I’m driving Jeb to school. He has a second-grade spelling test this morning. Though I doubt he’s all that nervous about it, he suddenly strikes up a conversation about fear and the human cerebrum.
He asks from the back seat, “Do you know what side of my brain gets scared?”
Ok. This is random. I’m curious. “No, what side?”
courtesy of lovelornpoets
“The left. Do you know why?”
“No. Tell me.”
“Because fear wouldn’t come from the right side. It would only be on the left…Get it? Because right, is right.”
“Ahh, yeah. I get it. Ok.”
“So what side of your brain does fear come from, Mom?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d have to take a minute to notice inside my brain and see.”
“I don’t have to look inside my brain, I already know. Fear’s on the left.”
Left. Right. Wrong.
Here’s to knowing what’s true and having the wisdom to choose, despite the firing synapses of our grey matter.
I’m always fascinated by the searches that lead someone to the Archives.
Thanks to WordPress Site Stats, I can review the subjects that drive browsers to this site, seeing which topics bring the most views. Over the course of the last few months, there are three searches that stand out as the most popular, though they seem vastly unrelated.
The topics being: our solar system, Kermit the Frog and Patron. Yep. These searches consistently bring the most readers to the Archives. Knowing how I wove these subjects into the content, I gotta wonder if the seekers really discover what they’re looking for when they find the related post.
Hopefully they’re entertained by the story of playing guitar on the beach at night, learning how the fret board corresponds to every planet. Or the conveyance of a parental moment observing my seven year old’s leggy growth spurt, noticing it mirrored the body of Kermit the Frog. And of course, my toast to tequila in all of its organic virtues. The medicinal power that can soften inner edges on Life’s sidelines, in a well-earned time-out.
With nearly nine months of daily posts, I see that the most frequently searched topics include the cosmos, a mind-altering substance and a singing amphibian with a heart of gold. Can these seeming disparates reveal greater insight into human nature and what we seek?
Maybe there’s an essential link that commonly threads through each of these topics. Kermit’s sweet and earnest, ever-curious nature. An earthling’s need to understand its place in the universe. A evolutionary desire to open to altered states of perception.
Maybe there is that Rainbow Connection between these random keyword searches. I’m right there with those cyber-seekers. However they find me, I hope they enjoy what they discover. Those lovers, dreamers…and me.
The Rainbow Connection
Why are there so many songs about rainbows And what’s on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, And rainbows have nothing to hide. So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it I know they’re wrong, wait and see. Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star? Somebody thought of that and someone believed it, and look what it’s done so far. What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing? And what do we think we might see? Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me.
All of us under its spell, we know that it’s probably magic….
Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I’ve heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors? The voice might be one and the same. I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it. It’s something that I’m supposed to be. Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me. La, la la, La, la la la, La Laa, la la, La, La la laaaaaaa
Written by Paul Williams and used by Kermit the Frog, of The Muppets, Jim Henson Productions
Like an aging granny, I spin tales to Jeb about the ‘old’ days when I was a child.
“Back then, there weren’t even cell phones! In fact, most of the my time growing up, there were only land lines and they had cords attached to the wall! You had to sit by the phone. You couldn’t walk anywhere when you called someone.”
This isn’t quite like the tales of walking to school in snow, uphill (both ways!). But I see the wheels turning in Jeb’s imagination as he listens, not able to picture my world of curling cords and rotary phones.
“You know, there wasn’t even an internet. When I was a kid, if you needed to learn about something, you went to the encyclopedia.”
I remember the leatherish bound encyclopedia set on our living room shelf, representing all letters of the alphabet. Pages edged with a gold-colored coating, promising entry into all things of the known universe that began with the letter ‘A’. ‘A’ was a book, maybe two inches thick. For anything A-related, not listed, that was further research in the stacks down at the local library.
courtesy of Shishberg
Back then, should you have opened up ‘G’ (it may have been combined with ‘H’ or ‘I’), you would not have found an entry under “Google.” These days at our house, it’s a standard phrase. If Jeb asks me questions I can’t precisely answer (“how is dry ice made? what makes lightning?), he simply says “Let’s Google it.” In two clicks we have a plethora of answers.
In all my granny glory, I shake my head, cluck and sigh with amazement: “Oh, the times have changed…”
Instead of pulling down a two-pound bound edition from the shelf, the fingers of answer-seekers are weightlessly flying over keyboards, typing any phrase imaginable to find clues to their queries. Oh, the things that you can find on this new-fangled internet thing!
What are people looking for? And where do their searches take them?
Believe it or not, some of them find me. So intrigued I’ve become, I am introducing a new page here on the Archives called Little Engines that Search (see left sidebar, under About, and click). With WordPress tracking the phrases browsers use, I get a glimpse into the words that trace them here. Fascinating, indeed. So I’ve dedicated a page listing some of my favorite phrases that have brought people to the Archives.
Who would have thought that “highway grass”, “stirrup chairs” and “does anyone sell banana leaves in fresno county” all would have funneled cyber-surfers to this very ethereal locale? Inspired by these phrases, I’ve played around to create my own search term poetry. You never know, maybe this is the next big thing. So profound it could be published. Maybe into a hard-bound book to sit on a shelf…full circle! I can see the title now: “Words Sought in the Ether.” I’d definitely want the pages edged in gold.
WORDS SOUGHT POEM I (BEAUTY)
inspiring word
butterfly cocoon unravel
morning sunlight through my bedroom window
bottle french wine
who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land
rainbow colored honey
rock texture moss
desktop ocean
beautiful toes
barrel of love
wave tossed in the ocean
the honey peace of old poems
robinson jeffers
how do you know? Love
snakes of coastal bend
scary wave wipeout
succulent pocket
osho zen the lovers
chrysoprase stone
moons in our solar system
shroud of turin
desktop water love
a banana leaf miracle
vast
WORDS SOUGHT POEM II (JUST PLAIN QUIRKY)
klmit
hafiz you have been invited to meet a friend
spelling sentences
goat in heat charging
does anyone sell banana leaves in fresno county
highway grass
california safe tent camping
lone ovary
the anatomy of a compost pile
rumplestiltskin edward gorey
solar system for kids
fetus at week 23
how to cut down a banana tree
stirrup chair
red toenails
hornier neck lift
airline rush luggage tag images
charts and graphs on insomnia in children
screen saver crazy
uterus
kermit the frog
For the Archives 