Missing person

[Nasoosie]

HaHa, Sheila! We found something special to be on!

Actually, her first post of the picture was headless, and she didn't realize it! (Check back to the beginning of this thread---unless she's since removed that first picture) This later post has a head!

[Sparkle]

Darn, you got in ahead of me Soos. I was going to play with Sheila's mind and get her to think she was going crazy.

[carold]

Sparkle, that took me back some years to the Kingston Trio-although It was first sung in the 30's. carold

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn
(R.L. Weston and Bert Lee.)

In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Anne Boleyn walks, they declare.
For Anne Boleyn was once King Henry's wife,
Until he had the headsman bob her hair.
Oh, yes, he did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes back at night to tell him so.

Chorus:
With her 'ead tucked underneath her arm,
She walks the bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
At the midnight hour.

She comes to haunt King Henry, she means giving him what-for
Gadzooks, she's going to tell him off, for spilling of her gore.
And just in case the headsman wants to give her encore,
She has her head tucked underneath her arm.

Now sometimes gay King Henry gives a spread,
For all his pals and gals, a ghastly crew,
The 'eadsman carve the joint and cuts the bread,
When in comes Anne Boleyn to queer the do.
She holds her head up with a wild war whoop,
And Henry cries, "don't drop it in the soup!"

She walks the endless corridors, for miles and miles she goes,
She often catches cold, poor dear, it's drafty when it blows,
And it's awfully, awfully awkward for the queen to blow her nose,
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

The sentries think that it's a football that she carries in,
And when they've had a few they shout, "Is Army going to win?"
They think that it's Red Grange instead of poor old Anne Boleyn
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

One night she caught King Henry, he was in the canteen bar,
He said, "Are you Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn, or Catherine Parr?
Well, how <do you expect me to know who in Hell you> are?
With your head tucked underneath your arm?

No excuses now, Sparkle, when asked to sing it.

[Bethers]

Sheila, The pick always had a head for me, also. But it's bigger than normal for the forum, and people with lesser resolutions on their computer screen, are not seeing that side of the picture It's their computer doing it - although I doubt they know that - but that's why we recommend a maximum certain size for pictures, also.

[BirdbyBird]

As several of us have mentioned this post makes us think...... The thought came to me that, the "missing person" in my memory was not so easy to find then either. As several mentioned, not wanting to go back...... I sometimes had more energy and sometimes my body carried me farther with fewer complains....BUT I wasn't always sure where to find "me" then either. It was all I could do to get through college, find employment, raise a family. Teaching, for me has always been a word with a capital letter, and the energy and time it drew from life was great. And there was family, and children and they drew down the time/energy packs. I consciously knew that much of "me" was put on hold...but that it was okay....and that there was light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn't just a large train.......So....I never completely found my "missing person" even in my whatever those years are. Now the barriers are fewer and the exploration, questioning, searching, pondering continues...there is time....There are islands and moments of "knowing" but I have come to accept that that journey will always continue and exploration never done. "Birdbybird" comes from the writing of Anne Lamott, if you are familiar with her. She tells the brief story of her brother complaining to her father regarding a school assignment to write about birds and about how he will never be able to do the assignment. (The brother, of course had waited until the night before to start the assignment...) In response to the son/brother's complain that he can't do the project, that father responds with the encouragement, that yes his son can. just work, "bird by bird". I think of it as one foot in front of the other. So, parts of me may even today may still be missing but I am a work in progress and am proceeding "bird by bird".

ps: I also have clearly noted the wonderful young woman that my daughter has/is becoming. (She is 27) Maybe it was the woman's movement and the change in available role models...but even as a young child she seemed to know her mind and appreciate her choices.... and has proceed with clarity, courage and purpose.....She seemed born with a knowledge that I seemed to have stumbled on as I wandered through my twenties and thirties....She is an inspiration to me.

[Sparkle]

This thread has wandered all over the place...I love it! You know I don't want the old inner me back, I like me better now than when I was younger. I'd like my old body back though, maybe 4 inches taller?

[bluepinecones]

I too want that other body back, mainly because it performed so much better.
Have pretty well accepted the fact that it is shot but could still be improved with more effort. Am also working on search for the former attitude too - the one that thought she could do anything no matter what the obstacles. Hopefully that is not just an illusion of youth. You ladies on the forum have provided a spark of hope that starting over yet again is not only doable but fun.
So here I go with building another plan - bird by bird while squeezing that chicken Sparkle mentioned for the right egg.

[BirdbyBird]

This forum does manage to make us think....the great pondering of life's issue, with friends in person, in forums, around campfires - real or digital- it can all be good.....

[mtngal]

Well, Sarah always had a head on my monitor! And I have to tell you all, her post (and all the resulting conversation) really made an impression on me, with a very vivid pic of myself at that age traveling along, so I guess my young self wasn't that far away after all, just waiting for a reason to reappear! Thanks Sarah!

[AlmostThere]

It's that 'whacky tabaccy' , Sheila!

[Nasoosie]

WOW! This thread not only has wandered and provoked and instigated self-examinations, but has totally captivated me!

I am so glad to have the words to the Anne Boleyn song, (which I do have by the Kingston Trio,) thanks to Carold! I will try to learn the chords so I can sing it around a campfire this summer (with a lot of help, of course!)

I like the bird by bird method of getting things done, and I am also glad to know what in heck that name means now!

My daughter, too, I think, has not had reason to lose herself as perhaps many of us 60s moms might have felt we needed to do to be 'good' moms. Actually, I guess the reason my marriage broke up was because I could no longer go on masquerading as a person I wasn't. I knew what I loved in life, and I knew that I needed to be true to myself. And so I took my kids with me to show them what is important to me. We only went a few hundred yards from the house to the pond in the summers to live with nature, or to local campsites, or for spring break trips in the car via camping.....and they were only too willing to come along and leave poor Dad behind, who is such a different person.....not one to like being without his luxuries in hotels, etc. etc. He was an only child. Nothing could make that poor man happy, no matter how hard we tried to include him in our activities. I feel that I was true to my self----at the risk of losing my life's companion. Do I miss a life's companion? Yes, I surely do. But do I miss trying to be someone I wasn't? Or do I miss trying to MAKE someone happy? NO, I do not.

Sigh...more food for thought here as I get supper ready for my 4-footers, who could care less if I am who I am!!!!

[Sparkle]

I can't believe that Carol went to all that trouble of finding and writing all those words. I still only know the tune of the screechy lines, you'll be glad to know, but it would be a good campfire song.I had Birdbybirds name all figured out. You see she is an ornithologist and does the bird census every year. She counts them...bird by bird. Well it made sense at the time.