Thursday, March 31, 2011

go forward.

Today...
When I began writing this post I was going to say something to the effect of, "Today I shall run right up to something most terrifying and I will look deep into its eyes and I will say, 'do your worst'. "

but then I realized that is not true.

what is true is that I am going to do something today that frightens me to my core and sends shivering nerves all up and down my spine and out through my fingertips. However I won't run up to that fear and challenge it with my feet firmly planted. The fact is that I will probably shuffle my feet and slink up to the base of that fear, instead of running towards it. and for a while I will try to avoid eye contact and pray that I make it through, rather than challenge it with an unwavering gaze. and maybe. hopefully. eventually I will be able to look right at it and say, "Do your worst."

But for today, it is ok to still hold onto a little bit of fear. because I am still facing it. I chose, of my own will, to look for something that scared me and do it. I can't do it with a brave face or with any bravado...but I am still willing to try. Perhaps that is the most we can ask of ourselves; the willingness to try.

home is where you keep your couch.

In 5 days it will be the 7 month anniversary of when I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. Two days ago we finally got a couch for our apartment. And it is comfy. And I am sitting on it right now.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

someone once said...

oh, do you know what I love more than almost anything? a really great quote.

I mean it. I seek out quotes on an almost daily basis. I will choose a topic or a person I admire and then start searching for whatever someone else said that can shed some brilliance and change the way I am thinking about life. I am hungry for all the perspective, and wisdom, and experience I can find...for the thoughts of minds greater than my own.

I could fill pages and pages with beloved quotes. I have hundreds of them written down in journals or random word documents or letters or post it notes on my desk. But for now I will just post this one. This is my favorite quote; it has been since I was 14. Unless you are an unexpected stranger who is reading this blog (and if you are WELCOME! I hope you like it here) you have already heard me say this quote. You might recognize it as one of the ones I scrawled across my closet mirror in blue window crayon...but I don't think I can ever read it too many times. and it has been too long.

" It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt

Monday, March 21, 2011

tunnel. trouble.

One might think that the Lincoln Tunnel would become easier to go through the more times one went through it.
One would be wrong.

I have found the opposite to be quite true. The more times I ride the bus through that tunnel, the more time I spend trapped in bus tunnel traffic (the very worst brand of traffic), the more difficult it becomes for me to look at the walls of that dubious cavern and not imagine the little tiles slowly popping off one by one and streams of water starting to break through the concrete.

One minute we have entered the tunnel. The next minute my mind has placed us in an end of the world action movie and I find myself looking around for Will Smith who will surely swoop in and save all of us buss passengers who will, without a doubt, be drowning in the very near future...

It is time for me to move away from new jersey.

musings.

I do believe there comes a point when the idea of never having your heart broken becomes far more terrifying than the idea of having it shattered into a million shimmering glass bits...

just a musing...

Friday, March 4, 2011

somebody tell those butterflies I am not twelve anymore.

Dear Current Celebrity of Choice,

I have such a silly crush on you....

and it is some of the most fun! Thank you ever so much.

Ashley

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

webster

Before I left I thought I knew what it meant to miss something.
I thought I knew what it meant to be homesick.
I thought I knew all sorts of things...

after I arrived I realized I didn't know anything.

And I learned so many knew things. I learned definitions of many words beyond the brief, removed dictionary. I learned in buses caught and missed. In conversations had and skipped. In teardrops shed in the shower. In time spent awake in very wee hours.

I learned new definitions. new words. the old words I thought I knew became obsolete.

and despite the inevitable harshness of the way life teaches lessons, I have found I am grateful.

Sometimes I think there is nothing more comforting than remembering I have so much left to feel. So much I haven't experienced. So many words I think I understand now that I will come to realize I have had all wrong.
There is so much left in life. so much life to be had.

and I want to feel it all.
I want to live the definitions. and perhaps make some of my own.
I will create new words.