Skid Kid (Freshman edition)

Here's the setting, for those of you who dont know, which is probably no one cause who is reading this besides the 7 people i've told about it, but anywho.
Saratoga Springs, NY- upstate NY, where i'm pretty sure the "fall foliage" people in Florida and Figi here and dream about was discovered. Literally never seen anything like this, of course its post-peak and the trees are pretty much bare now and the snow is a comin, but just a few weeks ago you walked outside your small dirty- well atleast my- to see what could easily be a painting turned 3D. From purple to yellow to red to orange all tye-dyed together to create a surreal collage. The only bad part is that they've come and gone before you know it.
Anywho the trees are just one example of something I knew woukld be here, but not the extent of awesomeness about.
The main point of this whole thing is too say that I am OBSESSED with this place. Everyday im re-blown away by how incredible everything about it is. I know I sound like some over-dramatic high-school cheerleader, but its so true. I knew I really loved it, but I believe it was 2 fridays ago when driving back from the movie theater that it hit me. Every since I got here, I have been extra-grateful and appreciative for how awesome my life is. While I know and believe how lucky I am, its a weird thing to say outloud, especially at the beginning of college when you are meeting all new people who come from all sorts of backgrounds. So with my new found appreciation fro life, I have found myself getting happier and happier, like literally even when im a little sad, im still so happy. I am in love with everything about this school, town, people here, everything. After seven years in a bubble of a high school with majority of gossip girl wanna-be's and only a handful of real people, and then really only five people who exceed any expectation I have ever had of a "best-friend", it is nice to find that the statistics are a bit different here. Everyone is a real person, down-to-earth is no longer a quality I look for in people, it is something I know is in every friend I have made.
I am most happy that i am at someplace I really feel at home. I belong here, and I just feel lucky to have found it.
Let's check back next year....

Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are.

Welcome to September 1969, Stephen Stills is the man we are admiring today for his masterpiece of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. A compilation of a few short songs about his former girlfriend Judy Collins

I find this song the thing I can turn to walking to my 9:30 am art class on 5 hours of sleep, sitting on the patio after finishing classes and watching the life of campus go on amidst this perfect fall day, while sneakily hiding my earphones under my long hair in my never-ending calculus class that should be when i'm eating lunch, when trying to fall asleep over my roommates loud keyboard, to always put a smile on my face. 

The beat, the lyrics, the simple idea of happiness flows out of my earphones into my brain swimming to whatever lobe/ brain part controls my happiness and bumping it up by a thousand. Not to be a cliche unappreciative modern day hippy, who "was born in the wrong era", but it really puts me back in a simpler time and suddenly the stress of fitting homework, clubs, the gym, laundry and sleep into the next 72 hours doesn't seem to hard. It actually doesn't even come up on my radar anymore, the repeated lyrics and harmony of David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills ease me back into my care-free happy, smiley-self. 

I think it has something to do with the perfect combination of mellowness to upbeatness. It calms me, while keeping me bopping along and paints a big 'ol smile right across my face everytime. The beginning puts me on a farm in the middle of nowhere, then they begin singing and i'm around a camp fire singing folk songs. Then your hit with "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are" and that immediately translates into an immediate breath of optimism for me. The same way Bob Marley, John Lennon and Ghandi promise inevitable happiness and peace in there work, Stills just joined the club. 

After probably about 50 times listening to this song in the span of a few days, I pick up on the line "Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart". To be honest, it was probably the word laughter, my favorite activity/ hobby/ exercise form, that caught my attention. But after a draining three hour art class this morning I really dissected the phrase and tried to figure out the point getting across. Fear is the "lock" on her heart, and in order to get into her heart you need to unlock it with the "key" of laughter. This line continues to resonate more and more with me and I have now really grown a connection to it. I decide to translate the line into an image. a dark heart blocked by a padlock with the letters F.E.A.R written across it. Lying near by is an old fashioned key, now seen on trendy celebs as necklaces or belt hooks, with the letters L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R down the vertical portion. 

What it all comes down to is that this is something much like a friend, favorite dessert, bath salt flavor, that I can turn to anytime that guarantees me a smile and happiness, even if only for seven and a half minutes. I am well aware of music's ability to do this and I only hope others can find the same, if not in music, in some other form of creative expressionism.