9/30/08

Loretta

the loss of anyone in your life is hard to stomach but someone who shaped you into the woman you have become? now that is a challenge every daughter and granddaughter must face at some point, and we are never ready for it when it does happen.

a friend of mine lost her grandmother recently. stories of Loretta were always colorful, filled with character. she was a spitfire, and though I never had the chance to meet her personally, the little that I know, the impact she had on my friend's life, is enough to know she will be terribly missed.

peaceful journey Loretta, rest in peace.

9/29/08

listless thoughts

how will the denial of a bailout affect our livelihoods? what will make the powers that be sit up at attention and realize that things are running amok? who is in control? i thought this was a free nation but it feels as if the rug has been pulled out from beneath us.

my insides are blindly confused by the state of the world today.

9/28/08

sleep escape

Life is something you do when you can't get to sleep, that's how i feel right now. The quote is written on the spine of the most recent issue of Real Simple.

I can't sleep...am wide awake. Astounded really. I did sleep in on Saturday but had a fitful active evening starting at 4pm. Grocery shopping, prepping, cooking dinner for Emily & Kristin. I made a most ambitious meal: Tortellini w/Eggplant & Peppers; Chicken Cutlets w/Spinach and Pumpkin Bread. Everything was scrumptious, and most importantly we had time to catch up and shoot the s* in girl's night style.

Emily left around 11 for the drive back to Philly. Kristin and I watched marathon episodes of the second season of Charmed while playing a round of Scrabble.

Maybe that's why I can't sleep--all that conjuring still clear in my head. Maybe it's the White Vanilla Tea. Maybe it's something altogether different that I have no clue about. All I do know is that it's 5AM on Sunday and I'm not tired. :(

9/26/08

forgotten

The morning is gray. The sun hiding. The apartment is damp, the summer over. The rain cries from the sky, nearby trees in hues of green shake. The street is quiet. Save the ticking of the clock, and the rumbling of my stomach it appears that I am alone. Friday the last one in September. My thoughts are wishy washy. Unclear. Stilted. I am a figurine in a snow globe encased in its cardboard packaging, a Christmas gift unwrapped admired for a moment and then stowed away in the attic.

decisions

I've decided that i have failed this blog by not committing myself to at least one post a day. There are no rules, the words need not be the beginning of a novel, a letter to myself but they should be, they should breathe. I hereby test myself to remember to write when I find myself online. Let us see if I can live up to the promises I make to myself as equally as I do for others.

wise words to reflect on

Wise words from Paulo Coelho's Warrior of Light newsletter:

Why go on fighting

Reader Gerson Luiz tells the story of a rose that longed for the company of the bees, but none would come to her.

Even so, the flower was still capable of dreaming. When she felt all alone, she would imagi­ne a garden filled with bees that came to kiss her. And so she managed to resist until the next day, when she opened her petals again.

“Aren’t you tired?” someone must have asked her.

“No. I have to go on fighting,” answered the flower.

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t open up, I wither.”


Learning to see

Buddha gathered his disciples and showed them a lotus flower.

“I want you to tell me something about what I hold in my hand.”

The first gave a whole treaty on the importance of flowers. The second composed a lovely poem about its petals. The third invented a parable using the flower as an example.

Now it was Mahakashyap’s turn. He came up to Buddha, smelt the flower, and caressed his face with one of the petals.

“This is a lotus flower,” said Mahakashyap. “Simple, like everything that comes from God. And beautiful, like everything that comes from God.”

“You were the only one who saw what I hold in my hand,” was Buddha’s comment.


In search of a wise man

For days the couple traveled almost without speaking. Finally they arrived in the middle of the forest, and found the wise man.

“My companion said almost nothing to me during the whole journey,” said the young man.

“A love without silence is a love without depth,” answered the wise man.

“But she didn’t even say that she loved me!”

“Some people always claim that. And we end up wondering if their words are true.”

The three of them sat down on a rock. The wise man pointed to the field of flowers all around them.

“Nature isn’t always repeating that God loves us. But we realize that through His flowers.”


In the flower shop

The woman was strolling through a shopping mall when she noticed a poster announcing a new flower shop. When she went in, she got a shock; she saw no vases, no arrangements, and it was God in person who stood behind the counter.

“You can ask for whatever you want,” said God.

“I want to be happy. I want peace, money, the capacity to be understood. I want to go to heaven when I die. And I want all this to be granted to my friends too.”

God opened a few pots that were on the shelf behind him, removed some grains from inside, and handed them to the woman.

“Here you have the seeds,” He said. “Begin to plant them, because here we don’t sell the fruits.”

What is Real?

"What is real?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day.

"Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you- it doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you become real most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand".

- by Margery Williams

loquacious

there is a bird chirping outside my bedroom window. the most talkative bird I've ever heard