the elegance of subtraction

"understanding what piece to make missing isn't easy"

i haven't actually purchased this book yet but it is on my list of must read immediately. i read a bit of it here. what has stayed with me is this growing idea of less is more and the subtraction such a discipline requires.

i'm still trying to understand, accept and execute the things that i need to eliminate from my life.

parting shots

sunrise from the balcony

i had voted against the oceanfront room in an effort to save a few dollars but in the end the splurge was well worth it.

welcome to miami

in key biscayne for 72 hours and the weather is luscious. i had forgotten how beautiful it is here.

death changes those left behind

"When we mourn our losses we also mourn ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."
-Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

losing someone changes you forever. death changes those left behind. always, a part of you is buried with the one you love and that doesn't change. the mourning and the grief will subside and the emotions will calm but your very person is changed. the rhythm of your life has changed. the arc of your joy has changed. forever.

in a country that praises independence we fail to understand this. when you love someone you forge a connection and that changes who you are and when they disappear you change again. it's not as if they never lived but that they live no longer.

there is no shame in connection. there is no shame in the disruption that disconnection creates. it just feels that way because all around the grieving person the world continues on.

"A single person is missing for you and the whole world is empty."

the year of magical thinking - joan didion

i wandered into barnes & noble on tuesday night looking for something. i stumbled upon this book. i had heard good things about the book how it chronicled the loss of her husband.

i cried and cried and cried through this book. it was so truly beautiful. it was so honest and i identified with so much that she shared about her grieving process which is so personal and chaotic. i didn't know that she was episcopalian. i didn't know that her husband was also a writer.

i needed this book.

"i realize how open we are to the persistent message that we can avert death. And to it's punitive correlative, the message that if death catches us we have only ourselves to blame."

"I know why we try to keep the dead alive; we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us... There is a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead."

i'll probably be posting bits and pieces from this book for a while.

a newness of person

(there is this sense that i am moving forward alone
into a newness of person
somewhat unaccompanied; despite great friends & family
my truest companion
completely unseen)

new life bursting through death

this is a great video of rowan williams, archbishop of canterbury, discussing lent.
it's not about gloom but 'new life bursting through death'.