Words To Stir the Soul.

"Your epitaph will begin: 'She redefined what it meant to be a good woman.' It will say 'She scaled mountains, in hiking boots and in heels.  She started in her own backyard and then went all the way around the world.  She accepted challenges with curiosity and determination.  She emerged victorious regardless of outcome, knowing both the pleasure of success and the grace of failure.  She tasted long hot days and cool still nights, at home wherever she found herself.  She wasn't always popular, but she was always true.  She wasn't always comfortable, but no one can say she didn't enjoy her life.  She explored her edges, increased her capacity, and lived as big as she could dream.  Moved equally by bliss and pain, she played her heart out one moment at a time.  She was dialed in.  She was courageous. She was turned on.' "
                                 - The Turned On Woman's Manifesto

Just. . . Yes.

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze that it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”


-Jack London.




Doesn't it sing right to your heart?

Post Irene (The Adventures)

"Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are."
-Anais Nin

I was looking for a way to express how I felt about the power being out, and I stumbled upon this quote.  It so elegantly stated what I was trying to tease from my brain and to my tongue.

You see - aside from this foray into the outside world which brought us to the library - we haven't got any power.  And it's already been more than 24 hrs, with a day or more still to go.  At first, being without power always seems like a great adventure: forts! books! card and board games! conversation! candles!  

Then a few hours tick by, and you want to flick on the tv.  Or eat something warm.  Or shower.  And the adventure gets a little boring, because real life power outages do not have the sentimental soundtrack of movie power outages.  It can get tedious, especially for a generation raised with computers, MTV, and gameboys/PSPs.  

Lucky for me, I had just reread my beloved copy of "Pride & Prejudice," this week, and was well into my other favorite novel "The Three Musketeers," when Irene hit.  What does this have to do with a lack of electricity?  Well, P&P and Musketeers are my two favorite novels.  For most of my life I've known and admired the characters in their pages, and wished to live in a different time.  A time of refinement and and romance, or adventure and passion.  The older I got, the better I understood things like vaccinations, hospitals, literacy rates, and women's rights, but these essentials never quite drove away my wistful admiration of times gone by.  Times without power.

Which made me realize how very new  and modern a convenience electricity really is.  How recent the lightbulb, let alone the laptop, is to society.  The very novels I love, populated with characters I deeply admire, were penned by sunlight, candlelight, and maybe an oil lamp.  Like the Declaration of Independence.  And the Holy Bible.  The works of Socrates, the Magna Carter, Wuthering Heights, and anything/everything by Shakespeare.  Just like the Pyramids, the Great Wall, Notre Dame de Paris, and much of  Vatican City were constructed without electricity to ease the back breaking labor.  Some of mankinds greatest accomplishments were achieved without aid of something we now consider a basic need.

I'm not exactly excited to be without lights, hot water, or phone.  I don't live in a house set up with a stove or oven or fireplace workable without electricity, so much of my food is no good and I will incur either hunger pains or high costs for prepared food.  My packing will be slower, but overall I will have what I need.

Games to play with my family by candlelight.  Useful things (packing, sorting, tending my garden) to occupy my hands.  Someplace safe to sleep.

And always, access to the deep creativity that lives within us all, that spark of Divine that lit thousands of years without electricity.  

Here's hoping the power comes back soon, and that I never loose the appreciation of what is beautiful and good again.

Yesterday Was My Best Friend's Birthday

 And we're taking it very seriously.

I must confess, the above picture is not from yesterday.  It's from exactly 366 days ago, when she celebrated her last birthday, here in the little slice of wilderness we hail from.  Charming, no?  Basically, that picture is our friendship summed up in a single flash.  This is us, moments later attempting to take a non-silly picture.  She translated "non-silly," as "seductive."  I translated it into "boring."  Thus, we balance each other out.

 

I wish I could properly sum Arletta up for you in a blogpost, but that is impossible to do.  Mostly, because there is no "summing," Arletta up.  She isn't one thing - she's a thousand and one things.  She is the loudest laugh in the room, and generally the funniest joke.  She's a bellydancer and choreographer.  For all my classical training, I don't think I'll ever be able to understand just how to make my body m o v e the way her's does.  

She's a singer: anything the average person says outloud, she sings.  Even if it's a list of things she's got to do that day.

She's a hopeless romantic, which rather nicely brightened my vaguely I-don't-give-a-crap-about-the-male-species attitude through HS.  

Arletta is the kind of girl who chases her dream, chased it all the way to India for a semester abroad.  Which makes perfect sense, since she is after all a tigress. . . 

She is this poem: improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing.  

She is my best friend in the world.

Two Years.

"I heard what you said.  I am not the silly romantic that you think.  I don't want the heavens or the shooting stars.  I don't want gemstones or gold.  I have those things already.  I want a steady hand, a kind soul.  I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe."

-Shana Abe.

Thank goodness that for the past two years, I've had just what I want.

Random Thought and Sleepy Words.

I am tired.  These ever changing hours of going to sleep, waking up, and going about my day are no good for anyone.  Least of all an insomniac.

I would really like a little pet of my own.  My doggies are wonderful: two of the sweetest and most personality filled animals on the planet.  They are however big dogs.  The sort of dogs you can't really have in an apartment, like the kind I will be spending the next several years of my life in.  I miss having bunnies.  I would love a kitty.  I've always wanted a ferret.  Hey, don't judge - they're very smart and full of energy and personality.  And they're just cute enough.  Not glitter and cupcake cute, but I-might-take-a-bite-of-you-yet-you-cannot-resist-scratching-my-belly-cute.

There is a beautiful, formal wedding only a few weeks away.  One of my dearests is getting married.  And I still have nothing to wear.  Shoot.

It is so frustrating not having enough money to do anything or go anywhere.  Looks like I'll be missing the Celtics Dancer's Try Out this weekend. . . because I can't afford to go.  Oh well, more time to work on getting in shape I suppose.

Somedays I feel like the head counselor at Lonely Hearts Day Camp.  I love you, darlings, and I hope I can help. . . but sometimes I'm just not sure what to say.

This stream-of-concious-style-writing is a little uncomfortable for me.  Not enough structure.

Ooops, now you all know I'm a wee bit OCD.

I can't wait for fall semester and all the awesome stuff I get to be part of.

I am terrified of having agreed to too much for fall semester.

My new mantra (especially for stressed-out days):

Let Go And Let God.

Dance + Camera = New Post

Hello beautiful person reading my blog!  I apologize for my negligence: it's really been quite shameful.  I am back in teh blogging world, however, and have something fun to share with you.  Pictures!  At some point, one of you lovely followers had asked me to post pictures of myself dancing, and for the first time I think i'll be able to oblige.  All of the pictures of me in a dress are by Quigley Photography, which you can follow here.  All the pictures of me in a window/on a couch and wearing sweats were taken by my friends Karyl and Laura last Saturday!

Without any further ado, here is what happens when you ask a dancer to sit still for headshots:

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music"

-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Let us dance in the sun, wearing wildflowers in our hair. . ."

-Susan Polis Shutz

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak."

-Hopi Indian Quote

The following pictures, on the other hand, are what happen when you ask a group of undergrad dancers to rehearse just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittttllleee longer on a Saturday between shows.  I wish we'd planned ahead so we'd could have had things like dancewear (it was a marking/concept rehearsal), a good camera, the forethought to tidy the room. . . post script, I'm the one wearing the blue thermal, with the long hair.

"Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There's no secret to balance, you just have to feel the waves."

-Frank Herbert

"Never be afraid to try something new. . ."

"Similar creatures, we are chasing the pipe dream down,"

-Sara Barielles "Any Way the Wind Blows."

"Wish you would step back from the ledge my friend. . . you could, cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in. . ."

-Third Eye Blind "Jumper."

"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we may as well dance."

-Japanese Proverb

"Talent is luck: the important thing in life is courage."

-Woody Allen

"When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that."

-William Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale)

We didn't plan on similar poses. . . thats just what happened spontaneously. 

"Friendship is being two halves of the same coin: not always matching but perfectly coordinated, and entirely useless apart.  "

"Now bring me that horizon. . . "

-Johnny Depp (Captain Sparrow) Pirates of the Caribbean

"I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go."

-Peter Pan

(sidenote: i never had the slightest interst in being Tinkerbelle.  i've always wanted to be Peter Pan: with a voice and of my own, a sword, and limitless courage  Fighting pirates, starting food fights, climbing trees, listening to stories and roaming wheresoever i please with my Lost Boys)

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts. . ."

-William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)