Devour

“My Dear,

Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it's much better to be killed by a lover.
-Falsely yours” 

Charles Bukowski 

My Kid Turned 24 and I Feel...

I am not feeling any older than I did five short years ago. Not even ten years ago, maybe. I am in the same physical shape. A bit thinner actually (though I am not sure this is a good thing). Not as strong. Smarter, for sure.

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” Madeleine L’Engle

My thoughts aren’t particularly those of a (little older than) middle-aged person. I do feel wiser after going around those blocks.

“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” Margaret Atwood

So then, how in the world did I become a person who has a 24-year-old child?

I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. Maya Angelou

Where did the time go? So imperceptibly, it moved, that I almost didn’t hear the whirr. 

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time.

Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.

Milan Kundera (Who is this guy? He is the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (good book/movie))

The speed is dizzying!

“Just remember when you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.” Charles M. Schulz

Stop. Just stop.

“Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now. “ Marcel Proust

In my morning prayers, I always ask for moments, minutes, entire days for which I am fully present. Living. Because “time and tide wait for no man” (Who said this? A quick google search gives credit to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer)

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” Henry David Thoreau

I am desperately trying to maintain my zest for life. Be excited by things. Little things. Am I running out of time for new adventures? I desperately want to be interesting. Feel interesting. I still want “you” to think I am interesting. If nothing else.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been. Mark Twain

Sometimes I look in the mirror and all I see are dark circles and deep crow's feet.  Other times, I see the twenty or thirty year old looking at me. Many times I like what I see. Sometimes, when I’m tired, especially, I don’t. And I think to myself, “Where am I?” 

And I always notice the eyes. "Where is the crystal blue?".

“I may be a senior but so what? I’m still hot.” Betty White

She's funny, and I wish. 

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. Coco Chanel

Yep, my daughter turned 24 yesterday, and to think she believes she’s old!!!

First, I want to know how it happened, then why she didn't ask me if she could grow up so fast. 

And why don’t I feel old enough for that?

Yoga Quotes Aren't Always Cheesy

I pointed out to you the stars (the moon) 

and all you saw was the tip of my finger.

Sukuma ( Tanzania )

(The post below could be residual effects of the Facebook Positivity Challenge).

The above quote was recited at the beginning of my yoga class this morning during meditation. Before you think I am getting all yogi or really weird, please think about it.

Did you?

It is so meaty it stuck to my ribs.

To me, this doesn’t mean look far away into the future, but look past my nose-tip. Open my eyes, silly. See something, anything!

So many time I move robotically through my day handling routine tasks with less than moderate enthusiasm failing to recognize anything meaningful or beautiful or sweet. By then, the day has slipped away. 

[Conversation with myself]

"It is icy cold here today." 

"UGH!" 

"Though, guess what?" 

"What?" 

"The sky is the most amazing shade of blue. Almost summer blue. It’s as simple as a warmer coat, scarf, and maybe some ear warmers. You could stay inside all warm and cozy, read a little, and do your work. But, nah! What’s a little cold weather between friends anyway?"

I have a friend coming in town today that expects the chipper, fun, and enthusiastic version of me. And that's who she's going to get!!!

Let’s see the stars today.

Feeling Melancholy on This Sunday Evening

bycommonconsent.com

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.” 

― E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

This is one of my very favorite quotes, and it always reminds me of some people who are quite important to me. It also reminds me of a friend, or two, I have lost.

It has such a melancholy feel to me, bittersweet, but very tender, and warm. Friendship is warmth, provides warmth, doesn’t it? 

For several reasons, I have called this quote to mind recently.

What is your favorite quote, friendship or not?

Yeah Write: Phone Notes and Ambiguity

Approximately one hundred items reside on the notepad of my phone. There are phone numbers (often without names), blog ideas, websites, long strings of digits (for who knows which account), songs, recipes, sheer babble, and books (and more books) etc., etc. I have absolutely no clue why some exist, or where they came from or even if I wrote them. I don’t recall.

What I have an abundance of, by far, are quotes.

Some for a laugh and, oh so, true like “As I have grown older, I’ve learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.” Unknown (aka the "fuck it" switch)

Or a gut bust (courtesy of Change The Topic on Facebook as one example).

Some are so touching they make my eyes well like “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” Plato

Some are tortuous reminders of how I should behave (even though I already know, or should). No example will be provided here.

Inspirational quotes are burgeoning. Here are two from famous Leos. “In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.“ L. Tolstoy or “Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.” L. Buscaglia

And yet, there is one that keeps nudging for attention; currently occupying an immense amount of real estate in my brain. This is “the one”.

“The key question to keep asking is, 'Are you spending your time on the right things?' Because time is all you have.” Randy Pausch

Have you read it before?

It’s a nagging, if rhetorical, question I ask myself more times a day than you can imagine or I care to admit. So I picked at it. I dug. And it didn’t take long at all when I finally decided to be honest with myself. Of course I didn't like the answer.

It's a resounding “no”. I am not spending my time on the right things. Not by a stretch, not even most of the time. Seems hardly any of the time anymore if I also take into consideration the thinking space devoted to these mental, emotional and clock sucking behaviors (again if I’m being honest). They’ve become habit.

People and issues that shouldn’t matter so much, but do, are distractions. I feel out of touch from my day-to-day life sometimes. Other times, I feel a total disconnect. Like I’m floating along the surface, not at all in a “feet firmly planted” way. And I feel a sense I’m wasting it, time, on those people and issues and it depresses me.

I know how to stop them, those behaviors and distractions that are eating up so much of it. Time. It always comes back to prioritization of time and energies (as a friend often puts it). Balancing  true needs versus reasonable and appropriate wants; pitting "can have" against "shouldn’t have". A tricky distinction sometimes.

Casting aside one of those "wants" is going to hurt. Badly. Tears dropped into my lap as I wrote those last thirteen words. But it’s what I need to do. I know what I need to do.

Trifextra: It's Still The Eyes

This weekend’s Trifextra challenge is really different. We aren’t doing the writing because they would like us to scour through our favorite pieces of literature and give us the best 33 words we can find. We may not use one that another Trifectan has already posted.

This was intensely hard for me. First, I narrowed it down to three favorite books (A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes). Then to two quotes from each book, then one.

My final choice was the one that touched me, very much, the moment I first read it but again when I deleted all others. It is very simple. And it wasn’t, at all, chosen for its creative wording or sentence structure or literary profoundness. It’s one that means something to me.

And I just read it, actually, one week ago today in The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes:

 “…the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.”

Rock Your Vote!

“You have your way. I have my way. 

As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, 

it does not exist”  

Friedrich Nietzsche

This is one of my favorite quotes, if not my favorite. I thought it was appropriate for today. Election Day.

I voted as you can see. I have my sticker. I feel patriotic and all. I've done my civic duty!

I vote at the little grade school (that’s not so little anymore) one block from my house and it’s where my kids went to school. It used to be a madhouse on Election Day. Kids were in attendance. People walked in and out of the school at will. Canvassers (or whatever they’re called) standing out front handing out flyers and exit surveyors inquiring for whom we voted. There seemed more pomp and circumstance involved back in the day.

  (From Kristen Johnson's Facebook Page)

These days, security is tight. There’s no access to the school unless you’re on official business with your student, a teacher or the PTA. I liked it the old way better but I understand.

I live in a small community and, this year, it was quiet as could be. Everyone’s mood seemed chipper. Of course, I ran into five people I knew on my way in and five more on the way out. It took 30 minutes door-to-door to navigate the process but I was glad to see everyone out and about on this sunny day. 

Our polling place is a mecca for the elderly here because they serve coffee. Toddlers ran around the gym licking suckers as their mom’s voted. Dogs were tied up to trees outside the school doors.

While I knew everyone on the ballot because they are all long serving politicians in our area, the only one I actually "know" is the guy who will be our State's Attorney because he lives in our little village, on the street where I used to live. Otherwise, besides the President, everything around here stays status quo as most are running unopposed.

Truthfully, this is how I really feel today.

 (Sent to me off Pinterest by Jen)

I will most probably stay up until the President is determined. It sort of chaps me that it’s all in the hands of the Electoral College and that my vote doesn’t “really” count but so be it. My hubby will stay up.

I’ll read my book with one ear open.

I’ll be happy when the sunrises tomorrow and the phone stops ringing non-stop and we all begin moving forward.

The song below is not included here as any sort of political statement or indication of my support one way or another even though I just saw for whom Kid Rock endorsed when I embedded this video. It has nothing to do with that.

Rock your vote!!!

Being Myself

When I'm trusting and being myself... everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously. - Shakti Gawain- _(♥)_ (Found on my favorite Facebook page 2012 Healing The Planet) Today, I'm very thankful for the people who are in my life. Why don't I say that more? Acknowledge it more? I think it. I need to tell them, right? Rhetorical question!