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."
Sunday, October 24, 2010

Vignette

2:57 PM | Posted by Christine | Edit Post
We're getting to be regulars at Al's Diner on weekend mornings. "Our usual counter seats?" he asked as we walked in. He was still holding the dog leashes in his hand. I smiled as I took them and put them in my purse.

"Of course," I said. We made our way around to the counter, where the same old waitress with the gravelly voice took our order. I asked for a cup of coffee and complained that he needed to stop feeding me so much. "Eating out for breakfast all the time is a terrible habit to get into, you know." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "No, it's not! What are you talking about? It's a great habit!"

I stopped to think for a moment. Come to think of it, it really is pretty cool.

I fiddled with my coffee, and asked the question I'd been contemplating for the last few minutes. "So, a while back you mentioned that you had a feeling this was going to be a year of big change in your life. Any thoughts on how that's going to play out?"

He thought for a moment. "Well, maybe the change has already happened."

I glanced at him."How so?"

Sometimes I'm still caught off guard by the fact that he always uses such an offhand, matter-of-fact tone of voice when saying things that make my heart stop.

"You know, before I met you, I wasn't very happy. I was turning into an old curmudgeon. But now, it's like I'm a different person. I'm enjoying everything so much more. I love what I do. I love playing my horn, and I'm just a whole lot happier in general. As a matter of fact, I'm happier now than I've been in ten years."

I set the coffee cup down, turned to him, and kissed him on the cheek.

"That's a good thing," I said quietly.

"Isn't it, though?" He grinned.

In that moment, I realized that there was nothing that could make me any happier, and nothing else needed to be said...so I just drank my coffee and smiled.

I'm not sure, but I think that's the way it's supposed to be.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You need to write more.

December 18, 2010 at 7:32 AM
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