god's thumbnail

tonight the moon was what my grandmother used to call "god's thumbnail"...i believe astronomists call it a crescent. but it just seemed exactly like god's thumbnail once my grandmother pointed it out, and it's been that ever since.

i like to look at the sky at night. i'm looking for operating instructions, to be honest. sometimes it's very bright...sometimes it's very clear. i can almost always see orion in the late fall and winter, it seems. although i will admit i am so spatially challenged that as we rotate at night, i have a hard time finding him and it makes me shake my head and roll my eyes and laugh because it seems like as he moves in the same direction each night, it shouldn't be so hard to find him...but i admit i often walk inside, shaking my head and laughing and having no idea where the hell he went.

there's a sky i see sometimes...it's dark blue...midnight blue i guess (haha, snort)...but there's enough moon that when the clouds make this cool pattern, it looks like a dark blue tie dye pattern. and it reminds me of my friend jeanni. i think she has a shirt like this, but maybe i just made that up. so either way, it is what i have termed in my mind a "jeanni sky." and three nights ago (hell, i think it was three...it's been a busy week), there was a jeanni sky. and it didn't surprise me. jeanni's had some stuff going on, and i've been thinking about her lots. and i hadn't heard from her that night, so i'd been thinking about her especially because it felt kind of foreboding that i hadn't heard from her..."no news is good news" be damned.

i have since heard from her and it wasn't good news. it wasn't necessarily bad news, although jeanni could probably argue that with me if she had a mind to. and she might have a mind to. but she might also not freaking feel like it. the news was that life will change...and it always does...damn it. but why is it that when life deals you those lessons about change, it's always more than you ever wanted? and it is never the way you would've chosen.

marriage comes to mind at this point. we obviously choose to get married. but even then, it rarely goes the way you would've chosen and it's often more than you ever wanted.

but there's been a lot of change in this new year.

my friend julie is here with her new daughter...she's a week old...in her life as julie's daughter. well, a week and a day. julie's daughter is actually four years old. and she's from india. and she is the most amazing thing to hit my house since my daughter. this little one, who i've been calling ruby-roo, is beautiful and mesmerizing and just a damned good sport all around. no, she doesn't speak english. and no, we don't know her language. but we teach her a few words and she teaches us a few words and we all smile a lot because we are just so darned happy to hang out together. i am very honored that julie brought her here to share with all of us and hope it's been worth her while. (what the hell does worth her while mean? i mean, i know what the phrase means, but is that really how it's written out?...) but i'm not going to share with julie my feelings right now about change being more than we ever wanted or rarely going the way we would've chosen. we'll let her get a little further down the way and see if she notices this on her own...

but for me, right now, as i sit in the middle of these changes this year has brought, to those i love (and god, do i love them), as well as the change it's brought to my own life, i can't help but reflect on the things that stay the same (you totally saw that coming, right?).

love. love stays the same. it changes in our relationships, strengthens, weakens, waxes and wanes...like the moon...but it's always there. sometimes in different people, in different relationships, in ourselves and out. but it's there. we may ache for it in the same relationships, ache for it in ourselves, ache for it in the same ways it used to be there. and the ways will change. but the love will always be there. will always find us.

the older i get (and while i realize i may not be THAT old, i don't think anyone would argue that i'm not THAT young anymore either), the more surprised i am by the places i find love that i never would've thought i'd find it. and i'm even more surprised by how much love i find in me. now maybe that's because i've given up the belief that i am the generator of my life and i've opened myself up to the Love that is the true generator of us all. but even that surprises me. it's an act of faith. and while i've always had an easier time believing in good things (i mean really, santa and the easter bunny have never been a huge stretch for me and i never saw the big deal in my parents being the ones to really do it all...it all still happened and was good in the end...), i've always also believed that if i was good enough, did the right thing, earned it somehow, love would come. but now i know love is always there. always has been. always will be.

it may be a perspective thing. one person's trash is another's treasure type of deal. and i have learned not to push my trash on someone who doesn't want it...and the same goes for my treasure. people like to make these evaluations for themselves. we have to. that's part of the whole deal. but i know that love will always, in the end, find us. just like god's thumbnail found me tonight.

peace

one thing

running a half marathon is like an energy enema. not too long ago, i did some push ups for the first time in awhile and had some crazy dreams as a result. whatever is stored in muscles can make for some interesting introspection once you've released it. so running for that long, pushing yourself, makes for interesting times for awhile. add a spouse in residency and four children and, well, it can almost make you believe you're crazy at times...

here's a song i heard today that kind of touches on things i'm having a hard time talking about. although i have to thank mama lana for letting me get a lot of things out last night...and i have to say, i think she'll appreciate this song, too... ;)



peace

bookworm award

i received this from bohemi-anna, who is one of those young, intelligent, vibrant, and kind people who makes the world a better place. i even bought a scarf from her to wear to remind myself she's out there. i guess you could say i am happy to know her... <3

Here is the rule for the award:Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 46. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences...The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!!

ok, the book is plan b, by anne lamott. (man, i lucked out...i swear i had gardening or the trivium over here the other day...)

ok, page 46, fifth sentence...here we go... it's from an essay about her mom, and her mom's ashes, and how she finally dealt with them, called o noraht, noraht...

I put the brown plastic box in the closet as soon as it came back from the funeral home, two years ago, thinking I could at last give up all hope that a wafting white-robed figure would rise from the ashes of my despair and say, "Oh, little one, my darling daughter, I am here for you now." I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, like the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her.

yeah...it frightens me how i can relate to this as a daughter and be kind of terrified by it as a mother at the same time...but time settles in my chest and makes me settle down, eat it all bite by bite and stop trying to swallow the whole thing at once...keeps me from choking to death.

ok, i just needed the break and remembered i'd been tagged. thanks anna! oh, i get to tag five more...hmmm...i know! i know! how about jen, hope, lana, julie, and whit...i KNOW you all read like crazy...and you're all pretty sexy, too...
peace

buddhism lite

ok, so i'm reading a new book. it's called how to see yourself as you really are and it's written by his holiness the dalai lama. i think that's pretty self explanatory...

i've underlined most of the beginning, where he's talking about four personal beliefs. the second one got me, so i'm going to quote the first two parts i underlined in there...

"According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles stem from attachment to things that we mistakenly see as permanent. Operating from that misconception, we see aggression and competitiveness as helpful in the pursuit of what we imagine and desire."

"When you have love and compassion for a very poor person, your feelings are based on altruism. By contrast, love toward your husband, wife, children, or a close friend is often mixed with attachment, and when your attachment changes, your kindness may disappear. Complete love is based not on attachment but on altruism, which is the most effective response to suffering."

okay...that's a mouthful...or more accurately, a heart-full. it did catch me by surprise, though, that i agreed with this so much inside...that it sounded so very right to me, yet i've come to learn that much of the parenting practices i've adopted over the years fall under the general heading of attachment parenting. which i've always thought of as a philosophy of parenting based on answering the needs of my children as they express them, as i realize them, and as i am able. and encouraging them to meet their own needs and, hopefully, in the process they'll learn to respond to the needs of those around them as well, as they are able.

it's funny that i used the word respond because tomorrow, in my middles philosophy class, we're beginning a discussion on responsibility and after we've talked about what it means and tried to define it in three words or less, we'll talk about how the root of responsibility is response.

anyway...the part that really caught me in those quotes was the concept that once we change our attachment in a relationship, we can drain some of the kindness from it and act on that attachment instead of out of a true, loving response. that, uhm, kind of hit home in some ways. because i know i struggle with a sense of almost ownership over my kids and the sense that they owe me something in return. the same with my spouse. and while these words aren't pretty, they are true, and as i've thought about the dalai lama's words this week, it hasn't been that hard to let go of some of my misperceived attachment. it's a shift i can almost feel physically when i am mindful of what i am doing, what i am thinking, and how i am putting those two things together. it's not something that seems to magically change once you figure it out. but it is somewhat of a habit, or so it seems. like the more you practice it, the (a least a tiny bit) more natural it becomes.

and i haven't even started chapter one, yet. i think i'll probably be quoting this book quite a bit.
peace out

snow falling on cedars

this was the last book we read for book club. i still haven't finished it. parts of it were very compelling to me and other parts notsomuch. i have about fifty pages left to read, but i don't think i'll finish it anytime soon, if at all. i will admit that this is the first book i've ever skipped to the back to read the ending before arriving there chronologically. and i don't really know why i did that.

the book is somewhat of a mystery. it covers the time in history when japanese americans were forced into camps after pearl harbor was bombed. but it also deals a lot with the history and relationships of the characters, and the attitude of the townspeople where the story takes place, and just human nature in general...differences in paradigms and how those differences affect our perception of each other and ourselves. i did like the book...but it just doesn't feel like i need to know how it ends.

i didn't set out to collect quotes in this book, but a hundred pages or so into it, i just came across some that struck me...

"There was a place in him she could not reach where he made his choices in solitude, and this made her not only uneasy about him but afraid for their future, too. Her life was joined to his now, and it seemed to her that every corner of his soul should be opened to hers because of this."

"The trick was to live here without hating yourself because all around you was hatred. The trick was to refuse to allow your pain to prevent you from living honorably. In Japan, she said, a person learned not to complain or be distracted by suffering. To persevere was always a reflection of the state of one's inner life, one's philosophy, and one's perspective."

"He was not Japanese, and they had met as such a young age, their love had come out of thoughtlessness and impulse, she had fallen into loving him long before she knew herself, though it occurred to her now that she might never know herself, that perhaps no one ever does, that such a thing might not be possible."

"If identity was geography instead of blood--if living in a place was what really mattered--then Ishmael was part of her, inside of her, as much as anything Japanese. It was, she knew, the simplest kind of love, the purest form, untainted by Mind, which twisted everything, as Mrs. Shigemura, ironically, had preached."

after rereading these quotes, maybe i will try to finish it. i've already picked up another book and i just ordered three more. hello, my name is marci and i'm a book whore. but i am also okay with that.
peace