Nablopomo for January 2012: Beginnings

From Nablopomo on BlogHer.

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?


BEGINNINGS

January 1st is a blank slate, and you can make the year anything you want it to be? Leave your job and embark on a new career. Open that blank document and start that novel you always wanted to write. Join that online dating site, signup for a new class, or close your eyes and point to a place on a globe to plan your next vacation.

Beginnings can be scary, but as the adage by Lao-tzu goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." You can take a single step, right? And after that, it's just putting foot before foot, taking your new journey slowly and letting it unfold at its own pace. Along the way, blog about your experience, not only so readers can follow along, but so that you have a record of how far you've come any time you feel yourself falter.
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So what are you beginning this year? If you can name at least five things, it means you have at least five blog posts inside of you. And if you can do five posts, you can certainly expand that and do an extra 25 or so.

I have no problem popping off a post a day, as blogging about sustainability and politics in Detroit means never running out of material, so I'm signing up again. As for what this theme inspires in me, it's music. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire playing "Beginnings."




Of course, there's always another version of this song, so I'll give you one that is distinctly mine--a drum and bugle corps playing it. If you want to skip to the most relevant section, click here to start playing at 5:59. You can stop on your own at 8:33. Of course, I recommend watching the whole thing. 27th Lancers were always better marchers than players.




This clip is doubly appropriate for Beginnings, as this is from the very first Drum Corps International championship in August 1972, 40 years ago. Welcome to the beginning of the modern era of drum corps competition, one that I think will draw to a close by the end of the decade because of sustainability concerns. For every beginning, there is an end.