Pleasant Places

Pleasant Places

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Are you feeling alright today?

I've got a few things to say

Do you remember the poems he wrote

About shadows, swings and boats

Pillows, hills and foreign lands

Lighting lamps at night

Climbing trees, country things

Happy thoughts and kings?

--

Do you remember

Reading these stories with me?

Do you remember

How these pages used to make me believe

That life was magical

Anything we wanted it to be

Because today I wish those stories were here for me

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Right now all I see are dark frames, crashing waves and souls lost at sea

Yet somehow I know you are there

I know you are listening to me

I know you remember the tales

Just as I too believed

I know you are listening

I know you are there

I know when I see you again

We will turn our beds into boats

And fly upon thin air

I know you'll build a fort with me

Our armies will fight

but we'll set them all free

I know we'll play games again

You'll let me win in the end

When I'm down

You'll swing me back up

A bird resting on your finger

I'll shut my eyes

We'll sail away

There will always be more...

Pleasant places I haven't seen before

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Inspired by my parents reading Robert Louis Stevenson's  "A Child's Garden of Verses" to me and my brother. It has always remained one of my favorite books of poetry, and reading it today, I feel a huge sense of lost youth. I feel the great desire to give my children an easy and magical life, like I had as a child, but I am in the worst possible space, where I can only turn my mattress into a boat by listening to music and dancing on it... I can pretend to fly on my bike... I am the pretender, and I need to make a living. 

I want to be in love with life, you, colors, dancing... A simple life well lived can give you so much peace and joy, yet today's version of a simple life still requires money to pay for phones, food, clothes, travel, art supplies. I guess I just want to land in the middle again, financially. I want simplicity, but enough to not feel afraid all the time. I'm sure this is the dream most people struggle with everyday, and why choosing your life's work and partner have to both be something you really love. I lost a lot of time, being with someone I couldn't love, but I learned to love myself.

I really love research, words and writing. I hope I can turn this into a book that helps others see that no matter how old or famous or educated we are, we never have all the answers. Every day is another chance, risk and journey to care for ourselves. If we can help others too, that is wonderful. If we can lift others up with what we do, there is hope.

I still don't have the answer for myself, but I am writing... I still want to write songs. I want to write songs with every cell in my body, like you can't possibly imagine. I don't understand it. I don't know why. It is just is how I feel.

Part of a Creative Writing Project: Letters to Geographer 2015-2016