Thursday, December 30, 2010
Choices
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Defining
Friday, December 3, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Fall
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
friends. When there is noise, I hear a robin's song instead. When I am
in a crowd, it is the mountain's peace I feel. In the winter of my
sorrow, I remember the summer of my joy.
In the nighttime of my loneliness, I breathe the day of my thanksgiving. But when the sadness spreads its blanket and that is what I see, I take my eyes to some high place until I find a reflection of what lies deep inside of me."-- Navajo saying
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Feed Thy Soul
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
Moslih Eddin Saadi
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
4.5
Berlin
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Kurt Vonnegut's MIT Graduation Speech
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen."
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
To You
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Night's Thoughts
Monday, August 16, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
From the Draft Folder
That she called them Waa, and then MommaWaa, and then Yummies, and finally the were her Yums.
That she named them Jack and Jill, and she loved them.
That when I laid her down, the imprint of her ear would be pressed into my arm just below my elbow and I always wanted to be brave enough to get it tattooed there.
Her sleep eating.
How angry I felt sometimes, and how I had to learn to listen to what both our bodies needed.
How I thought it would never end and then it did.
Published at http://theleakyboob.com/2010/08/dont-ever-want-to-forget/.
Thankful
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Depression
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Linking It
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Must Watch
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
This Post
"With any luck I have just learned how to post pictures and new blogs from my mobile phone. So now I shall perhaps have more pictures, and, possibly, a return to the fabled Project 365. I shall wait quietly while the anticipation subsides. :)"
Unfortunately, I had varied luck. I can post pictures (yay!) but my blogs turn into gobbledygook (boo!). So expect this blog to consist of more pictures and not as much writing, you who do not exist.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Nap Time
Knowing in a few hours you would be awake again
"Knowing" -- what a precious word.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
But it happens
Sometimes you lie them down and they don't wake up
(tiny tiny baby, broken mama, retching grief)
All we have is tonight
And tonight not even guaranteed
This is all I've got.
So we stay up 'til Midnight
Eat potstickers in the basement, Try!
Still . . . Not enough pictures, not enough laughs
To make handles for holding on.
Deep anguished screams inside that I can't let out.
For fear (or maybe certainty)
They would rip the onion paper to pieces.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Quotes from Eat, Pray, Love
". . . when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt -- that is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, not matter how slight."
"Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and you know it not.'"
"'Our whole business therefore in this life,' wrote Saint Augustine, rather yogically, 'is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.'"
". . . you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again."
"'I've already given it twelve months, Richard.'
'Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time.'"
"'Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place for it -- in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out . . . '"
"'People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you , and then they leave. And thank God for it.'"
"'See, now that's your problem. You're wishin' too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.'"
"'. . . nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin' her way.'"
"Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time -- when pursued like a bandit -- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you."
"Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well -- that would be the end of the universe."
"'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? and Who's in charge?' Everything else is somehow manageable."
"God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves."
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Love
Brave Girl
Root yourself deep in the concrete under your legs for just a minute
While you float like a cloud unable to be touched,
able to leave at any moment.
Brave girl, cry.
You aren't alone now.
While no one is here it's ok to cry.
I'll wait until you are finished, 'til you have to be strong again.
Brave girl, I can't reach to you,
But you knew I was there, and I know you will make it.
Someday there would be sunflowers, and a garden, and kindness, and a fence . . .
Someday you will be safe.
You heard me telling you so, and you were so brave.
Brave enough for both of us.
Brave enough that I can do it again.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
It isn't supposed to make sense, I just had to write it. Somethings really hurt. And the funny thing about pain is that it doesn't make one bit of difference whether you want to hurt or to just be happy. The hurt just is.
Friday, June 25, 2010
You and Me
I wondered why you were still living our life
And a week later realized it was first your life and then life we lived together.
So it goes. Just now I realized,
That I've forgotten what was you and what was me.
So I guess that was me and that was you, and we, and us, and other complicated subjects . . .
And now you go on while I go on,
And neither one could ever find themselves alone again.
And you know what? I'm good with that.
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Bucket List (for lack of a more original title as I do not like that one)
2. Complete a 10K
3. Complete a marathon
5. Learn to swim laps
6. Complete a triathlon (I hear there are some small ones available!)
7. Bicycle the Trans-America Trail or hike the Appalachian (or some trail that takes about 3 months total) with my daughter
8. Become a midwife
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Negative
In a minute I will remember all the good, all the happiness, and all the reason. I will be ok. But right now, I just need to be sad. I am deeply sad.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Summer Writing
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
More Musings on Redemption. And also Tomatoes.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friend
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Alone
Monday, May 17, 2010
Just Today
And water my soul
Today I shall eat homemade bread
And feed my heart
Today I will skim the cream from the milk
And skim away burdens I don't need to carry
Today I will bake with a girl in a princess dress
And make connections more necessary than flour
Today I will breathe
And when tomorrow comes, it will find me more whole
Instead of less.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Unknown
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday Is For Wine
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Bertie
Here comes that son of mine
Here comes the everything
Here's a song and a song for him
Sweet kisses
Three wishes
Lovely Bertie
The most wilful
The most beautiful
The most truly fantastic smile
I've ever seen
Sweet kisses
Three wishes
Lovely Bertie
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me
More joy
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
No Weed Killer Here
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Holding Still
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Earth Day
"Everything in nature has a trademark, God's trademark: the stripes on a shell and the stripes on a zebra; the grain of the wood and the veins of the dry leaf; the markings on the dragonfly's wings and the pattern of stars on a photographic plate; the panther's coat and the epidermal cells of the lily petal; the structure of atoms and galaxies. All bear God's fingerprints." --Ernesto Cardenal, Abide In Love
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Less
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Lie Down
Monday, March 22, 2010
Funny Thing
Funny that you who remind me to pray don't feel the terror.
Call him today and ask him how his Monday is
His Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
How are his weekends?
How are yours?
Funny that I am alone again
You call me bitter, and I don't flinch anymore
You who have gotten over it, you who have moved past
The event. To you it happened, to me it is happening.
I am not bitter, I am alive. And today I am alone.
So go on about your day, please don't pretend to understand now, now when I can't begin to understand you.
Funny thing.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)
copied from http://www.panhala.net/Archive/When_Death_Comes.html
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Hard Stuff
Monday, March 8, 2010
Thaw
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sunday Writes
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Anyway
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
(Alleged version on Mother Theresa's wall)
The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith
- People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway. - If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway. - If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway. - The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. - Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. - The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway. - People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway. - What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway. - People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway. - Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Life according to . . .
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Oh! The Places You'll Go - Dr. Seuss
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.
And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.
You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.
No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)
Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dreaming
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
On My Messiness
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Painter
Sunday, February 14, 2010
V-Musings (Which may be a copy written title)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Father Daughter Dance
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Not Published
Monday, February 8, 2010
Roughing It
Until then, baby cries, sick as can be. Nothing I can do to help her. Messes feel like failures, but so does angry frustration. Appointments made, facebook has changed again. Please give me answers. No, please just help her. One armed-baby is so sad.
Until then I type in bathroom to have it done. One more day - Accomplished.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Missing One
Writing Else Where
Still not taking my time to write my "Why I am writing this" speech. It's in my head, I'll get it down eventually.
Speaking of getting it down . . . Since the first breastfeeding days . . . err, nights. . . being up alone at night makes me feel somehow linked to all the other mamas out there doing it. Snuggling sick little ones, nursing the tinies through the night - the little ones who haven't yet learned to abandon life for sleep for these longs stretches we call normal. Just mamas, fixing their own little piece of the world. Making it better, making it work for someone. Redemption in the tiniest piece of the universe?
I would pace the living room in our first little house with R., before I learned to tuck her in with me in dark, and picture the landscape as it would look from much higher. Darkness, with lit windows here and there where mamas rocked their babies. Other mamas looking out into the darkness not asleep, because something was suddenly more important than the most basic need we have.
Once again words don't sum it all up right. They're weak things to stuff feelings down into. "Use your words", but sometimes words just don't get it exactly right.