My Mission Statement

I write to serve, to unite, to educate. I write to share literature and flesh out ideas that may be of interest to others. I write to document an emotion, experience, or a blip in time. My mission is to write in such a way that the reader is reminded that we can find humor in all situations. It's one of the great blessings of life.


Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Spring and the Freneticus

First of all, we still haven't gotten used to daylight savings time. So we oversleep every day, it seems. A cacophony of alarms sound throughout the house and incorporate themselves into my dreams. Then finally, one by one, we drag ourselves out of bed, and somehow, after all this slow moving, we manage to go into overdrive and start running around like maniacs to get out the door. If it weren't so stressful, it would be hilarious. If an anthropologist studied us, they would think we had some strange ritualistic dance because we do the same thing every day. I can imagine the journal article now:
In the early part of the 21st century, some families engaged in a morning dance we call the freniticus, from the Latin word for frenzy. Members of the family start the morning with loud noises that they immediately turn off symbolizing their denial of the outside world and their desire to remain focused on the nuclear family and close-knit home life. After a specific series of these sounds, they begin a slow, sensual dance the culminates in a trip to the bathroom for the ceremonial brushing of teeth and using the toilet. These two rites symbolize a family cleansing itself of the toxins in their dreams, and preparing themselves for a new day, fresh and clean. They take in a dark cup of 'morning mud' that causes their eyebrows to raise and their eyes to open, and makes them turn on a large television. Then they bow before what they called a 'clock' which springs them into a more energetic, frenzied dance that involves some kind of clothing ritual. First they toss their clothes off, then they throw around clothes in their dressers and even some in their closet. At the 'closet' stage of the dance, they often find it necessary to pause and take a breather in the dance as they meditate in front of the closet. Then, they spring back into the most intense part of the ritual. They finish up the clothing portion by putting more on, and rushing into another part of the house. Here they drink more of the ceremonial 'morning mud' and begin to throw various food items into their mouth. They swallow WITHOUT CHEWING--an important part of the ritual that appears to symbolize the idea of taking things as they come, so you can be prepared for the unexpected portions of the day. The finale of this strange yet lovely dance is a race out the door and into the world. We can learn a lot by studying this portion of history.

Have a wonderful day. Hope all your morning rituals did, in fact, prepare you for the unexpected portions of your day. If not, have a little more 'morning mud', and get on with it!

3 comments:

Liz said...

Love it! And so true . . .

Jean said...

Hilarious!

Jean
http://www.jeanmatthewhallwords.blogspot.com

Donna Jones Koppelman said...

Thank you both for reading!


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Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

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Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman