I love sunshine : )

Contentment

sensual heat pours down my face
fingers of sunshine caress my skin
stroking me with radiating warmth
rhythmic and gentle on the surface of my body
until i feel feverish
and i abandon myself to letting go
drinking in the feverish touch
the light shimmers in the wavering intensity of the concrete
and reflects the calm in me

--LML May 28, 05

Awareness

In the silence,
when I can be still,
there is a calm
and a peace
that resonates
and fills me with
a sense of me.

An understanding
of what I am
and all that I need.

And the moment
my mind realizes
I am experiencing
this freedom...
...it is gone.

LML Feb 19, 2005

Soul Mates

I stumbled across this while I read a blog called Choice In the Matter.

"I believe in soul mates.
I believe we have more than one.
I believe they don’t necessarily have to be people you are romantically involved with."

It really resonated with me. Why? Because I feel like I have quite a few soul mates; people whom I connect deeply with, people whom I feel as if I've known for a hundred years, and many of these people I've never been romantically involved with.

I also believe that you generally cannot get everything from just one person, except yourself. I feel strongly that people intersect your life for a reason; to give you specific gifts (things you need to learn about yourself), and it's up to you to accept those gifts, experience them, and enjoy those people to the fullest.

Books and More Books....

My Mom visited me this weekend. We had a good visit together - lots of walking and eating, shopping for a couch and coffee table for me (woohoo!), many good laughs, some pretty heavy conversations about life and love, and many hours of wonderful discussions about good books and movies that each of us have seen.

As we walked home Saturday evening from Sweetgrass (an Aboriginal bistro), in the Market, we stopped at Chapters. I completely gorged myself and bought 5 books...

Leonard Cohen's "The Favorite Game" --> My Mom's favorite book by Leonard, which she read when she was 16.

Bryce Courtenay's "The Power of One"
Bryce Courtenay's "Tommo & Hawk" -- > I heard about Bryce Courtenay in New Zealand.

J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" --> A powerful book about South Africa, centered around one man's personal disgrace.

Douglas Coupland's "Nostradamus" --> Something about the book just called to me. I have no idea what it's about.

And, on top of this all, Sue loaned me Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner".

WOW!
Happy Reading! : )

Where are my memories?

I spent a good chunk of the weekend going through old photos trying to spark some creative juices and some memories. Both Mom and Dad are having significant milestone birthdays this year (60 and 70 respectively), and the girls are putting our creative caps on to capture our favorite parts of their time spent with us so far in our lives.

But I am having some difficulties. A lot of my memories about tastes, smells, people, circumstances, words exchanged, feelings, are not accessible. I feel generally free of the past, not encumbered by yearnings, regret or remorse, guilt, or worry.

And, trust me, I am happy with this place.

However, I wonder if by living in the present, in the now, and by letting go of all the things that remind a person of the past and potentially keep them there, I am also letting go of those strong, and powerful memories. Of being a child, of time spent with my family, of taking vacations and experiencing new things, of being with Mike, of friends I've made, of journeys I taken. Even New Zealand feels like a lifetime ago...

Am I losing something in this process? Or have I just been given the opportunity to start anew, start fresh, take each day as it comes - and fill it to the fullest??

the power of now

"There is nothing worth more than this day!"
- Goethe

"Back" to Basics

It's been almost a week that I've been dealing with a painful lower back. It's not excruciating, it's just very seized... and I don't know why. I haven't done anything unusual or out of the ordinary. I felt great leading up to it - my energy level was awesome - I was doing yoga, weights, and running. And felt very strong.

I am feeling pretty frustrated by all of this. Frustrated that I am achy after going for a walk. That my usual coping mechanism (exercise) is not available to me. Frustrated that my general feeling of wellness is not present and that I am battling with weakness and achiness. Blech!

This has been good for me on a couple of levels. (Here goes my attempt at finding the silver lining.) This whole thing illustrates how much I take my body (and it's strength and fitness) for granted. It's showing me that I need to take better care of myself, and be gentle. That's hard one for me. I just want to go, go, go... "why walk when you can run" kind of philosophy. : )

I also realize that I am quite impatient. *sigh* I want to be better now.

I figure I can just will myself to feel better. D'ya think it will work?

Fall Color Quilt

I am not having thoughts of autumn, but I did stumble across a poem that I wrote a few years back...

A tree sneezes and

leaves spill like paint.

Pools of color and light.

Orange Fire

Yellow Flame

Red Ember

A tapestry of brilliance.

In the Still of the Night

I have discovered something new about me. I am at my most productive in the wee hours of the morning. The world is still asleep, and I feel like it's at this time that I am capable of accomplishing a fair amount.

I woke up this morning at 3:30. (Suffering from a little stomach distress...)
What did I get done? Tons of little things! Wow.

* painted my toe nails pink
* read a quarter of American Gods
* fixed my tax return and submitted my changes online
* had breakfast
* did dishes (and put them away)
* organized and sorted my closet and drawers
* figured out which pictures from New Zealand, I want to frame
* sent about a dozen emails
* blogged
* wrote a few things in my journal
* watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager

*YAWN* I think I need a nap ; )

Fortune Telling and Tea

Last night, for a belated birthday present, Hana took me to get my tea leaves read. It's the first time that I've had my fortune told using that kind of medium. Gerald, a man in his late 60s or so, invited me into his house. He gave me a cup of sweet, orange pekoe tea, and asked me to turn the cup upside down and to place my palm on top of the inverted cup, and grasp it with all my fingers, so he could feel my vibrations. Then he picked up the tea cup and with one finger spiraling in little circles on the bottom of the cup, he rotated the tea cup around and around and started reading.

There were some things that Gerald said that made me laugh out loud because they were just so wrong; some things he said I considered (because they are things that I have thought about myself at some points in my life); and then there were things that I'll categorize in the "Maybe" list - because... you never know. : )

Laughables:
Apparently, I need to exercise more. I don't do enough, and should really make it a regular part of my life.

I work in some kind of field where I wear a white lab coat - medicine, nursing, science, secretary.

I should start a career as an interior designer. Because I am good with color coordination.

Considerations:
I should go get my masters, in something related to math/accounting, because I will be good at it, and it will help with my career path.

I should take up acting as a hobby - join the Ottawa Little Theater on weekends.

I am going through a major disappointment in my life right now, and I need to let go of the anger, and work through it. It's not a loss, because it was my choice, and it was a good decision for me, but it carries a lot of emotion. And I have to learn to let that go.

I'll be moving to another city in a few years, as part of a new step in my career, and then I'll return back to Ottawa with that same company. (I should be reading the career section of the Saturday Toronto Star this weekend.)

Who knows?
I will break my collarbone in 2 years in a skiing accident. (I should never go skiing alone.)

In the next couple of years, someone will want to start a business with me. I should jump at the opportunity because I will be very successful at it. (I need to take risks where my career is concerned - because I generally like to play it safe, and stick with the known.)

I'll meet a dark haired man, and Architect/Designer, with a baby girl next year. Apparently, I'll fall in love with his baby girl first.

And I will live, with very good health, until the ripe old age of 98. WOW!

When I am scared

It's been awhile since I have journalled, and I thought I'd try out this blog medium.

I am a little stunned by this force of emotion. Mostly, (I suspect partly it's because of hormones), centered around the fact that I am meeting up with Mike tonight. And I don't want to. But I am too much of a coward to tell him; to be honest that it's hard for me to relate to him; that the thick emotional cloud that seems to be between us sometimes makes it hard to breathe; that he seems to be looking for a way to connect with me - and worrying about my wellbeing is that vehicle - and that it's just stifling me. It makes me want to flee.

It's so cowardly of me - especially as I want so much to be honest with those around me - and all I am feeling right now is such sadness, guilt, and a pervasive criticism of myself. I feel fat, that terrible sensation of being large and so very out of place; of being dumb, and ugly. Where do these feeling comes from? Why? How does this pattern, this cycle, get triggered?

Is it my form of control over a situation that I am afraid of? That, by beating up on myself, somehow it becomes easier or less frightening to deal with? That, if I set the bar low enough, no matter what happens, I will come out ahead?

I do have a choice in all of this. I have a choice to accept this invitation, or not. I have a choice to feel like shit or not. I have a choice to remember all that is so good in my life. Accept that I feel fragile, and scared, and yes, weak, and just move past this.

I recognize that a lot of this emotion, especially the inability to be honest, comes from the fact that there are so many things that I am experiencing and exploring that I chose not to tell him about. The chasm is there, and it's exhausting to try and communicate with such a great distance between us.

And yet, I ask myself, why do I care so much about him that I go through all of this just to meet him for a drink? I don't know. Maybe it just seems too cruel to tell him that I don't want to see him, especially when I know he is struggling emotionally. Maybe I keep seeing glimmers of potential in him that make me feel that it's possible for him to "get" this; I just don't know.

Maybe it's just punishment that I inflict on myself because I feel like I deserve it. Because I hurt him.