Author: pfspirit

Favorite Stephen King Quote

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them – words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.

Stephen King

Seen on the Bayou

Most of my travel photos are based on international travel.  However, the opportunity to see the everyday with new eyes always exists.  Different walks and bike rides have offered photo opportunities to see things that could be overlooked if I were zipping past in a car.  In addition, not everyone has been to a bayou.  I had to look up the definition for bayou myself because I didn’t know exactly what it was.  My easy thought is a place with many ditches that have water flowing through them and animals that live in or near them because that is what I see as I head to and fro.  However, the true definition encompasses more than ditches because beyond the areas I can walk or pedal are boatable (I don’t have one of those) waterways that seem to meander through landed areas. 

I don’t go everywhere but this is some of what it looks like with more to follow…

By the way, I still don’t know what those jumping fish are that I caught on the one video.  They are quite interesting though.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go With It

I enjoy singing but have not had the opportunity lately because I usually am not somewhere where I can listen to music privately (and sing along).  One day last week I made my usual before-work stop at Starbucks and one of my favorite arresting songs came on – LIke a Star.  This song, like Rain by Jesse Cook and Straight Into the Sunrise by Gato Barbieri, stopped me cold when I first heard it.  I was totally fascinated by the sound and ran out to purchase the entire CD based on the one song.  This was pre-iPod ownership.  However, I’m glad that I did purchase the entire CD because I love every song on it. 

Because Starbucks was pretty empty, I just went with it and began to sing the song – aloud.  Softly but still aloud.  It felt good to sing along to the song because it was something I had not done in quite a while.  When the song ended, the process of singing felt cathartic.  A few moments later, I realized it was time for me to pack up and go.  As I was leaving, I turned around to unplug my phone or something along those lines and realized there was someone sitting behind me that I didn’t factor into my decision to sing the song aloud.  As soft as I was singing, he was close enough to have heard every nuanced note.  Oops, free concert…

Sometimes you just gotta go with it.

From Point of Contention to Point of Contrition

Words hold the power to change situations.  One of the most powerful phrases is “I’m sorry.”  Recently, I had a conversation with someone from a previous relationship.  I had telephoned his mother months earlier because I didn’t have his telephone number.  However, I never heard from him.  During our conversation, I jokingly mentioned that he didn’t call me back and he stopped the conversation and apologized.  Not only did he say he was sorry for having not called, he also took ownership of the way his not calling potentially made me feel.  This level of apology was totally unexpected but truly appreciated.

During my twenties, I was involved with someone who, when he did something that hurt me, never apologized.  His behavior would change in ways that pointed to contrition but were never followed by the actual words of apology.  As this pattern continued, I started to feel as if I were suffocating from the weight of the unapologized hurts.  Because I was in my twenties, I had no tools to communicate my own hurt nor did I have the tools to communicate the need for an apology to address the hurt.  As a result of this protracted period of unacknowledged hurts, I became the apologizer he never was.  Some time after our divorce, I apologized to my ex-husband for my contribution to the dysfunction in our marriage.  My apology was not a blanket apology, it just covered my contribution to the dysfunction.  He still has his contributions for which he is responsible.  I had a memorable meltdown with an ex-boyfriend once and later apologized to him for the awful behavior that even I could not overlook.

His sincere apology has inspired me.  There are a multitude of actions for which I probably should have apologized in the past.  The sooner an apology is offered after the offending event, the better.  However, I hope that a late apology can still be an accepted apology for those whom I will attempt to proffer apologies for past grievances.  Words (and the intent behind them) truly do hold the power to change situations.  I plan to use my words wisely in order to offer redress to situations in which I was the offending party.

Updates later on the path of apology…

Food

Food has had its way with me lately.  Each day it seems as if I have a taste for something that sometimes I can’t put my finger on and other times I can’t put enough of my fingers on.  Last week I had dairy-riddled cake that was a brief moment in heaven as I ate it.  I ogled a bottle of cream-based Amarula liqueur in the grocery store a day or two later.  I followed this by throwing EVERY restriction to the wind by having a large café mocha with whole milk and whipped cream yesterday.  Dairy is my biggest avoidance but yesterday I took shelter in fatty dairy as if a storm were raging and it was my salvation. 

This has even extended to cooking.  Sunday, I went in the kitchen and experimented/cooked.  The result: chicken baked with sweet potatoes and onions with a side of cabbage sautéed with apples and ginger.  Yesterday I made tuna with olives, artichoke hearts, scallions and basil.  What makes it worse is that I’m a picky eater.  So I’m not craving generic things, I’m craving specific flavors and textures (thus the tuna with all the added flavors).   Yesterday, I wanted a fresh slice of cake.  Not pie.  Not a cookie.  Just a slice of cake that was baked within the past two days. 

Even at this hour, I am thinking of food.  I don’t go through periods like this often but I will definitely be happy when this period is over.

Telma and Luisa

I just spoke with a friend in Europe (time difference advantage when sleeplessness occurs) and we agreed that we have a road trip in our future.   I jokingly mentioned that it would be like Thelma and Louise but later realized the ending of the movie wasn’t the best possible outcome.  Instead, the European version of the road trip will be Telma and Luisa.  No violence.  No Brad Pitt.  However, there will be plenty of sights to see out of the window when I’m not driving (or even when I am).

This future trip will coincide with larger objectives that I have so I’m looking forward to conquering the larger objective so that the fun part, this road trip, will have the opportunity to come to pass.  At this point, the idea is somewhat hazy so intention setting has not happened.  This period of time feels like the period leading up to my going to Switzerland two years ago.  That accomplishment was based on many years of intention setting that finally manifested in my being in Geneva studying abroad spring of 2011.  For months leading up to that time, I dropped out of the social circles in which I participated and focused on school and being in Geneva.  Not only did I manage to snag a scholarship that helped offset the expense of going to one of the top ten most expensive cities in the world, but I also had an opportunity to work at a former job almost until the moment I got on the plane.  While posting the old MySpace entries, I noticed somewhere around 2008 I first mentioned studying in Geneva.  It took three years from that mention (or five years if you begin the count with my enrollment date) to make that objective come to pass.  I’m hoping this objective doesn’t take that long.  Maybe that should be a part of the intention as well – short turnaround.

Last month brought two incidents that made me remember what it was like to be “in the flow” of where my interests lie.  The first was a short conversation in French with a customer at Starbucks who was from Switzerland.  The second was a conversation with a French family vacationing in New Orleans while I was on my way to an international trade class.  Neither encounter lasted very long but they did serve as reminders of the general direction in which I would like my life to flow.  Life, flow on in THAT direction.

A Richer Shade of Brown

I have spent a lot of time outdoors, riding in the sun lately.  As a result, I’ve transformed into a richer shade of brown on my exposed body parts.  Each day when I shower, I’m always in awe of the darker shade of brown that I’ve become in comparison to the paler shade from which I started.  Both colors are side by side in places so that the contrast is, at times, startling.  The first time I significantly changed color was when I went to Jamaica with some sunscreen that I picked up with an SPF of 15 (I thought 15 was the highest – it was 1998 and I knew nothing).  It was like taking a knife to a gunfight – too little.  One day on the beach in Negril turned into six months of watching my darker skin gradually return to the same color as the unexposed places.  I’m just glad I didn’t burn.

Snakes, Snakes, Snakes

I am afraid of snakes.  When I went to Sedona years ago, my biggest concern was disturbing a snake or snakes.  The first time I went, it was too early in the year and they were still hibernating.  I returned in the heat of June and managed to not see any snakes other than a dead one on the interstate between Sedona and LA.  Dead snakes don’t frighten me. 

Recently, I decided to take a ride on the nearby bicycle trail.  It just so happens to run through or alongside the bayou.  My concern when I began was for my safety, being a lone female on what, at that point, seemed a secluded area.  However, as I continued to pedal, I felt intermittent large drops of rain falling on my arms.  It was so intermittent that I thought the drops were more flukes than rain.  As I continued, the drops fell a little more frequently (still intermittent) and I realized the secluded bicycle trail might not be the best place to be when a deluge fell and lightning began to strike.  With that in mind, I turned around in a panic and was pulling a Lance Armstrong in order to get back to the shelter options of civilization.  It was at that point when my senses were in a state of alarm, that I also saw a snake slithering its way across the bicycle path.  I was already freaked out at the thought of being caught in the middle of nowhere outdoors in a thunderstorm and the snake just put me over the edge.  I was already in Lance Armstrong mode but was struggling to figure out if the snake would/could potentially strike me as I blew past him.  For me, this was a major quandary.  Momentum cured the quandary because I just kept going, the snake stopped moving and I successfully passed him on my way to the safety of civilization and shelter. 

The bicycle path is on indefinite hold.  I decided it would be in my better interest from a safety standpoint to ride with others than to ride alone.  I just need to put forth the effort to find a group that rides or find someone who would be willing to ride with me.  In the meantime, I’ve meandered around in the general vicinity and each time, I’ve run across a snake (not literally).  These other snakes have been dead, so, no fear there. 

After seeing so many snakes, I decided to look up the symbolism for snakes and have been trying to incorporate that information in my current life situation.  From what I’ve read, snakes symbolize healing and transformation.  I recently decided to focus more on my Reiki self-practice so that I can work from a place of better clarity as to what I should be doing.  After having seen the snakes, I feel confirmation that I’m on the right path.  I had an ambitious idea regarding practicing Reiki on others but have not had the conversation that needs to happen – yet. 

Years ago, I had a dream involving snakes.  In that dream, the snakes were friendly and almost pet like.  The dream was so surreal that I believed my fear of snakes was gone.  It may in fact have diminished since then.  The fear of the snake on the path may have been a product of my heightened sense of danger regarding being out in a potential thunderstorm mixed with the fact that I recognized the turmoil I was in could have been interpreted as aggression by the snake.  Just as a dog can sense fear, so too do other animals – snakes especially – sense the state of mind we are in.  Someday maybe I’ll see if my snake fear is gone.  However, that someday will be a day when I am in a calm, centered state of mind…

Imagine 2013: Taksim Square

During my pointing and clicking online, I ran into this video – imagine that.  Imagine is a powerful song although it is simple – a voice and a piano.  Yet, the song resonates. 

Dissent always interests me, so, conceptually, the location of the performance immediately drew me in.  For over two weeks, citizens in Istanbul have gathered together to protest Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s plans to tear up Gezi Park in order to make way for a commercial development (of all things, a mall).  In addition, prior to the park demolition, Erdoğan already announced plans to curtail the sale and use of alcohol in this Muslim, but secular, society.  Over time, the protest evolved from outrage over plans to destroy one of the last public green spaces in Istanbul to an outraged national response to the Prime Minister’s authoritarian policy changes as other cities protested in solidarity. 

As more and more citizens take to public spaces to demonstrate dissent with their government, the dissent is met with policing reminiscent of Birmingham under Bull Connor.  Yet, despite the photos of police using overwhelming force against dissenters, there also exists the underlying stories of the dissenters’ solidarity and non-violent resistance.  The establishment of a people’s library with free books.  Dissenters cleaning up the park after leaving.  The establishment of an orderly tent city. The “Standing Man”.  And last, but not least, this musical performance.  Music is a powerful tool whose use can range from hard-driving music that can cause a riot to peaceful music that can unite disparate people in solidarity.  This, obviously, is the latter.


Makes Me Wanna…

Swim!


I saw this documentary years ago on PBS and was in awe and enchanted with the cinematography.  I had already wanted to swim with dolphins prior to watching this, however, after having watched this documentary, I wanted more than ever to be able to explore the depths of the ocean and be at one with “wet” nature.  The sequences that show Umberto Pelizzari swimming with the dolphins (:20.30 mark) is and was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time.  He truly moves as if he is a part of the ocean.  He has captured the hydrodynamics (if there is such a word) of moving in the ocean to the point where his movements do not look too much different than that of the dolphins and other animals.  In addition, Pippin Ferreras and his wife, Audrey, synchronizing their swimming is beautiful as an ethereal underwater dance (:23.54).

My last name is neither Siskel nor Ebert so I will stop here and allow the documentary to be experienced firsthand.

Enjoy!