MoxieLife

list friday

6 moments I'd like to relive:

1. The birth of My Sparkly Girl
2. Our family road trip across the country in our 76 Datsun
3. My solo trip to Hawaii
4. Our family road trip to Northern California (photo is in Arcata, California)
5. Every birthday of My Partner in Kindness that we spent in Golden Gate Park watching Shakespeare
6. Wednesday dinners out with my dad when I was little

6 moments I wouldn't want to relive:

1. My 30th birthday when my partner was hospitalized for depression.
2. The day we found out my brother had AIDS.
3. The day we said goodbye to our friends in San Francisco
4. The day they hospitalized my mom when I was 6
5. Any day I argue with my family over anything
6. Any day I have dealt with people who are dishonest, unkind, and filed with greed.

Happy List Friday!

poetry thursday

Hope' is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I've heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.

too easy

Maybe what the problem really is is that we have it too easy. I work in a relatively simple position that requires limited physical output. In fact, what I do has no real meaning and if it were to disappear we would all still be OK.

I knew you were worried about that.

Maybe if we still grew our own food, walked to get to the store, and lived in a more direct way with our needs I wouldn't be stressed out about things that seem so detached, but have an impact.

I am not proposing that we all become back to the land folks, but I feel like I am living dislocated from what is real. For instance, does it really matter what Susie said about you at a meeting when you weren't there or that you aren't progressing in your career (we covered that if it disappeared today above)? No. Not really.

I guess what I am looking for is authenticity, depth, challenge, and a way out of my financial hole would be great too.

Suggestions?

i need a change

I need a change in my job. life. everything. sigh. sorrry. feeling sorry for myself.

list friday

TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO SHED

1. the desire to please or be accepted by other people
2. unhealthy eating and laziness
3. surrounding myself with people who suck
4. being so critical/negative
5. debt
6. procrastination
7. crap stuffed in closets
8. watching junk tv
9. dreams that are too small
10. expectations

and TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO ACQUIRE for your journey to personal fruition

1. a positive outlook
2. a new project/job/career to put my energy
3. a deeper spirituality
4. the ability to let things go
5. the perfect pen
6. gardening skills
7. more time
8. the perfect purse
9. good smelling stuff
10. the key to perfect soup

spring and ee poetry thursdays

I love him. You? Spring is like a perhaps hand
by E. E. Cummings
III Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere)arranging a window,into which people look(while people stare arranging and changing placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here)and changing everything carefully spring is like a perhaps Hand in a window (carefully to and fro moving New and Old things,while people stare carefully moving a perhaps fraction of flower here placing an inch of air there)and without breaking anything.

three things i love

Bollywood movies are wonderful. My favorite to date is Lagaan. It is a four hour epic that sweeps you into the struggles of the English occupation of India.

The music. The dancing. The sheer beauty of every moment swirls through the screen with every choreographed song. This is a movie not to miss.

1950's Tea Dresses make me swoon. When I was in my teens I wore as many vintage tea dresses that I could get my hands on. I was a size 3 and everything seemed to fit. I was in heaven. I saved a few of them for My Sparkly Girl and she is beginning to see the joy of these chiffon frocks. Add a denim jacket and I am back in high school. Granted now they would never fit, but I have fond memories and am making new ones with my sweetie!

Marshmallow eggs! Oh I love these!

phew

It has been a whirlwind of a couple of days!

I planned the St. Patrick's Day Parade for our town, had a concert with Grada, and am now busy planning the May ArtRageous Parade. My work is an odd assortment of events that occur in a tourist town. I like it, but it does keep me amazingly busy. I know it isn't my lifes calling, but it is a good moment in time. What keeps you busy these days?

spring spring spring

I can't believe that it is spring! I spent the weekend cleaning, napping, reading, going to an art opening, and feeling insecure about what I am doing in my life. A typical weekend. We started a project with the canvases that I brought home several weeks ago. We have one propped up in our dining room and when you are moved to do so you can glue items to it. I figure I will just glue whatever debris happens to stick to my purse or gets shoved in my pockets. We aren't sure when it will be done. Maybe never.

I read Dan Price's book Radical Simplicity and I was just so taken with the idea of having less. I love that. Although, my Partner in Kindness and I butted heads because he was dreaming of building a new house and I said I would be happy with something even smaller then what we have now. I am just so tired of being in debt and don't see a way out any time soon.

Oh... enough complaining! Happy Spring! Here's to new things.

walking the path

Last Saturday I went with an Interfaith Youth Group to the St. Paul's Episcopal church to a workshop on Labyrinths. I thought I would just write my journal entries from the day there here:

First walk of the Labyrinth. Thoughts. Missing My Partner in Kindness, but realizing that he can't be on the path with me. That he can be on the path ahead or behind but not right where I was and that he wasn't on this labyrinth with me but he was on the "path" in the larger sense. Realized also "AHA" that we are all on the path. Old, young, right, left, good , bad and that those are just outward projections and on a deeper level we are on the "path" together from conception to death. This is where compassion springs from. The knowledge that we are all going the same way even when it looks like we are headed in different directions.

I realized, again, that although lives may connect with ours even for the most brief time we are blessed to have them in that moment. It allows the idea that nothing is permanent and that is okay. I have great comfort in the transience of people, places, and things. I like that nothing, not even myself, will last forever and each moment, good and bad are here briefly.

A little dark... but the workshop was splendid. What a gift to give yourself, seven hours of walking, meditating, doing art, writing, sharing, eating... it was lovely.