White Key Days From the Soul

Being part of a strong family was likely my saving grace growing up. It sure didn’t help me to always make the best choices, but the safety net was strong enough to land in time and time again. Thank God.

Dad passed away far too early, just as we were truly becoming good citizens of life, but Mom is still here, full of love and determination, enough for us all.

When I was younger I thought that my parents were very strict. I later realized that we had so many experiences growing up that others didn’t and that wasn’t because my parents were strict. In fact, they let us make decisions, some good – some not so good, but we were allowed to experiment, experience, and grow with each decision made.

Those decisions made us into the people that we are today. Are we in the best places? Maybe, maybe not. Are we still growing, experimenting, and experiencing? Absolutely!

I’ve been married twice. That first marriage was more than an experience. It was a life-changing time for sure. Going from a stable household that was filled with love and respect to a family wrought with mental illness and delusional dreams was a game changer.

Sometimes, when I allow my brain to re-visit moments during that time, I’m really not sure how I’ve lasted this long. Then, giving my head a shake, I again come to the conclusion that the gory details don’t need to be revisited. They are there, they’ll never disappear completely. Those moments, while seemingly disparaging at that time, have given me courage throughout the years.

I love working with words, imagination, truths, and feelings. As the words from my heart fill a page I’m always filled with curiosity. The words come, I input, the page fills and then I read. Never sure what sense or nonsense it will be until I finish.

If you’re brave enough….join me on my journey. Let’s read together, whatever this ends up being.

Young children with an overabundance of imagination are often thought to be precocious. Teenagers with an overactive imagination are often thought to be bothersome. If they are given a creative outlet early enough, this sometimes saves them from becoming total @$$holes!

I was one of the lucky ones. I was given many opportunities at a young age to allow my creative energies to blossom in a positive manner. I was encouraged to try many different outlets, everything from learning an instrument, raising, caring for, and training animals, team sports, individual sports, and a variety of club memberships.

My passion came from both my voice and a pen. I loved the music! I still do. In fact, I’ve been called very passionate about music. Back when my voice was young and vibrant, I sang. I sang in the choir, both at church and school. I sang as a soloist for celebrations and gatherings. I loved to play the piano. What a glorious instrument. Even now, we have a saying, “Are you having a white key day or a black key day?”

Any of you who play will already understand. There will be those of you that have enough understanding to know what we mean. For those of you who are wondering what the heck I mean:

The white keys are the strong, positive majorly good moments in your day. While the black keys are used as flats and sharps, turn chords into minors that sometimes give a moaning melodious haunting feeling that mark the harder moments during the day.

The wise ones amongst us realize that both colours of keys give the music its depth and soul. I don’t think that I came to that conclusion naturally at all. I have an immense distaste for ‘black key days’. If they happen, I don’t want to rethink, rehash or revisit sadness or anger. I used to wonder why we had days like that at all. Over time and through teachings I learned that we wouldn’t recognize good without bad nor joy without sadness.

Now for the pen. There’s a bit of a backstory that we need to take for total understanding.

I was brought up in a family of very gifted artists. Siblings, parents, aunts, and uncles – just on and on. That should have been wonderful. Nope, it wasn’t. I am not artistic. I used to love to watch the knitters in the family, it was so relaxing, the clacking sound of the needles behind the chatter of the day. I tried to learn. Many people tried to teach me. It just didn’t happen. There are seamstresses in our family, actually all of the fine arts. They are so talented. There’s talent with welding. There’s talent with woodworking. I didn’t have any of those.

As soon as I could wield a pen, I found my talent. Words. Words were and are my talent. I love them. I love the stories words tell. The poetry, the romance, the silliness. I love them all.

I was so lucky as a kid to have a Dad that loved public speaking. He wrote incredibly, thought-provoking speeches. He could move a crowd to tears or have them roaring with laughter with just a word. He taught me. I emulated him. I learned to speak and speak well. I learned to ‘work’ a room. There’s no counting how many times I use that talent.

So my talent comes from the pen. It’s only in the past few years that I started skipping the actual pen-to-paper writing part before putting everything on the computer. Even now, I love the feel of a pen in my hand. I have favorite pens for writing on certain papers. I’m sure many of you know feel like that too. All I know is, that with pen in hand, I can put things into perspective, change my thought processes and make good of a bad day more often than not.....