Deanna Repose Oaks

Poetically Captured Moments From the Heart

perspective

Ides of March

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I was once given the ominous advice of “Beware the Ides of March” … ever since that warning, I reflect on Julius Caesar, the play by William Shakespeare, during the middle of March. You see, a friend of mine picked up the line from William Shakespeare’s play. Julius Caesar is warned about the “Ides of March” by a soothsayer in the beginning of the play.

My friend was not shy about over-explaining the line at all, even if she never told me WHY she said it to me until after the event she warned me about came to pass. As it turned out, I went through a breakup that she knew was impending around the middle of March. What is funny is that I always think about the day she said “Beware the Ides of March” rather than the day my then boyfriend said he can’t do it anymore.

This is a wonderful example about how words can change a life and allow a person to heal. I’m glad that every March I focus my energy on a weird line from a play rather than the loss of my home and my boyfriend. March is much better than it could be.

Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

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They say art is in the eye of the beholder, which reinforces my view that poetry is in the mind of the readers. Here’s my proof the art statement holds true:

My eldest daughter drew a portrait of me when she was 5 years old. It was so good, I framed it. At the time, I was a single mom on a VERY limited budget. Instead of buying a new frame, I bought a piece of art at a thrift store, one that would fit the portrait inside the matting. The piece I picked held a matting that signed in cursive. I hung it proudly in our home and told everyone my five-year-old drew it and explained away the signature.

I started dating an art major sometime later. We were traipsing through Beverly Hills and wandered into a gallery that had Pablo Picasso line drawings for sale. There was a piece with strong similarities to the portrait I framed. My date asked why I was so taken with the piece, and I explained it reminded me of something my daughter drew. He rolled his eyes and started in on how every parent claim that their child paints like Picasso. This started an argument as I kept trying to tell him that it was more about the way the lines are drawn not the childish style and he kept claiming I was just a parent over-inflating my child’s skill. As we left the gallery, we agreed to disagree.

A month or so went by and I invited this man into my home for dinner. He walks in and makes a bee line for the framed art on my wall. His first sentence was “Wow. Who drew this? It reminds me of Picasso.” And as he’s studying the signature on the matting, “I don’t recognize the artist’s signature.”

I immediately started to laugh uncontrollably.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because my five-year-old drew that. You know the one that couldn’t possibly draw like Picasso? Even though all parents say their kids draw like Picasso, you just proved mine actually does. Looks like I just won our argument.”

He didn’t stay for dinner.

That was one of the first instances where I learned that having a college degree doesn’t make you smart and sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut. I also learned that sometimes you must see to believe.

And for fun… how Twilight Zone hits this topic on the head!

Journal #53

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June was a month of catharsis for me, that bled through July. I let go of a piece of writing I wrote years ago. It was a piece aimed at getting a conversation going with my parents. My mother took the horrible things written about me and instead of contradicting what I wrote, she added more. I let her view of me shape how I saw myself for years. It was recently pointed out that I was looking at the piece the wrong way. I needed to look at what this piece of writing said about me as a writer not at what it said about me as a person. You see, I wrote this piece as a character retrospective of my mother’s view of me, not how I view myself. At eighteen, I pegged my mother’s view of me so well that the view was not refuted once revealed. I could not see how well I wrote from another person’s perspective. I only adopted that perspective as my own and fought against it every chance I had.

I’m sitting here now, in September, seeing my writing life in a whole new light. I am looking back at all the pieces of my work that were published verbatim by publishers. I am seeing that I am a better writer than I ever give myself credit for. I am no longer looking at what the words said but how they were written and…

I AM SELLING BOOKS!