Marin Musings

Hey it's musings, not ruminating!   

[marinmusings]

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” Shakespeare. Measure for Measure.

If you are looking for work, searching for a new path in life, or hedging on making a jump forward........ you might just find Shakespeare a great inspiration.

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“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

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“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”

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“Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”

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WRITING A SPEECH

I am writing a speech about a childhood thing, event, place that influenced me throughout the rest of my life. I'm putting the first draft here. It all feels new to me. I am most comfortable "writing" things when I talk into a recorder. Get used to writing drafts (she said to herself, reminding herself to not expect greatness).

"Summertime and the living is easy" or so says George Gershwin's classic American tune from "Porgy and Bess."

At five, the school was coming to an end and I could not wait for the freedom of summer. I came home one day to find a large black trunk and my clothes with sewn-in labels. Mysterious. Trunks were for people crossing the Atlantic on big ships, no? I was only five, how much could I understand when my parents said it was all for a big summer adventure called "sleep-away camp." I’d learn, and I learn to love it for the next eight years.

THE NEWS ABOUT CAMP

Too young to recall exactly how it was explained to me, I knew my brother and sister were going, and they were expected to look after me. (An odd and sometimes terrifying thought as when they did notice me at home, as the youngest, it was usually to torment me in some way). Next thing I know I am on a bus, taking me from the Bronx to an exotic place called “The Berkshires.”

THE TRIP and FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Once my tears were wiped away, I relaxed. Maybe it was the “going away” care package of candy my parents left with me. We pulled into a magically GREEN place, like no green I had seen in the Bronx. The first thing I noticed was all the weeping Willows. They were so majestic. And everything was wet and dewy and green. It all smelled wonderful. In the Bronx, the playgrounds were great but

had pavement, not grass. If you fell off a swing hard, that could mean surgery. Here there was a never-ending pasture and hills.

NEW BEST FRIENDS AND NATURE

Before my big brother had the chance to come over to play, which meant to push me down one of those hills (all in good fun) I met my new best friends, two other five-year-olds named Randy and Meryl. There were other cabin-mates my age. And we all became fast friends. Though I had an idyllic pink bedroom at home, I immediately love the rustic cabins we stayed in. I learned quickly that I had the spirit of the outdoors in me. I wasn’t just a city kid. Nature spoke to me and I never really wanted to leave it. I spent the next eight years at summer camps.

Camp came with challenges, but also so many rewards. No time to miss home when I had almost every outdoor activity to compete in. We got points and letters and medals, and I was going to get every one that I could. I learned that I was deeply competitive.

I learned to swim in the cordoned-off area of the lake. Once I could swim, I canoed and leaned sailing. I also discovered what lakes were while canoeing far away - one day I looked down the murky waters saw only the tops of some brown weedy plants. I imagined that they went on forever, right down to the center of the earth. So I learned I had fear of deep water. Oppps. That did NOT keep me down. I got up on water skis. And you can be sure with those creepy underwater plants I was NOT going to fall off my skis. Yeah thos plants turned into my JAWS.

I competed at archery, I did headstands in gymnastics and timed them until I never fell very. I was a yogi before I knew what a yogi was. And singing! Every counselor had a guitar. I learned the lyrics to folks songs that protested a war I knew nothing about. It seems half of our days were spent singing. Singing was a competition too, we tried out for musical theater. In fact, that is the only part of my basically just cultural Jewish upbringing I knew - was the words to every song of American musical theater. I knew none of the words to the Sabbath services celebrated every Friday night as we walked up the hill with our candles lit. But that wasn’t a competition.

Summer camps ended at the age of 13, but my love for the outdoors stayed.

Years later, I moved out West, where there are REALLY big mountains, and started backpacking.

I bought all the gear and found some people at the time that could help guide me in the backcountry.

I bought a mountain bike and though I usually went on a beach path, I was brave sometimes and took it into the backcountry. I owe that attachment to nature to my summers at camp. I was never a mountain goat and always trailed the group. I didn’t even mind a few tears when I fell off my bike. I just got up and watched the Alpinistas leading the group leave me behind in a cloud of red desert dust!

I have moved a lot, lost my gear, and never go outdoors. I don’t know anyone to go with and I am not a brave solo camper. But oh did I miss. And when I moved to upstate NY from California a few years ago, I was delighted to willow trees everywhere, even now in WASHINGTON park. And I still find them amazing and comforting, taking me in under their canopy. I just miss nature.

[marinmusings]

Dreaming of a Life in Ecuador

Planning, dreaming, studying. Spanish online. Yabla is a great site for watching videos at all levels. Too scared at the moment to get a conversation partner online, though I have had many for Italian learning over an 11 year period. I just haven't learned enough verb conjugations yet! And I keep confusing the endings with Italian! It took me two full years to speak in Italian. I call those my "toddler years" Like a toddler, I was just listening and listening ( and I mean sometimes for two hours a day) yet not ready to speak! Don't wait too long, it becomes more intimidating as time passes. I'll track my Spanish progress here, or on my language blog, or both. It keeps me motivated to see what I have learned.

Hasta luego muchachos!

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The weeping willows are what I remember most about summer camp and nature when I was sent to sleep-away camp for two months. I lived in New York City. I had never seen anything quite so majestic. Or anything that represented physically what I was feeling as a five-year-old kid, away from home for the first time, and for a long time. Seeing them near me in Albany is always bittersweet. But always special - I believe that the large dropping branches protect when I got underthem, just as a I did as a little kid.

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I would love to hear a quote you love from one of your favorite musicians. Pleae comment !

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Some Einstein quotes simply were not said by Einstein. Thanks to Futurism.com for the insight and the link to suss out the source of citations: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page

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I'm going to start vetting all my citations. What quote have your found repeatedly misattributed? Can we blame meme-ing on this phenomenon?

[your-vision-mindset]

Sven Kotzbach

Living Your Vision - Mein Name ist Sven und ich begrüße dich herzlich auf meinem Kanal😉Hier findest du alles für dein richtiges Mindset 😇

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Do you spend any time during your day in self-reflection? How many peoples look at their own good, bad, and the ugly. If you do... do you write it down daily, as a kind of journaling?

#self-reflection #journaling.

[marinmusings]

A lovely video showing the sights of the Berkshires (Massachusetts) in all the seaons.   I was “introduced” to nature here, reallly, when I went to sleepaway summer camp.   I started summer camp Summering at the age of 5.   I’ll write about it.     The camp is still there, near West Stockbridge.