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."
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Darkness and light

I sat in my office this afternoon, gazing out the wall of windows as the storm clouds blew in from the northwest. The sky was ominously dark over the forest preserve, and my boss walked by with his bag over his shoulder. "It's looking pretty dark out there," he said. "Better get out before the rain hits."

I looked at the clock. It was 4:22. Really too early to leave, but I packed up and followed him out anyway. Scattered, angry drops were already starting to fall as I made my way to my car - I hurried to beat the onslaught. Seconds after I closed the door behind me, the skies opened up. It was an immediate torrential downpour.

Stoplights were out, fire trucks passed by, screaming toward accidents, and the drive seemed to take forever. When I arrived home, the house was dark. I decided not to turn on the lights as I ate some leftover pasta and read through the day's news.

When the rain let up, I opened all of the windows and let in the smell of the rain. The house was still dark. I talked with a friend for a while, cleaned up the dinner dishes, and stepped out the back door.

The chairs were wet, and the trees continued to toss fat drops across the patio. The clouds loomed forbiddingly overhead, yet the leaves fairly glowed with that fresh, lush shimmer that storms always seem to leave in their wake. I wiped down one of the chairs, curled up into it, and closed my eyes. The smell of green things filled my head. I sat for a few minutes, thinking about all of the interesting things on my plate right now. My life seems to be turning in a few new directions, each of which deserves a certain level of contemplation.

I must have drifted off for a bit, because when I opened my eyes, the sky was much darker. The fireflies had come out; they were meandering across the yard, blinking at each other in a language I wasn't meant to understand. The silence of their journey added a level of mystery to the evening...dozens of them floated, seemingly aimlessly, as I watched. Long moments passed. I sat without moving.

The phone rang inside, and I slowly rose to grab it. As I walked in, I looked back over my shoulder at the fireflies. They flew on, oblivious to my departure.

After I finished talking with A, I glanced out again. The rain had started back up, and the yard had gone dark.

I left the lights off as I sat on the floor to write. Maybe if I wait long enough, they will come back.

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