Anticipation

Kim's year-long Blog Improvement Project at Sophisticated Dorkiness encouraged us to "look for blogging inspiration somewhere new.

There’s no real way to do this. If you’ve got a laptop, take it out of the house and write up a post somewhere different. If you don’t have a laptop, grab a pen and paper and do some brainstorming outside the house.

Go to the park, a local coffee shop, the library, a friend’s house, your backyard, wherever you feel like it. Just get away from where you usually blog to see what inspiration you might get from a change of scene."

I did this in a movie theatre while I was waiting for Gamer to start.

It wasn't hard to see that I was immediately drawing on sense memory for this exercise.


Many of you already know that one of my favorite places in the world - and favorite moment in life - is taking my place in a theatre seat, waiting for the show to begin.

It can be any kind of theatre, any kind of performance.

It can be a spot snagged among an outdoor crowd for the Busker Festival.

It can be a hardy sports stadium seat built to withstand drunken disappointment in a game, but serving me as a seat at the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo.

The hockey arena can be tucked out of sight so I can sit in surging anticipation for Lenny Kravitz and an amazing night of music.

It can be a no-frills wooden chair on homemade risers, awaiting a Fringe Festival performance.

It can be a seen-better-days upholstered seat scavenged from a renovated theatre as I sit just feet away from Michael Mahonen (Road to Avonlea's Gus) as he shows his acting chops in Salt Water Moon, a play by Newfoundland-born David French.

But there are two types of theatre seats that thrill me more than any other.

The basic cinema seat - where I have willingly whiled away countless sunny days in a darkened theatre. No matter how far technology takes us, no matter that I can watch films in an increasingly sophisticated home setting, I will always cherish viewing films as they are meant to be screened - in a theatre surrounded by other film lovers.



And the other one?

Why, a seat at the ballet, of course.

Where the orchestra tunes up as the lights go down to a quarter...

First Kiss, Destiny and Meeting God

Michelle Johnson over at Poefusion takes part in Manic Monday, hosted by Fleur de Lisa - and for today's Through the Opera Glasses I thought I'd focus my sights on her prompt.

As you may recall, I'm taking part in Kim's Blog Improvement Project, and the latest challenge is to once again shake up our normal offerings. We're encouraged to post as many different types of blog posts as we can by July 24th.

"It’s easy to get into a pattern of writing the same kinds of posts over and over again," Kim reminds us. "But sometimes it can be fun to spice it up."

Here are Michelle's prompts:

When and with whom was your first kiss?

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

What would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

I'm going to put an arts twist on this prompt, since this is my arts feature.

First kiss - My own first kiss was with my first boyfriend, Philip. For more details, check out my story in my Naughty Meme of Firsts.


When I think of a perfect depiction of a first kiss, I can't help but think of the final scene in 1995's Persuasion.

It occurs at the 5:50 mark in the clip below.





But of course, I can't rule out the kiss in North & South.


Warning ladies - watching this scene may turn you into a puddle of goo...





Does everything happen for a reason? - Well, let's see. When I first moved to Toronto 23 years ago, I worked as a live-in nanny in the west end of the city. I went over to a movie theatre to fill out an application for evening and weekend work - at the Humber theatre - and began walking east along Bloor Street. Not west. East.

I wanted to start meeting people with similar interests to mine. I figured movie theatre people would be a good start.

Not too far along I saw a sign for psychic readings. I thought, what the heck? So I went up. I didn't keep going along the storefronts as I normally did.

The young woman read my palm, and among her observations she was adamant that my soul mate was very near. She mentioned that he wore a uniform. Since I was brand new to the city with only two friends from home also in Toronto, plus the family for whom I worked, I thought, don't know how that can be.

When I was done, I went down the stairs to the street. I kept walking east along Bloor Street until I got to another movie theater I hadn't even known about. It was the Runnymede Theatre. So I went in and applied.

I was called to start work there not long after. One of my co-workers was a very handsome usher named Brad Smith. To whom I'm now married.

I absolutely think everything does happen for a reason. In the same way that thousands of people gather for a performance at the same place at the same time, the universe arranges significant events in order to facilitate each person's potential for growth. The universe has the ticket with the date and time. It's our job to sense when the curtain is about to go up.


A wonderful film with this outlook is Serendipity.





What would I like to hear God say when I cross over? - I would like to hear: Rest, now.















A truly chills-inspiring meeting-up-with-God scene for me is the ending of The Fountain. The music really thrills me.



So... What about you?