i'm going to scotland

i'm going to scotland for a week with the brooklyn kid.
imagine that.

so happy with nothing

at a recent dinner, a girlfriend commented that 'we have become so happy with nothing'. and it stayed with me. perhaps the way she said it made it resonate so. with such loathing. with such disappointment. with complete and utter disgust. who are the 'we'? women? blacks? americans? me.

how do you get yourself moving after being satisfied with nothing for so long?
what makes you want more?

when the sun shines, we'll shine together

a bit of rihanna to get us going..

When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end

Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella

a life at low flame

One can live at a low flame. Most people do. For some, life is an exercise in moderation (best china saved for special occasions), but given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tries too hard, or cares too deeply?"
Diane Ackerman

The Art of Making Possible

My entrance into the world of so-called "social problems"
Must be with quiet laughter, or not at all.
The hollow men of anger and bitterness
The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation
All must be left to a bygone age.
And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle
For all those myths and oddments
Which oddly we have acquired
And from which we would become unburdened
To create a newer world
To transform the future into the present.
We have no need of false revolutions
In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds
And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.
It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.
And once those limits are understood
To understand that limitations no longer exist.
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free
Not to save the world in a glorious crusade
Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain
But to practice with all the skill of our being
The art of making possible.

Nancy Scheibner

Between the Hammers

between the hammers
our heart endures,
just as the tongue does
between the teeth and,
despite that,
still is able to praise..

Rainer Maria Rilke

i run to pray.

nothing quiets me or humbles me so like a good run. and in those tortured moments it is so obvious how God can take me beyond myself. and afterwards, when my heart is still racing - and i am absolutely shocked that i made it through - all i can do is thank him and praise him for another run.

but it's not just the run i am thankful for it is every brick wall that he has brought me through. and if i can just keep believing he will keep doing it. and even when i can't believe. even when i am quite certain that i am done, if i can just force myself to take a few more steps, he will show up for me.

that crazy God always shows up for me.
thank you.

i don't want to lie. i can't tell the truth.

i don't want to lie. i can't tell the truth. so, it's over.

i hate lies.

the only thing i hate more than lies are the people who tell them.
to some closer was a movie about cheating. but to me, it seemed more about lying.
lying to yourself and the people you care about.

the worst part of the movie was that conversation towards the end with jude law and natalie portman.

jude law knew natalie portman had slept with clive owen (when jude law was with julia roberts) but he wanted to hear her say it. he knew natalie loved him, that she 'preferred him' but that wasn't enough. natalie wasn't with jude when she did it - but he wanted to know - not even know because he already knew - he wanted her to confess. it wasn't as if she cheated because they weren't together, jude law had already left her for julia roberts.

he wanted to humiliate her. to expose her. and it was so ugly.

that movie showed some of the worst of human behavior - manipulation.

tour fever - floyd landis

i spent most of july glued to my tv watching oln's coverage of tour de france.
addictive. absolutely addictive.

i've never watched the tour before but i was watching it twice a day.
i don't know if it was because i just got my very first road bike or what.
but i couldn't get away from it.

when floyd landis bonked in stage 16 i was heartbroken.
when he came back in stage17 - i was so inspired.
it was the ride of a lifetime.
incredible.

and now the rumors of testosterone patch on his scrotum.
i refuse to believe it.
refuse.

one dare not disobey

when a mystery
is too overpowering,
one dare not disobey.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

i taste oceans

head tilted
i taste oceans
i have never seen

turquoise waves
caress
thighs & arms

floating
towards oblivion

you whisper
my name
softly, sweetly
with a kiss

and i am revived

fallen blossoms

fallen blossoms do not return to branches;
a broken mirror does not again reflect.
Japanese Proverb

Sometimes there is the desire to move backwards. Perhaps to correct it somehow. As if it is in my power to improve the past, to make it manageable, to make it pretty.

Is it guilt?
Is it faithlessness?

The past cannot save you.
It need not condemn you either.

Move forward.
Let the petals lay where they fall.

despite the hunger

Despite the hunger
we cannot possess
more than this:
Peace
in a garden
of our own.
Alice Walker

like the numbers of a small child

"The only thing that makes me truly happy is mathematics, snow, ice, numbers. To me, the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers, the ones that are whole and positive, like the numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands, and the child discovers longing.

Do you know the mathematical expression for longing?

Negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you're missing something. Then the child discovers the in-between spaces, between stones, between people, between numbers, and that produces fractions. But it's like a kind of madness, because it doesn't even stop there. It never stops. There are numbers that we can't even begin to comprehend. Mathematics is a vast open landscape. You head towards the horizon that is always receding... like Greenland.

And that's... that's what I can't live without."

Smilla's Sense of Snow

crisis is an opportunity

it surprises me,
those who are here
checking on me
praying for me
holding my hand
during this misery
and those who have
disappeared - entirely.

i get it though.

i am almost a stranger
even to myself.
it seems part of me is lost.
i doubt she will ever come back again.

change isn't always a disaster

por ejemplo

a friend that i talked to
every month or so
in a casual kind of way
has become this rock
for me.

she has just asserted herself
in my life
in this pleasant and deeply concerned
way

i knew we were friends
but i didn't think we
could be friends
in the
i-know-you-need-me
and-don't-know-how-to-ask
but-that's-ok-because-you
don't-have-to
kind of way

crisis
is an opportunity
to really love
someone

and you either
take it
or you don't

the bandaged heart

the slightest thing can move me
one way or the other.

life has been divided
into before and after.

i lived with my grandmother
almost my entire life
she was a second mother.

how does one let that go?

she was a friend
a dear friend
and now we're separated

i miss her wink
the way she called my name
how she would tilt her head
and laugh - eyes closed

and i am so
fucking pissed
that she is not here
for me to love
anymore

but i am trying
very hard
to get over it.

kindness & sympathy

there has just been an outpouring of kindness and sympathy
from family, from friends, from strangers.

thank you.

any kindness i can show

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn

my grandmother has died.

Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion
Dylan Thomas

i feel she has been ripped from my breast.
snatched so quickly.

yet i know she was suffering.
i know this is a blessing.

but i am only human
and i can't understand that.

i can't believe
that she belongs
where i am not.

does god really expect for me to get that?

it will be one week tomorrow.

a week ago tonight was the last time i saw her breathing.
she was sleeping so heavily, not to be roused, but breathing.

i left work and raced to the house.
the undertaker was in the kitchen,

in her bed, she appeared to be sleeping.
i didn't want them to take her.
i didn't believe she was dead.
i didn't believe it.

i watched them wheel her
in a bag
down the deck.

it is that image that
haunts me now.

the bag was only zipped to her neck.
it was brown.

all the flowers have wilted

all the flowers have wilted
and i don't know when the sun will come again.

my grandmother is dying.

she went to the hospital in the middle of the week.
she was there for three days.
there's nothing that can be done.
she came home on friday.

all we can do is make her comfortable.

she needs care almost around the clock.

i spent the weekend at my mother's trying to help.
feeling so horribly inadequate.

when i first saw her she looked like a corpse.
a morphine induced sleep.
her body so still. so pale. i didn't think she was breathing.

cancer has just shrunk her.
she is barely clinging to 100lbs.
her lips, her eyes, everything seems so small.