all turns out if it even turns out at all. Believers believe we know how it ends -- but even that's not the ending because there is an entire eternity after that and what happens then hasn't been written about. Yet. Not that we'd have the time, or inclination, to read thru it all. It must be thousands of pages.

Like my journals.

-- doug smith

Picture This (writing prompt)

1. Find a random picture.

2. Write non-stop for 5 minutes and only 5 minutes.

Scene Prompt: The Formula

 

Start an improv scene or writing session with this prompt:

If we don't find the formula within the hour it will be too late.

-- doug smith

Five Minutes: Just So That You Know

She wrapped the bandage, even though the cut was still bleeding.

"Hold that over your head," she said. "Do it now."
"For how long?"
"Until I tell you to stop. Unless I forget, then maybe ten minutes."
"That seems like a long time."
"Just hold it over your head. Have I ever been wrong?"
"..."
"I head that."
"What?"
"That silence. You know I'm right so just keep holding it up."

It felt like the bleeding had stopped but his heart was still pumping rapidly. His pulse was a cadence even a marching band could hear.

She opened the window. A quick breeze blew a paper off of the table. It floated a moment and before it drifted to the floor the cat batted it around, keeping it aloft like a balloon.

"Can I put it down yet?"
"No. Did I tell you to yet?"
"..."
"I hear that..."

The cat pounced on the paper, smashing it to the floor. The cat resumed washing some essential piece of fur, over and over, over and over.

"You can put it down now."
"Thank you. I was just about to ask."
"You're not bleeding out. It was barely more than a paper cut."
"It hurt."
"You're a woosh."
"..."
"...!"

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FIVE MINUTES
---------------------------------

1. Write for exactly five minutes, then stop.
2. Find a random image to add

Improv Prompt

Improv Scene Prompt:

1. Read the quote
2. Reflect for one-minute
3. Start your scene

Here's the quote (but you can use the same prompt with other quotes, too):

Do not admire famous people too much -- they could carry a sadness that would crush you.

-- doug smith

Picture This: No Flowers For Her

You can't go wrong with flowers, right? Isn't that the universal way to show that you care, to show how sensitive you are, to rekindle the flames of love?

Maybe. But I don't recommend sending flowers to more than one person at the same time. Not on Valentine's Day anyway. Imagine that? Yep, I've done it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (because I do think that it's true) the truth will always bubble to the top. If you send two people flowers, at least one of them is going to find out about it. Especially if you tell her.

Why would I tell her? Because the truth always bubbles to the top.

Why would I tell her? Maybe I've got a romantic squash wish. Set up the romance, and then find creative ways to squash it. Like sending flowers to more than one person on Valentine's Day.

Not a good idea.

The truth didn't come out at first. It took months. But when it did it was about as popular as a burp during meditation. A fart during yoga. A laugh during a funeral. Not good, not cool.

But the truth comes out.

I fixed it, though. I found someone else completely who doesn't even like flowers. No flowers for her. It does not impress her, it does not please her, she'd rather not have them in the house. So, no chance of sending her the wrong flowers.

But what do I do when she's mad?

-- doug smith

Picture This:

1. Find a random image
2. Write for five minutes only, inspired by that image.

Picture This: Renewable History

The course title looked so interesting that she could not resist. Renewable History. What if she COULD go back in time? What would she change? What would she fix?

Would she go right for the really big stuff (President Kennedy don't go to Dallas!) or simply fix the relationships she'd messed up. And, oh, she'd messed up a few.

Maybe it was her attention span. She'd stay interested. She get passionate. She'd be all about the all over of everything connected with her partner and then...and then her partner would do something so annoying she just couldn't believe it. A misplaced fart. A dirty toothbrush. A wet toilet seat. A scratch on the car.  That was the picture. She could never picture herself staying with anyone forever, even though she always said that she would.

Isn't that what they wanted to hear?

Like that dinner at that Mexican restaurant in Louisville. She liked it really spicy. Her partner was a spice wimp. He couldn't take the tears. Wasn't that always the case? He couldn't take the tears.

She could take the tears. She could let it rip. She could tear up a relationship like it was nobody's business -- and wasn't it just HER business anyway?

Five minutes, she thought. Five more minute of this and I'm out of here.

Renewable History. Hmm. She thought. Maybe Tennis 101 is a better choice...

-- doug smith

PICTURE THIS:

1. Pick a random image
2. Write, inspired by that image, for five minutes and then stop.

Picture This: The Other Side of The Wall

She stood staring in the mirror. How did she get here? What was that sound coming from inside the wall? And why were the paper towels under the paper towels?

She moved the paper towels. She turned off the faucet. No make-up to fix and her hair was fine pulled up in a pony tale. Now, about that noise.

Ever try to hear what noise is coming from the wall when someone in the room keeps flushing the toilet? She'd need to leave the room. She'd need to be on the other side of that wall. She left the room.

The sound of her footsteps clicks down the hall. The toilet flushes again.

From the other side of the wall she can hear a very tiny voice whisper, "The paper towels were not yours to move..."

She does not hear the disturbing sound from inside the wall. She does hear the toilet flush. Again.

"Enough of this," she sighs. "Time to get to work."

-- doug smith

Picture This:

1. Find a random image (truly random, do not select the picture.)
2. Write for 5 minutes with that picture as your inspiration. Stop.

Picture This: Mixed Up

She was easily mixed up. Working in the kitchen, she would sometimes misplace the ingredients. It riled her up, and yet it also gave her a kind of energy.

"Have you seem my Thyme?"
"We're all out of thyme."
"Not true."
"True."
"Then, where is it?"
"It's here, I've just misplaced it. And you're not helping."
"Are you serious? I'm looking everywhere. Maybe if you'd alphabetize your spices and herbs."
"Herbs and spices."
"Huh?"
"You're the one who wants them alphabetized."
"Did you find your thyme yet?"

Out of time.

It was her biggest fear, and he pushed her over that edge. Or, did he?

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Picture This:
1. Find a random image (truly, close your eyes!)
2. Write for two minutes, inspired by that image.
--------------------------

Living Creatively

One of the best things about improv is that it stimulates your creativity. The subtle feeling of not knowing what you will do or what will happen next seems to open a door to the muse and allow technicolor waves of insights to leak thru. Those insights aren't always funny. They are not meant to be. Those insights are not always brilliant. Those are the odds. The insights ARE meant to generate more insights and more fumbles, practices, missteps, dreams, and drops.

Drops and dreams. Dreams and drops. The creative process is messy.

Living creatively is your specialty. Go for it.

-- doug smith

Five Minutes: The Parade at the Hub

She spilled her hot coffee right in my lap. I didn't know if I was more angry or more in pain. She'd been balancing a full arm load of books, her phone, and her hot coffee. Oh, if only the phone had landed in my lap.

"Oops, sorry..." she said, as if she'd tapped my shoe with her toe.
"What the heck! Are you kidding me?" I think I said, although it might well have been peppered with some saucy language often heard in a commercial kitchen or volunteer fire house. I was not please. She kept on walking.

The coffee, about half escaped and half still in her cup, caused me to jump up and though I had nothing to spill, my journal did hit the floor and tear the page I was writing on. Stream of consciousness meet scream of coffee.

She kept on walking, still holding half a cup of coffee and whatever important information was displaying on her phone.

Be calm, I told myself. Maybe I shouldn't have been sitting on the floor. Maybe I should be glad the whole cup didn't hit me. Maybe I should change my pants.

Coffee. It's so much better to drink it than to spill it.

-- doug smith

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Five Minutes:
--------------------
1. Write without stopping for five minutes.
2. Add a random (if possibly related) image.

Picture This: Say Yes to Mr. Tubs

Can anyone really say yes better than a dog? Hardly.

My dog friend (one of a few) Mr. Tubs is a champion say yes kind of guy, and he insists that I play just as unconditionally. When I enter my friend Judi's house, Tubs comes running to see who it is. When he sees who it is (me!) he retreats to find his favorite toy of the moment and trots to me with the offer to play.

Say yes, human. Just say yes.

If I'm preoccupied, his eyes say "say yes."

If I say "not now, Tubbers..." he remains on point, ready to go, slobbering with anticipation, unable to conceive of a negative thought between me and yes. Say yes.

Improv actors say yes. If you forget how, please...play with a dog.

Just look at that face. There's no "no" in that face. There's no room for killing the scene. There is only keeping the playing alive.

Say Yes to Mr. Tubs.

Say yes to your improv partners.

Say yes to life.

-- doug smith

Creativity Generator: Picture This

1. Find a random picture (seriously, keep your eyes closed and make it random)
2. Write for 2 minutes, guided by the picture