Today I decided I needed to take a little time just for myself and so I decided to go to a movie. I was feeling frustrated with school and the ongoing demolition that has been transpiring all week inside the house I live (not my house, I’m the nanny). I had no idea what my options would be so I hopped on Fandango to check out the listings for our local theater with the mind that I would watch whichever movie I could get to the soonest… unless of course it was something I couldn’t possible consider “wasting” money on. What I discovered was The Young Messiah (and in fact it was the only movie I would have been inclined to see) of the films playing.
And so I went.
I feel so peaceful now, calm and relaxed. It was a truly beautiful film. It is, of course, a fictional story as very little is known of Jesus’ childhood. The film does not pretend to know the answers. It tells you straight up at the beginning that it is inspired by stories from the Bible and is fictionalized imagination of what one year of his childhood life may have looked like. I respect that. Important events are depicted and strung together to create a cohesive whole (whether the timelines are true or not, I do not know.). View it as the story of a very special boy living a unique life. Enjoy the great love and faith that binds the family together and the gentleness of spirit that exudes from the child’s spirit. I found myself wiping away tears from both eyes on more than half a dozen occasions. The beauty of the cinematography and the strength of the music really touched me deeply. But of course, I’ve always had a strong spiritual connection with my faith, my God, and my Savior.
Before making up my mind that I would in fact see that film I had typed into the search engine for reviews and at quick glance they all appeared to be poor. Yet, I was still compelled to choose it. And I am so grateful that I followed my own heart. It was everything I wanted it to be. It was truly beautiful and will remain with me for a long time and I recommend it to anyone who has a strong love of Jesus and our relationship with God and can watch it as the celebration of a human being, which is truly what I think it was meant to be.
The Oscars are tonight, are you excited? Do you and your friends get all gowned up, drink champagne and watch together? If not, you should! It’s a lot of fun, especially when there are games and prizes involved (and did I mention the gowns and the champagne?!)
I love Awards Season. Always have. And if you’re a regular reader, a member of Memee’s Minion Army, then you already know from reading my Golden Globes Jot that I love watching the red carpet show just as much! Well, this post is my red carpet and these are your nominations, not for the Oscar but for the One Lovely Blog Award! click that link to see my acceptance speech which preceded this announcement, lists the rules, and contains your trophy!
Every month here at Memee’s Musings I host a link up for poets. I supply the poetry theme keeping everyone’s poetry along a similiar vain. I get great poetry submitted. This month however, crickets! I think everyone must be reading Carlos’ fabulous submission and are conceding to him for the win.
Today is the last day to submit (up until 3 minutes to midnight PST). So please, join Carlos and I in expressing our appreciation for friends… or tell us about the friends who are untrue. Write your poem however you like and then submit it at the link up, today, Wednesday, Feb. 24.
Voting opens at 00:05 PST on February 25th and ends on Monday, February 29th at 23:55 PST.*
*(If you don’t know PST just Google “What time is it now in PST?” and calculate against your time zone)
This party’s unique hashtag is #CircleofFriends, use it. Link back to me and, of course, if you tweet me, I’ll tweet you… tweet, tweet! (Even if you don’t have a twitter account please use the hashtag as a blog tag.)
Let your followers know that you’re partying at Memee’s Musings and they’re invited to drop in and join the party! Just give them this link: https://memeesmusings.com/category/current-party/ It’s also the perfect excuse to show off your participation badge! Because I do not vote it is important that you participate in promoting the event. The more word of mouth the more activity and the greater the impact on your website. So challenge your fellow poets to party with us and solicit your followers to read all of the poems and vote their favorite (while the voting window is open).
Well it is Words Crush Wednesday once again and I spent all day crippled in my own sadness, griped by my own, self-made fears. I received many virtual hugs today and it got me going again. But lets be real, there is nothing like the real deal.
And when you are getting a true, sincere hug. You know it. You can feel it kiss your soul.
I have actually written about hugs before and I am sure this won’t be the last time. If you love hugs and want to read more about them, you can read my previous post by clicking on this link: Hugs, Hugs, and More Hugs!
☀ ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀
I hope you enjoyed the relevant quote for this week’s Words Crush Wednesday. If you’d like to play along with me here are the details:
Cut/paste and follow these simple rules:
(1) Always pingback to the site you discovered #wcw on with every Words Crush Wednesday post. In this case, that’s me: memeesmusings.com!
(2) In your post, use the badge they’ve created just for you – In this case, you’d use the Panda badge (size doesn’t matter), just grab it below.
(3) Tag your post #wcw so the Words Crush Wednesday community players can find you.
(4) Optional: When you are ready, create your own badge for those you inspire to play Words Crush Wednesday. If you do not create your own badge then your inspirees MUST use the badge from the blogger who inspired you — it’s on your post — so be sure to make it easy for them to find.
If you wanna play #wcw with me, grab that panda badge!
I hate you for taking over me
and making me believe this is how I want to be.
Why do I stay with you when all you do is put me down?
make me starve ’til I fit into the smallest gown,
with the loss of each gram I’m closer to my goal,
with your grip tightening over my dark soul.
Filled with fear at every bite I take,
your plan, my plan, would be ruined by cake.
Counting calories, and fearing how much I weigh
I am beginning to feel like you are here to stay.
My reflection has become something I fear,
I dread the time I have to look in the mirror.
The pain in my stomach never goes away,
it grumbles with hunger while in bed I lay.
You tell me you are my only true friend
and make me fear the day this relationship must end,
but I know your presence is here for a while,
so I hide this relationship behind a smile.
Dear eating disorder I know you are wrong,
but how can you make me feel this strong?
My name is Rosie, I am 18 years old and from the UK. I suffer from a variety of mental illnesses however this poem is focused particularly on my anorexia which I have suffered with for many years and has led me to numerous inpatient admissions. During my lows, my highs and my admissions, I have found poetry a really positive and productive thing and it has helped me to make sense of some of the chaos in my head.
My favorite quote is one from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and it is:
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will” – Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
I like this quote because sometimes mental illness’ can make you feel trapped but it is important to remember you have the power, potential and the ability to be free.
Please, if your life is impacted by mental illness help spread awareness and understanding by writing to that illness and sharing it at Letters to the Mind blog project.
Do you remember the days when napping was the worst possible thing in the world? I don’t, however, I have witnessed at least a hundred children throw fits of rage, tears running down their cheeks at the prospect of an afternoon or mid-morning escape from the tasks at hand.
I was probably among those children as it seems that is the norm, I just don’t remember ever being in that state. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved a good nap. And I know how to take a good nap. My naps average about 3 hours. And today, I am planning to snuggle into some covers, flop my head upon a fluffy pillow and dream away.
As some of you are aware I have returned to school for the first time in 20 years. This is a responsive to an assignment that was due today. I found it interesting and a little more bloggy than a school assignment calls for so figured I would double-up and share it with ya’ll. Knowing most of you are bloggers yourself I assume you consider yourself a logo- or lexophile so go ahead, enjoy it!
According to Merriam-Webster the first use of the word “friendship” occurred before the 12th century, however, it does not cite any sources for the basis of that statement. In Old English, we find it spelled frēondscipe, which is very similar to the German Freundschaft. Both frēond and freund refer to two or more individuals being attached to one another by feelings of personal regard, preference, and platonic love. They are friends. Interestingly enough, however, I would point out that the closest resemblance to our American spelling is the Dutch version, vriend. Moving on to the suffix, “-ship” the definition in its use with the word friend indicates a ‘relationship between’ and is replicated in Old English as -scipe, the German as -schaft, and in the dutch, –schap. Thus, friendship means a relationship of personal regard and preference between two or more individuals.
Okay, so today I was with four ladies ranging in age from their early twenties to mid-sixties, and I was telling them of this assignment and how it was really giving me a difficult time (I’ve probably just being stubbornly avoiding it). Anyway, the next thing I know they are talking about the origins of the word “Fuck.” Their discussion was fascinating and so I decided to use it, spice up this little assignment a bit. I recorded the conversation and this is how it went: Three out of the four women sitting with me said it had originally been an acronym F-U-C-K though they differed on the language. The first lady, in her twenties, said it stood for “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge,’ while the second lady in her thirties said it was ‘Fornication Under the Consent of the King.” The third woman, a gal in her mid-sixties said the acronym came about from the sex offender holding units in Great Britain’s prisons. She indicated that the sexual offenders were held in the F.U.C.K. It was the unit that held the rapists and, therefore, to fuck someone was to rape them. As a side note, she continued on explaining that “motherfucker” came from the white man raping the mothers of the slave children in Early America. And that actually made sense. The fourth woman, who is in her fifties had an entirely different explanation. She said that the term “originated in France because the streetwalkers would wear a fur, and that’s what they called it.” I asked for clarification, “They called it ‘fuck?’” and she replied, “Yes.” At this point I had to make a joke,
Man: “I like your fuck.”
Streetwalker: “I like yours too, wanna get together?”
Anyway, we all had a good laugh and I went home ready to do this assignment. I have gone online to the number one urban legend debunker SNOPES.com knowing they’d have an answer to this riddle. And sure enough, all three women claiming that the word had originally been an acronym were incorrect. But what about the streetwalkers adorning themselves with fucks to attract men? Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Wrong!
So as it turns out the word comes about like most words do, slowly emerging and changing over time. There are many theories but no precise answers. Snopes — known for their intensive research practices — official stance is that the word most likely comes from Germanic origins. This is what they pulled up as relative to the investigation: “Middle Dutch fokken = ‘to thrust, copulate with’; Norwegian dialect fukka = ‘to copulate’; and Swedish dialect focka = ‘to strike, push, copulate’ and fock = ‘penis.’ The earliest surviving citation of the word fuck was published in 1503 in The Oxford English Dictionary. There is another fascinating book worth considering a peek at if you are a logophile. It is entitled Dictionary of Word Origins and features 8000 English words and outlines their supposed histories. Its author, John Ayto cites a proper name, John le Fucker, as dating back to 1250. I have unfortunately not enough time to get the book ordered to the library in time to complete this assignment so I’ll just leave it at that and let you investigate as you desire.
And finally, my third word. The pretty word. It came up in the discussion too, strangely enough, though I must point out not in connection with the word fuck. My pretty word is “Mermaid.” Sadly the manifestation of this word is not as interesting as I expected it to be. ‘Mere’ is Old English meaning ‘sea’ and maid comes from the Middle English ‘Mayde,’ meaning unwed female. In the 14th Century mermaid was spelled in Middle English as ‘Mermayde,’ which I kinda find attractive and mysterious… the letter ‘y’ in the word could even be visualized as representing the fishlike tail of the sea maiden herself.
Artist: John William Waterhouse
And just for bonus points to anyone having read this entire response, a little more word trivia from Snopes.Com: “Acronymic explanations catch our fancy due to the “hidden knowledge” factor. Most of us feel a bit of a glow when we think we’re in possession of information others aren’t privy to, and when a titillating or apt story is thrown in behind the trivia, these things just take off. ‘Tips’ does not come from ‘To insure prompt service,’ yet that canard is widely believed. Likewise, ‘golf’ didn’t spring to life out of ‘Gentlemen only; ladies forbidden,’ and ‘posh’ did not take its place in our vocabulary from a shortening of ‘Port out; starboard home.’
Do you remember the days when napping was the worst possible thing in the world? I don’t, however, I have witnessed at least a hundred children throw fits of rage, tears running down their cheeks at the prospect of an afternoon or mid-morning escape from the tasks at hand. 
