Paint my own Picture
Well, it seems most folks have gotten their W-2s from Ci2i. This is a good thing. A lot of folks from Ci2i have moved to Seattle for some unknown reason. Am told it always rains there. I don’t know, as I’ve never been. There are many places I’ve never been on this planet and a few I would really like to see someday. I suppose Seattle is one of those. Imagine it would be good for a Cowboy Junkies fan, since it fits in so well with the visuals I get of bleak, barren landscapes, emptiness, and isolation with snow capped mountains in the distance.
Speaking of visuals and places unseen, have you ever noticed how all things exotic seem to lose their luster when you get up close? I once read an article, actually an interview, with Eric Clapton where he talked about coming to America. He was going to buy an old car, a cadillac and drive around the south. He specifically spoke of a car that smelled of cheap booze and sex in the back seat. He had this image in his mind of the old south, the real bluesmen, the gin joints, the domino games, the mint julep tea on the front porch kind of south. The real thing never lives up to the fantasy.
I remember the first time I went overseas, it was like that for me. I had grown up listening to Clapton, the Beatles, the Stones. England was the far away place that seemed so exotic. Different money, different clothing, different food, different culture. It was like never-never land only it actually existed. Like you could walk up to Rockaway Beach, look out over the horizon, and an image would form in your mind. It was out there just waiting to be found. When I actually stood along the river, gazing at the Parliment building, it seemed like such a let down in so many ways. Fantasy is the best part of reality. Whoever said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery got it wrong. Imagination is. Imagination truly is the most sincere form of flattery.
When you permeate my dreams, when you seize my fantasy, when you grab Carol’s Little World by the neck and throttle it, only then have you truly known it. How does that old expression go? Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever? What happens when you teach a man to dream?
These kind of sentiments make Carol’s Little World seem almost unnecessary. Sure, it’s nice having my own little corner of the web and all but, when it really comes down to it, everything in Carol’s Little World is self-made, self-defined, self-envisioned. It’s safe being the wizard behind the curtain because you get to pull the strings. But, do you ever wonder what’s on the other side of the curtain? Hmmmm.
Until next time, this is Carol, the Carol in “Carol’s Little World” signing off.
