what's the name of this game?

"in this moment there is life and food for future years"

...These beauteous forms,
      Through a long absence, have not been to me
      As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
      But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
      Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
      In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
      Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
      And passing even into my purer mind,
      With tranquil restoration:--feelings too 

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
      As have no slight or trivial influence
      On that best portion of a good man's life,
      His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
      Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
      To them I may have owed another gift,
      Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
      In which the burthen of the mystery,
      In which the heavy and the weary weight
      Of all this unintelligible world, 

Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
      In which the affections gently lead us on,--
      Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
      And even the motion of our human blood
      Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
      In body, and become a living soul:
      While with an eye made quiet by the power
      Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
      We see into the life of things.

william wordsworth 

'courage is if you knew where there were some mountains, you would definitely climb them.'

once my sister marie gave me just the book i needed.  i found it the other day, and it was just the book i needed again.  only i know where some mountains are, and they've always been there, and i still haven't climbed them.  cheers to another day, one with more guts!

here is something i find ironic.  i hate change in the world outside me* but i love love love change inside me.  i think this has something to do with change in the world feeling like loss and change within me feeling like triumph.  even when the change in the world brings goodness--my niece and nephews growing up, for example--it feels like something goes that doesn't come back again.  there are few parts of me that i guess i wouldn't like to lose, but pretty much everything else is negotiable.  i want to be someone that i'm not yet.  doesn't everybody want to be someone, to be someone? 

*the only exception is seasons because they go round and round and round. 

we always did too much talkin anyway

met a woman at church today who has transformed my view.  (i wish all of my transformations were more lasting...but here's to hope this one will stick.)  this woman got to the heart of things in about seven seconds of conversation.  she asked the questions most people are too polite to ask.  she followed up with insight and personal experiences and more questions that really made me think.  she didn't hesitate to give, so i gave too.  after our fifteen minutes, she had convinced me that she cared about me and what i had to say.  she was so convincing that i actually spent the walk home trying to figure out why/how she cared so much.

it's hard for me to accept, but i get that not everyone is into this type of communication and that the seemingly intense and personal questions i love could be another's dread.  i'm trying to moderate my expectations for connecting with other humans, and not because others let me down, but because i let me down.  i'm not capable of connecting as much or in the ways i want.  hence my favorite words from a favorite man, President Thomas S. Monson: "often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart."  

more about what this woman gave me. she helped me recognize the gift of time, particularly in four years to prepare for goodbye. she reminded me of the strength of sisterly love.  she helped me feel how reconciliation liberates. 


resolve: to be more present and more authentic in all of my communication.  to be a better listener. 

how hard is it to play the tambourine or sing ooohs? being a writer on the other hand...

check out this vid:


feel like sometimes these guys make it look harder than it is.

i really posted this vid because the bit about girl gun noises vs. boy gun noises at the end really resonated with me.  welcome to a childhood of mockery.  thank you david.

coming

maybe some of you have places that are the most home you've ever been.  i have such a place.  i'm going there very soon and i will say hello to the part of my heart that never leaves.  

i wish i were a tree

the time is soon here where everything will change. again.
it has been pouring thunder and lightning and lots of water.  my water comes from the sky. 
rain makes me remember fall and fall makes me remember that things move in circles--they go away and look like they might not come back around, but mostly they will. mostly.
sometimes we miss something--a chance, a gift, a wisdom, a love--and it never comes back around. that is the loneliest thought.

how hard do trees have to work to be trees, and do some work harder than others to be really good trees?  i have to work hard to be me.  i don't usually know what it takes to be really good me, but i try to listen.  i try to follow the cues: bud now, leaf now, roots now, blossom now. wait now. 

i keep struggling to get my season right.

meantime, sky, keep it coming.