lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Ready for Your Close-up.” Cast the movie of your life.

Movie Me––Runway pose, no Closeup!

Many Me’s

When you cast the movie of my life
as student, girlfriend, traveler, wife,
as a toddler, cast me as
a curious, chubby little spazz
with scabby knees—a sort of clown
very adept at falling down!
Will any kid with sunny view do?
Yes. Except—for Honey Boo Boo!

In my child years, perhaps spanning
age four to eight, just pick some Fanning.
But at age nine or ten, I fear
I grew a rather chubby rear.
like Honey Boo Boo? Yes, I guess.
Yet still I’d be in some duress
if you cast that child as me.
Please oh please, don’t let it be!

As a preteen, I was thin
and sang duets with my friend Lynn,
and though I hadn’t half her gift,
just cast me as Taylor Swift!
But when it’s time to go to college,
to gain a sort of further knowledge,
I think you’d better move along
and send her back to her own song.

Leelee Sobieski could
then play me if she only would––
at least until I’m through with school,
although I was not half so cool.
Then, as I begin to travel,
my other sides to then unravel,
Helen Hunt might be the one
to represent travails and fun

of traveling in climes most strange.
She has the acting skills and range
to play me as I looked and pondered,
taught and loved and learned and wandered
Australia, Bali, Singapore,
from door to door to door to door.
Those two lines etched over her nose
grace my face, too, because of woes

that nonetheless I wouldn’t trade
for years spent safe within the shade
of front porch roof and front porch swing
wherein I learned not one new thing.
As I grow older, I change and change.
And so I need a “me” with range
from teacher, artist, writer, spouse––
who alternates from road to house.

Sometimes at home writing my blog,
(my only company a dog
or two or three, and just one cat
to define clearly where I’m at)
I yearn to be out in the crowd,
with dancing feet and head unbowed
to laptop or to artist bench,
and I feel that well-known wrench

of travels to another clime
but worry if I have the time
to do the things within my heart–
to finish all that I might start.
I need a me to sort these things
and bring me all a good life brings––
perhaps to make decisions for me,
choose a life that doesn’t bore me.

Then perhaps we could reverse
our lives and I could then rehearse
the life presented in her depiction.
A real life can learn much from fiction!
So for these final years I need
a woman strong in thought and deed.
Who can show me how to see
all that I was meant to be.

For when I lay me down to sleep,
I’d like to go as Meryl Streep!