Precious time
Precious time.
Precious time with loved ones.
Precious time to do what one wants in life.
Precious time to be idle.
Precious time to make decisions.
Precious time to accomplish things.
Precious time to call one’s own.
Precious time. That’s what I’m thinking about today.
Soup and jello
I’m on the mend. I’m craving actual food. Whew. Things were looking dicey for a while today. So weak and tired and out of it.
Getting sick and then ultimately overcoming it always feels like such a victory, a fresh start, a thoughtful pause.
Chicken soup, jello, and ginger ale never tasted so good.
Bad egg?
This afternoon I felt so tired I could have put my head down on my desk and slept right there. As I walked home from the PATH after work, I told the friend I was with that I felt like I was going to throw up.
I was glued to the couch when I got home, so nauseous. Tried to eat crackers. At 10:30, finally threw up. So gross, but what a relief.
Had two eggs over light with whole wheat toast for lunch. Bad egg?
Holiday weekend potpourri
What an action-packed weekend. In a nutshell, was surrounded by family on Thanksgiving, then did the insane but fun Black Friday shopping trip with my sister and her friends, met a childhood friend of my mother’s on Saturday and spent today getting back into my home routine (gym, church, writing my book).
Random thoughts from the four-day span:
– My train ride with a fresh issue of O magazine was delightful Wednesday night.
– I missed my blog.
– My mother’s stuffing is a little piece of heaven.
– I taught my 3-year-old nephew to say, “Bonjour, Aunt Nancy” and “Merci beaucoup.” He is a riot.
– My 2-year-old niece took me by the index finger into my parents’ bedroom so I would wind up my mother’s music box over and over again. She is such a fun combination of angelic and assertive.
– Saturday I saw a side of each of my parents that was new to me. Sometimes it takes a while for us to figure out our parents are people capable of an array of behaviors and emotions. It was illuminating, positive.
– I am so, so thankful for my friends.
– The sermon at church this morning was about how our bodies are central to our spirituality. How our “good” qualities and our “bad” qualities are central to our spirituality. How so many of us must undo the thinking of childhood religions that said otherwise.
– I’ve been talking about how Desperate Housewives isn’t as good this season as it was last. Tonight it was phenomenal. You have to love when Gabrielle takes on a bitchy nun, Bree finds out her husband was murdered and Lynette gets her boss fired after seeing her in a compromising position with the help. And, to boot, the wrap-up by the narrator had the same message on “good” and “bad” as the church sermon this morning.
That’s all, folks.
Free dip
So I’m in the drugstore today and the lines are pretty long, spilling into the aisles, in fact. I decide I don’t want to wait. As I’m walking out, I’m sort of behind this woman in line and I see her right arm extended back behind her. She’s looking very nonchalant. I take a quick glance at her hand. It has maneuvered the lid off a jar of Vaseline on the shelf and she is rubbing the petroleum jelly on her apparently dry left hand. In one fell swoop she snapped the lid back on and left the jar on the shelf with all the others.
How funny is that?
Today’s lesson: Don’t buy Vaseline without first checking there isn’t a dip taken out of it.
Deep thoughts
This popped into my head today
From the sublime to the ridiculous
But upon deeper thought
I realized it was never sublime
Yes, Virginia
I was reading The New York Times “Book Review” today and there was a review of a new Virginia Woolf biography. Considering where I am with my own writing right now, I found this tidbit fabulous:
“I am ashamed, or perhaps proud, to say how much of my time is spent in thinking, thinking, thinking about literature,” Woolf wrote in one letter. And in another, “I’ve shirked two parties, and another Frenchman, and buying a hat, and going to tea with Hilda Trevelyan: for I really can’t combine all this with keeping my imaginary people going.”
Yes, yes, yes, Virginia.
Abundance
I’m about to begin writing. I’ve got the decent table in the crowded cafe. My well-worn copy of A Room of One’s Own is sitting here with me for inspiration. My coffee is fresh.
I’m thinking about the people who make all this possible. My brother for the computer setup with the Wifi card. The manager here who just gave me the coffee for free. The friend who told me I must read the Virginia Woolf classic that has inspired my book so. The people who have inspired my characters, who I have come to love. The friend who just read a piece of my book despite my trepidation and wrote back an email with LOVED IT in the subject line. The friend who got me the “day” job and made financial peace possible.
And then there is the friend and life coach who pushed me to a breakthrough idea this week. What was a little germ of a thought voiced out loud to her became a hell of an idea for my book. We had some back and forth on it and next thing I knew I was soaring high as a kite. I love this. I must go execute it.
Stay tuned.
Man and the moon
Last night there was almost a full moon. I walked home from the “day” job along the waterfront and marveled that it looked like a big orange ball sitting on top of a building to the left of the Empire State Building. So fabulous.
A man walked beside me. Came out of nowhere, it seemed, as I was in my own world trying to figure out the new cellphone. I put it back in my bag to look at later. He marveled at the moon, too. I realized he was talking to me. Nice conversation ensued. Nice guy. Nice energy. We walked about three blocks. That’s all it took for him to ask for my number and for me to hand it over.
Looking forward to his call.
Still I Rise
Today this masterpiece of a poem, one of my all-time favorites, came to mind. The only thing better than seeing it in print is hearing Maya Angelou read it. I can almost hear her deep, melodic voice as my eyes move over the words.
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
–Maya Angelou
