Wednesday

I was dwelling on the negativity I've been feeling in the last couple of days, and trying not to but not doing such a good job at it (it's wholly irrational, really), and then I read this today and now I feel as if I've transcended all evil. Momentarily. It was exactly what I needed.

Friday

No books, no movies, no spectacular moments or amazing coincidences. Just work.

Planet turns

Roads are icy. My head is full of sickness. It has been 20 degrees outside. Thanks to my dad, my car's tires do well on this ice. I'm remembering my wish lists that I've written about in the last year or so. In one way or another, I've obtained almost everything I wanted. It's great to go back and think, made possible by documentation, of how much I've accomplished. Our natures cause us to keep pushing forward and think about what we want to accomplish next, what we need and what we want. When it feels like we're stuck, we can see that life has been constantly moving forward, little by little. Sometimes we don't feel the earth moving under our feet.

Slow

I saw a little rabbit in my neighborhood on my way home yesterday. It was dark, but there it was. I had Thai noodles from the Kroger deli. I don't even like Thai noodles. I usually forget that it means, at least here in the U.S., that it has peanut butter in it. It has been a long, slow vacation. This week, being the parent of a teenager stings a little bit, for all of us in the house. I want to do the right thing.

Again

What is it about repetition that makes us who we are, or who we are not? Do we repeat the same mistakes because we have to? Our brains know no other way? We haven't learned the lessons that our pasts have tried to teach us? We have more to learn from more mistakes? When will we change? When we want to? We all say the world is constantly changing. We also say that life repeats itself. A cycle of circles we live in. All are different, yet all are shaped the same. Make one circle, go around again. Trees grow this way. Seasons go this way. Birth, life and death go this way. Why do I want something better for myself, when repetition is life? How often is the word "again" used in a positive context?

Chance Passage

Yesterday I came across this part of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," by Milan Kunder, which caused me to read it over a few times and think a little more: "Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup." Thanks, Mr. Kunder; when you're not extolling the virtues of womanizing (through Tomas), you're helping to enrich my day.
Post script: I've never talked to anyone about coffee grounds at the bottom of my cup. I thought I was the only one who tried to make sense out of the patterns.

What I Take

There was a brilliant, full rainbow on Christmas day at about 4 p.m. Our best gift! Our best Christmas ever! We had snow, sunshine and not-too-cold temperatures. We had family, we had friends, and we had great food. My friend gave me his i-Pod, the very i-Pod I found in the trunk of my car last March, full of amazing songs. I got to spend the night, Christmas night, at a president's house, with great and wonderful people, some of my very favorites.