Rights..

Our writing challenge this time is the word, "rights." Maybe there is also a bit of synchronicity here too, because someone was reading a post of mine from 2012 about Thunder Bay. I included this quotation in it -

"The foolish are like ripples on water, for whatsoever they do is quickly effaced; But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, For their smallest act is durable." 

Horace.


When I think of the acts of protest by people who were protecting our rights, I remember the marches in the '60s against racism. I remember the people who went to fight in two world wars against fascism. I remember history classes about the French Revolution. I remember teaching the concept of heroism in Greek mythology and citing Bobby Sands and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In fact, we still live in the aftermath of the US' civil war...the list goes on.

These were huge efforts to protect our right to freedom, to the many freedoms, most some of us have today. I might have written "most" about fifty years ago. There was a time, when we were moving in the "right" direction, as far as human rights were concerned, now, we are in retrograde. Neither are we seeing any positive progression against racism, fascism, or the fostering of woman's rights, we are actually seeing the rights we have won, being overturned, negated.

I would like to believe that the truly righteous will prevail and justice, though, "lame of foot," will stop these tyrants, these manipulators, from ruining civilization, as we know it. Unfortunately, too often, those who struggle for justice's sake bear the marks of their fight, both internally and externally. They are the stones on which the enemy carves. Let us hope their acts, their scars endure and continue to speak through our actions.

The pictures? We must be strong!!

Fusion...

Another word for the writing challenge is "fusion" - the joining of two or more things to create a third. I couldn't help playing with this word, by fusing it with other words, OK, prefixes. Hence, from fusion, we can make - confusion, diffusion, suffusion, effusion, affusion. It's an interesting way of increasing one's vocabulary and/or creating new words. For example, I desperately wanted to make reffusion, but it doesn't appear to be a word, as yet. Well, that hasn't stopped a lot of writers - why not just make one up!!

"The refusion of his existence, did not make him go away" or something like that.

Today, though, fusion is the word and mixing things up is the game. In Art, collages are a fusion of images to create a statement. In food, fusion is the combining of dishes from different cultures to create a new taste - bruschetta with couscous, perhaps.  And in fashion, designers fuse tutus with Doc Martens for a dramatic look.

In fact, so many new ideas are just a fusion of several old ideas, especially when we break the rules, blur the images and diffuse the rigidity.

Fusion happens in people too - the most basic being procreation. Two identities are joined to make a third. Sometimes cultures are joined to make a totally different ethnic group. Most often, though, one culture is assimilated into another and disappears. Only the very strong resist the fusion forming sub-groups, and creating, at times, confusion.

Obviously, my Latin is showing and my delight in playing with words.

The pictures? Mixers and mixed messages from a suffused view of the world.

Have an effusive day!!

Adjustments

Another word to write about (about which to write)....I may be catching up, but I may also be losing it!!

Adjustments....let me count the ways. How many times in a day, an hour, even a minute, do we make adjustments? Smooth the hair, settle the jacket, sniff, blink..... It's those unconscious movements or moments that strengthen us to face the world.....

......Where we adjust to a constantly changing environment - new medications, new hips, new knees, new places to live, new friends, new losses....

All this, while the world adjusts on a grander scale...icebergs melt, weep, perhaps, species die, climates roil! The list goes on.

It becomes too much at times - "Stop the world. I want to get off." It's the title of an old musical, I saw once and I've never forgotten.

We need escapes. Can we escape with or into Art? For the moment, we can still escape into nature, on a good day, if a tree, or something green isn't too far away. We can escape into a book - a form of Art, to be sure. A lot of the people, I know, escape into knitting, it's a handicraft and in it's highest form it is design and fibre Art.

Some people escape into hobbies. My husband has taken up cooking - this is a dangerous hobby :) My daughter curls twice a week. My sister does Ancestry.com and my youngest "games." They stop the world for moments to adjust the salt in a recipe, sweep the rock, read the obit, shoot the evil overlord.

The pictures? My son's art in a new gallery in Calgary. He stops the world with paint and canvas. Can you guess my favourite?

Have an adjusted day!!

Inventive...

Inventive is our word for this week or maybe the past two weeks. Life has been getting in the way of writing. I know life should be writing, if you are very serious, but I happen to be serious about a few things, so everything gets done in its own time!!

What can I say - It's important to be inventive - to come up with new ideas, new ways of doing "things" or new ways of being!! Let me tell you about my inventive day, yesterday. My friend suggested that we go to a thrift store and buy some clothing, we would normally NOT wear for $25.00 or less. The seed for the idea came from the concept of "Advanced Style." It's the idea that woman of a certain age can, wait!! actually, should wear interesting and exciting clothes, not just functional, serviceable black!!

I'm certainly guilty of the black. Also, I rarely wear scarves and never wear bling. That may all change. Both of us spent over two hours going through racks saying things like, "OK, this is definitely not me" or "it's not me but, I still wouldn't wear it in a hundred years." We spent the last half hour trying on our "finds" and discussing their merits, as articles of Advanced Style.

I was charmed by two gorgeous beaded caftans with pants that I almost bought. I just wasn't sure I could make the leap. Change for me happens in baby steps. I did, though, buy an amazing jacket for $8.99. It isn't me. Well it might have been me of twenty or thirty years ago. Time to turn back the clock!!

Did I mention that a darling (not daring) Ralph Lauren blouse slipped into the mix for $9.99. It was really a "me." So I couldn't pass it up.

I plan to get more inventive soon. I like the idea of combining several items, perhaps sewing a skirt or a loose top from a few panels of something else. This would be the fusion of Advanced Style and Slow Clothing. I wonder if I can become that fashion designer, I've always wanted to be or some sort of super model? (Auto correct changed super to supper, well that too, because my newly retired husband has taken up cooking as a hobby!!)

Have a fashionable day!!