And
Between.
Because sometimes prose just doesn't cut it. And because free writing is my therapy.
Not going to lie. I am onto something, into something deep.
And all the heresay is, well, here to stay.
This is me dodging the bullet, spitting it out.
And would you believe, I'd call this a confession.
Never a straight shot but always sure, always true,
I'm going to pound this one out the only way I know how.
Which is to say
lexically:
There is a joy that pathos will never know.
The turning of the last page of a book.
The hands of a clock.
The measurable distance between you
and me.
Feet. Inches. Centimeters.
That day always follows night.
Never a point d'interogation without a period
after.
These are joys, right?
But to not know dusk
or twilight or the blank page and a paint brush in hand.
A second glance.
A lightness.
A fever.
The fire at the back of your throat, behind your eyes
and deeper still.
A remembering that the body is only half of the whole.
These, Logos would not know.
Psykhe was once and maybe still is the word for soul.
And what could be more?
But my-ologies haven't taught me where -
by what joys
- I can pull out my map of this world,
the whole world,
and mark an x for telios.
And is this maybe vanity?
In a forest that I cannot see, for
the trees are phobos.
Like I said, I'm in real deep;
and it's getting overgrown.
Even if I had a map I have no where to put my feet
or find the road less
traveled.
When I close my eyes I hear,
when I open my eyes the trees,
inscribed like the ancient walls:
gnothi seauton.
BUT! sometimes,
less is
more.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A good day for listening
Earlier this summer I was in a conversation with someone who doesn't share my religious convictions. Some of my spiritual ones, yes. Perhaps. Yet there we were, having a religious conversation. And I should probably warn you: this is going to be a religious post. Or at least a spiritual one. I get tripped up in the terminology.
And this person, he asked me, "So what, does God speak to you then?"
And, trying to answer the question directly without first citing examples (trying because this is not something that comes naturally to me), I went big, went bold, and left the disclaimers in the dust.
"Yes".
We didn't get into it much more. I mentioned intuition. I referenced coincidence. I talked about that icky feeling you get when something isn't quite right and its peaceful counterpart when something is; a near cousin to morale conscience because sometimes the situation isn't about morals at all. All of these, I expressed, were ways that God talks to us.
And I believe in all those ways. I do. (I also understand how people might chalk them up the capacity of the human psyche. But I- personally- can't. I don't doubt that the human mind is capable of much more than we understand. Some people have faith in science, I have faith in God. Both, for me, are still a question of faith and of the choice in where to put that faith.)
The nature of the conversation however, didn't lend itself to the discussion of another way that God speaks: his own voice. Which he gets us to hear by speaking through our own voice.
I have been trying to figure a lot of things out lately. The other night, just before nodding off, I remembered vaguely something that had occurred to me on my mission. Like I was seriously half asleep already. Then, I remembered my mission journal.
On the mission, I kept a part of my journal called: "Ce que j'ai appris grace a la mission". What I've learned thanks to the mission. In it, I kept notes about what I had learned about ME. Living with another person 24 hours a day, being away from home, meeting different people. I had a colorful backdrop for 18 months against which I examined myself. And luckily, I wrote down some of my observations.
But there were also a few particular moments during my mission that I asked questions and I heard answers. As in, voiced answers. It's personal so it makes sense that I didn't share this in aforementioned conversation. I mention it here because I figure if you are reading you know me well enough to respect the disclosure. Again, the subject of these questions was me: my life. I wrote down my impressions. Honestly, they seemed out of context and didn't really make sense at all to me but I wrote them down all the same. If you could only know my lack of journal keeping during those 18 months you would realize how huge it is that I wrote any of these impressions down at all, let alone in the detail that I did.
Today, being home for the weekend, I pulled out those journals. I knew the pages I needed to flip to. And there, written in 2007 in my own hand was the advice I needed to hear-to remember because I had since forgotten-three years later to help make sense of my current questions and problems: God's voice. My words. Understood for the first time in context.
Last night I started to reread Eat, Pray, Love. Which puts me now to 5, I think, books that I'm simultaneously reading. I still count War and Peace, though I'm pretty sure I've lost the beast of a book for good and will have to buy a new one. Anyhow, reading this book right now may not be the best idea because it will probably inspire me to abandon any responsible plans for my future in favor of traveling. Oh well.
The author, Elizabeth Gilbert, who people have told me reminds them of me (I didn't see it the first time but I'm starting to now and trying to be flattered. She did, after all, write a great book and she is funny to boot), describes the beginning of her relation with the divine. It happened in a bathroom. On the floor. Where she started to pray. Like, for the first time. Ever.
Here is the excerpt:
And so the prayer narrowed itself down to that simple entreaty-Please tell me what to do-repeated again and again. I don't know how many times I begged. I only know that I begged like someone who was pleading for her life. And the crying went on forever.
Until-quite abruptly-it stopped.
Quite abruptly, I found that I was not crying anymore. I'd stopped crying, in fact, mid-sob. My misery had been completely vacuumed out of me. I lifted my forehead off the floor and sat up in surprise, wondering if I would see now some Great Being who had taken my weeping away. But nobody was there. I was just alone. But not really alone, either. I was surrounded by something I can only describe as a little pocket of silence-a silence so rare that I didn't want to exhale for fear of scaring it off. I was seamlessly still. I don't know when I'd ever felt such stillness.
Then I heard a voice. Please don't be alarmed-it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charles Heston voice, nor was it a voice telling me I must build a baseball field in my backyard. It was merely my own voice, speaking from within my own self. But this was my voice as I had never heard it before. This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I'd only ever experienced love and certainty in life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine?
The voice said: Go back to bed, Liz.
I won't bother to try to explain how my life has been changed thanks to going on a mission. But I can try to express gratitude that I did.
That I know the stillness.
That I kept-though not enough-a journal.
That I still maintain the habit of taking notes during church.
That I let that voice guide my pen.
That I remembered.
That things correlate.
That we can find answers now to questions we weren't asking then.
That God foresees our needs and gives us the answers we need by letting them come from us. Because that is the only way we could accept them.
And that. Is only the beginning.
And this person, he asked me, "So what, does God speak to you then?"
And, trying to answer the question directly without first citing examples (trying because this is not something that comes naturally to me), I went big, went bold, and left the disclaimers in the dust.
"Yes".
We didn't get into it much more. I mentioned intuition. I referenced coincidence. I talked about that icky feeling you get when something isn't quite right and its peaceful counterpart when something is; a near cousin to morale conscience because sometimes the situation isn't about morals at all. All of these, I expressed, were ways that God talks to us.
And I believe in all those ways. I do. (I also understand how people might chalk them up the capacity of the human psyche. But I- personally- can't. I don't doubt that the human mind is capable of much more than we understand. Some people have faith in science, I have faith in God. Both, for me, are still a question of faith and of the choice in where to put that faith.)
The nature of the conversation however, didn't lend itself to the discussion of another way that God speaks: his own voice. Which he gets us to hear by speaking through our own voice.
I have been trying to figure a lot of things out lately. The other night, just before nodding off, I remembered vaguely something that had occurred to me on my mission. Like I was seriously half asleep already. Then, I remembered my mission journal.
On the mission, I kept a part of my journal called: "Ce que j'ai appris grace a la mission". What I've learned thanks to the mission. In it, I kept notes about what I had learned about ME. Living with another person 24 hours a day, being away from home, meeting different people. I had a colorful backdrop for 18 months against which I examined myself. And luckily, I wrote down some of my observations.
But there were also a few particular moments during my mission that I asked questions and I heard answers. As in, voiced answers. It's personal so it makes sense that I didn't share this in aforementioned conversation. I mention it here because I figure if you are reading you know me well enough to respect the disclosure. Again, the subject of these questions was me: my life. I wrote down my impressions. Honestly, they seemed out of context and didn't really make sense at all to me but I wrote them down all the same. If you could only know my lack of journal keeping during those 18 months you would realize how huge it is that I wrote any of these impressions down at all, let alone in the detail that I did.
Today, being home for the weekend, I pulled out those journals. I knew the pages I needed to flip to. And there, written in 2007 in my own hand was the advice I needed to hear-to remember because I had since forgotten-three years later to help make sense of my current questions and problems: God's voice. My words. Understood for the first time in context.
************************
Last night I started to reread Eat, Pray, Love. Which puts me now to 5, I think, books that I'm simultaneously reading. I still count War and Peace, though I'm pretty sure I've lost the beast of a book for good and will have to buy a new one. Anyhow, reading this book right now may not be the best idea because it will probably inspire me to abandon any responsible plans for my future in favor of traveling. Oh well.
The author, Elizabeth Gilbert, who people have told me reminds them of me (I didn't see it the first time but I'm starting to now and trying to be flattered. She did, after all, write a great book and she is funny to boot), describes the beginning of her relation with the divine. It happened in a bathroom. On the floor. Where she started to pray. Like, for the first time. Ever.
Here is the excerpt:
And so the prayer narrowed itself down to that simple entreaty-Please tell me what to do-repeated again and again. I don't know how many times I begged. I only know that I begged like someone who was pleading for her life. And the crying went on forever.
Until-quite abruptly-it stopped.
Quite abruptly, I found that I was not crying anymore. I'd stopped crying, in fact, mid-sob. My misery had been completely vacuumed out of me. I lifted my forehead off the floor and sat up in surprise, wondering if I would see now some Great Being who had taken my weeping away. But nobody was there. I was just alone. But not really alone, either. I was surrounded by something I can only describe as a little pocket of silence-a silence so rare that I didn't want to exhale for fear of scaring it off. I was seamlessly still. I don't know when I'd ever felt such stillness.
Then I heard a voice. Please don't be alarmed-it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charles Heston voice, nor was it a voice telling me I must build a baseball field in my backyard. It was merely my own voice, speaking from within my own self. But this was my voice as I had never heard it before. This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I'd only ever experienced love and certainty in life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine?
The voice said: Go back to bed, Liz.
************************
I'll leave the rest of the book for you to read. What can I say, I'm just a tease. I share this part because, well, isn't that how it happens?
I'll leave the rest of the book for you to read. What can I say, I'm just a tease. I share this part because, well, isn't that how it happens?
You know, it's nice to be reminded of what is true. This weekend was a good time for that.
I won't bother to try to explain how my life has been changed thanks to going on a mission. But I can try to express gratitude that I did.
That I know the stillness.
That I kept-though not enough-a journal.
That I still maintain the habit of taking notes during church.
That I let that voice guide my pen.
That I remembered.
That things correlate.
That we can find answers now to questions we weren't asking then.
That God foresees our needs and gives us the answers we need by letting them come from us. Because that is the only way we could accept them.
And that. Is only the beginning.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
A detour or two.
I'm writing from the comfort of a bed that is not my own but is at least in my house in the room I inhabited from age seven probably to age fifteen. It seems so much smaller now.
This blog thing has turned into the monster I was afraid it would: a distraction from real writing and a glorified egocentric journal because merely writing assumes that people want to read. It just seems presumptuous. But this has also become a form of therapy, this half-bred offspring of journal meets moleskin. In fact, I have so gotten in the habit of writing that I have started to carry a notebook. I make notes. I am more aware of the simple things in life like weather patterns or the bathroom stall in the Colorado Springs airport that I have used now 4 times. Yes 4. The exact same stall. It's starting to evoke a sense of nostalgia. Though I guess I'm losing the point here, which is that this monster of a blog is maybe profiting me nevertheless. In summary, I have a love/hate relationship with it. Love/hate; now isn't that a new trend for me?
So I am home. Not for good. And I wonder if that makes me love it all the more. Sometimes I think I just like leaving home so I can fly back over the mountains, through the clouds and over the great salt lake and feel my breath catch in my chest as everything I love most becomes physically accessible again. I wrote more about this in my infamous notebook so I'll spare you. I actually want to rewind a few days to write about Wednesday night.
So Monday during Alex's guitar lessons Emma and I took a stroll and passed by this quaint little shop, Black Cat Books.
I wanted to go in but Emma needed to find a bathroom. If there is one thing I have learned about kids it is that they lose bladder control at the very moment it becomes most inconvenient. Luckily walking past I saw an announcement for a workshop on Wednesday, "Publish Your Book". Now, I don't have a book to publish. I just explained that. Or maybe I didn't. Anyway, this blog I hold partly responsible for the absence of a book. But that is just me passing the buck to a nonentity. All the same, I thought you know it couldn't hurt to see the end from the beginning. So I planned to check out said workshop.I made the 25 minute drive which became 40 minutes because of traffic. And I started late. And hungry. So needless to say I was stressed and to stave off the stress I summoned excitement. So by the time I arrive I'm super pumped up. It started to rain when I got there so I ran down the streets so as to avoid getting too wet. What with the wind and the running my hat went flying off. Which got a good laugh from café goers as well as from me. I enter the bookshop only to find that the author giving the workshop left because no one showed up on time. So I had gotten ready, put off my phone call to Peru as well as my run and not to mention my dinner, for nothing. I couldn't just turn around so I wondered to the downstairs of the bookstore. It was totally empty and I wandered in revelry though perhaps wander is not totally accurate. More like shuffled; the place was small. I even sat down for 15 minutes and jotted down some things in my notebook. Feeling better, I find a stack of Brian Andreas goodness in the form of Storypeople.
I first discovered Storypeople during my 2006 graduation present to me trip to Seattle. I had actually been thinking about them a few weeks back while trying to think of things that made me happy. I had copied and pasted so many of the quotes and Word somehow annihilate d the document. It was just one of those days that I kept striking out. Seriously. But these funky pictures, scuptures and quotes make me smile. And if I am going to take up gigabites I should be using it to spread goodness. So here are some of my favorite "Stories". They make me feel like being a kid and hope and laugh and maybe sigh. And honestly, I think Brian Andreas must have been spying on me because I swear there are things here I've said word for nearly-almost word. It's a funny feeling, the suspicion that the story of your life was written by someone else. But a comforting one. Because it means that you're not as alone as you once suspected.
So thank you Brian Andreas. Thank you thingsnotworkingoutasplanned. After all.
Enjoy. Enjoy. En joie. Oui, c'est ca.
When I grow UP, I want to remember that I always wanted to be about a thousand different things & one lifetime didn't seem nearly enough. When I grow up, I hope it's at the very end when it doesn't matter anymore anyway.
I can imagine it working out perfectly, I said. I can't, she said & I said no wonder you're so stressed.
They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.
We had gone far enough together to listen easily in the quiet spaces.
It took me a long time, she said, to stop confusing safety with love.
I mainly want someone to tell me I'm right & then pay me, he said. Is that too much to ask? & I said as long as you're living in a dream world, you might as well make it work for you.
I only do this until I get dizzy & then I lay down on my back & watch the clouds, she said. It sounds simple but you won't believe how many people forget the second part.
This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most & then it won't weigh a thing anymore.
I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat.
the real problem with details is there's so many of them
If you're right & I'm not, I'm going to be hell to live with, she said. So, you better think about that next time you want to be right.
When I first met him, I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there'd be room for him to stay.
What are the rules? I said & she said, Do exactly what I want whenever I want, make no demands of me whatsoever & love me forever, no questions asked & I said, how do you win? & she said, you don't understand. I'm the only one who wins & then she laughed & clapped her hands. Isn't it a great game? she said.
Tied together by stuff too difficult to explain to someone new
If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.
I saw them standing there pretending to be just friends, when all the time in the world could not pry them apart.
I try & walk a line between terror & ecstasy, she said & then she shook her head. You'd be amazed at the people who avoid me for no good reason, other than that.
I think my life would be easier, she said, if I could just get my selves to agree on something.
When I was younger I used to keep all the stuff I had in my pockets. There were a lot of rocks & little shiny things. As I got older it got to be too much to carry & I couldn't remember why I kept it anyway so I finally got rid of it. Now, I make lists
this is a picture of the future & you'll notice that there's a lot of blank space because people haven't made up their minds about it & the future doesn't have a lot of time for that kind of indecisiveness
It's taken me a long time to get here, he said, so I don't really care if it's wrong.
Why is the world so confusing? he said & I said it's only confusing if you believe it has to make sense & he looked at me & shook his head. I can't believe they let just anyone have children, he said.
If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. & there is nothing more to it than that.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Lie # 4
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The History of Love. By Nicole Krauss
Because I read it:
I'm just going to copy and paste was Amazon has to say about the plot of the book. Not that I didn't care about the plot, but this, for me, was not a plot driven book. It was driven by prose, by voice. Honestly, the writing is so evocative and poignant that if you have half a poetry-inclined soul you will get chills. Unless you are me in which case your chills will be accompanied by sobs. (Yes, even if you are sardine packed in the family van and on the way to Cirque de Soleil and reading by the light of your phone.)
So I give you the summary. But I think that you don't have to have read the book or even know what it's about to get something from the passages/quotes below:
The History of Love spans of period of over 60 years and takes readers from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach. At the center of each main character's psyche is the issue of loneliness, and the need to fill a void left empty by lost love. Leo Gursky is a retired locksmith who immigrates to New York after escaping SS officers in his native Poland, only to spend the last stage of his life terrified that no one will notice when he dies. ("I try to make a point of being seen. Sometimes when I'm out, I'll buy a juice even though I'm not thirsty.") Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer vacillates between wanting to memorialize her dead father and finding a way to lift her mother's veil of depression. At the same time, she's trying to save her brother Bird, who is convinced he may be the Messiah, from becoming a 10-year-old social pariah. As the connection between Leo and Alma is slowly unmasked, the desperation, along with the potential for salvation, of this unique pair is also revealed.
"He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God."
"When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely."
"...larger than life...I've never understood that expression. What's larger than life?"
"ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP
Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life."
"Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. ... When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff , almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. ... Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees. ... To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all."
"When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?"
"And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it."
"The truth is the thing I invented so I could live."
"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact."
And, to culminate Leo's unofficial obituary, written by himself years before he was actually old: "He fell in love. It was his life."
I'm just going to copy and paste was Amazon has to say about the plot of the book. Not that I didn't care about the plot, but this, for me, was not a plot driven book. It was driven by prose, by voice. Honestly, the writing is so evocative and poignant that if you have half a poetry-inclined soul you will get chills. Unless you are me in which case your chills will be accompanied by sobs. (Yes, even if you are sardine packed in the family van and on the way to Cirque de Soleil and reading by the light of your phone.)
So I give you the summary. But I think that you don't have to have read the book or even know what it's about to get something from the passages/quotes below:
The History of Love spans of period of over 60 years and takes readers from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach. At the center of each main character's psyche is the issue of loneliness, and the need to fill a void left empty by lost love. Leo Gursky is a retired locksmith who immigrates to New York after escaping SS officers in his native Poland, only to spend the last stage of his life terrified that no one will notice when he dies. ("I try to make a point of being seen. Sometimes when I'm out, I'll buy a juice even though I'm not thirsty.") Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer vacillates between wanting to memorialize her dead father and finding a way to lift her mother's veil of depression. At the same time, she's trying to save her brother Bird, who is convinced he may be the Messiah, from becoming a 10-year-old social pariah. As the connection between Leo and Alma is slowly unmasked, the desperation, along with the potential for salvation, of this unique pair is also revealed.
************************
"He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God."
"When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely."
"...larger than life...I've never understood that expression. What's larger than life?"
"ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP
Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life."
"Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. ... When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff , almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. ... Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees. ... To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all."
"When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?"
"And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it."
"The truth is the thing I invented so I could live."
"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact."
And, to culminate Leo's unofficial obituary, written by himself years before he was actually old: "He fell in love. It was his life."
Friday, July 30, 2010
And those the rainy days they ain't so bad when you're the King (or queen)
Today was stellar. I learned a lot from Carine about patience. And about selflessness. I think most mothers could teach me this but I'm glad I get to learn it here first-hand. Plus she's a real trooper and lets me talk to her in French and then doesn't scold me when I get lazy and revert to English.
So today's highlight was my run. I thought for sure today was going to be MY day. It was drizzling as I was getting my shoes (Vibram's) on and when I took out Polski the dog beforehand. I was so stoked to get soaking wet and run with raindrops dripping down my nose.
As luck would have it, the rain let up the duration of my run and then picked back up once I was home. But the good news is that I put in another 3 miles even though my legs/muscles were not happy with me the last mile or so. I'm pretty sure I didn't do any irreparable damage and I still had tons of energy at the end of the run that had I wanted to risk it, I definitely could have kept going. I should add that it's been a LONG time (pre IT band problems/barefoot adventures) since I've felt that way at the end of 3 miles.
The neighbor was over here yesterday talking to Carine about training for a half in October. Apparently the key is to do two 3 mile runs in the week and then use the weekend for a long run, adding a half mile every week. Honestly, I haven't done the math and until I can break a six mile long run in my vibrams I won't look at races or dates, but that's my new plan. I think it's more effective than trying to run longer every day. Plus on my off days I can take it to the bike and have a hard core yoga session. Next week the plan is 3 miles Monday, Wednesday and a 4 miler Saturday. It's really not an intense schedule from an outsider's perspective but it will push me and it's a schedule. Yay for planning!
So I'm running to an especially awesome mix today. I just downloaded Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine who I should have known about earlier but am only now discovering. It's probably all I need to be happy right now. It's like the new and improved story of my life. Somehow. Anyway, I used that song to create a genius mix on my itouch. Let it be known Apple did NOT fail me today.
Well at the end of my run to give me that extra push as I sprint my little heart out I go back to Dog Days. And then the next song comes on, and it's this one. And if I thought life couldn't get any better I was wrong. It was my cool down song and it was nearly dark. So I pulled a Marseille and started busting out skipping/dancing/walking moves on the sidewalk. I got to the park and wanted to ran around/play in the grass but decided Mom would never forgive me if I got struck by lightning there in the middle of a huge open field. Even if I am only 5 foot 4 and would hardly consider myself a target. I can't be out in the rain without hearing her voice telling me to come in. And I got to thinking, that of all the ways to go, lightning would be okay by me; so long as it was quick. And it would be ironic to boot. I mean, my name is a weather pattern; my first word was rain. (I had mentioned this to Alex in passing and yesterday when the neighbor was over he introduced me and elaborated with "Her first word was rain". Kids, they never cease to amaze and amuse). It would only be appropriate you know. Not like I'm gonna tempt fate or anything. Don't worry, Mom, I sometimes still listen to your voice in my head. Though maybe not as often as I should. You can blame Kings of Leon.
So, I'm starting my book summaries. I don't necessarily expect anyone to be interested. But when I was in Highschool I would type up all the favorite quotes/passages of the books I read. I probably have over a hundred pages word document. I think if you're going to write, it's important to identify good writers, what makes them good, and what you like about them. However, I think that the main motivation I have for taking back that old habit is that if I am going to spend the time reading something I should spend the time letting it go through me. And that's not an entirely passive process. I have a lot of books I want to read; I won't always have time to go back and reread books if I want to read new ones. So I have to make them count.
Here goes with that effort. In the meantime, some words of inspiration from Nicole Krauss. Who may or may not be some kind of soul mate. Anyway, I love this. And I hate it; because I wish I had written it. But you can't hate truth; it's what sets you free. So I love. Mostly.
"Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about."
Amen, girl. A-freaking-men.
So today's highlight was my run. I thought for sure today was going to be MY day. It was drizzling as I was getting my shoes (Vibram's) on and when I took out Polski the dog beforehand. I was so stoked to get soaking wet and run with raindrops dripping down my nose.
As luck would have it, the rain let up the duration of my run and then picked back up once I was home. But the good news is that I put in another 3 miles even though my legs/muscles were not happy with me the last mile or so. I'm pretty sure I didn't do any irreparable damage and I still had tons of energy at the end of the run that had I wanted to risk it, I definitely could have kept going. I should add that it's been a LONG time (pre IT band problems/barefoot adventures) since I've felt that way at the end of 3 miles.
The neighbor was over here yesterday talking to Carine about training for a half in October. Apparently the key is to do two 3 mile runs in the week and then use the weekend for a long run, adding a half mile every week. Honestly, I haven't done the math and until I can break a six mile long run in my vibrams I won't look at races or dates, but that's my new plan. I think it's more effective than trying to run longer every day. Plus on my off days I can take it to the bike and have a hard core yoga session. Next week the plan is 3 miles Monday, Wednesday and a 4 miler Saturday. It's really not an intense schedule from an outsider's perspective but it will push me and it's a schedule. Yay for planning!
So I'm running to an especially awesome mix today. I just downloaded Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine who I should have known about earlier but am only now discovering. It's probably all I need to be happy right now. It's like the new and improved story of my life. Somehow. Anyway, I used that song to create a genius mix on my itouch. Let it be known Apple did NOT fail me today.
Well at the end of my run to give me that extra push as I sprint my little heart out I go back to Dog Days. And then the next song comes on, and it's this one. And if I thought life couldn't get any better I was wrong. It was my cool down song and it was nearly dark. So I pulled a Marseille and started busting out skipping/dancing/walking moves on the sidewalk. I got to the park and wanted to ran around/play in the grass but decided Mom would never forgive me if I got struck by lightning there in the middle of a huge open field. Even if I am only 5 foot 4 and would hardly consider myself a target. I can't be out in the rain without hearing her voice telling me to come in. And I got to thinking, that of all the ways to go, lightning would be okay by me; so long as it was quick. And it would be ironic to boot. I mean, my name is a weather pattern; my first word was rain. (I had mentioned this to Alex in passing and yesterday when the neighbor was over he introduced me and elaborated with "Her first word was rain". Kids, they never cease to amaze and amuse). It would only be appropriate you know. Not like I'm gonna tempt fate or anything. Don't worry, Mom, I sometimes still listen to your voice in my head. Though maybe not as often as I should. You can blame Kings of Leon.
***************Abrupt Transition*******************
So, I'm starting my book summaries. I don't necessarily expect anyone to be interested. But when I was in Highschool I would type up all the favorite quotes/passages of the books I read. I probably have over a hundred pages word document. I think if you're going to write, it's important to identify good writers, what makes them good, and what you like about them. However, I think that the main motivation I have for taking back that old habit is that if I am going to spend the time reading something I should spend the time letting it go through me. And that's not an entirely passive process. I have a lot of books I want to read; I won't always have time to go back and reread books if I want to read new ones. So I have to make them count.
Here goes with that effort. In the meantime, some words of inspiration from Nicole Krauss. Who may or may not be some kind of soul mate. Anyway, I love this. And I hate it; because I wish I had written it. But you can't hate truth; it's what sets you free. So I love. Mostly.
"Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it's something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about."
Amen, girl. A-freaking-men.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Because the right 4 chords can make me...
I remember my friend talking about a song once and he said, quoting his friend, "This is the kind of song that changes your life." The song happened to be DevotchKa's "How it Ends". It is indeed such a song, and one that has been on my mind lately.
But in order for a song to change you, you have to hear it at just the right time. Timing is, after all, everything.
So.
I left the house this evening thinking about gratitude and thinking about friends and family. I should have seen this coming, really. I mean, you go a couple of days without talking to people and living in a city that's not quite home and it's inevitable, isn't it, to appreciate more than normal the people in your life?
Well this song came on. Moving and Shaking, by Great Lake Swimmers.
And while it played, I was in the middle of trying to figure out how I got so lucky to have people that care about me when I'm so lousy when it comes to reciprocity.
It was a combination of: The right 4 chords. Gratitude. And the gap between the overwhelming need to show it yet finding myself inadequate for the task. You guessed it. Tears.
Let me say that this is far from the first time this has happened to me. But that doesn't change the fact that I sometimes still can't get over the goodness. Looks like today was one of those days. Most of the people who made that possible will never even read this. But I'd like to thank them all the same.
As well as Facebook. Who introduced me to Great Lake Swimmers. Who in turn wrote a song. And for that song, for making me feel.
But in order for a song to change you, you have to hear it at just the right time. Timing is, after all, everything.
So.
I left the house this evening thinking about gratitude and thinking about friends and family. I should have seen this coming, really. I mean, you go a couple of days without talking to people and living in a city that's not quite home and it's inevitable, isn't it, to appreciate more than normal the people in your life?
Well this song came on. Moving and Shaking, by Great Lake Swimmers.
And while it played, I was in the middle of trying to figure out how I got so lucky to have people that care about me when I'm so lousy when it comes to reciprocity.
It was a combination of: The right 4 chords. Gratitude. And the gap between the overwhelming need to show it yet finding myself inadequate for the task. You guessed it. Tears.
Let me say that this is far from the first time this has happened to me. But that doesn't change the fact that I sometimes still can't get over the goodness. Looks like today was one of those days. Most of the people who made that possible will never even read this. But I'd like to thank them all the same.
As well as Facebook. Who introduced me to Great Lake Swimmers. Who in turn wrote a song. And for that song, for making me feel.