Everyday Canvas

February 6

For "Blog City Prompt Forum" 

Prompt: What are your weekend plans?

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I don’t make plans for weekends or any other day, aside from the routine things. Since anytime I make plans, something happens to mess with them.

Then, weekend plans are for people who cannot find the time to do things during their hectic weekdays. For me, the only good thing about the weekend, mainly Sundays, is that I don’t get unwanted calls.

Unwanted calls, usually on the landline, which I keep only for routine business stuff, are terribly annoying. Thus, I made it a habit to say that I don’t buy, support, or donate over the phone. Usually though, the annoying calls come from crooks posing as agents from the Social Security, Medicare, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, or vehicle warranty stuff. AT&T shows the invalid numbers and VOIP calls on the Caller ID but doesn’t give me the option to block those numbers, while I can do just that on my cell. I don’t know why the same company can let me block numbers on my cellphone and not on the landline. It must have something to do with their business plans. Surely, when it comes to the business plans of big companies, the consumer is the one given the short end of the stick.

For: "Space Blog Group" 

prompt: From winklett ’s "Backdoor" .
An uninvited guest (a memory it seems). What would you do in
these situations?

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I know this beautiful poem from long ago. And yes, memories have a way of sneaking in through the back doors of the mind.

What to do when this happens? I am usually disconcerted when a memory sneaks into my mind and I never plan ahead for it. Yet, this happens often, and I usually let it play its course, but then, I try to keep busy and get my mind occupied with something else to tear it apart from the claws of remembrances.

I remember reading somewhere of an enzyme that aids in reviving old memories. It makes me wonder why anyone would want to do such a thing unless treating a trauma, which should be done in the presence and under the guidance of a professional, anyway.

On the other hand, chances are all memories can be considered traumatic: the bad ones because, when we recall them, we live through their unpleasantness once more, and the good ones. we live through them, feeling we’ll probably never experience such good times ever again. In either case, we feel sadness or even grief. Who needs that!

Still, something in nature, an inflection in someone’s speech, a song or a poem, even a scene in a fictional book can trigger memories. A great friendship bond, a lover’s gaze, the recall of a success can travel through our minds in a split second, transporting us into past experiences.

Many people value such memories as it gives them a pat in the back for having lived through those good old times. Such stuff we may hold close to our hearts and may even think ourselves lucky for having had those times in our lives. Yet, isn’t this living in the past? Isn’t this a throwback, rather than a vision for future?

I am not very sure that memories are as valuable as we make them to be. As Haruki Murakami wrote, ““Memories are what warms you up from the inside. But they’re also what tears you apart.”