Pushes, ripples, eye-openers

This post is a conglomeration of inspired and inspiring people and how they move me into action. I thank you all for gentle pushes, ripples, eye-openers.

My BBB (Best Blogging Buddy) Snow Melts Somewhere wrote a fascinating post entitled Anything? Anything! yesterday, as she does. It contains all sorts of food for thought but for me the most amazing thing is how when young(er) she wrote a list of things to do and then did the bullet points one by one, right down to the beautiful children. I hope she won’t mind if we have a look at her list:

• Do a language course abroad: maybe Spanish
• Do a student exchange program, maybe South of France
• Do an internship abroad, maybe Paris
• Work abroad, somewhere Mediterranean
• Travel a lot, to places like the Maldives
• Settle down and have beautiful kids.

And now? Now her list needs a brother. 😉

To me this is such a beautiful example of how we work towards our desires and goals, especially if they are clearly expressed.

I have never had a life list like that. On the contrary, I’m pretty sure that if any of my lists had ever said Move to Tuscany, I’d never find myself here of all places. I’d be too eager, too pushy, too hopeful. It would be like fortune-telling.

To me even naming a folder To do NOW doesn’t help. Well, it would if it included things other than a bunch of blogging challenges, because these I in fact do, if it’s the only thing I do. (This is not a complaint. I love these challenges. They are the only things that kick me into action.)

Next to it is the folder To do, obviously with things that I really wish to be doing but somehow know they are not likely to happen any time soon: submitting my writing to various sites, for example. This month I had two firm decisions: to write my piece for Visual Verse which I did and now am waiting if it gets selected to be posted, and submit to Charlotte and write creative non-fiction for Barren Magazine.

I don’t submit easily, but creative non-fiction sounds just the thing for me. Last week, unfortunately, out of all these words I felt only NON. I got stuck considering whether what the dog thinks qualifies as non-fiction, since it’s certainly creative. Sorry, Charlotte, there will be other weeks.

Another thing in my To do folder are your posts that inspired an immediate reaction to write a post on my own but due to various reasons – read: laziness – my post didn’t get written immediately and now it’s a question whether it ever will be.

Still, I wish to acknowledge these posts and list them here. Maybe somebody else gets inspired too. For me this is one of major reasons why to blog: these gentle pushes, ripples, eye-openers. For example, I’ll never forget having learned how to eat a kiwi from a Russian blogger in Finland. (From the top! Like a soft-boiled egg!) And now I see it was actually Becky in the comment who taught me that!

Lacking inspiration? Try these:

• The I Spy Book Challenge: Have a look around your bookshelves and find twenty books with one of those in the title or on the cover: Food, Transportation, Weapon, Animal, Number, Something you’ve read, Body of water, Product of fire, Royalty, Architecture, An item of clothing, Family member, Time of day, Music, Paranormal being, Occupation, Season, Colour, Celestial body, Something that grows. This appeals to everything that is me. Will do it one day.
• Bridging the Gap from dVerse ~ Poets Pub: “Select two quotes from two different books. … Then, construct a poem using one quote as the opening line and the other as the closing line. The blood, sweat, and tears will come while filling in the space between.” Doesn’t it make you want to act NOW? The Linky Widget expired 10 months ago but who is counting?
• This beautiful post Thoughts on a Walk by Sylvia at Spanishwoods. I’m inspired to continue her thoughts because this is just how they happen to me too.
• “Everyone’s a story, born, unfinished,” Bojana writes at the end of her post with an amazing poem Where I’m From which she wrote almost exactly a year ago, the first since high school, and what a poem it is. Where are you from?
• I loved these Love Letters to Bad Men that Judy’s friend Gloria wrote. It sounds so liberating. Real names and all. I just might. Be afraid. 😀
• And the most recent, Maggie’s pantoum poem Sermon and Seeds that actually succeeded in making me write my own. Thank you!

This reminds me that April will again be the poetry writing month with 30 poems to be written in 30 days for NaPoWriMo! I haven’t decided yet to take part again after last year’s relative ease of the first timer. We shall see.

But what I like the most about my To do folder is that the first, oldest and as yet untouched item on it is a Youtube video entitled Gentle Chair Yoga Routine which my sister sent me a looong time ago. 😀

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In the photo part of this post, twenty examples of ripples, waves and downright waterfalls from Italy and Slovenia. Beware, some of it is so pretty that it’s kitschy.

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  Let’s start on our beach at its calmest, not so often.

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  A bit of splash and a rare boat on the horizon. For some reason they don’t pass here often.

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  Probably the most usual ripples with the blinding sun reflection.

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  I Will Separate the Foam from the Waves is a novel by Slovenian writer Feri Lainšček.

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  This is Tyrrhenian Sea, with Corsica in front (too far to be seen).

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  A rare view of bestia playing with the waves. It must have been hot.

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  He prefers warmer puddles.

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  A hop to Slovenia. The source of Kamniška Bistrica.

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  Deep knowledge and old wisdom in this moss.

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  Below Savica waterfall in NW Slovenia, one of the sources of Slovenian longest river, Sava.

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  The same Sava Bohinjka at Lake Bohinj.

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  Sava Bohinjka flows on and joins its sister Sava Dolinka in Radovljica to form one big Sava.

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  Not a ripple.

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  Savinja is a different river altogether in NE Slovenia.

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  The birth of Savinja: Rinka waterfall and amore for measure.

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  Back to Italy: Terme di Saturnia. You can sit under the waterfall. Careful, it’s like horses are kicking you.

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  Above the waterfall.

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  Below the waterfall. Nice and warm, almost 38 degrees C.

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  Back to the silvery scream of now.

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  The end of the beach.