#worstandthebeth

Put Your Records On - Corrine Bailey Rae " Three little birds sat on my window. And they told me I don't need to worry." This song came into my life a couple years ago when a friend posted it on my FB wall to console me in a moment of heartache. To me this is a song of strength, rejuvenation, and being able to sit with myself contentedly. " Maybe sometimes we feel afraid, but it's alright..." In high school I can across a beautiful picture of a bitterly crawling from it's cocoon with the words "Change is the essence of life - be willing to surrender what you are for what you can become." I stitched that phrase upon my heart and have run the fingertips of my mind across it's seams for over a decade. When the poster still hung on my wall a close friend shuddered after reading it and stated she hated change. At the time I didn't understand... That change is frightening. Letting go, surrendering to an unknown, can be so overwhelming that it is avoided. The funny thing is change happens with or without your consent. I have always preferred to do the guiding when I can. " When you gonna realize, that you don't even have to try any longer? Do what you want to." Effortlessness. Going in the direction of my dreams feels less burdensome all the time. The challenges in my way don't suddenly disappear but tackling what I need to in order to get to a piece paradise is less daunting. I learn to switch gears by going up hill after hill until it's smooth sailing upwards, slow and steady. When I was a kid I stopped listening to the whispers of my gut, reeled in my imagination and rooted myself in what I thought was life. I am still working my way back to that blissful wonderment of intuitive interactions with the world, slow and steady, but each hill makes the next one easier to climb. " Oh, you're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow."

"Come and open up your folding chair next to me" I find it jarring when my wonder at the capabilities of human beings is interrupted by my own inability to do something I think should come naturally. It's frustrating and deflating when I think my body is doing one thing but it really does another. A betrayal. When I pause and cease berating myself I remember it is me who has failed to raise the bar or maintain momentum and that I always have the ability to jump higher each time I set up a new hurdle. "I got a perfect body, but sometimes I forget. I got a perfect body - 'cause my eyelashes catch my sweat" Bodies are incredibly designed. People get so caught up in how they look they forget that how they function is more important. Presentation becomes the focus instead of utilization. While I've certainly fallen prey to preoccupying myself with how I am viewed my overriding concern has been about being able to do the things I want to do. I am getting better at imagining myself doing more and more than anything I have yet to do while working with where I am... Gently reminding myself I am capable but I have to work back into it. Take note of the disconnection and rework the mental bridges back to what I want it to be. If my child self could effortlessly project all that she was out into her vocal chords and facial expressions and movements than certainly I can as well. "I get scared and I'm just sitting here alone dreaming of the dolphin song - Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!" Early November I caught myself barking along like a dolphin in the middle of a department store as this song played, barely audible from the speakers above me. It made me more happy than embarrassed because I hadn't be subconsciously restraining myself. It slipped out of me, effortlessly. What would the world look like if people moved more freely? Twirled their arms while walking into the bank or juggled oranges down the grocery aisles? How would our bodies be different if we weren't trained to sit still so much? What of myself wouldn't have frozen in place? Regina Spektor's music is amazing because of its quirkiness... It relaxes me into a playful mindset of funny noises and skipping and moving my arms. Her keys hammer away at my social pre-conditioning until sometimes I forg-e-e-e-et. This song sounds like Neverland

It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing - Ella Fitzgerald Okay, okay... Technically this is Duke Ellington and Ella was not the first lady to sing it. What is a man's song doing in this list? Being badass. And when this song floats into my mind, as it did this afternoon, it is Ella Fitzgerald's voice I hear. "It makes no difference if it's sweet or hot just give that rhythm everything you got..." Throw yourself into every moment, no matter the outcome. It is only the moments I fail to fully immerse myself in interactions or experiences that I end up regretful. This isn't to say I haven't said or done things I am embarrassed about or would do differently in hindsight, just that being fully present is more important. Blunders happen when inattentive. Give what you have at the moment, do the best you can at the time. For example, I cannot give this post the energy I want... I have had a headache since March 2013 that is manageable most days but right now I want to smack my head against the corner of a wall. I wanted to talk about this song in Swing Kids, how musical historical fiction is one of my favorite film genres, or how I have always wanted to learn swing dancing. even ramble about how it relates to the walk I am doing in January. Instead my mind is preoccupied imagining a spoon scraping out the pain from my skull like the rotten spots of a pumpkin. So I am going to curl into a pillow in a dark room so I can get a little bit of my groove back tomorrow. Because it won't mean a thing if I don't got that swing. Do-ahhp, do-ahhp, do-ahhp....

Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over "Happiness hit her like a train on a track..." The year 2014 was the year of the tree Horse. A growing of strength and flexibility and a period of improvement. It has been said that each person is the master of their destiny, that what is created outside of oneself is merely a reflection of what goes on inside. Leaving aside the obvious problematics of that idea I would say this year has been a beautiful transformative period on both a micro and macro cosmic level. "The dog days are over, the dog days are done. The horses are coming, so you better run" In this age of ascension at the beginning of the Great Acceleration it feels like a massive transformation from a scattered, struggled survival to a blissful union of individual strengths. Fibers twisted together into strands, strands bound together to form a rope capable of holding loads inconceivable to the initial fiber. Internally it is pieces of life coming together, externally narratives and communities. It is beautiful. " You can't carry it with you if you want to survive" Life is a constant process of letting go. Releasing burdens, expectations, and regrets. A French woman I met in October, learning how old I was turning, excitedly told me "Twenty eight was a good one. It was the year I stopped caring so much about what people thought. It was a relief." I have always tried to ignore what people think of me - to maintain a healthy disinterest in judgments passed against my choices- but, being human, sometimes outside opinion seeps in spoils my perspective. If there is even greater liberation from this I welcome it with open arms. Life can only get better by freeing oneself from the shackles of societal expectations. This song feels like running to freedom.