Month: April 2009

  • by Jerry Spinelli

    zis man has flashes of brilliance. not sustained forever, but they leave you happy and glowy. sorta like Bradley Hathaway. and i enjoyed reading ze book.

    “i’m disappearing, Leo. Who are you if you lose your favorite person? can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? i reached for Stargirl and she’s gone. i’m not me anymore…i went to the stone piles today. i had a feeling that the shuffling man would come by again, and he did. He stopped in front of me. he said “Are you looking for me?” and shuffled on without waiting for an answer. i called after him, “i’m looking for me! have you seen me?!” but he just kept moving on…”

    “Tell me i didn’t imagine it, Leo. Tell me that even though our bodies were in separate states, our star selves shared an enchanted place. tell me that right around noon today, you had the strangest sensation: a tiny chill on your shoulder…tell me you whispered my name.”

    “We Arnolds. our hearts yearn backward. we long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home. but i no longer hope to be found, Leo. do not follow me! let’s just be babulously where we are and who we are. you be you and i’ll be me, today and today and today, and let’s trust the future to  tomorrow. let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. may our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies.”

    –Love, Stargirl

  • Isaiah 53

     Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

    wedding 023

    For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

    wedding 024

     He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

    wedding 031

    But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

    wedding 027

    All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

    wedding 030

    He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

    wedding 032

    He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken…

    wedding 025

    Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

    wedding 033

    Good: that which fulfills its purpose.

    Good Friday.

  • who painted the lines in the sky with their jet planes?

    where did they go and can they take me with them?

    the sun has set

    and no one noticed

    i sat alone on the bench

    bearing farewell while the busy street

    continued behind me

    *

    the world is alive today, and i am awake to see it.

    *

    Why are some days magical

    where anything could happen

    and everything does happen

    and other days

    drag along like slugs?

    The world is bright again

    open and inviting

    i feel unstoppable

    and yet it hurts because i know

    it won’t last forever

    does the magic only work once?

  • Spring Fever

    I am ready to leave again. warm weather makes me restless.

     

    “Leaving home is a kind of forgiveness, and when you get among strangers, you’re amazed at how decent they seem. Nobody smirks at you or gossips about you, nobody resents your successes or relishes your defeats. You get to start over, a sort of redemption.” –Garrison Keillor “Leaving Home”

     

    “We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them…how should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.” Rainer Maria Rilke “letters to a young poet”

     

    “Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am…stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.” Micheal Crichton “Travels”

     

    “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, In our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” Pico Iyer “Why we travel”

     

    “People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” Joseph Campbell “the power of myth”

     

    “It is not speech which we should want to know; we should want to know the speaker. It is not things seen which we should want to know; we should know the seer. It is not sounds which we should want to know; we should know the hearer. It is not the mind which we should want to know: we should know the thinker.” –From the Kaushitaki Upanishad

     

    “And the end of all our exploring

    Will be to arrive where we started

    And know the place for the first time –T.S.Eliot

     

    “Allons! The road is before us!

    It is safe-I have tried it-my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!

    Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!

    Let the tools remain in the workshop! Let the money remain unearn’d!

    Let the school stand! Mind not the cry of the teacher!

    Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! Let the lawyer plea in the court, and the judge expound the law.

     

    Comerado, I give you my hand!

    I give you my love more precious than money,

    I give you myself before preaching or law;

    Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?

    Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?”

    –Walt Whitman “song of the open road”

     

    * i got my permit to backpack down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. in two months.

  • All about Anna

    Last Friday. GIRLS NITE.

    i forgot to get bowls. so we had sundays in a cup.

    wedding 007

    lotsa lovely people in my living room.

    wedding 011

    then everyone gave Anna marriage advice. my advice was not to forget your family. said with utmost marriage experience.

    SATURDAY

    it was everything i wanted. i know it wasn’t about me…but…i wanted the whole “give your sister away” thing. the shopping for last minute things you forgot. the running around and doing nails and hair and looking for dresses and talking to people i haven’t in so long…

    DSCN3757 DSCN3756

    ze most beautiful place

    DSCN3761

    Aunt Carol did so so much! Thank you Aunt Carol and Uncle Loren!

    DSCN3766

    Uncle Roger wore tights. see the chocolate fountain under his arm? Anna’s idea.

    THANK YOU Uncle Roger, Aunt Robin, Uncle Verdon, and Aunt Becky for your amazing work. they pulled off all the food service.

    DSCN3773

    Ed and Cindy to the rescue! Cindy made balloon swords for all those unarmed. Those lion things John and Dad have on are called  “Hauberks” now you learned something today.

    DSCN3779

    ze happy couple and their Nana

    DSCN3791

    some Winzeler family

    DSCN3795

    some Embry family

    wedding 015

    some jousting

    DSCN3800

    and then the real show

    DSCN3802

    they went along nicely for awhile

    DSCN3804

    and then i don’t know what happened

    DSCN3805

    We had a wonderful storyteller

    wedding 019

    and a beautiful bride who said “it couldn’t have been better.”

    DSCN3819

    And all the peasents rejoiced.

     

     

  • my new favoritest song

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajcRFpJBLQ8&feature=related

     

    lovely.

    Words–by Yael Naim

    Far far, there’s this little girl
    she was praying for something to happen to her
    everyday she writes words and more words
    just to spit out the thoughts that keep floating inside
    and she’s strong when the dreams come cos’ they
    take her, cover her, they are all over
    the reality looks far now, but don’t go

    How can you stay outside?
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    how can you stay outside?
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    oh oh oh oh

    Far far, there’s this little girl
    she was praying for something good to happen to her
    from time to time there are colors and shapes
    dazzling her eyes, tickling her hands
    they invent her a new world with
    oil skies and aquarelle rivers
    but don’t you run away already
    please don’t go oh oh

    How can you stay outside?
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    how can you stay outside?
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    Take a deep breath and dive
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    how can you stay outside?
    There’s a beautiful mess
    beautiful mess inside

    Oh beautiful, beautiful

    Far far there’s this little girl
    she was praying for something big to happen to her
    every night she hears beautiful strange music
    it’s everywhere there’s nowhere to hide
    but if it fades she begs
    “oh lord don’t take it from me, don’t take it”

    She says, “I guess I’ll have to give it birth
    to give it birth
    I guess, I guess I have to give it birth
    I guess I have to, have to give it birth
    there’s a beautiful mess inside and it’s everywhere

    Just look at yourself now
    deep inside
    deeper than you ever dared
    deeper than you ever dared
    there’s a beautiful mess inside
    beautiful mess inside