Last night Abe told me I am the painter.
And I believe him. So today I must start painting.

Harvard Museum of Natural History

people hurt

Sometimes I wish people's ability to hurt me would finally outweigh my capacity for forgiveness. Then I realize how stupid that is.

The bravest thing I've ever done was make it through childhood. It is also the bravest thing I continue to do, when I do it. This is a blessing for me and not a little bit of a curse. But, after spending time working with a family I think embodies loving support, intelligent direction and total dedication, I think it's fair to say even in the best of circumstances, it is the same for everyone.

One quick and dirty way to assess whether a personal view or political belief has any validity is to ask if it is compassionate. If not, you're way off base. Period.

evening news

At 10:30 this evening you could see the moon straight through my bedroom window sitting exactly where I am.

stop me if you've heard this one before

I met a comedian one night at this bar who tried to get my number. He wore a white shirt with a slit down the front and sandals. He said he'd found enlightenment, that he had traveled, that knowledge is power. I had to laugh at him. I asked what God was like. I've only experienced short bursts of love and light. It felt like compassion. The development of one's self is not a struggle for perfection (that wiped away his grin). It's not a search for esoteric knowledge and using it for power is a sin. It's not all the steps you may have taken round the world or some great moment of arrival. It's a moment to moment fight for life, for freedom, for survival.

sleepwalking

I am like a dead thing. All the moments between noticing.

little lives 2

Somewhere a box was made (a cardboard clam shell to-go container) which traveled a great distance - from tree to factory to truck to a neatly stacked pile on the back shelf of the 17th street cafe - whose fate was to hold my piece of spinach quiche only once.

That everything bears us, holds us up, giving completely and without exception from what it is. How we take these little lives without thanks. And throw them away just as thoughtlessly.

little lives 1

I want to write an elegant poem about the seagull I picked up off the street, barehanded, and how I cried into its wet feathers like a little girl and wouldn't put it down. About his eyes, how they were quietly shut, his exact weight and proportion in my arms, head limp in my hand like a baby's. Larger, softer, warmer than I imagined. That he yielded his weight to me, this wild thing, even in death.

All which I might never in a lifetime have known had this bird not managed to die, perfectly, at the end of my street. How I secretly fear I caused it's death by wanting to touch it in the air. How my child mind even now grasps more fully the power of want, the world as a lamb.

the state of things

If non-doing were synonymous with laziness or sulkiness I'd be the champion right now. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I left the fight, but at some point I did. I believe there's a gravity attached to all things. When we work we reach toward the ceiling of our limitations, sometimes beyond. When we cease work we begin our slide downward, naturally, towards the mean. From whence we came. It's not enough what I'm doing - even though I see myself making progress. I'm embarrassed and embarrassed at my embarrassment. The sting of it would not be so great if my ego were not so large.

Tonight could be the night.

I've never broken any hearts - nor has mine been broken by any other.
We break our own hearts when we fail to see what is in front of us.

It's strange how the sound of insecurity, the bell of insecurity rings "Me. Me. Me."

attachment

Every human relationship we get into we also have to find our way out of.