Notesfrom(a)BROKENheart

Paulo Coelho on Writing

2010-10-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Join those who have never said: “it’s finished, I have to stop here”. Because just as winter is followed by spring, nothing comes to an end: after reaching your objective, you have to start again, always using all that you have learnt on the way.

Join those who sing, tell stories, enjoy life and have happiness in their eyes. Because happiness is contagious and always manages to keep people from being paralyzed by depression, loneliness and troubles.

And tell your story, even if it’s only for your family to read.

Paulo Coelho

An Interrupted Life

2010-09-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Etty Hillesum

Finding Our True Place

2010-08-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

The most secret, sacred wish that lies deep down at the bottom of your heart, the wonderful thing that you hardly dare to look at, or to think about--the thing that you would rather die than have anyone else know of, because it seems so far beyond anything that you are, or have at the present time, that you fear that you would be cruelly ridiculed if the mere thought of it were known--that is just the very thing that you should be.

Emmet Fox

True Love

2010-08-11T16:13:00.001-07:00

To me, true love is the sweetest thing in life. That's why we're all either in love or looking for love. Sometimes you have to work for it - especially when life gets in the way - but I believe true, deep love is always worth fighting for.

Anon

Ongoing Adventure

2010-07-17T21:19:00.001-07:00

I've been learning a lot about living in the moment lately. I am one that tends to worry about tomorrow and lean on the past. I know now that it is hindering me from experiencing life. I am so quick to see the negative in everything that I give absolutely nothing a chance. I find myself saying, "No." instead of, "Yes." I don't leave my comfort zone and I rely on others to entertain me. This is not the person I want to be. I expect more from myself and I'm tired of watching life just pass me by. The waiting game is over. I'm on the hunt to find my passion, my evolution. I want to live my life fulfilled and present and honest.

GG

Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. We leave our homes for work, acting and even believing that we will reach our destinations with no unusual event startling us out of our set expectations. The truth is we know nothing, not where our cars will fail or when our buses will stall, whether our places of employment will be there when we arrive, or whether, in fact, we ourselves will arrive whole and alive at the end of our journeys.

Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.

Maya Angelou

Now-Here

2010-07-17T11:42:00.001-07:00

Most of us live in the past, carrying our hurts, guilts and fears. We have to face the pain we carry, lest we spend the rest of our lives running away from it or letting it run us. But the only place you'll ever meet the real is now-here. It's the hardest place for us to live, the place where we're most afraid to live, because it feels so empty and boring. Now-here almost always feels like nowhere, and that's precisely where we must go.

Richard Rohr

Notes from "Hunting and Gathering"

2010-07-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

She was tired, she should have put her elbows on the desk too, and told him the truth. Told him that if she wasn't eating at all, or almost nothing, it was because the stones were taking up all the room in her belly. That she woke up every day with the feeling that she was chewing gravel, that even before she opened her eyes she was suffocating. And that the world around her had become meaningless, and every new day was like a weight that was impossible to lift. So she cried. Not that she was sad, but to make it pass. The flood of tears, in the end, helped her to digest the pile of stones and get her breath back. Would he have listened? Would he have understood? Of course he would have. And that was precisely why she'd kept quiet.

"C'mon, sweetheart. Don't worry, we'll make it. We won't do any better than anyone else but we won't do any worse, either. We'll make it, you hear? We'll make it. We've got nothing to lose, since we have nothing to begin with. C'mon. Let's go.

Anna Gavalda

The Guest House

2010-07-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be cleaning you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from the beyond.

Rumi

We Participate for a Moment

2010-07-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

In the early evening we see the stars begin to appear as the sun disappears over the horizon. The light of day gives way to the darkness of night. A stillness, a healing quiet comes over the landscape. It's a moment when some other world makes itself known, a numinous presence beyond human understanding. We experience the vast realms of space overwhelming the limitations of our human minds. As the sky turns golden and the clouds reflect the blazing colors of evening, we participate for a moment in the forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other.

Thomas Berry

Stars

2010-07-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Look at the stars.
They're the same stars as last week,
Last year,
Same as when we were kids.
When we weren't even born.
In a hundred years,
No one will ever know who we are,
But they'll know those same stars.

Unknown

C.S. Lewis

2010-06-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

C.S. Lewis

One Year in SaMo

2010-06-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

One year ago today I moved to Santa Monica, California with a broken heart. I had lost everything. I said goodbye to the boy I had loved for five years. I packed most of my things and moved in to a sublet found in haste off Craigslist with two strangers. I didn't know how I was going to survive. I didn't know what the future had in store for me and for the first time in my life, I was alone. I was moving on whether I liked it or not.

Looking back I now realize how numb I was. I shut down all feelings, all thoughts and just focused on getting out of bed everyday and making it to work. I walked and walked and walked. Clothes piled up, boxes laid untouched around me and I listened to a lot of sad music in the dark curled up on my bed (Thank you Liz for supplying the mixes. Plural.). As I told my father one day, I had put my life on pause.

What I didn't know was that Santa Monica was the perfect place to heal. The ocean calmed me, the sand between my toes made me smile again and the warmth from the sunshine made me feel alive. And as cliche as it sounds, what got me through the most were my friends and family.

Liz and Stephanie's daily emails kept me grounded, kept me going, kept me laughing. Elissa's weekly brunches and angry girl dinners made me feel less alone. Jeremy's late night chats kept the darkness from swallowing me whole. Phoenix and Frank and Ben's "just checking in" phone calls helped me feel reassured. My parents notes and emails and gifts made me feel so very special. And I want to especially thank my mother for picking up the phone on the lowest night of my life. For just listening as I cried into the phone 3000 miles away. I know that was very hard for you to do.

And then there were the plane tickets bought to support me. Liz's visit came first and reminded me that I wasn't abandoned. She supplied me with one of the most amazing nights of my life when she took me to see Adele at the Hollywood Bowl. Stephanie's came second and reminded me that no matter what life will always keep surprising you. That things may be hard but you can either cry about it or you can go to happy hour. We chose happy hour. You two are the best friends any girl could ask for. I feel so lucky to have you in my life.

And a special mention must be made to Liz. Thank you for moving here on September 9, 2009. I'll never forget calling you in mid April and talking to you at length about the possibility of changing my life and your willingness to meet me halfway. Your commitment to begin making plans to move here got me through some pretty rough times. You were much wiser than I in December 2008 when you wrote "You go now and I'll meet you." Thank you for holding true to your promise.

But what did everyone teach me the most? That I have love in my life. That I was supported and that I was never really alone. Each one of you have kept me going at a time in my life where I just wanted to stop. And you each have showed me in your own way that I'm stronger than I think I am and that I can love again. That I was loving all along.

GG

Chuck Palahniuk

2010-05-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.

Chuck Palahniuk

Tales from the City

2010-05-26T11:36:00.001-07:00

Nobody's happy. What's happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on.

Armistead Maupin

Longing for Simplicity

2010-05-26T11:34:00.001-07:00

Notes on First Love

2010-05-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

Maybe your first love is the one that sticks with you because it's the only person who will ever receive all of you. After that, you learn better. But, most of all, no matter what, a piece of you forever remains left behind in the heart of the one you loved - a piece no future lover could ever get, no matter what. That piece holds innocence, the belief that love really can last forever. It holds friendship and pain, trial and error, that one kiss you'll never forget, and that night under the stars you can never get back. It holds youth and everything you thought love would be, everything that was proven wrong.

Author Unknown

Notes from Prospect Park West

2010-05-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

These two monks are walking along a path back of beyond, and they come across a caravan carrying a wealthy woman and her suitcases. She's not very nice to them. The monks and the caravan come to this muddy river, and the attendants discover they can't cross with the woman and her possessions. The older monk volunteers to carry her across on his back so the attendants can carry her things.
But when they get across, the woman doesn't say thank you. She's rude to him, and she pushes him away to get back in her caravan. The two monks keep going, and after a while, the younger monk says, "I cannot believe that old woman! You were so nice to carry her across the river on your back, and she didn't even say thank you! She was so rude!" The master turns to his student and says, "I put her down two miles ago. Why are you still carrying her?"

Amy Sohn

The Way to Love

2010-05-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is Attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy...Here is a mistake that most people make in their relationships with others. They try to build a steady nesting place in the ever-moving stream of life.

Anthony de Mello

Maya Angelou

2010-05-13T17:24:00.001-07:00

Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love.

Maya Angelou

Chuck Palahniuk

2010-05-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.

ChuckP wants Co-dependancy

Esther Elizabeth

2010-05-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

When we let go of hatred, predjudices, arrogance and entitlement from the heart, our actions change. We love, forgive and hope from the heart and from there our world changes.

Esther Elizabeth

Sun Gangs

2010-04-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

Some say you'll never be gone forever
Some say there's music where you go
I've no faith in my heart, tell two apart
Ocean above from sky below
Where I am going you can't save me
Don't wake me honey for love nor money
I have no more I can pay 'til we're here alone
And the seeds have been sown
And night returns to break the day
Where I am going you can't save me
Where I am going you can't save me, yeah

The Veils

Freedom is just another word.

2010-04-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Notes from 'The Art of Losing'

2010-04-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

When it comes to grief, however, thinking alone is no good. To lose someone close to you is to enter in an experience no amount of forethought or hindsight can free you from. You must live through grief. You cannot outsmart it, nor think through the fact of someone's being gone, and forever. You must survive the sorrow.

Kevin Young

Notes from 'The Brooklyn Follies'

2010-04-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

"You think I'm joking," I said, "but I'm giving it to you straight. The pearls of my wisdom. A few pointers after a lifetime of toiling in the trenches of experience. Con men and tricksters run the world. Rascals rule. And do you know why?"
"Tell me, Master. I'm all ears."
"Because they're hungrier than we are. Because they know what they want. Because they believe in life more than we do."

"Our host is pouring out the sorrows of his life to us, but I feel remarkably happy just to be where I am, sitting in my own body, looking at the things on the table, breathing air in and out of my lungs, relishing the simple fact that I am alive. What a pity that life ends, I tell myself, what a pity that we aren't allowed to go on living forever."

Paul Auster

Anais Nin

2010-04-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

Anais Nin

Brand New

2010-04-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

You are calm and reposed, let your beauty unfold. Pale white like the skin stretched over your bones. Spring keeps you ever so close. You are second hand smoke. You are so fragile and thin, standing trial for your sins, holding onto yourself the best you can. You are the smell before the rain, you are the blood in my veins.

The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot

The Truth

2010-04-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

You want the truth? Well, here it is. Eventually, you forget it all. First you forget everything you learned - the dates of wars and Pythagorean theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your favorite teachers, and eventually you forget those too. You forget your junior year class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. And eventually, but slowly, you forget your humiliations - even the ones that seemed indelible, just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties. Who had the most friends. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else.

Anon

Sunday Morning

2010-04-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound.

Wallace Stevens

Read more.

Notes from 'The Dying Animal'

2010-04-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

"I can't stop doing anything I'm doing, and everything I'm doing leaves me upset."

"The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open."

"You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more."

Philip Roth

You need to know.

2010-04-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone deserves love without terms and conditions.
Everyone has a right to live their life the way they want.
Everyone has the right to be happy without feeling guilty.
No one deserves abuse.
No one is not good enough for healthy love.
No one has the right to hurt anyone.
Everyone can be happy.
Everyone feels completely alone and lost sometimes.
It is okay to be yourself.
It's okay to do what you want to do.
It's okay to be happy with yourself, your life.
It's okay to say no.
You need to be honest with everyone and yourself.
Live your life, love everyone and everything you can.
Don't listen to anyone but yourself.
Do anything you want as long as it's not hurting someone else.
Don't take shit.
You deserve the best and you can have it if you want it bad enough.

The darkest side...

2010-04-06T09:20:00.001-07:00

Lull

2010-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Being alone, it can be quite romantic
Like Jacques Cousteau underneath the Atlantic
A fantastic voyage to parts unknown
Going to depths where the sun's never shone
And I fascinate myself when I'm alone
So I go a little overboard, but hang on to the hull
While I'm airbrushing fantasy art on a life
That's really kind of dull
Oh, I'm in a lull

I'm all for moderation, but sometimes it seems
Moderation itself can be kind of extreme
So I joined the congregation
I joined the softball team
I went in for my confirmation
Where incense looks like steam
I start conjugating proverbs
Where once there were nouns
This whole damn rhyme scheme's
Starting to get me down

Oh I'm in a lull
I'm in a lull

Andrew Bird

Easter 2K10

2010-04-04T14:34:00.001-07:00

We want to live!

2010-04-03T13:11:00.001-07:00

We don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Edna O'Brien

2010-04-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

The body contains the life story just as much as the brain.

Edna O'Brien

Bryan Waters

2010-03-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

You can do it. It will take discipline.

Bryan Waters

The Goal of Life is Living

2010-03-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Our society tends to define happiness as absence of suffering and therefore we strive to invest our creative powers in building temples to security, whether they be the immortal marriage, the immortal job, the immortal corporation or the immortal skyscraper to house that corporation, or the immortal Nation with its invincible army and weaponry. One has to ask how much of this compulsion to wipe out suffering -- or buy it out in the form of insurance of all kinds -- is not a symptom of a flight from suffering.

I prefer Pierre Boulez's definition of what life is about. Says he, "The goal of life is not happiness [aka security]; it is living." And living implies suffering. In fact, the creative person -- and that hopefully is all of us -- takes on additional burdens of suffering by entering fully into living.

Matthew Fox

Anon

2010-03-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

There is no past. There is no future. There is only right now, this very moment and that is all there ever is.

Anon

Dog Days Are Over

2010-03-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Florence and the Machine

Val Jester

2010-03-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

Build a fire for Val Jester
Build a room for your love
Take your time when you tell her
How she lives in your blood

You should have looked after her better
You should have looked after her more
You should have locked the door

Fill her coat with weapons and help her get it on
Cause one day when she goes, she's gone

You should have held on to her better
You should have held on to her more
You should have locked the door

The National

Roam. Drift. Ramble.

2010-03-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

C.S. Lewis

2010-03-10T14:27:00.000-08:00

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

C.S. Lewis

More Desiderata

2010-03-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Max Ehrmann

2010-03-04T09:04:00.001-08:00

Be fully awake if you want to dream.

Paulo Coelho

Underestimated Need for Joy

2010-03-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

We all underestimate our need for joy. If we are not careful, we live as if our schedules are our lives. We cross one thing after another off the list. At the end of the day, we have completed our chores, but we haven't necessarily been present in our own experiences.

Mary Pipher

Too much.

2010-02-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

The scrape of the metal spoon on my ceramic bowl leaves me lonely. The soup inside does not keep me warm. The blinds are shut, the air is cold and only the sound of the refrigerator keeps me company. I feel as if I'm always one step away from the darkness. One foot in the shadows and the other searching for the sun.

How will I ever truly love the way I want to again? I feel triggered at the slightest change in temperature and I remember all I have lost in the course of a year. So much remorse, so much regret and what do I have to offer but an empty shell? An irrational, overemotional, needy mess. Petty jealousies and outbursts of anger. And I'm crying now, in the one hour I'm given a day...crying for who I've become and who I might never be.

I've lived my life in limbo for so long that maybe learning something new is too much for me. Maybe all I am right now is all I have to offer. Maybe this is all I'll ever be but will that be enough?

Or will I end up feeling like too much?

GG

The Hunger to be Understood

2010-02-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

When the need for bread is met we discover that we have other hungers, and none so deep as the hunger to be understood. The artist helps interpret, understand and communicate feeling. When the artist is successful we are led into communion with ourselves and with the world, and the solitary work becomes a communal work. For want of this we walk on parched land.

Elizabeth O'Connor

The Neurotic's Notebook

2010-02-20T18:36:00.001-08:00

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.

Mignon McLaughlin

Someday

2010-02-18T09:17:00.000-08:00

Might paint something I might want to to hang here someday,
Might write something I might want to say to you someday,
Might do something I'd be proud of someday.
Mark my words, I might be something someday.

Tegan & Sara

Desiderata

2010-02-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

Max Ehrmann

Telling the Truth

2010-02-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

Frederick Buechner

Eat, Pray, Love

2010-02-10T09:32:00.001-08:00

Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.

Elizabeth Gilbert

It Goes On

2010-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

It goes on. That is life's great sorrow and greatest solace. It goes on. A star dies and another is formed in a celestial cycle of birth and death. One mountain crumbles to sand and another explodes into being. An ouzel nest may last ten thousand years, while I will be dust in a hundred. When I truly understand, I know there is only the illusion of time, or rather, that we live both within and outside of time, and that we can be grateful for both experiences.

Mary Pipher

The Gargoyle

2010-01-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

…Eckhart’s position was that anything that is good can become better, and whatever may become better may become best. God cannot be referred to as “good,” “better,” “best” because He is above all things. If a man says that God is wise, the man is lying because anything that is wise can become wiser. Anything that a man might say about God is incorrect, even calling Him by the name of God. God is “Super-essential nothingness” and “transcendent Being,” said Suese, beyond all words and beyond all understanding. The best a man can do is to remain silent, because any time he pratles on about God, he is committing the sin of lying. The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, he would never hold Him to be God.

Andrew Davidson

2010-01-21T14:35:00.001-08:00

So much of great art is great patience.

Brian Groh

Penny's Song

2010-01-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a story of a girl
Who grew up lost and lonely
Thinking love was fairytale
And trouble was made only for me

Even in the darkness every color can be found
And every day of rain brings
Water flowing
To things growing in the ground

Joss Whedon

Scattered Pearls

2010-01-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

And as we rode the bus home I thought surely
I'd wake up tomorrow just to find
that I had dreamed up everything
there'd still be pearls on a string
I wouldn't smell like smoke and I'd still
have the cash that I had spent on drinks
Oh, I feel as scattered as Grandmother's pearls
Mom don't cry, they're only pearls

Casitone for the Painfully Alone

Gaga for Gaga

2010-01-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

The Gaga Law (RAH)² (AH)³ + RO (MA + MAMA) + (GA)² + OOH(LA)² = Bad Romance

2010-01-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

Henry Miller

2010-01-14T12:47:00.001-08:00

The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth. The inward work always includes in itself all size, all breadth and all length.

Meister Eckhart

Dominos

2010-01-13T16:30:00.001-08:00

The hardest love has the coldest end.

The Big Pink

2010-01-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Mark Twain

Breathers

2010-01-12T14:27:00.001-08:00

Sure they're just baby steps. But what am I, if not an infant? Born into a world of decay. Relearning how to walk and talk. Suckling from the bosom of hope.

S.G. Browne

Generator^First Floor

2010-01-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

We get up early just to start cranking the generator
Our limbs have been asleep, we need to get the blood back in them
We're finding every day, several ways that we can be friends
We keep on churning and the lights inside the house turn on
And in our native language we are chanting ancient songs
Then when we quiet down, the house chants on without us

Freelance Whales

I could write a book.

2010-01-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

If they asked me, I could write a book
about the way you walk and whisper and look.
I could write a preface on how we met
so the world would never forget.
And the simple secret of the plot
is just to tell them that I love you a lot.

Pal Joey

Help, I'm Alive

2010-01-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

If you're still alive, my regrets are few
If my life is mine, what shouldn't I do?
I get wherever I'm going, I get whatever I need
while my blood's still flowing and my heart still beats
Beating like a hammer, beating like a hammer
Help, I'm alive
My heart keeps beating like a hammer
Hard to be soft, tough to be tender
Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway train
Help, I'm alive
My heart keeps beating like a hammer
Beating like a hammer.

Metric

You know that I'm no good

2010-01-09T18:01:00.000-08:00

I cheated myself like I knew I would
I told you I was trouble
You know that I'm no good

Amy Winehouse

Daylight

2010-01-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

And in the daylight we could hitchhike to Maine
I hope that someday I'll see without these frames
And in the daylight I don't pick up my phone
'cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home.

Matt and Kim

Summer's Over

2010-01-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Kamikaze seagull planes
fighting over chip shop takeaway remains
When you're walking on the cliffs
you can't help wondering how far down the sea is
and what if it should give?
I didn't mean to bring you down
summer's over seaside town
She says we shouldn't have come so far
this seaside town summer's over
Empty pubs echo with sounds
Jukebox selections that keep going round and round
Maybe rain is all we need
to come and wash the summer rubbish off the beach
Oh, let's just go to sleep.

Rialto

Lonely Blue Boy

2010-01-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

My name should be trouble, my name should be woe
For trouble and heartache is all that I know
Yeah, lonely lonely blue boy is my name

My life has been empty, my heart has been torn
It must have been raining the night I was born
Yeah, lonely, lonely blue boy is my name

Well, I'm so
I'm so afraid of tomorrow
And so tired, so tired of today
They say that love is the answer
But love never came my way

I'm writing this letter to someone unknown
So if you should find it and if you're alone
Well lonely, lonely blue boy is my name
Remember lonely, lonely blue boy is my name

Conway Twitty

Listen.

To Ohio

2010-01-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

I left Louisiana on the rail line
I left Louisiana on the rail line
I was trying to get to Ohio, trying to get to Ohio
Lost my love before her time
Lost my love before her time
On the way to Ohio, on the way to Ohio
Now every new love is just a shadow
Every new love is just a shadow
'Cause once you've known love you don't know how to find love
Yeah once you've found love you don't know how to find new love
All the way to Ohio, all the way to Ohio
Heard her voice come through the pines in Ohio
I heard her voice singing in the pines in Ohio
She sang bless your soul you crossed that line to Ohio
Bless your soul you crossed that line
All the way to Ohio, all the way to Ohio

The Low Anthem

Give it a listen.

Begin Again

2010-01-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

It's the acid rain
sent from above
and it's the joy and pain
you'll grow to love

It's the sweetest thing
you'll never know
and the truth will sting
and so it goes

So hard just following the light of long dead stars

The Veils

I THINK UR A CONTRA

2010-01-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

It's not useful now since we both made up our minds
You gotta watch out for yourself and so will I
I think ur a contra, I think that u lied
Don't call me a contra 'til you've tried

Vampire Weekend

I wish Ezra Koening would get out of my head.

Bulletproof

2010-01-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

Been there done that messed around
I'm having fun, don't put me down
I'll never let you sweep me off my feet

I won't let you in again
The messages I've tried to send
My information's just not going in

Burning bridges shore to shore
I'll break away from something more
I'm not to, not to love until it's cheap

Been there done that messed around
I'm having fun, don't put me down
I'll never let you sweep me off my feet

This time, baby, I'll be bulletproof
This time, baby, I'll be bulletproof

La Roux

Watch video.

Love is.

2010-01-04T21:07:00.000-08:00

A letter is all well and good but those words just lie still on the page. Your actions are what count. Telling that person you love them and meaning it. Not showing up at midnight when you need something or calling when you're lonely. It means sticking around for the hard parts and being there when it matters the most.

GG

2010-01-04T17:38:00.001-08:00

All we ever do is say goodbye...

I've Loved These Days

2010-01-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

Now we take our time, so nonchalant
And spend our night's so bon vivant
We dress our days in silken robes
The money comes, the money goes
We know it's all a passing phase
We light our lamps for atmosphere
And hang our hopes on chandeliers
We're going wrong, we're gaining weight
We're sleeping long and far too late
And so it's time to change our ways
But I've loved these days.

Now as we indulge in things refined
We hide our hearts from harder times
A string of pearls, a foreign car
Oh, we can only go so far on caviar and cabernet
We drown our doubts in dry champagne
And soothe our souls with fine cocaine
I don't know why I even care
We'll get so high and get nowhere
We'll have to change our jaded ways
But I've loved these days

So before we end and then begin
We'll drink a toast to how it's been
A few more hours to be complete
A few more nights on satin sheets
A few more times that I can say
I've loved these days

Billy Joel

2010-01-03T23:02:00.000-08:00

In your life, everyone you know was a stranger at one time.

A New Season

2010-01-03T20:23:00.001-08:00

I'm sick of living my life on the sidelines,
tired of waiting for something to happen,
for someone to come along and save me.
In this next season of being I will be stronger...
and braver, full of passion and light.
This is my time to crumble the walls I've built around me.
My time to shine.
This is the decade I will become who I was meant to be.
I will stand on my own two feet and love others unconditionally.
I will surround myself with those that will support and love me back.
I will stop blaming others for my own problems.
I will stay open and get out of my head.
But above all, I will never stop being present.
This is the promise I make to myself.
I'm finally excited for the journey and this life I've been given
that I'm just learning to create.
It's going to be a good day, a good season, a good year.
Here's to another decade of life.
May we all live it to the best of our ability.

GG

2010-01-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

Take your decisions with courage, detachment and a touch of madness.

Paulo Coelho

Purpose Driven Life

2010-01-02T22:17:00.000-08:00

...don't settle for happiness; aim for joy. Joy comes from within; joy is not dependent upon the people in your life, or the possessions you accumulate, or what's happening at this point in your life.

1. Live each day by grace.
2. Stay focused on what's really important.

Happiness is overrated. On the other hand, joy is often forgotten. Yet, joy will stabilize your life as you embrace grace and focus on the things that are truly important, moving a bad hair day down the list and relationships to the top.

The Invitation

2010-01-02T20:54:00.001-08:00

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah

2010-01-01T22:02:00.001-08:00

I'm still so good at letting you lie to me. You were a part of last decade, I will not allow you to be a part of this one.

Where am I going?

2010-01-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Where am I going?
And what will I find?
What's in this grab-bag that I call my mind?
What am I doing alone on the shelf?
Ain't it a shame,
No one's to blame, but myself...
Which way is clear?
When you've lost your way year after year?
Do I keep falling in love for just the kick of it?
Staggering through the thin and the thick of it,
Hating each old and tired trick of it.
Know what I am, I'm good and sick of it!
Where am I going?
Why do I care?

Sweet Charity

Rhythm of Life

2010-01-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

Gather 'round. Yeah, this is where it's all happening babies. The rhythm of life. Number seven in the top ten religions.
But we're gonna climb to number one, daddy.
I'm hip, baby. But dig, time is running out on that big LP called life and the greatest Disc Jockey of 'em all is gonna come take us by the hand and lead us to the flip side of life called eternity.
Eternity. That big coffee break in the sky.
Yeah, but before we groove that final date. Before we head for that last eight bars. We gotta make our peace.
Make it, daddy.
You know I'm gonna make it and I want you cats to listen to everything I'm gonna lay on you as of this point. Number one: Thou shalt dig thy neighbor as thou wouldst have him dig thee. Number two: Thou shalt not put down thy mama's and thy papa's. Number three: Thou shalt not swing with another cat's chick. Number four: Thou shalt not blow thy minds on school nights and national holidays.
They are very devout group. Where did you ever find them?
Oh, I'm on a mailing list. It's a church of the month club.
And last but not least, thou shalt not indulge thyselves in the evil marajuana weed commonly known as pot, grass, mary jane...acapulco gold. As it is sinful. It is harmful. It's also very expensive. So I suggest if anybody's holding, drop it before the fuzz arrives. Love, babies.
Love, daddy.

Sweet Charity

A brief look back at Oscar Wao.

2010-01-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

...and not understand why he couldn't sustain this feeling of love in his heart forever.

Stability was not in our girls stars, only Change.

Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.

I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end?
In the end? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

...maybe, she said, you could call it life. He wrote: So this is what everybody's always talking about! Diablo! If only I'd known. The beauty! The beauty!

(Thank you)...for leading me out of great darkness, and giving me the gift of life.

Junot Diaz

After reading this it's easy to understand why Mr. Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Sweet Charity

2010-01-01T14:52:00.001-08:00

Without love, life has no purpose.

Listen, just living is dangerous, right?

And she lived hopefully ever after.

Shirley MacLaine as Charity Love Valentine

The New York Times & The Dude

2010-01-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

As a new generation of "Lebowski" fans emerges, Dude studies may linger for a while. In another of this book's essays, "Professor Dude: An Inquiry Into the Appeal of His Dudeness for Contemporary College Students," a bearded, longhaired and rather Dude-like associate professor of English at James Madison University in Harrisnburg, Va., named Richard Gaughran asks this question of his students: "What is it that they see in the Dude that they find so desirable?"

One of Mr. Gaughran's students came up with this summary, and it's somehow appropriate for an end-of-the-year reckoning: "He doesn't stand for what everybody thinks he should stand for, but he has his values. He just does it. He lives in a very disjointed society, but he's gonna take things as they come, he's gonna care about his friends, he's gonna go to somebody's recital, and that's it. That's how you respond."

Happy New Year, Dude.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/books/30lebowski.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

2010-01-01T00:08:00.000-08:00

2010 has arrived on the west coast. Listening to everyone celebrate.

2010-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.

T.S. Eliot

10 years ago

2009-12-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of this decade I was in my second semester of high school. I was seventeen...doe eyed, innocent...ignorant. I knew nothing of the world and the world knew nothing of me. However, I thought differently. I didn't know living could be so messy. I had never been in love or had my heart broken, I had never had a drink or knew how people could be both cruel and surprising. I had never felt hungry or worried about money. My life felt like it was just beginning and the only thing I could feel was excitement for what was to come.

When I was young I used to have dreams about myself. I almost thought I could see what I would look like or the person I would become. The teenager I was never could have dreamt up this. If she had known, she would have been frightened for all the change I was bound to experience. For all the pain I would confront, for all the good I wouldn't do, for all the people I would hurt.

As I sit on my porch in Santa Monica, California I wonder if I would do anything different. I think about how far I've come and how far I have to go. I ponder on my regrets and think about everyone I have met and everyone I have lost. What does this next decade hold? Who will I meet? How will I change? Who will I become in the next ten years? Unlike my younger, more naive self...I am not sure of anything anymore.

These thoughts, these questions fill my head but only the stillness answers.

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade.
GG

Si Se Puede

2009-12-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

We only see two things in people: What we want to see and what they want to show us.

No matter how close two people are an infinite distance separates them. Look at you and me.

Dexter

2009-12-30T16:15:00.001-08:00

You realized too late that there's no one else like me.

Show Me The Way To Go Home

2009-12-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Show me the way to go home
I'm tired and I want to go to bed
I had a little drink about an hour ago
and it went right to my head
Wherever I roam on land or sea or foam
You will always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home

Irving King

Me Voy. "I leave."

2009-12-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

Because you did not know how to understand my heart
What was there in it.
Because you didn't have the courage
to see who I am.
Because you don't listen to what is so close to you
Just the noise from outside
and me, who is on the side
disappear for you.

I am not going to cry and say
That I do not deserve this because
It's probable that I do deserve it
But I do not want it, that's why...
I leave, what a shame but goodbye
I bid my farewell and
I leave, what a shame but goodbye
I bid my farewell to you.

Because I know that something better waits for me
Someone who knows how to give me love,
The kind that sweetens salt
and makes the sun come out.
Me who thought, I would never leave you,
That it was real love, lifelong love
But today I understood that it isn't
Enough for the two of us.

I am not going to cry and say
That I do not deserve this because
It's probable that I do deserve it
But I do not want it, that's why...
I leave, what a shame but goodbye
I bid my farewell and
I leave, what a shame but goodbye
I bid my farewell to you.

Julieta Venegas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v92OsaD40w

2009-12-21T12:25:00.001-08:00

Don't come around here anymore.
I can't stomach your lies.
Stay in your haze downtown
so I can learn to live by the ocean.
You wallow in your own regret
and I will just move on.

GG

2009-12-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

I was bone sad.

2009-12-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

For me, there is pain in everything broken. There is an ache in everything lost. There is sorrow in everything that is over - and will never be the same again. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

People on a Hill

Connections

2009-12-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a television show comes along and punches you in the gut. This is what the finale of Six Feet Under has done to me tonight. I started this show with my good friend, Ben, almost five years ago and over the course of these five years I have watched episodes every now and again. Well a couple of months ago, I decided to watch the show in it's entirety. I had never seen the finale so I didn't know what to expect. I should have expected the unexpected.

Not only was the final ten minutes a mixture of beauty and heartbreak but it was the perfect marriage of a song ("Breathe Me" by Sia) and a montage. I was floored, I was moved, I was shattered.

It made me think of how frail life is. How little we can see ahead of us and how no matter what life throws at us we have our simple connection with humanity to guide and help us carry on. I am shaking as I write this because I am so overwhelmed by the honesty of this show. How it reveals life, death and those small moments in between with such genuine clarity that you can't help but feel as if you are a part of something bigger.

I struggle daily with my own spirituality. Being brought up in a very conservative southern baptist minister's home I was not raised to question. Questioning came much later for me. And whether or not you believe in God or Buddah or Allah, there is one thing you should believe in and that's people. They can astound you when you least expect it. I have been very lucky in my life to be surrounded by love and laughter and very little heartache. There's not a day I don't feel thankful for what I've been given. There's not a day I'm not happy I still have the capacity to feel hope and joy in these very cynical times. I am truly thankful, indeed.

But what does it all mean? How did we get here? Why were we each put here and placed in the path of those we love. It's a common fact that we will all die but what do we do while we're here? I don't think it has anything to do with writing a critically acclaimed novel or being respected by your peers although these things are very nice to have while you're here. I think it has to do with our connections. The people we meet, the people we love, the people we lose.

Each one of these people gives you a chance to not only learn something about yourself but learn something about life. I don't want to waste one more moment while I'm here because I'm afraid or nervous or worried. I want to live. I want to live my life like no one's watching and I want to die knowing I did my best.

Because in the end that's all we can ask for...giving our everything and hoping for a better tomorrow until our tomorrow's end.

GG

"I pray you will be filled with hope as long as you possibly can."
Ruth