sunday something

In late April with May banging relentlessly at the door, this quotation rings so true for me:
"Life is all memory, except for the present moment that goes by you so quick that you hardly catch it going." ~Tennessee Williams
But every once in a while you do catch it...even if it's on film. 

(good) friday quotation

One of my favorite authors - Anne Lamott - reflecting on Good Friday in an NPR story:
"Well, it's the most profound holiday in the Christian tradition," Lamott says. "And I think two things really come to mind. One is something that the great writer Barbara Johnson said, which is that we are Easter people living in a Good Friday world. And I think that every year the world seems more of a Good Friday world. And it's excruciating, whether it's Japan, or Libya, or whether its your own best friends and their children who are sick, which is something that makes no sense when you think about a loving God. But it's a time when we get to remember that all the stuff that we think makes us of such value, all the time we spend burnishing our surfaces, is really not what God sees. God, he or she, loves us absolutely unconditionally, as is. It's a come as you are party."

Sunday something...

...it's an "April showers bring May flowers" here in Austin - for which I'm very grateful!
And these words from Hemingway (which make me think that it's time for me to re-visit some of his other classic writings - it's been too long) make me long for a true Spring in Austin, something which we sometimes speed by, racing in a ridiculous way to 90 degree weather and missing the beauty of what Hemingway describes here:

"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest."

friday quotation

"What the river was showing her now was that she could flow beyond the brokenness, redeem herself, and fuse once more." ~Ursula Hegi

into my shell or sails unfurled?

Yoga is always a place of revelations for me.  Whether I'm discovering a new flexibility or new pose or whether I'm discovering a new sense of courage or vulnerability, a part of me is always moved by my time on the mat.  Today was no different.  It was a class about the basics.  Breathing.  Balancing.  Grounding.  Rounding up.  Stretching out.  And then those most basic of things were turned into a number of poses - most of which I barely stood a chance at achieving.  But the cool thing was that even if I couldn't get into scissor leg side crow (it's sort of crazy but sort of possible...one day), I could do parts of it. I could breathe.  I could balance.  I could push into the ground.  And then one day, with practice, I'll be able to round up from there and stretch out.  One day it will be time to unfurl the sails.  For now, it's a time to stretch out of my shell a little, but still find the comfort and security that is there.  Yes, my word for the year was courage.  And it still is.  But I'm learning that courage doesn't necessarily mean letting the sails out all at once and that I can inch out and then retreat and still call that brave.

friday quotation

"None of us knows what the future will hold.  And so we let ourselves move forward into it, clear-eyed about the limits of our certainty and invigorated by the adventure."
~ Leah Hager Cohen

sunday something

The hours rushed ahead and let me a bit behind...as in two days behind...like on Friday, when I should have posted this quotation.