Saturday, February 21
Something Different, Deeper: From Feline-Fawn to Bucket List Memorial
Man [sic] does not live by fascist-bashing alone.--Post-9/11 Guide to Sanity Maintenance for Die-hard American Dissidents, p. 27
This evening a friend sent an email that began a circuitous line of free associations culminating in an emotionally gratifying visit to the backside of the spirit-that-moves-in-all things. Bear with me; I think you'll find the brief journey worthwhile
That email contained a link to this two-minute vid clip of some heart-warming "cat-fawn" moments set to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."
I then dutifully emailed the clip to some cat-loving friends around what remains of the US. Tom, a recipient, sent back a moving clip of "Christian the Lion" being reunited in Africa with Ace and John, the two guys you raised him and returned him to the wild a year earlier.
Powerful footage, that reunion of cat and human. Apparently, the "experts" told Ace and John Christian wouldn't remember them. Not so. Well, the emotional floodgates opened.
Strains of a moving song I heard on a DVD only last fall echoed in the back of the brain. From the film production of Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical Cats, the very talented Elaine Paige* provides her own heart-felt version of bittersweet recollections in "Memory."
Weber's theme challenged me to select a countrifed version of his meditative song on love, loss and redemption: Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." In surfing YouTube videos, I learned McCraw's meditation on the life left us recently had served as the signature song in this past summer's Hollywood hit The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickleson.
What began as a disjointed but heart-led jag to cats and fawns culminated in an emotionally (and spiritually) gratifying sojourn to the backside of the soul, a place I visit too infrequently.
This last clip tells me I'd be wise not to wait so long between those visits.
*Related: Elaine Paige, "Memory," live in London, 1998; Barbara Streisand's rendition of "Memory" also gratifies the ear and heart.
22 February update: The cumulative emotional impact of these vid-clips was the vessel helped me complete the world's longest journey: that eighteen inches from head to heart; it's easier living in my cyncial mind than flittering the world constantly through my heart.
In any event, I was prompted to make some amends to an old friend/lover who I wronged but refused some years ago to accept my apology. Here's me trying to live as if I'm dying (which I am, just like the rest of us): what I sent her after my evening of moonlight reveling:
This evening a friend sent an email that began a circuitous line of free associations culminating in an emotionally gratifying visit to the backside of the spirit-that-moves-in-all things. Bear with me; I think you'll find the brief journey worthwhile
That email contained a link to this two-minute vid clip of some heart-warming "cat-fawn" moments set to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."
I then dutifully emailed the clip to some cat-loving friends around what remains of the US. Tom, a recipient, sent back a moving clip of "Christian the Lion" being reunited in Africa with Ace and John, the two guys you raised him and returned him to the wild a year earlier.
Powerful footage, that reunion of cat and human. Apparently, the "experts" told Ace and John Christian wouldn't remember them. Not so. Well, the emotional floodgates opened.
Strains of a moving song I heard on a DVD only last fall echoed in the back of the brain. From the film production of Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical Cats, the very talented Elaine Paige* provides her own heart-felt version of bittersweet recollections in "Memory."
Weber's theme challenged me to select a countrifed version of his meditative song on love, loss and redemption: Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." In surfing YouTube videos, I learned McCraw's meditation on the life left us recently had served as the signature song in this past summer's Hollywood hit The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickleson.
What began as a disjointed but heart-led jag to cats and fawns culminated in an emotionally (and spiritually) gratifying sojourn to the backside of the soul, a place I visit too infrequently.
This last clip tells me I'd be wise not to wait so long between those visits.
*Related: Elaine Paige, "Memory," live in London, 1998; Barbara Streisand's rendition of "Memory" also gratifies the ear and heart.
22 February update: The cumulative emotional impact of these vid-clips was the vessel helped me complete the world's longest journey: that eighteen inches from head to heart; it's easier living in my cyncial mind than flittering the world constantly through my heart.
In any event, I was prompted to make some amends to an old friend/lover who I wronged but refused some years ago to accept my apology. Here's me trying to live as if I'm dying (which I am, just like the rest of us): what I sent her after my evening of moonlight reveling:
KB:
I see there's a "Knoll" now to your name; I hope that person has brought generous portions of love and kindness to your heart and mind, the kind of goodness I saw in you when you'd listen to this [Barbara] Streisand song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmuF3jiufww&feature=PlayList&p=E7E57D935BADA5BB&playnext=1&index=99
Life is so much better than I deserve.
Be well.
XXX
Labels: Barbara Streisand, Bucket List, Elaine Paige, Jack Nickleson, Morgan Freeman, Tim McGraw
