The rat stops gnawing in the wood, the dungeon walls withdraw, the weight is lifted, your pulse steadies, and the sun has found your heart, the day was not bad, the season has not been bad, there is sense and even promise in going on.
--Bernard DeVoto (found on BrainyQuote.com)
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I believed I had a theme for this week's blog, but then, last night, I put down my book to turn the lamp off and wander away to sleep, and I thought, "No. I can't write about THAT."
THAT was a part of a larger theme; I'm doing a paper and a project on THAT. And I realized that if I wrote about that, I would dilute the whole topic, not to mention being repetitive. And also, I had thought to just visit a little corner of that, and there was, what?
Maybe two paragraphs of stuff, really, to say about it.
My eyelids were weighted. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought, with great hope, that I might dream about a topic for this week's blog.
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And I DID. I remember sitting up in bed, about 2:30; the air breathing through the screen windows was COLD, and I pulled the blanket tight around me. My dozing mind had offered me a topic.
Yes, I thought; I can write about that. Relieved, I went right back to sleep.
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And then the same thing happened again, at about 4:20. Eyes popped open; I was excited by an even better topic.
I breathed a deep sigh, snuggled under, and went back to dreaming.
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In the morning, both wonderful topics had long fled the boney cavern.
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And all through the early morning, I cast about for topics. Maybe….? I thought.
Nah, I answered me.
Well, what about….haircuts? I pondered, as I got my hair cut.
Going to the beauty parlor?
Bangs getting cropped too short?
Have I written about that before?
Nope. Just wasn't congealing.
I decided there was only one thing to do: come home and pick a slip from the prompt jar, and FORCE myself to write about whatever word or theme appeared.
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I should tell you that I created the prompt jar, many years (pre-COVID!) ago. I created it for just this situation…for days when I have no clue, no direction in which to write.
I sat down one night, took a couple of sheets of yellow copier paper and just wrote down any words or phrases that popped into mind. I did it without thinking or editing, and then I cut those concepts up into strips, folded them, and put them into a Ball jar.
(The idea was that any prompt can create a flicker that turns into a warm flame that spreads across the paper or screen—kind of kindling for writing.)
I screwed the lid on tight and shook up the prompts.
"There," I remember thinking.
Usually I can come up with something to write about, but it's nice to have a resource for those random times when I need one.
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Today, I stuck my finger into the jar, averted my eyes (no cheating!), and plucked out a slip.
'Lifted,' it read.
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Lifted?
What had my idiotic, slap-happy, word-writing self been thinking?
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But now I was committed. I started to think about all the things that 'lifted' could mean.
There are base things, as in, He lifted a car from the crowded parking lot, or, She lifted an expensive ring off the counter when the clerk turned her head.
There's a cosmetic meaning:
She looks so young!
Yeah, well, she's had everything lifted.
The online dictionary and Merriam Webster offer these meanings:
--raised to a higher position or level (my consciousness?)
--picked up and moved to another position (the baby?)
--revoked or rescinded (the fifty years of accruing dues I owed at my undergrad college library? Speaking in hope here…)
--stole (please see above)
--plagiarized (i.e., The student lifted words from a purchased paper and claimed them as her own.)
--took off (i.e., She was so relieved when the plan finally lifted, and she felt the wheels tuck in…)
--took up from a surface (i.e., She lifted the prompt jar to dust beneath it.)
--dissipated and cleared (i.e.,The fog lifted; she had a topic, and she began writing.
Those are all very legitimate meanings, but I do not see a cohesive them for an essay. Yet, I guess.
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I search under 'lifted' on Yahoo.
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I find Rita Coolidge. I open a Youtube video and listen to her singing "Your Love has Lifted Me (Higher and Higher)." (https://youtu.be/0153gqgCEYI?si=zmUSRCVve-lnEo1c)
Now there's a sprightly, positive song I haven't listened to in yay, these many years.
Let's think about that: the power of love to lift and empower.
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Conversely, thinks my mind randomly, there's the obligation lifted when one lets go of a relationship that is UN-loving. One says to oneself, "This is too much work. And I never get anything in return." One slips off the Eternal Backpack and sorts through until one finds a heavy rock labelled, Relationship with X.
One lifts that rock out and places it gently on the ground beside the path.
Goodbye, X, one thinks, a little sad, but more relieved, and one walks on, lightened and brightened.
There's THAT kind of "lifted," too.
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I also find a Pixar video entitled Lifted. It is, I believe, the work of a third-year film student from many years ago (https://youtu.be/LVLoc6FrLi0?si=iAqvKmEVFwe766lr), and it is definitely worth a watch. In a lonely house on a flat country field, a farmer sleeps alone. The wind lifts the porch swing; the man's snores lift into the unlistening air.
And then the spaceship appears, hovering over the house, and finally, without ever disturbing his sleep, the aliens beam him up. (This does not happen without trauma.)
The farmer appears in their space for one moment, and then the trainee alien hits the wrong button, and the farmer plummets toward earth. Lifted and ejected within moments, that hapless farmer.
The alien expert takes control of the motherboard. Just before impact, they catch the farmer, soften the fall. They gently put his house to rights, fill his bedside water glass, pour water into the vase for the flowers, straighten rugs, furniture, curtains, and finally, place the farmer softly into his bed, pulling the blankets snugly up to his chin. (What dreams will the farmer remember in the morning?)
And then the scene slips back to inside the spaceship, where the expert alien drives the ship with controls that looks remarkably video-game-ish…until he looks over and sees trainee alien weeping in despair.
Oh, they have failed, and oh, they are decimated by the failure.
Expert alien's face softens greenly. He taps the little trainee on the head and offers the controls.
Trainee lights right up.
And the end is about what you might expect.
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A whole lot of lifting up and throwing around in that five-minute clip, but the important one, I think, is the big alien trying so hard to lift the little buddy up.
Even if results are somewhat catastrophic.
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The word 'lifted' gives me much to think about.
If we've done that which we should not have done, it's likely our fingerprints can be lifted from the soiled surfaces, and we won't be able to dodge the proof that we were at the scene.
And, if we are in despair, we may remember later, that we lifted our eyes up to the heavens, and help came in the form of peace and healing. (I may have lifted at least part of that from a hymn somewhere or other…a psalm, maybe?)
Punishments can be lifted:
He was in for twenty years, but, after Year Seven, his sentence was lifted for good behavior.
Or:
She was mandated to sit at her computer until she came up with a post.
"It isn't great," she pleaded, "but it's DONE."
And her sitting mandate was lifted.
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Ah, well. It isn't much, this post, but it's something. (I wish I could remember those two deep night inspirations, though. Maybe by next week…)
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I hope you are lifted today, lifted by love or satisfaction, or a fine feeling of freedom when an obligation rolls off your shoulders.
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