"Come on People Now" (Blogger Challenge)

I have something I want to share with you. I recently had a fruitful but difficult therapy session that was scheduled last minute ("emergency") because I felt generally and wholly terrible. There are many reasons why the terribles descended upon me, including a mysterious summer flu that peaked with a bout of bronchitis, a run-in with an ex, and a date from hades. Also included were general anxieties about the direction of my life, but that is not really the point of this post. The point is that I realized just how necessary it is for us to cherish ourselves and each another.

I know, I know -- it's like I've just crawled naked into bed with John and Yoko: all I'm missing is the tambourine. But dammit, I'm serious, even if it means being labeled a 2009 hippie. Forget sexy, lets bring love(-ins) back. I am not completely sure what the hell a love-in is, but in my vision we gather together and are just plain nice to each other. We are kind to strangers. W e pay it forward. Smile on each other, all that groovy stuff. Why not? In addition to just plain feeling good, recent studies show that positive relationships increase our life span.

On a particularly inspired day at the beginning the year, I wrote an optimistic blog detailing my great hopes for 2009. Hope 09 is basically a love letter to everyone I know; I wanted to stop and give thanks to/ for the people in my life-- both the relationships bitter and sweet. Yet, as I brayed through my last therapy session, the thoughts that kept me in buoyant anticipation of the new year were no where to be found. Put bluntly, I felt like crap and forgot my own encouraging words. Ah, life. Good therapy and time has found me, in passing moments, once again excited by thoughts celebrating our connections and settling into an understanding of what it is to be alive and sharing this space with one another. And so I went out and got this great tattoo -pictured above-to remind myself always. JK, JK!

Truly, we are more alike than different, and for this I am grateful.

The Summer Day

The recent One Fine Philly posts about life's twists and turns (Pop Culture Casualty) and our collective stories (carrel dweller ) has me thinking about one of my favorite poems. I find this piece by Mary Oliver inspiring, especially when life seems overwhleming. Perhaps you will find some inspiration in it, too...

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

-Mary Oliver

My Sprout!

So my first post is late, late, late... but still somehow still on time!  I made it home and in front of my laptop in enough time to slip in a BLOG CHALLENGE post-- no surprise for those who know me.  So, even though I am short on time I thought I would simply post a picture of what holds my heart and thoughts captive in recent days: gardening.  Yes, I said it, gardening.  

Please, indulge me and say hello to my pride and joy: one very fine Heirloom Tomato Sprout!  ...Wait, don't congratulate me just yet, as she is young and fragile.  Yet, with hope and a bit of hard work, I may just be having a delicious crop to share at summer's end!