Who I Want To Be

lord_of_the_rings_poster-10081Every year – on the first day of the year – I watch the Lord of the Rings. I watch the whole thing, the extended edition, all the way through, start to finish. I totally immerse myself in Middle Earth, and I think about if The Lord of the Rings was real and true, and if I was an actual person in that real and true story – who would I be? who have I been? and most importantly who do I want to be?

I’ve blogged this before (Gandalf Changed My Life) – but last year I didn’t talk about it at all. Which I find interesting. And because of that, I’m not entirely sure what my thoughts were – I do remember that I was pretty damn sure that I was a miserable failure at “being Aragorn.” And since I’d failed time and again in my quest to personify the coolest character in the trilogy, I decided to try something totally different.

I decided that I’d give “being Frodo” a go. I had this idea that I would spend the year “taking the ring to Mordor.” The ring being a metaphor for my sugar and crap food addiction. The idea being that how could I ever hope to achieve Aragorn if I couldn’t even defeat the craving for a cookie.

My daughter helped out by giving me a ring… which was really interesting because it did periodically just fall off my finger and try to get itself lost. And I came to really love it… and now that it’s the last day of the year I had to give it back – and I’m missing it quite a bit… my precious…

And no! I did not succeed with Frodo either. Which I think has got to be Sam’s fault and not mine – because we all know that Frodo would never have made it all the way to Mount Doom without Sam – and I didn’t have a Sam, or a Merry or a Pippin. I didn’t have Aragorn, Elrond, Arwyn, or even Gandalph… I was all alone in the dark woods with Grima Wormtongue and Gollum! Both of whom stuck to me like glue for the entire year. So, you can see that my failure to get the ring to Mordor was totally NOT MY FAULT.

frodo-and-the-ring

Which brought me to the conclusion that it also wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t produce a credible Aragorn persona. Who would Aragorn be if he didn’t have Arwyn, Elrond, and Gandalf? What would he do if he didn’t have a fellowship to lead? Or a destiny to fulfill? I think he’d be sitting around eating cookies and talking to Grima Wormtongue… that’s what I think.

Ok… maybe not… but I’m just saying…

So, this year, I’m going to try something a little more practical. Unless I change my mind after my LOTR marathon tomorrow, my plan is this:

strider

I’m going to be a Ranger. More like Strider than Aragorn. Lurking in the shadows, looking dark and dangerous, protecting the shire – but doing it alone.

Who are the hobbits I protect? My kids… What is the shire? My property… my little piece of the planet. Is there an Arwyn? No, sadly she’s gone to the Grey Havens, hence the lurking about in shadows, and long bouts of alone time. Is there a Frodo and a One Ring? Not my problem. That’s for Aragorn aka Strider to worry about … Me? I’m just a mysterious, unknown Ranger. Instead of taking Frodo and the gang to Rivendale – I take James to MMA practice and Whisky Tango. What about Orcs and Trolls? Some of the dogs I bathe at work fit the bill and some of the people too… And the Nazgul? well, Bank of America comes to mind, they’re probably going to try to sue me – so there’s that looming in the horizon…

Anyway I like it. Self sufficient. Capable. Strong. Dependable in a pinch but not necessarily nice about it. Definitely I’ve got your back. Not afraid of the dark, or dark places, graveyards, dark magick, or difficult questions. That’s who I’m going to strive to be in the new year.

And a ring…
I need a ring…
I miss my precious…
my preciousss…

But wait! Maybe I did succeed after all… because if I remember correctly, Frodo did NOT throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. He changed his mind at the last minute – and it was Gollum who actually (and inadvertantly) saved middle earth. Had it been up to Frodo, the outcome would have been way different…. So… clearly last year’s self improvement project was doomed from the start!

By the way: This post was migrated from my blogger blog (shirleytwofeathers.blogspot.com) and was first published on 12/31/11.

aragorn_3Over on the Prosperity Project, back in Jan of 2010, I uploaded a thing about Buffy, a sort of introductory story and I was talking about how interesting and informative it might be if we each wrote our own introductory story. Initially, I had the idea of also uploading a blurb about Aragorn, but it was too much. So I said to myself, I’ll just put that part of it here:

Here are the two descriptive paragraphs I found:

“In the Third Age, another tale may be heard, that of Aragorn son of Arathorn, the nine and thirtieth heir in the right line from Isildur. Descended from the faithful of Númenor and whose destiny it was to reclaim the kingship of the fractured realms of Arnor and Gondor.”

“His ways were hard and long, and he became somewhat grim to look upon, unless he chanced to smile; and yet he seemed to Men worthy of honour, as a king that is in exile, when he did not hide his true shape. . . Thus he became at last the most hardy of living Men, skilled in their crafts and lore, and was yet more than they, for he was elven-wise, and there was a light in his eyes that when they were kindled few could endure. His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from the rock.”

They sound a little intimidating, don’t they? But I thought, what the heck, I wonder what would happen if I made them into a sort of fill in the blanks template. And, VOILA! Here it is:

“In the _________, another tale may be heard, that of _______ (daughter) son of _________, the _____ and _____ heir in the right line from _____ . Descended from the faithful of ______ and whose destiny it was to _______ the _______ of the fractured realms of _____ and _______.”

“(Her) His ways were _____ and ______, and (she) he became somewhat _____ to look upon, unless (she) he chanced to _____ ; and yet (she) he seemed to _____ worthy of _____ , as a _______ that is in exile, when (she) he did not hide his true shape. . . Thus (she) he became at last the most ______ of living _____ , skilled in their crafts and lore, and was yet more than they, for (she) he was _______ , and there was a light in (her) his eyes that when they were kindled few could _____ .

(Her) His face was _____ and ______ because of the ______ that was laid on (her) him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of (her) his heart, from which _____ would arise at times like a spring from the rock.”

Now I need to get to work filling in the blanks and seeing what I come up with. When I get it finished, I’ll post it. If you make a similar one, I’d love to see it!

By the way: This post was migrated from my blogger blog (shirleytwofeathers.blogspot.com) and was first published on 1/20/10. I never did fill the form out… maybe I should do that sometime soon!

tolkien_008

Ok… so I just posted a bunch of stuff about Ents. As a matter of fact, you now have access, on this site, to just about everything you might ever want to know about Treebeard and the Entmoot. I have quotes, a list, and fresh from wikipedia – a history. Why?

Well, I’m getting to that. Don’t be hasty, little human.

I watched the Lord of the Rings, as I always do this time of the year. And while I’ve already blogged about how once again, I’m going for the gold and will be trying to “be” Aragorn, what I haven’t talked endlessly about, at least not yet, but I will… soon enough, is who I have actually succeeded at “being” for the past year. And yes, you’ve probably guessed it already. I’m pretty sure that I’ve spent most of last year being about as Entish as a person can get.

And yes, there were those interludes of insanity where I was absolutely “The Wrestler,” it seems that I did manage mostly to pull myself up by my bootstrings, and I’ve been hiding out in Fanghorn Forest ever since.

Being an Ent isn’t all that bad, they are at least stable, private, and basically good. The problem is that an Ent is not what I aspire to be, and in my heart, I am only a little bit Entish. On the other hand, maybe it would be a good idea to aspire to be the best possible Ent in the coming year… what if the following description (from the book, The Two Towers) was true for me as well as Treebeard?

“One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present: like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don’t know but it felt as if something that grew in the ground — asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.”

Yes, I would like that. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it. Magical even. Altogether self absorbed – something I have a real talent for! And yet, it doesn’t fill me with the enthusiasm or the deep yearning I feel when I think about if I could only be Aragorn….

So… there you have it! Clearly, no one has been chomping at the bit to find out who I think I was in the “real” world of 2009. But it feels good to have it posted at last. I’m not sure why, but I get a sense of having “finished” it once it’s posted.

Oh, and by the way, it took me several hours to get this posted…. I guess because “it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”

Every year, I sit down and watch The Lord of the Rings Trilogy from start to finish. I think about my life, and about who I would be if  that movie was my real life – what character I’d be playing. Then I think about who I would WANT to be, what role I would elect to play if I could just figure out how to do it.

So, I watched Lord of the Rings – and once again, I’m electing to “be” Aragorn. It would really be helpful if I was a man, a man in great physical shape, someone strong and cool looking… and it would be even more helpful if I was Viggo Mortensen… yes,.. it would be extremely helpful if I looked like this guy and could actually ride a horse!

aragorn

But… no… It’s just me, Shirley. Trying once again to be more than I am. Ok, that’s not exactly true. It occurred to me yesterday that the reason I have this deep seated desire to BE Aragorn is because I am Aragorn in my heart, and to see a vision of the inner me unfolding in a successful way… well… it draws me.. And it’s frustrating as hell because my vision of my inner self and my vision of my outer self are so irreconcilably different. And the failure of my life is so unbearably present.

It’s as if what Eowyn feared the most has already come true for me:

Aragorn: What do you fear, my lady?
Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.

Maybe instead of consistently picking Aragorn – I should set out to be Bilbo. Old and done. I could do that one quite easily, I think. Not happily. But easily. And I don’t because the Aragorn inside me will not allow it. I guess I’m a fight to the death kind of person with no great battle to fight in… or something… so I end up just flailing around, flapping my gums, treading water, and posting shit on facebook.

I was looking for clips of the movie and found this one called “It’s My Life.” Wow. Yes! That’s what I want. Action, adventure, courage, meaning! I want to be a hero.

Remember that awesome speech at the Black Gate? Yeah! I want that kind of a life. I want to live/give my life that way. And it just seems impossible. What is the quest? Where is the fellowship? Who has the ring? Is there a Mordor? And did Sauron already win the war? Where is my lost love? Who is my family? What is my destiny? Where the heck is Sam??? Right now when I need him? And is the desire to be Aragorn the Ring I have to take to Mordor?

And who have I been this last year instead? Well, I think I’ve been a pretty credible Ent. A lot of bla bla bla… and I think I’ll leave that for another post. So… the day travels on, snow falls, the sun fades… and it’s time now to engage in the stuff of my real life such as washing dishes, starting up a frozen car so it won’t forget how, and I don’t know… bla bla bla…

By the way: This post was migrated from my blogger blog (shirleytwofeathers.blogspot.com) and was first published on 1/03/10.

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