Wednesday, January 25, 2012

beats






Life is beats. Heartbeats, literally. You ever put your hand on your heart and just feel it? We do that in yoga, after opening our arms wide over our heads. Faye says, "fold your hands in prayer over heart center". "Say thank you."

Thanks to the beats. To the heartbeats. It's too bad that "heartbeat" is so cliche as a term, in poetry, or wherever. Because it can be really powerful, for such a quiet, day-to-day little noise. (Even typing out "heartbeat" I feel like I'm writing a bad teen novel from the eighties.)

These pictures above are from My Life, Lately. Literally, actually - this past weekend. I got off the Internet - a whole weekend without checking email, checking Facebook, reading blogs, looking things up. None, at all. It was tough - every hour I'd think I should just break down and do it. But, I didn't. And it was really, really good. Liberating. Inspired by this book - The Winter of Our Disconnect. I think it's the most important book of our generation, of this time. We are saturated, just soaked through, with media. We need to see it, we need to stop and step back and consider.(Please do check it out.)

I went for a walk - went and saw the snow, the sunshine, the shadows across. Felt cool outside air. It was marvellous.

I also stopped in to Value Village at one point. Checked out the tape section. My car has a tape deck, and I am too lazy and too cheap to bother upgrading it to anything more technologically modern. I mean, between my box of tapes and CBC Radio, I'm pretty happy. So I love that Value Village sells tapes for 69 cents. Usually the selection is poor, but sometimes you luck out. Paul Simon's album Graceland! I snapped that up. Also Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Sade, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. All for under 6 dollars.

Lately I'm finding other kinds of beats really inspiring - Rihanna and Kanye West. I put their music on, loud  if possible, and it gets me super pumped. To run or walk, to create, to do mundane tasks like dishes or cleaning the bathroom. 

What about you? What are your block-rockin beats?

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