About Me

Living life one dream at a time.

Words of the Wise

"What after all is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean."
-Christopher Fry, The Lady's not for Burning

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, 'I'll try again tomorrow.'"
-Mary Anne Radmacher

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

-Erica Jong

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you...We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us; It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Nelson Mandella, 1994 Inaugural Speech

"Until this moment I had believed forgiveness to be a special virtue, a beneficence God expected of good people. But it wasn't that at all. Forgiveness was an instinct, a desperate impulse to stay connected to the people you needed, no matter what their betrayals."
-Monica Wood, My Only Story

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."
-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried when you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for the want of a teller but for the want of an understanding ear."
-Stephen King

"Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."
-Neil Gaiman, Sandman: The Kindly Ones

"Being always overavid, I demand from those I love a love equal to mine which, being balanced people, they cannot supply."
-Sylvia Ashton-Warner

"What I need is someone who will make me do what I can."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson


"You know, when you crawl that far down into the abyss, you really shouldn't bring stuff back up with you. Some things are meant to live in the dark. Your blog is like one of those fish with no eyes. Only slightly more disturbing."
Monday, January 28, 2008

Weather or not

It is 45 degrees outside right now. The temperature is supposed to stay steady through the night, and then plummet like a rock throughout the day tomorrow - down to a low of -1 by the end of the night. As dreadful as that sounds, it brings an interesting prospect with it. We may have thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon.

I make no secret of my love of the rain. Even in the winter, there is something soothing about being tucked in my house, listening to the rattle of raindrops on the windows.

Even more spectacular, however, is the prospect of the snow thunderstorm. Watching lightning flash through a sea of white flakes is an amazing experience; one we don't witness nearly often enough.

The first time I ever saw such a wild storm, I was in college. So many moments from those days seem to have vanished from my memory, but this one, I think, will always remain with me. I was at the house where Mark lived with his roommates Brian and Bill (far too many memories survive from that house, I think). It was mid-winter, and late at night as we sat in the dark living room watching television. The snow had started falling hours earlier, and had coated the front sidewalk. When the thunder began rolling outside, I turned to look out the window. "Is that.....thunder?" I asked.

Mark and I peeled ourselves off the couch and went to stand on the front patio, where the flakes were falling in a frenzy. Suddenly, everything around us went blindingly white, and I began to laugh in awe. How could such a thing BE? I skipped over to stand beside the huge tree that stood in the middle of the front yard (in retrospect, not such a wise idea), and giggled until Mark grabbed me and pulled me back inside to avoid what he believed to be my impending death. He was always good about things like that, really. Whether it was assuring a cop that I was most certainly going directly home and should be spared a ticket for public intoxication, kicking Brian out of his bed so I would have a (relatively) safe place to sleep without having to drive home, or rescuing me from egotistical, testosterone-poisoned trumpet players, he always did his best to keep me out of trouble.

Sometimes, though, I wish I'd stood outside for just a little while longer. It's been fifteen years since I've seen a beautiful thundersnow...maybe tomorrow will break the streak :)

4 comments:

Jonathan Ahl said...

I remember watching more than one thunderstorm with you from the lovely vantage point of the 14th Floor of Lincoln Hall.

Random thought only somewhat related to thinking about our college days:

"I know a policeman, lives in Detroit, plays a guitar in hotel, his name is Leroy, and he drives a great big car."

Or at least that's how I remember it.

Christine said...

Hey, that really makes me smile! Those were such complicated simple times, weren't they?

I loved your room in Lincoln Hall. Watching Seinfeld on Thursday nights before heading out to the Cafe, sneaking through the cave back to Washington after hours, and randomly making Joel do his Axl Rose impression for a good laugh...

I was a lot luckier than I thought at the time, wasn't I? :)

Jonathan Ahl said...

We were all luckier then than we thought.

Just like we are all luckier now than we think.

Christine said...

Yeah. Pretty cool, isn't it?