Monday Mimisms ~ Part TWO: Yes, I Know It's Almost Tuesday!

Do not ask the Universe a question unless you expect an answer.

I woke up this morning on a quest. I was determined to find at least five ways today in my everyday routine - to find a peaceful moment - something meaningful, deliciously warm, kindness in action, insightful, thought-provoking, pencil Skirt bloggable - and report back to you at the end of the day. Before I left the house my coffee pot took its last breath and died. Screaming is never a good way to start your day. I caught my finger inside the pant clamps in a clothes hanger and ripped it open. Bleeding is never a good way to start your day. And I was out of bandaids.
It wasn't exactly a peaceful beginning. I told my readers I'd take my caffeine-less self into the world and come back with a story. And I did.
Here's what happened.


Little did I know that less than ten minutes after I shut the castle gates and left Bloggingham this morning, I would find a peaceful epiphany.
Late to work, I slammed the door of my mouse-free Toyota and sped like a bandit to my little music world in the sticks. The middle of nowhere. Through the winding metropolis known as Banister. No coffee and not enough brain cells to notice much except the slow-moving traffic in my bustling city. (uh...that was a joke for those of you who know where I live) I flipped on the radio -smearing on green eye shadow and coral lip liner at the same time...... WHAT or WHO moved my station? Static. Noise. Fuzz. I was stuck between some caterwauling screamer and my usual contemporary pop radio dial (mixed with intelligent banter) - and a pile of green shadow flakes that missed and made a vertical line halfway up to my hairline! I was injured. Who could draw a straight line with a gash in her finger? Rats! (which is something I should never utter in my vehicle) - now I have to fix this in my near-dead state of mind in 4 1/2 minutes and pretend I'm awake when I get to work.
WHERE is my music?! WHERE are the guys who make me laugh?
WHERE is the coffee?

Then I heard it. It was a ballad. Ahh.....I love ballads. A simple story and a well-tuned guitar. Heaven. So I listened in the half-fuzz to the words. An obvious country singer sang "Lay me down in a field near the edge of town..." GREAT! A love song. Just great. Romance. Just what I wanted to hear this morning. I don't have time for a trip down memory lane before I've put my best face on. TURN IT OFF! But then.....something made me listen.

Now I don't listen to country music much - not on purpose anyway - unless it's classic Vince Gill's smooth vocals or something of that nature.
This was Tim McGraw. I do love his edgy vocal and well....he is rather handsome underneath the hat......who am I'm kidding? He's gorgeous. But I digress.....oh....oh my.....I'm starting to cry.

There goes the mascara.

I, of all things, didn't want to bombard my readers with one peace globe post after another after yesterday's ann0uncement. I'll save that for another day, I thought, closer to BlogBlast For Peace. That's what I get for "planning" what to write. What I'd set out to find this morning set out to find me. It's a soldier's song. A song about war. A song about somebody's son. Somebody's mother. One more wasted human being who will not be returning from the war.

A song from the heart. A song I couldn't ignore, no matter the genre.

Mimi's first moment of peace today was delivered by a soul-singing cowboy in black who electrified my artsy self with his honest emotion and crossed the line. You know that blurry line between this station and that? That verbiage and this political opinion and that political opinion? The fuzz and static?

It just got clearer.

None of it matters when you're talking about your neighbor's son or daughter or brother or sister or friend or girlfriend or dad six-thousand miles from home who's too young to understand the cruel semantics at work in this war - in that confusing chaotic God-forsaken place known as Iraq - and just wants to do what he/she can do to help. Or die trying.

They are so brave. And I respect them. We should all be proud.

But I, like many others, are heartsick at what we see and hear and know about the tragedies in Iraq and the seemingly insurmountable internal struggles that occupy the regions. I don't pretend to understand the military ramifications of a withdrawal - many of you with prior experience and thoughts on this are better equipped to answer that than I - but I do have a philosophical opposition to suffering. And that is neither liberal nor conservative.

I simply wish they could come home. Don't we all?

I am so sick of seeing the endless bloodshed of not just American soldiers but the Iraqi people themselves and the children caught in the middle of hell. Women carrying water buckets on their heads and no electricity, not enough food, violence and fear everywhere.

Let's not forget that this type of degradation happens in many other parts of the world, too, including the great atrocities in Darfur. And so we fly the globes as a statement of hope. BlogBlast For Peace is not about politics.

It is about humanity.

Wouldn't you love to know what all those caring soldiers could do with their time stateside or in Darfur if they didn't have to spend it dodging roadside bombs in a civil war?
Wouldn't you just love to watch what would happen if we brought all those wonderful minds home and let them loose on the humanity that needs fixing elsewhere? I'm so lucky to be here and have my freedom. My work. My friends. Most people sit down at their desks every morning in an office somewhere and start the day's journey through reams of killed trees and memos. I get to sit down at a piano.

My life is full of music. Everyday. I wouldn't get to do those things if not for soldiers past and present who struggle daily in another land to keep me free.

So I listened to Tim McGraw's new single called "If You're Reading This, I'm Already Home" and pondered the wisdom of trying to put a lid on my thoughts about peace.

There is no wisdom in that. I'll keep playing and singing and writing and scribbling notes on manuscript paper that won't seem to leave me alone in the middle of the night - some minor key that "accidentally" spills on my paper of late and never resolves.....but seems to spin. Wonder why. Maybe I'll share it with you one day.

I thought my "peaceful moments epiphanies" were through for the day after McGraw blew me away with his lyrical genius. That is until I sat down and opened the first piece of music on top of my piano. Time to teach a little Latin, a few Hodies and Gloria In Excelsis phrases and ahs and ohs and oos and scales and .....hey.....wait a minute. I marked the time, conducted the rhythm and started to play. Oops. Forgot to look for dynamic markings. Get this.

It simply said "Peacefully: With expression"
I set out this morning to find a bit of pencil skirt peace. It found me.
And all before 9:00 am.

You can hear Tim's song below.

YouTube Video via BestOfYT.com

Go to YouTube and take a listen. Just type in Tim McGraw. I deleted the actual video from my blog because it is slowing down the page. Thanks!

P.S. My finger hurts.