Category Archives: Nororiety

Money Optional

The Prompt: Work? Optional!—If money were out of the equation, would you still work? If yes, why, and how much? If not, what would you do with your free time?

Since I am already retired and spend most of my day making art and writing, I guess my answer is yes. I do it because I feel it is my reason for living and without that work, life seems to lose its importance. I do it because it forces me to look closer and to think more deeply. I do it pretty much every minute I’m not sleeping. Really, I always did what I wanted to do without taking into consideration what would sell and that still seems to be the case since I’m not getting wealthy on what I do, but I swore when I retired that I would stop doing all those parts of making art that I hated: the applying for shows, the promotion, the pictures, the resumes, the mailing lists. Now I just enjoy the creation and if I am sending them out to an unaccepting universe, nonetheless, I’m having the experience of creating, which any serious writer or artist will tell you is  the most important part and why we really do what we do.

Today is my 221st post, and since it is a short one, please scroll back and read an earlier post you haven’t read before and if you have the time, please comment. 

For instance, if you’d like to know why I ended up in Mexico, read this: Foreign Tongues or, if you want a love story with a happy ending, read this: The Ballad of Poor Molly.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Although yes, I do it for myself, I can’t help but feel gratified when others find what I write to be of consequence or enjoyable.  Judy

Fame

Fame

I don’t want to be Gwyneth Paltrow or Pink,
Madonna, Shakira or Cher.
Their kind of renown is simply too much.
Much more than this woman could bear.

Though there’s no famous person that I’d like to be,
it’s not that I wouldn’t like fame.
It’s just that I want to be known for myself
and not by another one’s name.

I want to be known for my words and my art,
but not by my form or my face.
So I can dine out and walk down the street
without all the bother and chase.

I want to go out for a coffee or tea
and see someone reading my book.
And without her knowing, to study her face,
interpreting how she may look

as she reads every page, be it smile or tear,
I’d be known by my writing alone.
Like watching your child go out in the world
to establish a life of its own.

I want to stand hidden, unknown by the world,
to observe someone viewing my art.
To see if what registers there on his face
is what I’ve revealed of my heart.

Unnoticed, unphotographed and unpursued,
I could walk at my usual pace.
I’d get to the finish in plenty of time
without ever joining the race.

 

The prompt was to pick the famous person we’d most like to be.