Happiness Is…Date Night, Friday Night Lights and Good Music

January 21, 2013 Leave a Comment

Right now happiness is…

Friday Night Lights: BEST. SHOW. EVER. I am kind of in love with so many of the characters. Tim Riggins for being my equivalent to Sawyer from Lost. Matt Saracen for singing Mr. Sandman to his grandma. Tami Taylor for her hair…her glorious hair. Lyla Garrity for just being so darn pretty. Coach Taylor for his…everything. And the MUSIC, don’t even get me started on the MUSIC!

(insert cheesy picture here)

FNL-friday-night-lights-713832_1125_850

Date Nights: I mentioned our date night in this post, but I can’t reiterate enough how much getting out for dinner and a movie every once in a while is a necessity when you have two small children. As we walked into the movie theater I said, “I feel like we’re in college again!” Geez, it’s been a while!

“Girl from the North Country,” Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash: I mentioned that we loved Silver Linings Playbook in my last post, and this is one of the best songs from the sountrack. I have the original Bob Dylan record with “Girl from North Country” so hearing this brought me back to my 9th grade bedroom, listening to that scratchy voice on my Fisher-Price record player for the very first time. You just can’t recreate that feeling, and hearing it in the movie came pretty close. This version with Johnny Cash is legendary. I found another version with Joe Cocker on Spotify and loved it, too.

“I’ll Tumble 4 Ya:” My sis sent this song to me through Facebook today and, I mean…I just can’t get enough. How can you not love some good Boy George? And that title? What does it mean to “tumble” for one? I’m guessing it’s quite the term of endearment. I’m wondering why Tumblr hasn’t stolen it for their official motto?! This video is just pure amazing-ness. I dare you to watch it without smiling.

Feeling Good! It feels good to be back into blogging. It feels good to be eating better and working toward feeling better physically and mentally. Hail to Operation Feel Good 2013!

Filed Under: Beautiful Life, Entertainment Tagged With: ,

“I Can Do Anything Good!”

May 25, 2012 Leave a Comment

I think more of us should start our day this way…

“I can do anything good, I like my school, I like anything…I like my hair, I like my haircuts…I like my whole HOUSE!”

Happy Friday!

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Alabama Shakes

May 3, 2012 Leave a Comment

If you’re in the mood to have your world rocked…

…check out the Alabama Shakes.

This girl is so.good.

Her voice completes, like, every musical dream I’ve ever had.

As my sister posted earlier this week, this is us after hearing their music:

My sister and I have also come up with a pretty perfect description of the sound…(which is one of our favorite things to do):

Tina Turner (circa Ikettes/Gong-Gong Song) meets Rolling Stones (circa Exile on St.) meets Joe Cocker (circa Feelin’ Alright and Help from My Friends) meets Janis Joplin (circa Get it While You Can), Velvet Underground (circa Oh! Sweet Nuthin’), with a little bit of Amy Winehouse, too (circa her ripping off the Shirelles fantastically, God bless her), along with some Robert Bradley, and  Smokey Robinson (Tracks of my Tears)!

I am lucky enough to have a super-music savvy  friend from high school who has introduced me to so many great musicians and bands (Robert Bradley and Dr. Dog to name a few) over the years. He also loves the Avett Brothers, which is always an A+ in my book.

Let me know what you think!

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Music Monday #1

January 2, 2012 1 Comment
I’ve been toying with the idea of a “Music Monday” post and possible link-up for a few months now. I have had a hard time coming up with the “perfect” graphic which has put things on hold, but because I am SUPER obsessed with a certain song recently sung by The Avett Brothers, I think it’s time to JUST DO IT…what a way to start the New Year!

If you want to play along, you can do your own “Music Monday” post, and add my “Music Monday” button to the bottom and and link up with us!

Here are some songs I was really loving this summer (when I first thought of doing a “Music Monday” post):

1. Timshel, Mumford and Sons
I love these lines:
“But you are not alone in this
And you are not alone in this
As brothers we will stand and we’ll hold your hand
Hold your hand…”
2. Midnight Rider, The Allman Brothers
Maybe it’s because I grew up on this band, and it’s super-nostalgic for me, but there is just something about singing this song at the top of my lungs in my car with the windows rolled down that makes me feel FREE….especially this line, “I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing, and the road goes on forever…”
 While we’re at it, can we talk about the amazing-ness of Gregg Allman’s hair? 
3. Ride, Robert Earl Keen
Speaking of feeling free….this song does the same thing for me, and is perfect for summer-time…
“Gonna buy me a ticket to the end of the line
Wanna feel the air, breathe the countryside
As long as those wheels keep rollin’, I’ll be satisfied
Gonna ride, ride, ride…”
4. Knee Deep, Zac Brown Band (featuring Jimmy Buffett) mmer-
And speaking of summer-time songs, this one just puts me at ease…
“Mind on a permanent vacation
The ocean is my only medication
Wishing my condition ain’t ever gonna go away…”

5. Take Me Back Sweet Anna Lee, Spirit Family Reunion
How could I not love a song with the name Annalee? Of course, I am a little partial, but this song is AMAZING. It’s exactly “my kind of music,” whatever that means. We’ve been having a good time jamming out to this one with our own little Annalee and she loves to stomp and clap along.

*******************************************************
And here is what I’m currently loving…

6. Closer Walk with Thee, The Avett Brothers
A gospel song that has been done by everyone from Willie Nelson to Patsy Cline, I am currently OBSESSED with this version of “Closer Walk with Thee” from my boys. I am SO happy I got to see them perform this song live in Blacksburg this fall. I listen to it on repeat and I can’t stop coming back to these lines:

“Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.”

Something about those words just takes the weight of the world off my shoulders. It’s okay to falter, it’s okay to fail, it’s okay to fall down. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What songs are getting you through this Monday? Play along and link up!

(Just copy the HTML code to the bottom of your blog post and my button will appear!)

Filed Under: Beautiful Things, Entertainment, Make it Beautiful Tagged With:

My “Bachelor” Preview

January 1, 2012 2 Comments
I am not ashamed to admit that I have REALLY been looking forward to tomorrow night’s Bachelor season premiere. I always love The Bachelor more than The Bachelorette because instead of one female hot mess, you get about 25…which equates to more crying, bigger fights, and cuter clothes.
 If you are at all interested in seeing more, take a look at this promo video for the new season and enjoy my forthcoming commentary.
First of all, I just LOVE it when Ashley tries to sugarcoat it with, “You’re one of the most INTERESTING, funny guys…” during their breakup scene.

Haha, that just gets me every time. #1 thing you DON’T say to someone when you’re dumping them…”You’re just so INTERESTING…”


As for the rest, here are my thoughts:

1. His convertible jeep thing is really cool.

2. Straddling in a mini dress?!

3. “Punch a wall. F*&%# HER. Winning. Go f**&# yourself. I just wanna rip her head off. And verbally assault her.”

4. Holy butt cheeks.

5. The ugly cry is on FIRE.


And that’s all. If you’d like to hear more commentary from this peanut gallery, you are all welcome to follow me on twitter @Makeitbeautyful!
Will you be watching Bachelor Monday night?
 
Filed Under: Beautiful Things, Entertainment, Make it Beautiful Tagged With: ,

The Lake of Dreams: Act from Love

December 1, 2011 1 Comment
I just finished reading The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards for the BlogHer Book Review Program and though I felt the 377 page novel had a slow start, I found myself sobbing and overcome with emotion after getting a little past the half-way point. 

While I wished I felt more of an attachment to the main character, Lucy Jarrett, what saved me from becoming totally bored with this book was the story of her long, lost ancestor Rose Jarrett in the letters written to her daughter, Iris. 

Being a mother to a young daughter, reading the excerpts she wrote after leaving Iris during the woman’s suffrage movement, literally tore out my heart. I had to annoyingly leave my cozy couch to retrieve piles of tissues while I read as the tears wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t fathom having to make the decision to leave my daughter to have a “better” or more stable life, knowing she may forever feel disconnected and unwanted by her own mother.

Gut-wrenching. 

Leading back to this distressing decision was a quote from Rose’s letters:

For this is what I have learned, in my short life: do not act out of anger. Act from love, or not at all. p. 273. 

When she chose to leave her daughter in the care of her brother and his wife she was acting from love, and I like to think that even if her daughter felt abandoned, when intentions are based from love they can never be wrong.

This particular excerpt has made me question my own intentions and how choosing love over anger and fear have been such a huge part of the journey I share on this blog to “live in the moment and make it beautiful.” The simple decision to choose love over fear (or anger) has helped me get through some difficult times, as well as a lot of anxiety.
After going through a particularly hard time, in fact, this quote from Marianne Williamson, was what helped me to pull through.
“Every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity, 

perfectly planned by the Holy Spirit, to teach love instead of fear.”

If I take anything at all from this long story of interwoven ancestors it is not only to act from love over anger but to “act from love, or not at all.” It is one lesson that I plan on passing down to my own daughter. 
And her daughter. 
And all of those who follow.

How do you choose love over anger or fear in your own life?
Leave a comment below and join the conversation on BlogHer here! 

This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
Filed Under: Beautiful Things, Entertainment Tagged With: ,

Turtle Island to Abya Yala –Book Review

October 11, 2011 Leave a Comment
This is a book review that a good friend just wrote for a wonderful new poetry and art book that is coming out soon. You can find out more about how to get a copy of the book or to get in contact with the editor (Mica Valdez) here. As a lover of poetry and its ability to heal, I wanted to share this review and Mollye’s beautiful words.

I also LOVE the lines she described from the poem“Indigenous Woman: Portrait of a Lady.”  Enjoy!



This is her review:

A Vibrant Voice: A Poetry Review of Turtle Island to Abya Yala

by Mollye Miller

What is a vibrant voice? Howdoes a vibrant voice sound in a poem? Is it light and pure? Bold and enigmatic?In music it is evident when a singer captures our attention, if not our souls,by the sheer voluminous power of her song. In a poem, a vibrant voice is oftenharder to locate, but is equally as resplendent. For me, a vibrant voice in apoem startles me with clarity, force, and accurate words. Appearing toward theend of Turtle Island to Abya Yala, apoetry and art anthology edited by Mica Valdez, stands a poem by LeAndraBitsie. One part of Bitsie’s poem, “Indigenous Woman: Portrait of a Lady,” reads:

To be

To be of truth

Indigenous Woman

It’s your way

Like the shine from the stars

The beauty in bead work

The beauty of grandma

It’s my way

To keep negativity as a stranger

To never be jealous, envious, vindictive

To never ever snag a fella

But instead I choose to snag my dreams,ambitions,

consciousness.

To be

To be a light

Bitsie has a vibrant voice,and a poem that indeed shines a light on this collection of poetry by Latinaand Native American women. The women writers in the collection are powerful thinkersand communicators with poignant, emotional prowess. Combatting and ultimately learninghow to overcome discrimination, hardship, heartache, horrific ancestral histories,and the whole list of tragedies, comedies and joys included in any human life, ofcourse, these artists choose to make something original out of their human stories.

Instead of sharing the sagaof her hardship with us, the poet speaks to us in processed tones: each poethas already done the work of processing her pain and sadness (though it stilllives within her and her poems). That is, each poet in this collection—whetheror not you like all of their styles, voices, and subject matter—is on her waytoward, or has already arrived at, a self-sustaining and self-actualizedpresence. How many artists do you know today that come across as being completelyself-accepting? These writers speak to us in sharp, quill-like feelings we can understand,and join in on lamenting or celebrating.

In a poem by Cassandra P.Rendon called “(my body in Anishinaabe: niiyaw),” she celebrates the beauty ofthe body and the strength of the will. In a vibrant voice, she writes about herdesire, “to get away/from centuries of being pushed/into a tree/onto theground/and torn apart.” In the poem “Within Me” by Alethea Chamberlain, however, the speaker wishes people wouldtruly see her, but admits that instead people choose to “only see a tree in thefield/they don’t see her strength and will.” Toward the end of the poem thespeaker states, “She fights for her existence./They will not win; this sheknows.”

Many of the poems in thecollection are a troubling mixture of anger, bitterness, sex, solitude,survivance, peace, aggression, self-assertion, self-love, love-love, and rage.

For instance, in Ire’ne LaraSilva’s provocative poem “Love of People,”she describes the healthy reasons for rage; that is, she articulates to uswhy and how she has accepted the rage she feels for the atrocities committedagainst her, or her speaker’s, family. To accept ones’ emotions is a powerfulfeat in itself, a life-changing one. As Silva suggests, though, one must becareful with love, though it is “like a river” and with our behaviors, too. Inone part of the poem, she describes, “rage like the grief that can’t be/forgottenonly made into machetes/ rusty with llanto not to kill but to cut/rage likelove of people like pain in/the sleep of night time.”

In another section of thepoem—which is all in block form with spacing between shifts in purpose or mood—Silvaarticulates how she was, in fact, taught rage and how it has, in turn, taughther: “the rage I was taught first the/rage between languages between people/ifI had been born into a world with softer/ edges been a child outside of thepot’s boiling water love would not/transformformingform to rage but love/ inthis language is not enough rage a/ rage a co-rage a courage a coraje.”

With her inventive play withlanguage—both Spanish and English—she invites questions, strong reactions andvisceral feelings of pain, coupled with courage. Throughout Turtle Island, and in poetry in general,it is often difficult to decipher which story a poet wants to tell most, whichexact portion of her life she wants to reveal on the page. In turn, it is alsotricky to know the emotion she most urgently wants to express. At least tothese Native American and Latina poets, it seems not choosing one subject toconcentrate on—much less one emotion—steered them away from telling only half-truths.In other words, each poet chose a wide selection of subjects and emotions to communicateto readers the whole truth, or at least the truth as it lives and breathes inher.

Some of the weaker lines inthe poems as a whole do not interfere much with the powerful, poignant ones. Whatmakes some lines weaker is when the poet simply writes a phrase that borders ona traditional idion or cliché. Lines like “our indigenous tongue” or “Mi sangrerecuerda (my blood remembers) are only powerful when paired with lines neverbefore written, as far as I know, in poetry. A few lines in Reva Mariah Gover’spoem, “Desert Moon,” are greatexamples. Her poem begins, “Dust,brown-red-black./

Fragile./ Strong in thebirthing.” That last single line is so original, it makes up for any lines thatmight border on the ordinary.

Looking at a poem by KarinaGonzalez Amaya called “Cultural Theory 101,” a reader immediately feels compelledto read the poem from start to finish, given the structure of the world she creates.In one line, she writes, “From the depths of my jungle, I breathe truth topalabras (words) long forgotten en rios de lagrimas (rivers of tears).” Amayathen ends her poem with an exuberant, if not fearlessly virulent, “!Presente!,”her declaration of self as truth.

Speaking of truth telling inpoetry, as a poet who also knows the difficulty, but ultimate beauty andfunction, of opening up I will be honest: the poems in Turtle Island are not types of poems I usually read or am drawntoward. I am not Latina or Native American, as you can probably tell by my name.I am an Anglo-American woman, with German, Scottish, English and Norwegianancestry. But this is where the great equalizer comes in: poetry is one of the greatestart forms for revealing the authentic voice. It doesn’t matter who, what orwhere you are. If you read or hear a true poem, in translation or evensometimes without, you will hear an authentic voice.

A wonderful example of a poetand poem with authentic voice is Griselda Liz Munoz in “The Earth Says.” Thisis one of those poems you start reading with one idea or mood in mind, and end upsomewhere totally different. Note the beginning lines: 

The sun, it shines outside

and as we walk I feel the pull of Earth,

of the ground,

of the ghosts,

living and dead

that still haunt our home.

I lay still at dawn.”

And in the end, Munoz writes:

Your Mexicana: Loca with a wild streak

Crazy bitch in arracadas and heels in tightjeans,

makes love to you like a howling wolf in heat

and when you’re done she blesses your sleep

Your Mexican woman, that’s me.

Your Mexican woman, that’s me.”

I am as surprised by the majormood-shift in the poem as much as I am by the speaker who accomplished it. Shepulls of all her masks, all her worries and insecurities of not being goodenough, all her fears of rejection, inadequacy, and self-acceptance. When allthat filth comes off of her body and her life, she can declare, not once buttwice, who she is. It seems to me this is the first time she has answered thequestion “Who am I?,” with, “I am a Mexican woman.” When she asks again, “Who amI?,” she answers more specifically, “I am myself.”

Essentially, the speaker inMunoz’s poem rejects all the things she will not be. She becomes a form oftruth telling of and for herself, and for the man she loves. While the poem hasits lesser lines, I admire how boldly Munoz shifts the poem to focus surprisinglynot on herself or her partner, but on earthiness and ancestry. She states,mid-poem, “Take heed;/This archetype has teeth!” And, toward the end of thepiece:

Mexicanas hold the Earth’s power

We give birth to ancient flowers

We understand the honor that children mean

Your Mexican woman can sense your needs

Your Mexican woman makes rice and beans.”

It’s striking how well thepoet glides from the spiritual to the earthy, what we might think of as basicstuff, like cooking dinner. In Munoz’s poem, healthy pride, sex, ancestry,jealousy, food, and the clothes we wear are all synonymous with who we are,which is a spiritual thing: we are who we are because of where we’ve come from,the choices we make, and from love, or the quest to find love. Munoz’s humorousand intensely serious self-love of is admirable. Personally, I’ve never read apoem which such a flux of energy, and range of emotions. Some might say it needsediting, needs focusing, but I say it’s great how it is, much like the poemteaches me to believe.

What I appreciate about thispoem is not so much the dreaminess and the escape from the surreal (the world)into the real (the mind and its imagination of time), as much as it is theboldness with which she bangs out these images, feelings and revelations ontothe page. I can see coffee mug circle stains on her page of poetry, I can seeher crushing the pen into the page to get out lines like, “This archetype hasteeth!” When I read, I imagine what stormy or ebullient mood led her to a blankpaper. Usually I am wrong in what I imagine to be true, but the imaginativeexercise itself helps me get involved in a poem, and maybe it will help you,too.

I’ll turn now to a verydifferent kind of poem titled “Now This Night” written by Sara Marie Ortiz. Hereare a few lines from the piece: “O, loss. O, light,” “vast fast-blossoming,” “O,little prism of this,” “to see such light through God,” “histories unwritten,save for the emblazoned/narratives in our skin.” Lines like these make moresense in the poem when you know the subtitle, “Now This Night: November 4th,2008.” That’s Obama’s election night, or what might have been McCain’selection night, had votes swung the other way.

Ortiz plays amusingly withthe “O” in Obama’s name. She does it splendidly when she writes: “Now, thepeople, now the light, now the night, now-this-O, this, now, this night. Comeforth into it.” And stunningly here with, “O, inheritance. O, loss. O, light.O, far away/ radiant. O, this night, O, let this.” Oddly enough, Ortiz (thestarting vowel in her name now cannot be ignored) flips her poem at the end,similar to Liz Munoz’s technique—she changes our idea of her motivation forwriting.

It seems that while Ortiz’sspeaker certainly pinned all her hopes on the “vast fast-blossomingpossibility” of Obama’s election, she also hoped with all the poem’s intensitythat the loved one she was with in a hospital would survive. What we thoughtwas a cheer for Obama, for the nation, was actually a powerfully gentle prayerfor a person she loves: “You are an estuary of fluid light/in this cold, vast,dark desert of night.” She also introduces survivance, a belief held by manyindigenous Natives, of having an active sense of presence over historicalabsence, racism, and oblivion (Gerald Robert Vizenor, Survivance: narratives of Native presence). Then we enter the narrow “raw nerve in adark hospital room.” The speaker admits, in a sharp and sturdy line, “Notenough money/the world to keep her alive for the world: no insurance, no.” Ortizplants us in a desert wishing for a democratic election. Then she drops us intoa hospital where people genuinely hope and pray more than in any other place.When it comes to life or death we have no biases—it is light over shadow; it islife we want.

In my second-to-last poem review,I’ll look at a more traditional love poem, which I briefly mentioned earlier. “DesertMoon” by Reva Mariah Gover starts with a beautiful construction. The physicallook of the poem and the words drew me in, and I’m confident they will drawothers in, too:

My story begins—razor, desert mountains,

           Moon,

                        high, pale and translucent

            like smoke

firm in the morning blue.

These opening lines could bethe whole poem. Like a landscape photographer, Gover has given us so much tolook at and admire all in one glimpse. While the rest of the poem could besharper in some places—to match the powerful opening—“pearls” exist in the poemthat make it worth reading twice, three times and more to appreciate itsfullness.

I find this to be a poem I amfamiliar with—and I imagine other readers will think so too—because of thestrange and simple, and at times frightening, language. This playing withlanguage and meaning, which I call “pearls,” define for me the spontaneousghost-nature of writing a poem. Like creating a riff on a piano or guitar, themusician closes her eyes and instinctually finds the notes she wants—and eachone sings. Painters often choose and mix colors based on an emotion, an idea, ordrive. When the painter finishes her work and puts down her brushes, she seesthat she has created something sensational, though she can’t quite tell what itis. The same thing happens in poetry with words. If I write a phrase I truly wantand need to say, even if it has no meaning outside of the poem itself, it is apearl. Reva Mariah Gover’s pearls include “sight-images of your hands,” “dust…strongin the birthing” and “your desert moon is carved into.”

I appreciate how Gover letsherself shimmer in the landscape she set up in the beginning; she does notleave us alone to wander the desert, and then the unknown landscape of her mind.I’m not sure who or what it is the speaker “loves” in the poem—is it history? Herself?A man or woman? The mother she speaks to in the end? She writes:

here

is where you live.

The great breath of Baboquivari

bares your voice.

The granite of this valley

is where you held me.

To note: Baboquivari was aU.S. forest reserve in 1906 in Arizona. In 1908, the government changed it intoa composite national forest. It is interesting how Gover chooses to make thelandscape specific, how she makes the “granite of this valley” into a home.

In Turtle Island to Abya Yala, Jennifer Elise Foerster’s poem,“Magdalene in the Desert, Part I” is strikingly complete. It is also harrowing andsad. Section four, a pearl-filled section, reads:

If there were horses now, electric

blue on the ridge of these

canyons we dip through,

we would not see them, pressed up

against the moonlight as we are,

our bodies just shadows of doors

where I cannot distinguish

my fingers from yours. Interwoven

in corners, we sleep.

Nets around our feet.

This section could be a poemin and of itself, in how Foerster achieved such a compact and thoroughemotional range. However, this is just part of a section of the poem. The entirepoem captivates, and is exceptionally warm. This is the kind of poem Icelebrate rapturously. First, Foerster’s speaker not only encompasses butwrestles with the human spirit, its countless woes. Secondly, the poem isbeautiful. “Shadows of doors,” for example, will stay with me a long time.

The whole Turtle Island to Abya Yala anthology willalso stay with me. The raw, unpolished work in this anthology, along with poemsready for a steady stream of critics, is what makes the collection rare and important.If all the poems were as complete as Jennifer Elise Foerster’s, for instance,the collection would not be as true to its roots, which is, I believe,diversity, multiplicity, range. And so my blanket statement for the book is: Buyit. Read it. Learn from it. These poets aren’t experimenting with and composingverse just because someone once said they were good at writing. These writersremember, know, sense, and seek. Collections like these, as far as I know, arevery rare. In each poem I hear a vibrant voice that has something to say.

——–

Mollye Miller holds an MFA in poetry from TheNew School University where, in 2010, she won the university’s Annual ChapbookPoetry Award for her manuscript, “Shade Particles.” In 2011, she was asemi-finalist in the Indiana Review’s 1/2 K Poetry Prize Contest for her prosepoem, “Hallmark.” She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

 Poets mentioned in the review: LeAndra Bitsie; Cassandra P. Rendon; AletheaChamberlain; Ire’ne Lara Silva; Reva Mariah Gover; Karina Gonzalez Amaya;Griselda Liz Munoz; Sara Marie Ortiz; Jennifer Elise Foerster


What do you think of the review? Would you enjoy this book of poems?

Filed Under: Beautiful Things, Entertainment Tagged With: ,

Love Anthem

September 16, 2011 Leave a Comment
If ever you needed an anthem, this should be it.

“Living of Love,” The Avett Brothers
For just one chance to find

Love was someone that you loved to find

For just the sense to try

To walk ahead and leave the pain behind

If the days aren’t easy and the nights are rough

When they ask you what you’re thinking of

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Your heart says not again

What kind of mess have you got me in

But when the feelings there

It can lift you up and take you anywhere

But the gravel beneath you and the limbs above

If anybody asks you where your coming from

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Say yes we live uncertainty

And disappointments have to be

And everyday we might be facing more

And yes we live in desperate times

But fading words and shaking rhymes

There’s only one thing here worth hoping for

With Lucifer beneath you and God above

If either one of them asks you what your living of

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

Say love, say for me love

“My boys” did not disappoint at their concert last night.
I am still on an “Avett Brothers High” and really wish I was going to the show tonight!

Thank you to my new friend, Lisa, for the picture!

Happy Friday!
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Slow Love is Good Love

September 8, 2011 Leave a Comment

I just finished reading Slow Love by Dominique Browning for the BlogHer Book Review Program and her romantically poignantwriting has left me feeling quite poetic.   
During this quick read I found myself underlining meaningfulphrases, and scribbling arrows, stars, and other marginalia. While “quick,”I wouldn’t call this an “easy” read as the writing so exquisitely forced me todo exactly what the title implies, slow down and take in every line ofprose as if it were a secret explanation to the mysterious puzzles of my ownlife.
I feel the only way to capture the true essence of thisbook is to give you a glimpse into some of my favorite lines, which tell theperfect story of what it means to find slowlove.
Take joy
Fall
Lost love
Longing for safety
Stability
Security
Tethered to ambivalence
Abandonment
Rage
Confusion
Despair
Fantasies of salvation
Hope for
Happily-ever-after
This is worth thetrouble
I have time forthis
Attention
Nurturing
Friendships
Honest conversation
Availability
Sensitivity
Care
Compassion
Winter
I am my own case history
Dig
Hoping that all will end well
The shadows come into play
Being alive
Find balance
Feel constantly needed
I am on my own
He liked to hold hands
“Why don’t you feel you’re worth it, anyway?”
When we get too attached to suffering,
We use it to avoid our own difficult truths
Take the repeats
I am playing for my own pleasure
I am learning to silence the critic in my head,
The one who will not stop telling me 
that nothing I do isgood enough
I am making peace with the night season
Spring
I think more fluidly when I’m moving
When I read,
Everything makes sense
My books start feeling like phantom limbs
I like to rest my eyes on things
Just get the words down,
They can always be changed
There was no longer anyone around
To tell me that I couldn’t
Why aren’t youworth the commitment?
Food is a way to bond with someone else
Fantasy
Hope
Dreams
Kindness to yourself
Why am I fighting my true nature?
Slow cooking
Quickly becomes a happy part of falling in
Slow love
Summer
Sometimes it isn’t about you
I had wanted him to know that I needed him—
Without having to ask him to be there
I could only change myself
Everything has gone wrong
And it is just too much
Make it all better
Massive relief
Life has never been more peaceful
I have the illusion that my life is in order
And sometimes that’s as good as it gets
Where doeseverything go?
I’m taking care of myself
So what if it ends?
That doesn’t mean it should never have begun
Things thrive in unlikely places
“What is there to do?”
Nothing to do is not the same as nothing can be done
Anyone with the desire
can cook
So what if it ends?
The adventure was wonderful
There’s more ahead
I love making a home
I no longer want to live a life of expectation
Finding room in my life again for everything I love,
And letting the quiet of solitary moments steal over myheart
Blow out the day’s fears
Home is the place where you feel most alive
And true to yourself
I will make another
I will plant another
“You must reach deeper
You must reach to where the water is still
Then you will move faster.”
A slow flush of love for the world—
The sheer pleasure of being here,
The profound honor of witnessing life.
Love is all around me.
I hope that one of these lines stands out and inspiresyou to read this touching book, as well as help you on your own path to find Slow Love.
 Read more @BlogHer Book Club here….
Filed Under: Beautiful Things, Entertainment Tagged With: ,

The Kid

July 21, 2011 1 Comment
I spoke about reading The Kid for a BlogHer book review in a previous post, and it was just as compelling as I imagined. I can honestly say it was the most difficult book I have ever read as it very graphically describes the cycle of abuse from the perspective of both the abused and the abuser. I was very excited that my review was one of the five featured out of the 100 that were submitted, especially since it was such a hard read.
Check out my review here and let me know what you think! 
Will you be reading, The Kid?
Filed Under: Entertainment Tagged With: ,
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