I truly enjoy the art of writing, and it’s something that seemed to come naturally to me even back in elementary school. Despite my enjoyment, writing is not the art form that I would pick if I could choose just one which got me to wondering what art form you would like to master if you could wave a magic wand and have a talent bestowed upon you. Would you be a poet? A pianist? A painter? How about a dancer or actor? Anyone out there want to be the guy who can look at a cedar log, fire up a chain saw, and after a couple of hours of making the wood chips fly, render forth the exact likeness of the entire Duck Dynasty cast?
My good friend, and frequent commenter on this blog, Bonnie Lane, is a talented painter who recently had one of her landscapes chosen to grace a banner that will hang on the newly refurbished Loudoun Street Mall in Winchester. I’d love to paint as well as Bonnie paints, but what I’d really like to do is sing well. If I could, I’d run my life as a musical and break into song whenever the situation might arise. I’d just hop up on the conveyor belt in the grocery store check-out line and start singing. I can assure you that breaking into writing a story in the middle of the grocery store check-out line does not have the same dramatic effect on the cashier. I wonder if Libby Rocco, the fabulous female voice of Jump Alley, could teach me to sing? I wonder if she’d even attempt the job after hearing what she had to work with? . . .
What about it, readers? What kind of artist do you want to be and why?
Austin Gisriel 
Well, Austin, I’ve got the singing down…and I am known to spontaneously burst into song appropriate to a situation. What I USED to have and have not been able to recapture is dancing.
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I know that you’ve had some injury issues, Angela, but having danced with you, I have no doubt that your ability to trip the light fantastic is merely dormant and not gone. Come to Pen Mar Park some time this summer and we’ll cut a rug! (Well, it’s concrete, but we’ll cut it up just the same.)
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I agree with you, Austin, about being able to break out into song as life went along … in a grocery store, on a bus … wherever … just as is done in musicals. When I was in seventh grade my parents took me to see the musical film, Oklahoma, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. I was in HEAVEN. I thought Oklahoma must be the most romantic, wonderful place. I wrote in my diary that I SO wished that life was like a musical where people would just break out into song at the drop of a hat. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it! Later, as an adult, I did study voice, and I actually started two small vocal ensembles in two different cities where I resided. One of them is still active today (on the West Coast, and I am now in the East).
Yes, I do paint, and that is very rewarding, but if I could wave a magic wand, I would love to be a top-flight ballet dancer. I have always loved ballet, in fact, I adore it. I have studied it off and on as an adult, depending on where I was living at the time. I do not have a dancer’s body; it is not elongated enough, and I have always known that. I guess, if I could choose anything — AND NOT AGE, because ballerinas have a very short career span — being a really fabulous ballerina (as those of the Russian school are) would be my first and ultimate choice. When I hear fabulous ballet music, I mentally choreograph it in my head as the music is playing, mentally seeing myself executing the moves perfectly, which, of course, would be physically impossible for me to do at this point in my life. Maybe in the hereafter I will float and leap on the wind, unencumbered by a physical body, but rather shining resplendent with a spiritual one!
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Bonnie, this is so well written that you might want to continue your pursuit of writing! Tell you what: Next time we’re in IHOP, we’ll make our musical fantasy come true and sing about pancakes as we jump up on the table.
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Austin,
As I sit here & reflect on what you said about wanting to sing well, I have some thoughts I would like to share with you that come from the heart. My friend, you are truly a gifted writer, and I have read quite a few of your blogs now, of which you know I have commented on many. Your Five Minute Fiction For Free stories, are very diversified, and touch many age groups. One gift of yours, that I would like to see more of is more sports related stories, of which you are also extremely talented. Please take this in the context it is meant to be, and remember this is just one mans opinion, and believe me your enjoyment of writing comes out in all of your pieces.
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Ha! I thought you were going to tell me not to sing, since you’ve heard me before! Writing more sports stories is a good idea, Don. The origin of No Pants Johnson’s nickname has been discovered and that will be published in July. Thanks as always for reading.
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