That's not to say I haven't been writing anything. In fact, I am hard at work on song writing. Yeah, you read that correctly. I was, and still am, working on a book/manuscript, but I have tabled that for now in favor of song lyrics. It happened while working on my book. Go figure. Anyway, I tend to write and create in short bursts, and something I thought was a "poem" turned out to be a song, at least according to a friend of mine who happens to have more musical talent in the tip of his pinkie than I do in my entire soul. Regardless, if my friend (who, incidentally has produced hundreds of CDs) says they're songs, then songs they are. While I am the lyricist, my friend is the composer, and I hope to get into the studio shortly to start work on bringing the two together. Weird how life happens, especially when one is quickly (but not too enthusiastically) closing in on 50 years of age.
As you've no doubt surmised (if you are a longtime reader), I was also preoccupied with the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament of late. Yes, March Madness was in full swing in our home, with both my husband's alma mater playing as a number 1 seed (and having been ranked #1 in the nation for a good portion of the regular season) and my beloved Bulldogs of Butler University making another assault on the mountain. Heartbreakingly, although my Dawgs lost again in the championship game, their appearance in the final game in two consecutive years puts them in an elite club. Other schools with consecutive Final Four appearances include Duke and North Carolina. Not too shabby for a school whose student population is less than 5,000. While I shed quite a few tears after their loss on Monday night, I quickly lifted my head with pride while reading about their accomplishments. My friend and fellow hoops fanatic Travis over at Trav's Thoughts endured my rants and raves and allowed me to both moan and glow throughout the tournament.
I could be wrong in assuming this, but I think many of us, at one time or another, have been a bit embarrassed, if not downright ashamed, of something in our background. I don't mean about decisions or actions; those are things over which we have at least a modicum of control. I'm talking about being born into poverty, or having been raised by a grandmother because parents were in prison, or growing up in a trailer park, or some other "blemish" that we wish we didn't have to posses.
I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. That large city with the small town feel located in the heart of the Midwest, surrounded by corn fields. Yes, that place. I was born there and raised there until the age of 11 years and six months, at which time my parents moved me to South Florida where I spent my junior high, high school, and early college years studying hard, playing harder, and luxuriating on the beach, my Midwestern roots far removed (at least in my own mind).
In the mid-1970s, everyone in South Florida was from somewhere else, and most of those folks hailed from snow-belts places like Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and New York. I heard my share of "India-No-Place" cracks, though, enough for me to admit rarely that I was born and bred a Hoosier.
I tried to forget the sight of acres and acres of corn swaying in the heat of a humid summer afternoon. I tried to forget the smell of frying "elephant ear" pastries at the state fair. I tried to forget lazy summer days spent climbing maple trees and sending maple seed pods spinning to the ground like tiny helicopters. I tried to forget the sound of neighborhood moms calling for their kids to come home for dinner as dusk fell and crickets chirped and lightning bugs did their luminescent dances.
I tried, and failed, and now at the age of 49, with my college alma mater having risen in both victory and defeat in basketball's final showdown, I revel in the the smells and sounds and sights that made me a true blue Hoosier.
I was born a Hoosier, I lived as a Florida beach baby, I've spent years as a desert dweller, but my heart and my soul will always be in the heartland.
Sweet Home Indiana. Where the skies are Butler Blue.
Go Dawgs.
Later daze, y'all......................
