Category: quotes

my personal theme

September 25, 2014

i was just reading stephanie’s posts on their family themes and this quote came to mind.

there’s no going back. no matter how hard i pray and cry and wish.

all that’s left is to move forward.

and i’m trying. sometimes it’s fearfully, ungratefully, haltingly, stubbornly, slowly, and painfully but “even those who limp go not backwards.” (gibran)

getting a little off topic, but not really… have you read the great divorce by cs lewis? it’s one of my favorite books. in the book the inhabitants of hell get to visit heaven and, if they choose, can stay there. there’s nothing in the world stopping them. but most of them don’t. they choose to go back to hell. the ghosts talk of their lives and sorrows and injustices and at one point in the book the author is told “heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

i think that’s true. it’s a tall order but i truly believe it’s possible. whatever the details, the whole can still be beautiful.

do you have family or personal mottos?

i don’t know the source
for this image… help?

life lately

March 27, 2014

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joie_butter/4577230272/player/728aee4041

“foggy whirlwinds may be your intimate companions. being up-in-the-air could be your customary vantage point. during your stay in this weird vacationland, please abstain from making conclusions about its implications for your value as a human being. remember these words from author terry braverman: “it is important to detach our sense of self-worth from transitional circumstances, and maintain perspective on who we are…” 

for the last several months things have been fine. really, actually fine. not great, not awful but fine. and fine has been good enough. the last few weeks, however, have felt like one step forward, 300 steps back.

but i’ve faithfully stuck to my motto of “i’m fine” because it seems like the polite thing to do. i mean, honestly shouldn’t there be a moratorium on how long you’re allowed to feel bad about something? shouldn’t i spare my friends the same old sadness? but saying “i’m fine” while there’s a dinosaur dying a slow death in the pit of your stomach, or when all you want to do is lie down on the sidewalk and just stay there, or when you have to walk two blocks in the dark and immediately burst into frightened tears is no fun.

my solution for the last few weeks has been to hide out. keeping myself inside and busy with ridiculous things like ironing my bedding, spending way too much time on pinterest, vacuuming 4 times a day (no, really) and rearranging my bookshelves obsessively isn’t really a great solution either. and i hate ironing.

my point: depression sucks. it’s frustrating and boring and lonely and scary. hopefully it’s just part of my weird “vacationland”.

good natured friends have pointed out that i have a valid reason to be depressed and okay, yes, maybe that’s true… but i don’t want to be depressed. i don’t want to spend the rest of my life ironing. and more than anything i don’t want that reason.

the other day i met a friend at the park and she very pointedly but kindly asked how i’d been and as i opened my mouth to recite “fine” i couldn’t do it. i took a breath and with a lot of embarrassment said, “i’ve been sad.” to me it sounded so lame, pathetic and weak … or like something a 5 year old would say. but i said it and then i waited for the dreaded pep talk. while there was a little pep talk what i got was kindness, listening, understanding and concern. one of the things she said was “weakness is not a sin”… as in being sad doesn’t mean i’m faithless. depression is not a sin. anxiety is not a sin.

and so that’s how i’ve been. sad. but saying it eases some of that sadness so there’s hope.

polaroid by me.

August 10, 2013

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” -Roald Dahl

photos from the greys garden collection

August 9, 2013

 In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. … not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

Rainer Maria Rilke

a great escape

August 16, 2010


I just read this by Anais Nin and thought maybe she was writing this to me. I don’t really have anything to say about it or to add to it. I’m just posting it for me. If it speaks to you too then that’s an extra bonus.

“One word I would banish from the dictionary is “escape.” Just banish that and you’ll be fine. Because that word has been misused regarding anybody who wanted to move away from a certain spot and wanted to grow. He was an escapist. You know if you forget that word you will have a much easier time. Also you’re in the prime, the beginning of your life; you should experiment with everything, try everything…. We are taught all these dichotomies, and I only learned later that they could work in harmony. We have created false dichotomies; we create false ambivalences, and very painful one’s sometimes -the feeling that we have to choose. But I think at one point we finally realize, sometimes subconsciously, whether or not we are really fitted for what we try and if it’s what we want to do.

You have a right to experiment with your life… You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you’re not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn’t a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.”

photo by me