what the world is made of

Here are some words from a mother who's teenage daughter had a major stroke recently. I keep reading them with awe at her sense of gratefulness in response to something that most of us would tremble to even think about. If I can take anything from this, it is the aspiration to step into life with this sense of grace and appreciation. As a wise friend said, "The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances."

I wish I could spin my moments of unhappiness into something so beautiful. The least I can do is wonder at a mother who is watching her child relearn everything she once knew, from language to walking and hopefully one day to singing and dancing. The most I can do is learn to reframe the not-so-special times into something I can learn from, and hopefully look upon those times as a gift. If not, there's always a chance to laugh at my own silliness.

"Between watching this beautiful and amazing creature courageously rebuild her body and her vocabulary, and these people I have called my best friends for decades move heaven and earth to help her, I am quite overcome most of the day, everyday. I feel as if someone said, "Sit. Watch. This is what the world is really made of. There's more beauty and love and joy here than you could possibly imagine. Remember this and nothing that could ever happen will shake you again." I am forever changed."
                                              -m.b.q.




[photo courtesy of lavender and dash]

walter

Today is for silliness and ridicule of the kinds of silliness that we just don't like. That means I have a rant in my head but I'm going to leave it at that and move on to Gotye:

Great music, interesting lyrics, and I like his music video (see below). I also saw him live-ish on Saturday Night Live and thought he was damn good for being on a tiny stage on a late night comedy show. His new album 'Making Mirrors' is out now, and if you want to know a little more go here. For some more: fun details.

Now that we've covered Gotye/Gaultier/Wouter/Walter, let me say just a little something about people who are condescending or who question your integrity and treat you as a young thoughtless person (when you clearly are not). Surprisingly, I am not speaking about anyone's treatment of myself, but treatment of another. It can be more irritating sometimes.

I suppose life would not be nearly as interesting without thoughtless people who have no skills in the "how to treat others" department. And so I pose the question: Who doesn't know the Golden Rules?

I'm pretty sure I can sum them up quickly; I've known them for a long time. I think most everyone should know them by about the time they, oh, learn to stick a fork in their own mouth without poking an eye out. Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.

Because you asked, and because I am more than prepared to share, here are the Golden Rules as I understand them:

Share when you're in the sand box, don't throw toys at other kids' heads, and don't pee on people.

It's pretty straightforward.

photos courtesy of soundslikerl

love monster

Someone dear to me (who sends random, delightful things my way) sent this picture. I opened a message at lunch (mid-bite, because I was sadly sitting in front of my computer while I ate). She said, "Why does this make me think of you? Strange.... but it does."

And I almost choked.

Because it makes me think of me, too.

I can't stop looking at it. It's like a perfect portrait. Obviously representational and not realist, but I love it and I am giggling a little bit at the outright excitement and over-the-top loving that this little love monster is emanating. Plus, I have a lot of teeth.

snakes and planes

Memorial Day is always poignant. So many wars, battles, scars, stories. There were adventures, too, and many friendships forged.

My Grandpa Fred passed away five years ago (May 21, 2006) and was in the army in World War II. He was posted in exotic places like India and Northern Africa, and had so many stories. He once told me how he and a few friends placed a cobra under a fellow soldiers' helmet. This soldier happened to be deathly afraid of snakes, and they put the cobra on his cot (in one of those giant cloth tents with the thick wooden tent poles). He wet himself when he lifted his helmet. My Grandfather paused as he finished the story and said, "Thinking back, it wasn't the nicest thing to do."

He survived a cargo plane crash in the El Dorado National Forest on November 2, 1941 (also one of his granddaughters' birthdays) and the History Channel even did a story on him. Fifty years later, he was the last survivor.

He was a woodworker, and an antiques enthusiast. He loved to travel, and at 80 years old he took a trip to Vietnam to see the places his son had gone as a soldier in the Vietnam War.

We have a woodworking shop in our basement thanks to his many tools and machines (a new shelf in our bathroom, too!).

This photo is of my great-grandparents Andrew and Anna, my Grandfather Fred, and his little sister, Signe. I can see my uncles in his face, and love to think of all the stories I have heard.

Though they are gone, there are still the stories, the memories, the moments that we can hold dear. I like to spend a little time appreciating those who were, for they have left little treasures.

The Ranger Station Report

to learn this

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...

It's about learning to dance in the rain."

~Vivian Greene

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet

voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

~Mary Anne Radmacher

photo courtesy

bites

Kids are funny. They talk with squeaky voices, they run around escaping vacuum cleaners, making pinecones into supper, and they hit and bite each other. I like their tiny little fingers and toes, and the silly things they say.

A two year old once asked me (after a very quiet 20 minutes as he was supposedly falling asleep): "When a shark bites you, do you die?"

"Uh.... I don't know, what do you think?"

"I think, yeah, you do."

A four year old saw me one day without makeup, and the next day with makeup (and combed hair) and said, "You don't look like you, you look beautiful."

And then there is the precocious three year old who bit her twin sister on the inner thigh, leaving a purple mark and even a little bit of blood. When told "Don't bite Sissy," she replied, "But I'm a dinosaur."

Who can argue with that?

Dinosaur courtesy of Amazing World

Calvin and Hobbes comic courtesy

ingenuity

Rest, ice, compression, elevate.

That's what you're supposed to do with a sprained ankle.

I know this because I sprained my ankle over the weekend. Lucky me, I decided to look away while running down a hill at the park just as a large tree root threw itself under my foot.

Today I decided to walk all over the place, up and down stairs, drive the truck (manual transmission) and 'suddenly' it started hurting. In actuality, it's been hurting all day (because it's sprained), so I took the pain for normal discomfort and paid no mind. Unfortunately, when I finally decided to take a look at it, the ankle part had swollen to twice its size and I had to scramble to ice it with whatever we had on hand. I settled on a 3-month old loaf of frozen bread. After twenty minutes of icing, I elevated it on a roll of bubble wrap. And of course this set me to thinking.

I love (passionately, tenderly, joyfully) the human ability to use tools to accomplish our ends. For instance: if there's a dish on a high shelf that I can't quite reach, I can grab a large soup ladle and extend my arm by nearly half its length! How exciting! It makes me giggle every time.

I'm trying to think of other examples, such as using using a pencil to hold your hair back, or an outdated laptop to hold a door closed. They don't always have to make sense.

The bubble wrap is making crunching noises and sticking to my leg. My desk chair was certainly not made to support someone with one leg up on their desk and the other foot on the floor. I'm pretty sure any clients who walk in the door wouldn't have much to say to me with my bare foot in their face. I suppose some tools should be used in private.

pretty bubble wrap courtesy of the Guardian

The origins of bubble wrap - wallpaper?

isn't it funny

I have been reminiscing on life, people, past, and past people.

Somewhere in the world doing their Monday things are all of the people I have come across over the 33 1/2 years I have lived. I remember many, and keep in touch with a precious few. I love the ways I've been altered by those just passing through, these tidbits of knowledge gained (though we never spoke again). Sometimes that's all you need: one friendly interaction and a life is changed. Or you are changed, in some small way.

It's funny to think of all the people I no longer know, or knew well (if only for a while)...

We are all dancing along in our little worlds, doing our little this's and thats.

I poke around in my memory, clearing the fuzz away and pulling out memories.

little things poster

the agitation of the unexpected

Sometimes I come across an article that is an ornately stitched tapestry of words, and it makes me happy. Even if I don't start out understanding the subject matter (the name Christopher Hitchens was vaguely familiar but didn't ring a loud bell) even if the sentence structure astounds my word-filled heart (I do love language, and the art of language)...

This happened today while reading an article on Christopher Hitchens by Martin Amis. As I perused the article, my eyes lingering here and there and then pouncing forward to the next happy literary moment, I came across the following phrase: "What we love is the agitation of the unexpected."

I find it delightful, appropriately simple, and absolutely true. To me.

Who knows if anyone else would love this article as I do, the intelligence of the writer apparent and the friendship between the writer and the subject so evident. (I admit I am more intrigued with the author than his politically controversial and word-witty friend.)

Aside from the language, I really do love to share in the feeling of camaraderie between one friend and another. It is a world unique to the pair, with a history that creates a million glinting facets honed and polished, a shining glittering thing that represents then, now, and soon-to-be.

The Article

Christopher Hitchens

tp

It can be rough or smooth, scented, printed with tiny flowers, or it can not exist at all (like in Bolivia).

It is often very close to one's shoulder in tiny stalls, nearly impossible to reach, or so tightly stored that normal size fingers can only pry bits of it from the roll.

It hangs on to shoe bottoms and collects in public restrooms.

It's stuffed into pockets when proper tissue can't be found, and stuffed up noses when nosebleeds occur.

It is used to wrap paper cuts, and some people even toss it through the air and over tree limbs (ha ha, really funny guys).

Toilet paper.

It's one of those un-thought-of everyday items that once forgotten is realized as crucial when it runs out. No one likes to have to ask for toilet paper, but everyone loves to have it when needed.

Ours is in a shiny tissue box, due to the toilet's close proximity to the wall. It's a little tricky to get at sometimes, and we have to remove the center roll and use that end or it won't come out at all.

Toilet paper. Who'd have thunk.