PenTherapy

“There’s a place within me” is the only line that really speaks to me from this morning’s prompt.  There’s no real jumping off point that I want to write from though.  I’ve read this poem out loud to my students, and I really don’t like it.  I generally tend to dislike poems made of 4-line stanzas that have this particular beat and use of end rhyme.  This isn’t a poorly written poem, and I like the innovation of the final stanza which breaks that rhyme and rhythm of the quatrains, but overall, what’s stuck with me now is the quatrain feeling of this poem, and so I’m stuck for something to write about.  Yesterday I got something I really liked in my writing, but today I’m not getting anything.  It’s OK.  I trust the process.  I know that if I write EVERY DAY then I will be far more likely to get more good pieces in the end.  Even if this prompt isn’t speaking to me today, I need to write, even if it’s the crappy kind of writing I’m doing right now. 

So what do I want to write about? . .

I want to write about the satellite that’s going to hit the earth next month.  I just read in the morning paper that a super secret spy satellite that was launched sometime last year experienced massive failure upon launch, and as a result is falling out of orbit.  Since the satellite  weighs more than 10,000 pounds it likely won’t burn up when it re-enters the earth’s orbit, and so the satellite, either in large pieces or in smaller bits will be hitting North America at the end of February or first of March.  Just think.  In one month from now it will be payday again.  The Internet may be down, and Brenda will be on the intercom calling teachers down to the office for something, when WHAM! – somewhere a satellite will chunk down on us.  Mr. Martin, Mr. Pragmatist, said “Well, I guess it’s better to be hit by a lot of little pieces than one giant piece.” as we had breakfast.  It made sense to me right then, but since breakfast I’ve been thinking about the whole dropping a penny off the empire state building scenario, and I’m experiencing doubt about his theory that it’s better to be hit by a small piece than by a large piece of orbiting super secret spy satellite.  It won’t be better to be hit by any piece of the satellite. The really scary thing to me this morning is that they (the amorphous THEY who might be either NASA scientists or employees of some super secret government agent designed to deal with possible extra-terrestrial threats) won’t have even a general idea of where the satellite is going to hit North America until the thing is about 60 miles above the earth.  Sixty miles isn’t that far – it’s what – from here to Charleston?  I can drive that in 50 minutes.  Think how fast that 60 miles will pass for an object traveling at HURTLING speed.  HURTLING!  There is a satellite HURTLING toward the earth.  Now I know that North America is a huge place, and the satellite could end up anywhere, but doesn’t it seem that North America is a pretty small place, relatively speaking, when there is an object HURTLING toward it?  Do you feel like our little town might have a bull;s eye right on it?   This satellite thing could end up being nothing much at all, or it could end up being something serious.  The problem is, you just never know how to take these things.  I mean, Y2K turned out to be a bust, didn’t it?  So did Jerry Falwell getting called home to God if he didn’t raise 20 million dollars in six months.  But somewhere along the line one of these dire predictions is going to come true – maybe the one we least expect.  So what is my point?  I don‘t know.  Maybe it’s that, if I expect it, I’m staving off the terrible possibility of the hurtling satellite, so I’d better think about it a lot between now and then.  Or maybe, it’s that I can’t change what’s going to happen, since it’s out of my control, so I just need to fuggedaboutit it as the Italians say, and live the next 30 days with no expectations of catastrophe.  Whatever my point is, I’m sure I’ve spent too much time thinking about this subject right now, and as it turns out, even though I couldn’t write about the prompt, I still had something about which to write!  I knew the process worked!

It’s time somebody told you

That life isn’t fair

And bad things sometimes happen

Even to good people 

It’s time somebody told you

That the happiness we have in the world

We create for ourselves

Happiness doesn’t come from            

           Money                       

                      A big house                                   

                                         An expensive car

Happiness comes from our day to day attitude 

It’s time somebody told you

That in life we all have to work hard

Free rides aren’t free

And if the only price that’s paid for the ride is pride           

                    Then even that is too high 

It’s time somebody told you

That work is the antidote to evil

And success means marching toward the goal           

                               Never turning off the path. 

It’s time somebody told you

That the greatest attitude is love 

            a new command is given – that you love one another

and a life of forgiveness is the only way to have peace in your soul 

It’s time somebody told you

that what comes around goes around–

the wheel of Karma turns ever on

And in life we harvest what we plant. 

It’s time somebody told you

That life is what you make of it           

              And you can’t depend on others for your happiness.