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."
Thursday, September 11, 2008

Resume, hut!

A came home from school today and informed me that he needs a lyre and a flip folder before next Tuesday.

If that leaves you saying, "Huh?" then you may want to just quit here.

If it hits you that on Tuesday, the junior high band is going to start marching in practice for a parade, then I'm sure you'll understand just how blown away I am. The next generation is starting to march. (Jonathan, you were right. You were so, so right.)

I remember being in the Leary Junior High Band in Massena, New York, and trying to get the hang of marching through the streets of my neighborhood for the first time. Mr Rotunde, the band director, had this obnoxious whistle, which he would use to mark time and get us going. Two long whistles on one and three, and then four short counts of a full measure. Then we were off, tripping and stumbling, trying to figure out which foot we were supposed to be on. We played the national anthem and the high school fight song. Kinda. At least slightly reasonable facsimiles thereof. If you listened closely.

Old people and women with little kids would stand in their driveways and watch us march by. My mom could hear us from our house - sometimes she would walk a few blocks to see me play (all hunched over and trying to keep an eye on both the person in front of me and my feet). She would wave, smile, and sometimes cry just a little bit...I never could figure out why. It didn't seem like it was such a big deal.

Now I know. It's a rite of passage. One more sign that my baby, well...isn't a baby anymore. His first parade is on the 20th, and his dad and I will stand on the curb watching just like our parents did. I'll probably cry a little bit too, and A won't understand why.

He'll be too busy trying not to crash into the kid in front of him.

2 comments:

Wes said...

Good times, good times. When's basics camp this year?

WF

Christine said...

I think we have to wait until high school for that. Don't rush it, man!!