accroche-toi ton rêve
you see ship go sailing … hold …
on tight to your dream

Okay, the line in french is Accroche-toi à ton rêve and I had take out the à or to to fit into my definition of a haiku and I also used ellipsises in within the haiku but that is all part of the fun of writing in the 21st century.

My blog, my rules.

Debate at leisure if you will but there it is though I am hoping for a comment from a French teacher I know in Kansas City for her opinion.

Why am I using a 1981 song, Hold On Tight, sung by the Electric Light Orchestra as the basis of today’s haiku?

(Emphasis/accent on the WHY)

That’s a good question and I’ll ask it again.

Why am I using a 1981 song sung by the Electric Light Orchestra as the basis of today’s haiku?

(Emphasis/accent on the AM)

Not sure that changing the emphasis accent but it makes for an interesting vocal excercise.

I have more songs on my iPhone than I can keep track of or collate so I just set my play list to random.

Somewhere along the line I downloaded a folder of ‘Greatest Songs of the ’80s or was it the 1900’s and dumped them onto my phone.

Driving to work today, the day before I turn 65, crossing over a bridge to an island while it was raining as sun rose out of the Atlantic Ocean to shine in my face and light up the storm clouds, that song was randomly selected and played over the car speakers by my iphone.

Now I can’t get it out of my head.

When I got to work I had to get online to find out what the ELO was singing when they switched over to singing in French, especially as ELO was known for hiding secrets in their music that affected the minds of young college kids, which I would have been back in 1981 when the song was released.

Both relieved and disappointed, I learned that the lyrics in French were just that, the lyrics in French.

Mmm, hold on tight to your dream, yeah
Hold on tight to your dream, yeah
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dream

Accroche-toi à ton rêve
Accroche-toi à ton rêve
Quand tu vois ton bateau partir
Quand tu sens ton coeur se briser
Accroche-toi à ton rêve

At work early, the vacuums are going, the storm is passing, I am alone in the office for a few hours.

The radio is on and by chance The Bluebird is playing.

And get this, The Bluebird is written by Alexis FFRENCH.

(Don’t know much about Mr. Ffrench, but I plan to.)

All this leads to much introspection and thought.

Maybe too much.

I grew up and live in a world where I don’t worry about where my next drink of cold water is coming from, let alone where my next meal might be or where I might sleep tonight.

I can’t do much about that but I do what I can.

I DO appreciate it.

I DO know how lucky I was to be born when and where I was born.

I DO appreciate it.

What else?

Well …

Mmm, hold on tight to your dream, yeah
Hold on tight to your dream, yeah
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dream

Accroche-toi à ton rêve
Accroche-toi à ton rêve
Quand tu vois ton bateau partir
Quand tu sens ton coeur se briser
Accroche-toi à ton rêve

Have a good night and hold on tight.

Wikipedia says that when this MUSIC VIDEO (HA!) was made, it was the single most expensive music video ever recorded … that was in 1981 before the world went a little nuts …

grow older, care less
about others’ opinions
that’s liberating

The article, The thing about ‘ageing gracefully’: whatever you call it, I’ll do it my way, by Ashton Applewhite (7/7/2205 in The Guardian) had the tease, “One thing I’ve noticed is that as they grow older, people tend to care less about others’ opinions. Sometimes that’s liberating.”

And I thought, does that go too far?

I don’t want get older and care less about other’s opinions in general.

About other’s opinions about me I gave up on a long time ago and it was VERY liberating!

Actually I have a strong sense of self justification which allows me to over come any one else’s opinion of myself.

But I hope I always CARE for other people’s opinions, especially when their opinion is wrong and needs gentle correcting.

You know what I mean.

I liked how Ms. Applewhite ended her article, writing:

I’m not defying the same way they are.

I’m not taking up pole dancing or skateboarding.

And I’ll never be among the gracefuls, no matter how hard I try.

Ageing is complicated, and we each have to find our own way through it.

My path lies in rejecting this culture’s ageist, sexist, ableist drumbeat: the mainstream narrative that the way to relate to ageing is to resist it.

I’ve discussed this with countless friends over the years, and asked quite a few what they thought it meant to age gracefully.

My favorite response came in conversation with organizer Julia Rhodes Davis.

“The more we turn and face the truth – that we are all ageing, that death is coming for us all – the more alive we become,” said Julia.

“That’s my definition of ‘ageing gracefully.’”

I’ll take it.

To me, it means growing older unapologetically, truthfully and in community.

I’ll call it ageing with grace.

once laughed at routine
now knew crucial if wanted
a life worth living

From the article, ‘My mind was shrieking: “What am I doing?”’ – when the digital nomad dream turns sour by Emily Bratt

I knew coming home wouldn’t be easy. As the plane from Ho Chi Minh to London descended, I looked out over England’s patchwork fields and was unsure what I was returning to or for. Those first few months were spent flitting between my family home and more pet-sitting stays. Friends and family wanted to know “my plan” and I felt more diminished each time I told them I didn’t know. The reverse culture shock was acute. I discovered that people don’t ask about your travels because the experiences are too unrelatable. Plus, a relationship I had formed overseas, and was trying to maintain, was nosediving and it was hard to discuss it with friends, since they didn’t know the person or the context. I was disoriented, but also felt as if I had never been away.

Gradually, the idea of having a space that was mine, neighbours to get to know, regular exercise classes to attend and a coffee shop where they knew my name felt exciting. I had once laughed in the face of routine; now, I knew it was crucial if I wanted to build a life worth living.

Perversely, many digital nomads end up doing a global tour of Starbucks. “It was the one place with reliable wifi,” says Matt, 25, a fellow British writer and on-off nomad since 2019. “I hated that I was in there, but finding somewhere to work was always difficult.”

Lots and lots of thoughts here.

But the phrase that comes to hit home for me was I discovered that people don’t ask about your travels because the experiences are too unrelatable.

I thought back to a party where I found myself, to use Tom Wolfe’s term, in a ‘conversational bouquet’ where the discussion between the two other guys focused on, one, which side of Italy was better to drive down … the Adriatic Side or the Mediterranean side? – and, two, – was it better to rent a car when in Europe or BUY a car when in Europe and use a broker to sell it once your trip (which I guess was at least a month long … I hope) over.

I had little to contribute aside from historical commentary on the Appian Way and the Campaigns of World War 2 that were fought on those roadways.

Needless to say I discovered that people didn’t ask about my travels because the experiences were too unrelatable.

I tried to interject my thoughts on driving down the east coast versus the west coast of the State of Michigan … Alpena through the Thumb to Port Huron or The Long Blue Edge of Summer as we called the Lake Michigan coast, but I found no traction in the conversation.

I had a real guilty pleasure that to read that these world travelers, these digital nomads, found themselves doing a global tour of Starbucks because it was the one place with reliable wifi,

Well, I can do that.

I mean, I can sit in any number of Starbucks and use the wifi and have the same view of the world as these digital nomads.

Oh well.

I don’t travel much.

If offered the chance to travel, I would most likely ask if I could take the time to go visit and play with the grand kidz.

I do do this though.

My office is about 5 blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

At lunch, I’ll change into shorts and T Shirt and walk down to the beach for a bit.

Often I am stuck in a group waiting to cross the street to the beach walkway and someone will say to me, “What a great week to be here!”

I look them in the eye and agree and smile then say, “I’m here on my lunch.”

But back to the article.

Routine.

I have long said that one of the things I loved about college was the 4 month length of the term and the syllabus that was handed out at the start of the term.

The syllabus would list the 100 books I had to read, the term paper I had to write and the dates of the mid term and final.

I had no idea how I would get all that done.

But I knew, that by the end of the term, it would be done.

It was … great.

Out of college no one hands out a syllabus.

I get quarterly goals but in all the years I have been working, I can’t remember anything that was considered a quarterly goal at the start of the quarter, that was around at the end of the quarter.

Something else would have replaced it of course, but that points to the syllabus and lack of routine.

Most Professors had taught their courses for years and the syllabus was un changeable.

You could depend on it.

You could get into … a routine, a rhythm.

Working for the last 40 years, boy howdy, do I miss it.

The current administration pushes something they call, strategic uncertainty.

Oh, for routine.

And a life worth living.