Day 1854: Judges

Yesterday, while I was waiting to be judged at  The Voice try-outs along with hundreds of other people …

… somebody asked me if the judges from The Voice were somewhere in the building, judging us. Because I’ve tried out twice before, I knew that the judges from the show, including  Adam Levine and Blake Shelton (who seem to judge each other a lot), were nowhere near. I knew we would be judged by one person, sitting in a room with a laptop.

When I was waiting outside one of the audition rooms with nine other people, somebody said she hoped we would go into the room one at a time to be judged. I said, “No, we’ll go in as a group and each have 40 seconds to sing.”  She judged that idea and didn’t like it.

The judge with the laptop in our audition room asked me to sing first. I sang 40 seconds of “Mad World” because I judged these lyrics easy to remember:

All around me are familiar faces,

Worn out places, worn out faces.

Bright and early for the daily races,

Going nowhere, going nowhere.

And I find it kind of funny and I find it kind of sad

The dreams I have of dying are the best I’ve ever had,

I find it hard to tell you and I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it’s a very very mad world.

I think I’m a good judge of singing and I’d say my singing yesterday was fine, but not fabulous enough to get me on the show.  After I sang, I judged the other singers and thought they were fine, but not fabulous enough to get on the show.  Then the last hopeful in our room — a young girl accompanied by her mother — walked up to the “x” on the floor and KILLED her audition piece.  I judged that she was amazing and totally Voice– worthy. When the judge with the laptop said he was going to ask only one person in our group to stay, I wasn’t surprised.  However, he asked somebody else to stay, which made me doubt his judgment.  On my way out of the building, I saw the young girl and her mother and I told them that I judged her the best singer in our room, by far. Another singer from our room asked if I was going to try out for The Voice again in the future. I said, “I don’t think so,” and we told each other to keep singing, no matter how we’re judged.

I shall now ask the judges of this blog to judge which photos are their favorites.

Here’s my final judgment of this post: I don’t need a $40 fidget spinner, because I get to blog every day for free.

If you sing along to “Mad World”, please don’t judge yourself.

Thanks to all who helped me create this “Judges” post and — of course! — to YOU.

Day 1853: Free

Welcome to another free blog post here at The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally!

Over the years, I’ve been working on becoming free to express myself and to take action, free from fear.

Here are some free quotes about “Free.”

Smile, it’s free therapy. — Douglas Horton

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. — Lewis B. Smedes

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the land of the brave. — Elmer Davis

Now I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave. — Harriet Tubman

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For to be free is not merely to cast off chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. — Nelson Mandela

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing.  I am free.  — Nikos Kazantzakis

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free. — Fannie Lou Hamer

The highest a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. — Baruch Spinoza

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. — Woodrow Wilson

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power and, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes.  You are free. — Jim Morrison

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. — James A. Garfield

Those who are free from resentful thoughts surely are free. — Buddha

I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally. — W.C. Fields

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. — Albert Einstein

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. — Michelangelo

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or a good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again. — Maya Angelou

Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain’t no free rides, baby. — Ursula K. Le Guin

“There ain’t no free rides, baby,” said the late, great author Ursula K. Le Guin, who died earlier this week.

Please feel free to share your favorite “free” quotes, below.

I am free to take photos and free to post  them here.

I am also free to try out for The Voice again today and free not to care about the looks I see on faces while I’m singing.

I am free to choose “Mad World” for my audition song.

Here and now, thanks are also free for all who speak out about freedom and — of course! — for YOU.

 

Day 1139: Wanted

I wanted to title this post “wanted” after I saw this Wanted Poster at my wanted job, yesterday:

I saw that Wanted Poster yesterday while I was doing something I’ve wanted to do for a while:  sing my three possible audition songs for “The Voice” to people who wanted to hear them.   I asked  those people at work, “Which song might make me most wanted by the judges?”   People who wanted to hear all three songs yesterday wanted to tell me their wanted preferences, as follows:

“Mad World” was wanted by 15 people.

“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was wanted by 5 people.

“Soothe” was wanted by 5 people.

I wanted a clear majority, so I now want to sing “Mad World” for my February 21 audition. (That’s the song WordPresser vanbytheriver has stated that she’s wanted me to sing.) If I’m wanted back, as I’ve wanted, to perform more audition songs for “The Voice,”  I’ll sing all three of those wanted songs.

In case you wanted to see other photos I wanted to take yesterday, here they are:

 

 

I wanted to point out that the cat at the PetSmart shelter  was named “Michael,” just like my boyfriend. Michael wanted to take Michael home last night, but he knew that Oscar, Harley, and my wanted son Aaron haven’t wanted a third cat in the house.

I wonder whether this post is what you wanted today.

Before I end, I wanted to thank all who helped me create this “Wanted” post and also you — of course! — for wanting to read it.

Day 1092: Dreams

Here are some of my associations with “Dreams” on this Monday of the week between Christmas and the New Year of 2016:

• This time of year feels particularly dream-like to me,
• I think and talk a lot about dreams, at work and elsewhere.
• One of my favorite books is Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, about the amazing healing that happens when people share dreams in groups.
• Even though I’ve been living the dream of blogging daily for (almost) three years, I’ve written only four previous posts with “Dreams” in the title (here, here, here, and here).
• When I got my first cardiac pacemaker at age ten in 1963, my being alive and well over fifty years later was just a dream.
• I’ve had several dream jobs — including creating the recruitment video for Berklee College of Music in the 1990s — but nothing more satisfying than my current work as a psychotherapist.
• When I was 44 years old, I consciously gave up the dream of ever having a child.
• One month later, I found out I was pregnant with my dreamy son, Aaron.
• Two nights ago I had a dream when I was falling from a great height to certain death, but because I knew I was dreaming, I wasn’t afraid, at all.
• If a dream comes true and I get a call-back when I try out for The Voice on February 21, I’m going to sing  Mad World, which has this line:

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.

Because I was dreaming so much yesterday, I forgot to take many photos. Which of these images seems the most dream-like, to you?

It’s always a dream for me that people feel safe enough to share their dreams,  here and elsewhere.

Dreamy thanks to all who helped me create this post and to all those who read it, here and now.

Day 1086: Hard to read

Yesterday, on my drive in to work at a major Boston teaching hospital, I saw somebody holding a sign that you might find hard to read.

Sometimes, I find people’s expressions hard to read, too.

I hope it’s not hard to read, here, that lately I’ve been thinking that maybe my visions of very large faces who all look very angry might  be faces hovering over me — after I was born with a congenital heart condition — that were actually worried, not angry. After all, grown-up faces can be hard to read, for a very young child.

Which of the following photos do you find hard to read? Which are easy to read?

 

If anything here is hard to read, please ask for my assistance.

Are the lyrics for this song (which first appeared in my blog post titled “Everything you need to know about the world”) hard to read?

The rules for “The Voice” try-outs (which are not hard to read) indicate that I should prepare five songs to sing in Philadelphia, two months from now.  I’m thinking I might attempt a reading and a singing of  “Mad World.”  I wonder if I’ll be able to read the expressions on people’s faces then.

Thanks to all my wonderful co-workers (who are easy and a pleasure to read), to grownups and children, to red, green, and pink cupcakes,  to all the people responsible for creating “Mad World,” to judges everywhere, and to you — of course! — for reading this blog today.

 

Day 756: Everything you need to know about the world

Last night,  I looked at these two photos I’d taken earlier in the day:

I said to my boyfriend Michael, “Don’t these two pictures tell you everything you need to know about the world?” Michael replied, “Yes, they do, Ann.”

Do you think Michael:

• actually meant that,
• was humoring me, or
• had his mind on something else, like what he was going to cook us for dinner?

If those two photos don’t tell you everything you need to know about the world, here are some more photos I took yesterday, that might tell you more:

     

 

Here are two more things about the world I know that you might not know yet (even after seeing all those photos):

1. They’re predicting a “historic blizzard” for the Northeastern USA, starting tonight, and
2. my birthday is a week from today.

You know what?  There’s still more to know, including this:  In my blog, I like to include music that fits the topic du jour. I’m having trouble deciding today, so here are three very different worlds:

You can find that wonderful world here on YouTube.

You can find that mad world here on YouTube. And if you want an eight-minute group-sing about being the world, that’s here:

What’s your favorite “World” song?  And if you want to leave any comment about what you know about the world, you know I’ll be grateful.

Here’s something else I know now: there’s a lot I don’t know about the world (including what Michael  — or anybody else — is really thinking).

Maybe Penny the Pen knows everything you need to know about the world.  If she does, I don’t think she’s telling.

While nobody can tell you everything you need to know about this mad, wonderful world, I can tell you four things I DO know (based on my worldly experience of a week-less-than-62 years):

1. There’s always more to know about the world.
2. An open mind helps.
3. Fear, worry, and shame get in the way.
4. If you want to be loved, love others.

World-wide thanks to Michael, Penny, snow people, national days of anything, flowers, the few remaining bananas at the supermarket last night, penne pasta, dog treats, doctors, Louis Armstrong, Gary Jules & Michael Andrews, everybody who contributed to “We Are The World,”  and (of course!) you, for showing up here today.