"Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built." -James Allen
What quote, or line from a poem or a song, most captures what this year was for you?
It's hard for me to pick one. So I've narrowed it down to one of each: a quote, a poem, and a line from a song. :)
This year, in a nutshell, has been an incredible journey. There was a lot of travelling done - literally, as well as within my soul. So many new and unfamiliar experiences have been squeezed into the past 11 months, but in the middle of all the wandering and exploring, there is the one thing that anchors me, that always brings me back to where I began, and to who I am.
Quote.
"Not all who wander are lost." -J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem.
"We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring.
Will be to arrive where we started.
And know the place for the first time."
-T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Song.
"Wherever I wander, the one thing I've learned;
It's to here, I will always return." -This is Where I Belong, Bryan Adams
Stumbled across this while searching for some quotes...
"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable."
"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides."
"Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after."
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
"If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
"But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.' "
I thought about how often this was needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.
Morrie's approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, "All right, that's just fear, I don't have to let it control me. I see it for what it is."
Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely - but eventually be able to say, "All right, that was my moment of loneliness. I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well."
-Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
"You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.”
“But I love him.”
“So love him.”
“But I miss him.”
“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone."
If I should have a daughter, instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.”
Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”
She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.
And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”
But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ’cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s the way my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape.
When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ’cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.
You will put the “win” in "win some lose some", you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale of one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
If you're wondering who on earth takes three days to watch a two-hour long movie, that would be yours truly.
I've been watching Eat, Pray, Love over the past two nights and I still have yet to finish it, though I definitely plan to tonight. :)
A few days ago, I finished reading the book - which has taken me six months. Not because I don't have the time or the book is boring, but rather because it's jam-packed with beautiful, profound, powerful, goosebump-inducing insights, and I needed the time to slowly digest, savor, and internalize all of it.
People tell me that when I write, I articulate feelings and thoughts they never found the words to express. Reading Elizabeth Gilbert I feel exactly the same way. I feel like I could have gone on exactly the same journey, had exactly the same thoughts, and learned exactly the same lessons.
I felt almost reluctant to watch the movie to the end, because now that I was done with the book, finishing the movie as well would be like saying goodbye to Elizabeth Gilbert, whom I've come to see as a friend, sister, and fellow traveller / dreamer / writer / spiritual seeker.
Then I stumbled across a beautiful blog, quite by accident - while Googling French phrases in preparation for my short escapade there in three days - that reassured me that there would always be someone out there living her life to its fullest to draw inspiration and strength from.
I just had a quick skim through her blog before subscribing and bookmarking it for future reading pleasure, but here are a couple of quotes that made me go, "I know exactly what she's talking about!" and reminded me that the world is full of kindred spirits everywhere just waiting to be discovered.
Here's the magic of a fine meal: my imagination is fired, my idealism returns, hope triples, and my heart expands to include everyone and everything that had previously fallen aside with the daily grind of disillusionment. Eating well can be truly transformative, and I pledge myself to making everyday foods and moments so spiritually elevating.
I love love LOVE the book and the movie, and I love love love Elizabeth Gilbert's writing style. Absolutely beautiful.
Addiction - the hallmark of infatuation
Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never dared to admit you wanted-an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with a hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is witheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy, and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore-- despite the fact that you know he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because he used to give it to you for free). Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in a corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob your neighbors just to have 'that thing' even one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is,you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess,unrecognizable even to your own eyes. So that's it. You have now reached infatuation's final destination - the complete and merciless devaluation of self.
Ruin is the road to transformation
A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It’s called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome’s first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It’s one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured – the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic, it’s just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.
Dolce Far Niente
Luca Spaghetti (Giuseppe Gandini): "Americans. You work too hard, you get burned out. You come home and spend the whole weekend in your pajamas in front of the T.V."
Liz: "That's not far off, actually."
Luca Spaghetti: "But you don't know pleasure. You have to be told you've earned it. You see a commercial that says: 'It's Miller Time!' And you say, That's right, now I'm going to buy a six pack. And then drink the whole thing and wake up the next morning and you feel terrible. But an Italian doesn't need to be told. He walks by a sign that says: You deserve a break today. And he says, Yes, I know. That's why I'm planning on taking a break at noon to go over to your house and sleep...with your wife!"
Giovanni (Luca Argentero): "We call it "dolce far niente", the sweetness of doing nothing."
Possessing your thoughts
Richard from Texas: "You're going to have to learn to select your thoughts the same way you select your clothes every day. Now that's a power that you can cultivate. You want to come here and you want to control your life so bad, work on the mind, ...because if you can't master your thoughts you are in trouble forever."
I was talking to Mabel about people that come into your life, make a mark on you, and change you forever.
She described those people as "people that give you a higher standard to aim for" - basically, people that inspire you to be better, because they are.
I think love, in its purest form, between two people, has that effect. It makes each other want to be better. Just being around the other person is like a breath of fresh air, and just the smallest things make you smile inside and feel like you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.
It's when two people in love try to own each other, hold on to each other, and make each other the goal - instead of letting their love make them come alive and give them the courage to live a bigger and better life - that things suddenly becoming suffocating, stifling, uninspiring, and dead.
Maybe love is not a destination but a signpost along the journey of life. Maybe there's no way to really make love last unless it keeps moving forward, growing, changing, as the people who share it move forward, grow, and change.
"Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all." — C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
I drift into consciousness, my senses slowly waking up one by one to the sensation of your fingers gently stroking my back, the gentle sound of your breathing, and your sleepy eyes looking at me. I snuggled closer against your chest, close enough to feel your heartbeat.
In moments like these, I usually try to fight sleep because I don't want the moment to end.
But this time, I close my eyes and let weariness carry me back to dreamland, because somehow I know I will see you there.
And I do. While the rest of the world spins on, I drift in and out of sleep, unafraid to lose the moment, because each time I open or close my eyes, you are there.
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good… Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.” -C.S. Lewis
"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." — C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair, The Chronicles of Narnia)
"Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all." — C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back." — C.S. Lewis (Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold)
"We meet no ordinary people in our lives." — C.S. Lewis
A girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much.
A girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
In my dreams I’m in Pike’s Place,
Nolita,
Old Cape Cod,
London,
Paris,
Rome,
Tuscany,
Phnom Penh,
Kota Kinbalu,
Santorini,
Redang.
In my dreams I’m walking through the market,
chasing bands around the city in the middle of the night,
watching workers tend the vines,
sitting at a bar and people-watching,
strolling through the park,
feeding ducks,
lying in the hammock,
listening to the rain hammering against the roof in the middle of the night,
sipping espresso in a sidewalk cafe,
visiting an art museum,
making pancakes for breakfast,
watching fireworks on New Year’s,
waking up to a thriving, bustling metropolis,
waking up to idyllic contryside,
smelling the seaside air,
painting, drawing, writing,
hitch-hiking,
cycling across the countryside,
camping out in the wild,
canoeing back to shore as the sun sets,
stopping to listen to the street musicians play,
roasting marshmallows over a beachside bonfire,
wrapping myself in a sleeping bag as I drift off to sleep.
In my dreams I am running,
jumping,
flying,
twisting,
dancing,
changing,
stretching,
learning,
growing,
feeling,
living,
loving,
risking,
screaming,
being.
In my dreams I feel peaceful,
impatient,
excited,
restless,
calm,
exhilarated,
excited,
relaxed,
refreshed,
alert,
tense,
blissful,
content.
