Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Wishes – Week 2

christmas wishes

for friends everywhere

And so another Christmas Eve is upon us. Did we get all that we had hoped to accomplish done, make everything as perfect as we had envisioned or perhaps cut back, refine, rediscover those simpler things that we had lost sight of? As we celebrate over the next few days our hope is, as always, for a most excellent coming year for everyone – Best Wishes for Health and Happiness –  the rest is just icing on the cake!

This fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme – Wishes – is simple, it is whatever you want it to be. “What are your wishes for the coming year?” – Peace on earth, good will to men, more fun, more sun, more hours in the day like way back when, less noise, no batteries in toys, clear sailing or a new adventure …  We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Paths – Week 2

crossed paths

Ronald searle – never a path untrodden

Some of our earliest memories involve art – the back studio where a big work was always in progress, inky-smelling magazines with weird abstract sculptures highlighted on the thick pages, compilations of odd cartoonists work, the seemingly constant to and fro of scraggly painters, artists models, ad execs, copy-writers and their hangers on coming into the house always, it seemed, around supper time and staying late into the night. Long past our bed-time we would steal into the living room, ducking dangling cigarette ash and navigate between the elbows and cocktail glasses to the coffee table piled high with Horizons and New Yorkers. A small, pyjama-clad child with an armload of magazines wasn’t of much interest and didn’t warrant much more than a raised eyebrow.

It is no wonder that we have wound up here with such childhood influences. Perhaps if the pages turned by the glow of a flashlight had been filled with the wonders of Arctic exploration, the miracles of science or how to rebuild the engine on a ’55 Chevy, life would have been considerably different. Not to say that those things don’t fascinate us but they don’t inform our daily work nor have they become as integral, in the long run, to the way we see the world. The choices we made along the way made us veer off on tangents, brought us back to the main or sent us off on wild goose chases but this fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme – Paths – reminds us that we were set on the road to who we have become far further back than we might like to think.

Across the Bored noticed last week that everyone today seems to be going somewhere in a hurry – “Where do the paths lead in your world?” – Round in circles, up steep hills, through the countryside or urban jungle, away from family, back into a lover’s arms, down the road to perdition or happily forward into the future …  We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Paths

paths

far from the cradle of our ancestors

❄︎

The Ghost has rediscovered his Irish roots, much to both our pleasure, through a series of university courses, lectures and seminars.  It is all shaping up nicely to provide him with some sort of tangible evidence for why we sometimes act the way we do, choose to take a particular tack or get misty-eyed over certain strains of celtic viola.  Not that our boat landed recently – that side of the family has been in this country since before Confederation, making their way from the shores of Lake Ontario, through the dense forests and up into the wilds to carve a home from the rocky terrain. The lineage we trace, both paternal and maternal, meanders across the map: the reasons for self-imposed exodus lost like the details of their lives.

Ours was never a family to cast their lot enthusiastically with any one nationality, it was as if they willingly became anonymous in their homogeneity, their affiliations resting with the language they spoke rather than the places they came from. But some things are just in the blood – and they resurface, making themselves present in ways we never thought possible.  As we follow this backwards journey into a historicity rarely touched upon by those who would have done well to tell us more, the pieces slowly start to fall into place.

Sometimes, the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge surmises, strange – Paths – lead us where we least expect to go.

Everyone today seems to be going somewhere in a hurry – “Where do the paths lead in your world?” – Round in circles, up steep hills, through the countryside or urban jungle, away from family, back into a lover’s arms, down the road to perdition or happily forward into the future …

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.