Thursday, September 30, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
ADORING my weekends lately. I am blessed.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Change and things.
"That it’s rough out there and chancy is no surprise. Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac. But at the same time we are also created. … What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms? Or what do we think of nothingness, those sickening reaches of time in either direction? … Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, than we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull. Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous. … I think that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there." - Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I'm grateful for a lot of things lately. Can't explain it... just really, really grateful.
A friend reminded me the other day that being rich has nothing to do with money. In that sense, I'm rich, folks. RICH, I tell you.
I've got days where I get to drink coffee in a quiet spot, afternoons where I talk to people I don't know about food, about Philly, and about just about anything. My nights are pocketed with visions of people conquering great heights, quelling small fears.
I can't ask for anything more.
Like everyone else I feel like I've just joined the world in breathing a collective sigh of relief to be feeling Fall. I'm on the cusp of being able to move out of a world of tile and weights and into a sweet hall where eels and plants used to be kept. I'm not really sure what this all amounts to, but every Fall I think of college, change, and seasons.
I couldn't live any where where seasons don't exist as I feel them in my bones and wait for them to shed layers of myself I think. So the question this September poses is... what layers am I waiting to shed?
Walking is good for thinking about layers. You start off cold and then wonder why you even bothered with the sweater in the first place.
We all need the process though. We all need cold, warm, cozy, and rainy. We need sometimes quiet, sometimes funny, sometimes goofy, sometimes serious, sometimes sad, sometimes curious... Each circumstance shapes us and I am busy putting things in my life lately to mold me. I've gone a long while without being intentional about the process of becoming, but I realize - the places you put yourself in, the ideas you rise with, you go to bed with... these change you, change your choices, change your moods, change you.
So I'm trying to choose wisely, I guess. And the more I put myself out there to be chipped up against, the more I learn about what I am willing to let go of, what I am never going to be rid of, and what I'd like to patch on.
I've been known to run away from what scares me and hey, sometimes this is important - like when my friend got held up at 40th and Market in broad daylight or when my other friend got held up in two relationships at once that were both completely abusive. Sure. Sure there are occasions to drop your purse and get the hell out of the way.
But when you are alone, and you are too busy thinking about what you hate, who hates you, and whether all of your life will be spent this way... it is better to pick up and just do something that will change you.
There are occasions when the thing you are scared of, the change you are freaking out about must be dealt with. You must calculate the risk... and take it. Sometimes, you have to just "try to be there". I figure this takes practice, just like Olympic Lifting and jumping on boxes. You rehearse bravery... you don't just become brave. It, like all things, takes practice. It takes letting go. But you must be there to bear witness to your own becoming.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
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