relentlessly melting

the springing of hope, originally uploaded by McBeth.

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

-- Susan Sontag

chaff and grain

bison breath, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.

--George Eliot

Left versus Right, revisited

Several months ago I wrote about my frustration with right-handed products created with little consideration for left-handed application. I drank a can of V-8 tomato juice two days ago and, while I did, I had a sense that there was some sort of pernicious righty-lefty issue with my refreshing beverage but it wasn’t until a full day later until I figured out what it was.

Take a peek.

This first image is of the can as you might see it were you holding the can in your right hand. The opening on the can’s top in the image is similar to where it would be positioned if you had the can in your right hand all ready to take a slug.

The V-8 logo and visual imagery are positioned on the side of the can such that the consumer will more likely have visual connection with image and logo each time the can is raised to the mouth. "Oh, lookit how great I am, all drinking this delicious and nutritious V-8!" There is also a greater likelihood that anyone standing in front of or to the general left of the consumer will also get an eyeball full of logo and product placement. YOU AREN’T AWARE OF IT YET, BUT JUST LIKE YOUR FRIEND IS DOING RIGHT NOW, YOU’LL SOON WANT TO DRINK THIS BEVERAGE.

In contrast, let’s look at the left-handed V-8 drinker’s perspective:

What a left-handed person would see while raising the can to his lips is this inside section of the same can. The ingredients list. The parent company information.

Hang on, hang on, I need a moment to collect myself. Terribly exciting stuff here. What? You don’t say! I notice in the information panel and the bar code section here that the Campbell Soup Company is located in Camden, NJ! No kidding- Camden? Whyyy just the other day I was thinking about Newark, which is located in New Jersey, which is the same state that CAMDEN is in! What are the odds?!

Okay, so to be fair I will give a ^5 to Campbell Soup Company’s advertising design department for having such consideration for their left-handed consumers that they’d consider us valuable enough to let us in on the important special product details. Unless you’re standing to the right side of a right-handed V-8 drinker it’d probably take you a while to figure out that this delicious thick tomato beverage has been Pasteurized for Premium Quality, and if you ARE the right-handed V-8 consumer you’re in dangerous lack of information territory, pal. “The picture I get to see each time I tip the can to my lips is pretty and all”, you think to yourself, “but is this beverage safe to drink? How can I tell if it is a premium quality beverage?”

I know what you’re thinking, and it’s okay. You’re right, I could be overreacting, yes. But if there’s really nothing to it, then why didn’t the can ad design team line up the sipping hole with the logo, or opposite it?

Mmhmm. Thass' what I thought.

early thaw

melted gold, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The ripple of lake sounds, like intimacies breathed
twinkle by sparkling twinkle
in my ear this morning
ebb twisting itself over flow…

You above me
In front of me
behind me rocking
looking at all of me, your early morning repast
hungry shore birds, in fluttering anticipation

You, formidable glacier,
dripping dripping
drop
melting, streaming off
warm flesh melts
awakens and eddies
condenses to rejoin with me,
warm flesh, waiting all those frost-suspended months
downstream

sweating, revealing
robustly starting,
sharing
claiming, continuing,
given to wanting
giving in to being wanted.

Lazily paddling your finger oar
in circles
through reedy lowlands
to the clearing
deep and wide
on the other side
of oh yes

Lap longingly
bid me dive
unclothed and carefree
into the first fervid waters
of the new season

gymboree

I talked myself out of going to the gym Friday.
I did the same thing Saturday.

Yesterday afternoon I dressed in my fat-squishing, supposedly slimming black lycra and spandex blend gym leggings, along with the rest of the accoutrement. I had a feeling that my disappointment in myself for not having exercised the previous two days would have more of an effect if I was dressed in the official gym attire.

Before I convinced myself to get out of the house and take myself in my fat containment pants to the appropriate place, I simply HAD to wash two loads of laundry, clean the litter boxes, wash a sinkful of dishes and it was imperative that I tidy up my bedroom, but eventually it worked.
I went.

A starchy crisp power broker business looking woman approached a machine I sat my gloves and towel down on. She looked ticked off, flipping her head back and forth in a 'okay, whose stuff is this, gedditouddahere NOW' gesture. I was standing on the other side of the machine not sure how she couldn't see me right there.

Her: Are these your things?
Me: Yes.
Her: Well were you using this machine?
Me: I am, yes. Currently, in fact. Right now. Using the machine. I mean, I picked up that tipped-over bottle of disinfectant over there, but yes I am going to use the machine now.
Her: (harrumph)

Her persnickety crab appleness kinda cracked me up; her harrumphing and stomping must work for her elsewhere, but not so much with me who was thinking 'suit yourself. harrumph until the cows come home, sister'. But then she didn't leave. She stayed planted, watched me, waited. Near the end of my first set (12 reps) I guessed she thought I wasn't doing things fast enough because she harrumphed and power broker walked away. Set 2, somewhere around the 9th rep she returned to stare while she waited. Because *I* know I do three sets *I* knew I was about to take a 2 minute break before my last set. She, however, did not know this and seemed displeased when I didn't hand the machine over to her immediately. She stood and stared at me the entire last set. I wiped down the machine with disinfectant spray and as I did that I felt a horribly itchy temptation to say something biting and snotty to power broker lady. When my mouth opened I was surprised to hear 'THANK YOU. for being patient. I APPRECIATE it' come out. (hunh? how'd that slip out?)

Not 15 minutes later I approached a big weird contraption that has pulleys attached on one end to hand grips and on the other end, to the weights. I looked around, nobody there, no personal items there -- not being used, I decided. Hopped on, finished the first set and stopped to take the 2 minute break, at which time a big shouldery guy, wearing on long chains, two outlandishly large Star of David pendants that clanked together when he moved, approached.

Him: you done here?
Me: mm, nope.
Him: oh. well I was using this machine.
Me: when?
Him: just now. I was using this machine. It's okay, it's okay, no problem.
Me: I'm not sure I understand. When I first got here I saw no personal items and no people at it. I took that to mean the machine was available. Did I misinterpret?
Him: oh (heh heh), I vary my routine by doing multiple sets at different machines. I was just here, then (gesturing) I went over there, now I'm back here for my next set.
Me: Oh.
Him: So whaddaya say we trade off? You can do your next set, then I'll do mine.
Me: What?
Him: (repeats)
Me: (silent pause for puzzlement) Um, okay, I guess? I don't understand what could be so incredibly urgent that you cannot wait 5 minutes for me to finish, but I guess it's not a big deal.

We took turns, him first. He looked smug, plugging the pin into the very highest peg available between the weights. I'm sure he was lifting like 6 jillion pounds, which honestly would have been impressive but for the fact that his form was crappy and he didn't do the reps slowly enough. (because I'm such a gym rat that I can justify standing in judgment of others?) Oh, and that he was a pushy ass. That didn't help. Lots of show, little substance, I figured.

When he finished he did a big 'wow, wasn't I just fabulous hefting all that weight' whhheewwwwww exhale and didn't bother disinfecting the equipment after he'd finished. I can only assume he thought he was being helpful by resetting the pin to where I'd had it set, but he was wrong, plugged it into the '20 pounds' peg when I'd been pulling 50 pounds. I smiled and thanked him, then put the pin in the appropriate 'hey, I'm a girl but I am way stronger than THAT' peg. Jerk.

A while later I changed into my swimsuit in the locker room, puzzling over both encounters, wondering if there was some philosophical lesson I should have taken from them.
I mostly hoped that both had left the building.

I laughed out loud upon entering the pool area: both of the pushy shovey crabbertons were suited up and walking slow laps against the current in the oval shaped resistance pool - the one thing I'd set my sights on starting with. Okay, haha Universe, boy howdy, that was a good one. I get the picture. I can start somewhere else. I GET it.

The rest went alright.

Protected Witness

intimacy, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Jane's daddy hurt her terribly
He was a nervous sneaky man,
drunken and smelling of sweaty Old Spice.
So she sometimes has to relieve the pressure of
her childhood sins
by slipping away from us
sneaking off to smash her head against hard things
like bloodied brick walls
or by sticking 64 safety pins underneath the skin of her pale forearms.
See, Daddy? I am worthy. I am.
Jesus thinks so.

Estella speaks little English,
her roommate knows only 'mi casa es su casa'.
But the silent language of tears
translates easily to me over our cans of Sprite and packets of crackers
when Estella's purse tips,
and Bethany's cray pas art therapy project is discovered,
the unexplained stardusting of delicate shreds,
along with the rotting reeking remains of
dozens of snitched breakfast items.

David is unable to open up during group
His old girlfriend has just been admitted, he whispers.
And though he's been informed she is on the locked ward
He knows she will eventually be free to roam
on this side of the steel door.
He worries he might harm her
Again,
when he is absent.

Slightly stooped Michael has established
his supremacy over the night.
Overrated unnecessary sleep, ha!
He paces the halls in great loops
remarking as he passes the very beautiful girl
seated in the smoking room
who Joe DiMaggio did well to marry.
Every other lap he winks twice, alternating eyes
one lid bowing cavalierly to Joe's gal, the other to me,
as he turns the corner,
resuming his judicious unraveling of string theory
shoelace by shoelace.

Esther's hands shake absurdly
Jell-O tumbles from the cheap white plastic spoon
cruel green globs dribble down her shirt.
'This is no way to live', she keens to no one in particular.
From the nurse's station, I see dark eyes raise.
Reminders that her food tray will be reviewed
rated
assessed
counted
tabulated,
along with her vocalizations,
and sleep patterns,
and her appearance,
and her cooperation,
and the latest in expressed suicidal ideations,
Compiled into what she will eventually choose to label
'The test I could not pass'.

In the day room
Jesus just broke the D string
of his beloved battered vintage Gibson,
strumming with all his gusto.
I'd hoped to play a quiet hand of Solitaire but could not find a full deck anywhere,
so I gave up my game,
Instead, settling in to watch the presentation.
Jesus' forehead furrows into uncharacteristic grooves --
'I ain't gonna study war no more', he wails.
His swaying groupies know about faith,
Their eyes closed,

They believe.

spring cleaning

As you may already have noticed, I am cleaning house here.

I gave the old blog layout a good long try and while I did like a few things, I just couldn't get myself entirely comfortable with it. I wasn't thrilled with the single column format. I really didn't like having my links -along with everything else- wayyyy down at the bottom of the page. I'm still on the hunt for a free easy-to-use photoblog template for this phlog and would be glad to hear about your experiences using them, if applicable.

If you wouldn't mind taking a moment to leave a comment, please tell me what you do like about this new template and/or what you're not so crazy about.

namaste, over n' out.

Buddhas

batchabuddhabellies, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The Buddhas do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task.

--Buddha

binding

eat your way out, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

-- Bertrand Russell

refill

fillerup, originally uploaded by McBeth.

At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.

-- Emo Phillips

ch-ch-chaaanges

'tis I, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Getting older means coming to friendly terms with all the things I'm no longer able to do with the grace and ease of my earlier years.

I've recognized my advancing age in the laugh lines that don't stop smiling even after the rest of my face has. I believe this is not very funny, but it's true, there, and appears to be setting up house, so I can either resentfully bitch about it or I can find a way to appreciate the shift. I'm still working on the acceptance bit, but I trust that it will be the best place for me. I believe it is worth working toward.

fate of a nation

moving toward , originally uploaded by McBeth.

In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don't want.


-- Marianne Williamson

seeing clearly

melted gold, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.

--John Ruskin

there's got to be something

trunkcicles, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted in something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

-- Marie Curie

constraints

hung up, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Whether we like it or not, each of us is constrained by limits on what we can do and feel. To ignore these limits leads to denial and eventually to failure. To achieve excellence, we must first understand the reality of the everyday, with all its demands and potential frustrations.

-- Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

do you know jack?

orange you fond of pink?, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

-- Jack Handey

betwix and between

the familiar unfamiliar, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.

-- Lord Byron

we can go on

midday meal, originally uploaded by McBeth.

However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.

-- Muriel Rukeyser

balemtimes

giving it up

s'just another word, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

-- Julia Cameron

three

three poles walk into a bar, originally uploaded by McBeth.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

--Tom Bodett

getting naked, revisited

Was it only two years ago when I first revealed my Deepest Parts? Oh, how the time flies!

I'm not exactly prepared to tell the story of my appreciation for Isthmus Eye Care and, in direct oppositional proportion, my deep deep loathing for Medicare/Medicaid's health, dental and optical care coverage.

With the exception of the cost of the basic exam, I used my income tax refund (+) to pay for the (uncovered) Optoscans, to purchase (uncovered) eyeglass frames that weren't in the pathetic little wallet of ugly Medicare/Medicaid sanctioned frames, and to pay for my (also uncovered) first-time-ever bifocals that the doctor said I would most benefit from wearing.

Not medically necessary my ass, Medicaid.


Ah, and in the interest of full disclosure, I want to mention that I have lightened these two images a smidge. The originals were just too dark to be able to see much. Top image is of my left eye; bottom image is of my right eye.

you don't believe me?

crackerjacks, originally uploaded by McBeth.

"Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which give their lies such wide-eyed conviction."

-- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

growing

how avalanches are born, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Mighty things from small beginnings grow.

-- John Dryden

drowning

canoe melt, originally uploaded by McBeth.

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

-- Edwin Lewis Cole

holding hands

highwire act, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well.

-- Dennis Waitley

tithe

velvia palpatine, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Moreover, we will bring to the storerooms of the house of our God, to the priests, the first of our ground meal, of our grain offerings, of the fruit of all our trees and of our new wine and oil. And we will bring a tithe of our crops to the Levites, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all the towns where we work.

-- Nehemiah 10:37 Bible, NIV

coming back down

snowy isthmus, originally uploaded by McBeth.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

-- Winston Churchill

sustenance

ginger ale, originally uploaded by McBeth.

“The cliché that women, more consistently than men, turn inward for sustenance seems to mean, in practice, that women have richly defined the ways in which imagination creates possibility; possibility that society denies.

-- Patricia Meyer Spacks

travel

wait 20 minutes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

thirst

blue swoon, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

-- Anais Nin

stand up

egghead, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian - and at once the world becomes explicable.

-- Henry Louis Mencken

two things

question: what do squirrels make when they play in the snow?, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

-- Adam Lindsay Gordon,
from Fytte VIII
Finis Exoptatus
[A Metaphysical Song]

opportunity

split greens, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

-- Mark Twain

womanhood

hearts and crossbones, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I have a woman's body and a child's emotions.

-- Elizabeth Taylor

verification

pregame net check, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

-- Bertrand Russell

power

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

-- Harry Browne

waked with laughter

gone. (fishing), originally uploaded by McBeth.

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

-- William Shakespeare

POV

i heard what you heard, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.

-- Henry Ford

waiting

across the field, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

-- Malachy McCourt

answer: porcelain

two sacrificial virgins at the pedestal of the toilet gods, originally uploaded by McBeth.

question:
around what did I cling to from the hours of 4am - 9am this morning?


I haven't had a migraine headache like that for a long, long time.
I'm on the mend though, with chicken noodle soup and Aleve and warm blankets and a 15 minute burst of fresh air when I made myself go outside, and specifically for that.

This is the year I resolve to become a superhuman who doesn't have to deal with hassles like headaches.

fraud

alright already, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself.

-- Philip James Bailey

I most need you to love me when I least deserve it

night ice, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

zinnia's party hat, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Steppin' out with my baby
Can't go wrong 'cause I'm in right
It's for sure, not for maybe
That I'm all dressed up tonight

Steppin' out with my honey
Can't be bad to feel so good
Never felt quite so sunny
And I keep on knockin' wood

-- Israel Isidore Baline

purpose

I have a purpose. You do too. Don't believe me if I try to tell you that I've known what mine has been all along because anyone who says that is either a big fat liar or she's a tightly bound deterministic sort who hasn't had a wide enough band of existence to discern purpose from not-purpose and wouldn't know purpose if it walked up to her and slapped her upside the head. But yes, I believe we all come into the world messy and gooey, and though what it will be might not seem clear from the gate, we are each born with purpose. We do some awfully strange thing to either confirm or deny our purposes but, like it or not they're there. Purpose exists. And while it is kind of funny in that morbid sort of off-color hilarity, I am fairly sure that some people's purpose really is to serve as a clearly bad example for the rest of us.

I've shaped myself around the inkling I have about what my purpose might be, but there's really no way of telling whether my guess is accurate or not because that sum total doesn't come until after I'm gone and while I hope by then we'll have worked out some inter-reality communication device, my guess is that we probably won't be sitting down to tea to discuss it.

I know I've had several unsatisfying attempts at narrowing down my purpose. I'm pretty sure it has to do with helping people. The results so far have been mixed. When I was a kid I thought I could help people by being a funeral director, but given my inability to keep my emotions in check I decided I'd make a terrible funeral home director if it meant the people coming to me for my professional help instead had to console me. Then I thought I'd help people by doing whatever they wanted. I ended up being taken advantage of a little too often. Many people have remarked on my apparently remarkable patience, so I worked with slightly more tender populations- kids, disabled, elderly. Burnout can come quickly though, and I didn't especially enjoy doing something for which patience is some big whoop-dee-doo deal. (it's really not. work on it, and you'll see too) Then I hear a few things about how calming my voice is - practically a magical potion for customer service jobs, so I wonder if my purpose could be to work as a financial customer service pod person for a major corporation. That particular quest started off all right, but somehow my purpose began to include handling oozing molding dripping unsalable products which, I gotta say, scrapes some of the dazzle right off the dream. I slowly wondered 'hunh, I have no particular accounting proficiencies, so why am I such a whiz at this 10-key again?' I'm confident that I stuck with that job as long as I was able to because, as a single mother, a job with health insurance and benefits make an incredible difference and I sorely needed them, right up until the trade-off started to make me sick. I didn't go back.

Someone also told me that I did nice work with computers, so I thought I could help people by making things look pretty on a monitor. But once I started taking programming classes I quickly realized that I'd rather have shredded paper stapled to the surfaces of my eyeballs than write computer code. Yes, I try to keep as up as I can tolerate on computerish happenings, but I've meet a few geeks in the ensuing years and, ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to say I am no geek. I wish it were not so, but 'tis true.

The way I'm coming to look at the situation, it makes good sense to keep getting up each day if there's one thing I want to keep coming back for. So maybe I can make that one thing, whatever it might be, the thing I'll think of as my personal write-in candidate for the position of My Purpose.

And if I keep getting up every day, and if I keep returning to this thing I've elected, I believe I'll either discover that the thing I thought would propel me into bliss isn't working out so well, or I can realize hey, this seems to be doing it for me, and I can keep exploring the edges of that thing.

If I was an umbrella stand, (well first, I'd be mind-numbingly bored, but stay with me here...) I would be constructed with reinforcements at all the right umbrella stand places. My knob would be strong and tight. I'd be sturdy. I'd be heavy. I'd be built and ready to hold umbrellas under the harshest sun and against the strongest winds and even under substantial spring rainstorms.

But at the end of summer when colder weather starts to roll in, I'd probably get my feelings downright hurt for no longer being that fabulous wonderful umbrella stand that everyone knew and appreciated during the mild months to somehow suddenly becoming this toe-stubbing heavy-ass frozen-to-the-deck troublemaker. Fair weather friends, I'm telling you ... how d'ya think we umbrellas came to use that colloquialism anyway, duh?

So if I was an umbrella stand frozen to an icy landing out there alone and feeling washed-up, I would hope that the falling snow would either submerge me until leaves start budding or that it would say soft snowy things to help me feel less uselessly alone. One snowflake might blow prismatic kisses toward me. Or a little snowflake children's choir would sing me tender lullabies. Or a usually snobby group of early adolescent snowflakes who'd normally skrinkle their noses at me would have an empathic moment in relating to my emptiness to crack barely-perceptable snow smiles. Old snowflakes who've been around for weeks might smell weird, but I'll bet they'd be the most compassionate companions. They'd circle their sun spotted flake arms around me, telling me soothing stories about how sometimes we think we've lost both our worth and our way. Those times can be trying. They can be untenable. But eventually -and there's always an eventually if you wait long enough- then (if you're a snowflake) kids come out to play, or (if you're an umbrella stand) winter eventually passes and then everyone will be so glad to have your sturdiness back around again, or ("like people", as the snowflakes tell my umbrella stand knob because they don't have their glasses on and they don't realize it's a knob and not an eye) you realize that this thing you've been questioning and doubting, the thing you've agreed to get out of bed and get dressed for, this thing you have been practicing is, quite possibly, exactly what you were meant to be.

If I was that directionless hope-challenged frozen umbrella stand, old snowflakes saying that kind of thing to me would probably be just the perfect sort of murmuring. It might even be just enough encouragement to make me stick around to see what would happen come the end of winter.

strength

strength, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We each are stronger than we can imagine.

Frail, too. Breakable in the simplest of ways.

But oh, how strong we can be when strength is needed.

third chakra

Anahata, under further exam, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that 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 didn't ask for it. They did 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 simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' 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 real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

-- Neil Gaiman

we deserve no praise for doing what we ought

winter shoreline, originally uploaded by McBeth.

light

yep, my new flashlight works, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.

-- François de la Rochefoucauld