Trilogy of Imagination

This Saturday morning I woke up in love with my imagination. There were three pretty strong images that I have wanted to capture for the last week, but with work and responsibility, I have let this girl simply dance and sleep and ponder in my imagination.

But today she danced out of my imagination and through the tendons and vessels of my arm, quivered through my brush and landed on the thick, milky paper. I'm not done with her, these are just some rough drafts for today, but I rather like what she made me think and feel.

How do you define your imagination?

Do you spend time imagining daily?

Why?



I have lots of thoughts about the power of imagination.


If you can imagine it, you can have it. This is the name of the game. This is the lesson to learn. It couldn't be any easier. Reality is not what your eyes show your mind, but what your mind creates for your eyes to see. You are not limited by logic, the past, or the world around you. You are not even of the world around you. You are supernatural, pure spirit. You came first. Magic, miracles, and luck are the consequences of understanding this, the inevitable result of dreaming and acting in spite of appearances.


Tell me, when you think of taking consistent action in the general direction of your dreams do you imagine discipline, stamina, work, sacrifice, monotony, courage, and strategies, or are you thinking adventure, discovery, new friends, excitement at the crack of dawn, magic, surprises, fun, and laughter?


Maybe the real reason your brains are so large compared to most of the other blessed creatures dwelling in time and space, is so that you can vividly imagine all the exquisite, exciting, and enthralling details of your heart's desires; not so that you can figure out who you need to meet, when you need to meet them, where you need to be, or how you're going to pull it all together.

Do you think that if you understood the extraordinary gifts every single challenge in your life makes possible, even inevitable, you'd celebrate your challenges, new and old alike, as the omens that they are of new beginnings, spectacular change, and enhanced super-powers.

What if Miss Havisham Had a Blog?

Yes. That's right. This is what came to my mind at exactly 6:07 a.m. this morning as I was curling my hair (beauty doesn't just happen people!) and my thoughts were my own...all of a sudden my mind said to me, "Hmmm, what if Miss Havisham had a blog, that would be awesome, I wonder what she would post about? Maybe it would help her connect with other jilted lovers who never see the sun, hate men, and sit around in their yellowed wedding dresses? Then she wouldn't have had to be so lonely, and maybe she wouldn't have caused Estella so much grief." 

(Have I ever mentioned that sometimes a character is so real to me I actually believe they ARE real? Miss Havisham is probably one of my favorite characters of all time....my biggest fear was to grow up and be like her......please, no comments on our similarities...)

Simply put, blogs have opened worlds for people....myself included. What was life like before I blogged? It's hard to imagine it.

Then as I was putting on my make-up (yep, third morning in a row...it will only last until October, then I turn back into a pumpkin at work).. I was thinking of all the things Miss Havisham could say...imagine her movie reviews on Corpse Bride, Psycho, Misery, or Becoming Jane?

Imagine her getting tv and watching Martha Stewart so she finally knows what to do with that old, dusty tablecloth.

Imagine her watching Dr. Phil and  seeing other jilted women echoing her own sentiments-- "Nothing is more painful than realizing that he meant everything to you and yet you meant nothing to him." or "The easy part is hating you, the hard part is admitting I will never stop loving you."   

Would she write about the futility of having expectations at all, let alone great ones?

What else do you see Miss Havisham blogging about?

If you could choose a fictional character to have a blog, who would it be? What do you think they would blog about?

High School is Wicked

OK. Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow the teenagers will flood my room. They will get the freshly copied syllabus, they will begin testing and pushing the limits of my classroom. They will begin looking around and seeing who is popular, and who is not (thus the song from Wicked with Glinda and Elphaba....and yes, at NYU, I did actually get cast as Glinda in a play...I had to play her two different ways...one in which I created a neurotic Glinda who just had a nervous breakdown and was a chain smoker, you should have me show it to you sometime).

Back to the kids....

They will form clicks. They will put themselves into groups, the nerds, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the preppies, the Christians, the atheists, the emo kids....so many, many different ways to label one another and differentiate themselves from the next kid...and when they come into my room, I want to strip it all away. I want them to see a little bit more into each other, I want to encourage the shy student to speak up, the class clown to listen, the bully to feel tender emotions....how will I do this? Through the great literature of the world, through ideas, through discussion, through teaching and fostering and caring and being interested in them....the characters in literature are great reflections of ourselves, and it is through relating to them that perhaps we form a little bit more of who we are. That is the power behind stories.

And so, in preparation, for going back to high school, I took out one of my favorite teenage dramas about the seriousness of cheerleading....and it reaffirmed to me my mantra for the school year...that's right all you teenagers full of angst and hormones. I say to you...


BRING IT ON!

How High the Moon

(Only the first three minutes of this video are relevant to this post, but you know, listen to it all, it's Ella!)

So, I am back on track, that means back to work, back to guitar lessons, back to voice lessons, back to eating only normal amounts of rice pudding (what IS a normal amount of pudding?)

This is the new song I chose to work on this month for my voice lessons. I don't sing it quite like Ella, um, not at all.... but I am working on my jazzy, slow, seductive voice (too bad I am a natural soprano!)...and one day, I want to be just like this, with a pianist and his smoking cigar, I'll pull out my old glasses from 6th grade (which were about that big) and reenact this...and sound almost as good.....

hmmm.....or maybe I see this dream in a nightclub, and I have Lana Turner hair and I am in a silver sequin gown that catches the low light so it looks like I am glowing, and my lips will be super red, and my lashes thick and heavy, and I'll be sitting on TOP of the piano and wowing the old 1940s crowd, and then a solider, on leave, with catch my eye, and he'll look like Viggo Mortensen (because putting his name on my blog ups the number of people who stop by to see what's what) and he'll give me a knowing glance and I'll start singing just to him, as I inch across that black piano....one eye covered by a perfect blonde wave....and he'll raise his glass to me....and....and....

ok, this could go on all night, and I have lesson plans to create! Darn...this is so much more fun...I always knew I would make a great romance writer, I just couldn't bring myself to do it....

Guilty Confessions and What to Do About Them?

Alright, it is confession time. Are you ready for that inner look into my psyche and what the bigger picture of D'Arcy really means? I am sure you are clasping your hands in anticipation and dire excitement. But be prepared, some of these confessions ARE NOT pretty. Got it?! As Bridget Jones says in her diary..."it's time to tell the truth, the whole truth..."

I'd really like your kind interpretation of these following confessions, or in turn, confess something yourself. That's right, pretend that we are all best of friends (um...who won't ever actually see each other in real life) so you can just put whatever you want out there....lie on your couch if it helps.

CONFESSION #1

I have been eating an obscene amount of rice pudding. I have NEVER been partial to rice pudding before in my entire life. Then, on a whim a few weeks ago I bought European Style Rice Pudding from these guys (and yes, the expose on the secret life of pudding is truly fascinating!!). Seriously, I eat at least a half carton a DAY. It has replaced all other forms of nutrition for me. Do you think I don't get enough calcium and my body is trying to replenish? I don't like milk...actually, let me rephrase, I don't like skim, 1 %, 2 % milk. I LOVE whole milk, especially if I have a big brownie with it, but since I don't go around drinking whole milk, I usually just pass milk by. But I must be calcium deficient or something to explain this odd phenomenon that is RICE PUDDING!

I dream of this rice pudding, I wake up and crave this rice pudding, I go to bed with the taste of it in my mouth. I eat rice pudding for lunch instead of celery, I eat rice pudding with dinner instead of a protein...I can't stop eating this rice pudding!!

CONFESSION #2

I have to have a large spoonful of crunchy peanut butter every day about 4 pm. I just get out a huge spoon, dip it in, scoop out a glump that any Baskin Robbin's server would be proud of and savor it for about five minutes. It's like a Peanut Butter Pop...or Peanut Butter on a Spoon (much better than Hot Dog on a Stick if you ask me...yuk!). And I am very particular about the kind. And it grosses my sister out, and probably anyone else who saw my addiction too.

CONFESSION #3

I have no clue about the Olympics. I don't even have TV. I get one or two channels kind of hazy like, but they cut out so much that it is not worth it. BUT--that's just a sorry excuse. Even if I had 5,000 channels to my name, I still might not watch it. OK, I wouldn't watch it. At all. I've never been a fan of the Olympics. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Don't hate me.

I don't know who ANYONE is that you nicely write about on your blogs, or casually mention to me over dinner, or bring up in conversation. I just pretend that if you like them, then sure, I like them too, I mean, they made it to the Olympics and they haven't beaten up Nancy Kerrigan, then what's not to like, right? I seriously have no idea what they do, who they are, how hard they have worked to get there. I didn't even watch the opening ceremonies. I just don't care. It's never captured me. EVERY time that they come on again, I TRY to care. Or I try to care about who wins the next bid, or I TRY to care because as a human being on this planet I feel that I SHOULD care. 

Occasionally during the Winter Games I'll watch some ice skating, but that's about it. Even when the Olympics were in UTAH, my home state, I was like the ONLY person not volunteering or enjoying in all the festivities in SLC. I think I came down once, with Michelle, and we got our photos taken in a huge snow globe and there were too many people and I don't like large crowds, so I went home and vowed not to go into the "city" until the madness was over.

Am I unpatriotic? Not liking the Olympics is like not liking dogs or babies, right? Oh! The horror!!

CONFESSION #4

It's full moon time and, Tom Robbins has completely described me, "My lunar sign is in Virgo. Every month when the moon is full, I am driven to balance my checkbook and straighten up my apartment. I can't help myself. Instead of a werewolf I turn into an accountant." This is ME to the last check and balance. I LOVE being organized. I crave it. My sister cries tears for me to stop! And I can't! It's a sickness! I love paying all my bills at the first of the month. I love writing lists and getting things all checked off. I love putting everything in its place. AHHHHH!!! I wish I could be one of those really easy going people who tosses something somewhere and then leaves it there for a month until it is needed again, but I just can't! Woe is me! (said dramatically as I place one hand on my fevered brow...aren't all brows just a little fevered to be romantic?)

CONFESSION #5

I want to own several chickens and a cow. 

Excuse me! Did you just hear what I said? That wasn't the reaction I wanted, you were supposed to gasp in horror and disbelief that this career woman/feminist/loves fashion girl just said that!!! 

Go back and read that sentence again please, cause that's never come outta this girl's mouth before!!

I don't know how to ever do this being the single city girl that I am. But I crave fresh, brown eggs and fresh, whole, raw milk (hmmm, and then maybe I could make my OWN rice pudding with it....ah, see where my mind goes?) And I want the sun to shine a continuous golden hue on my blond hair, and I want to wear white sundresses and go barefoot and pick wild flowers after coming away from milking the cow and still smelling like bananas and vanilla. It's a vision in my head that won't go away. I NEVER thought the day would come where this girl would admit that she would like a little farm land in some quiet area of the world. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!

OK, enough.

I go back to work this week. The blogs will be fewer and farther between. It's been one amazing summer...full of rice pudding and Olympics ignorance and crunchy peanut butter, and organizing my sock drawer.....good times all. The other good thing about summer coming to an end, I can eat meat again! That's right, and I'll be off to Buenos Aires in a few weeks and there will be MEAT, apparently the best meat in the world. We will see. I'm not that big of fan of red meat, but maybe BA will change my mind.

Enjoy the rest of your hazy, crazy days of summer (do you remember that Gilmore Girls episode where that song was sung about a 1,000 times? The best episode EVER.)

Full of Magic

This little girl is full of magic. She is the sweetest, most lovable and cuddliest niece a girl could ask for. And the camera loves her!

Latest Bridal Shoot

For more photos of the amazingly beautiful Kelsey, go here!