july.on.fire.

i’m moving. with an addition ;) to here: http://alifeofloveletters.tumblr.com/ this story...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:01:09 -0400

i’m moving. with an addition ;)

to here:

http://alifeofloveletters.tumblr.com/

this story is all storied out. chapter = closed. need a fresh start. a more honest start. cleaner, truthier. with -25% less Feelings. (that’s prob not true).

hope to see you there….

"Find someone like yourself. Find others. Agree you will never desert each other. Understand that..."

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:02:11 -0400

“Find someone like yourself. Find others.
Agree you will never desert each other.
Understand that any rift among you
means power to those who want to do you in.
Close to the center, safety; toward the edges, danger.
But I have a nightmare to tell: I am trying to say
that to be with my people is my dearest wish
but that I also love strangers
that I crave separateness
I hear myself stuttering these words
to my worst friends and my best enemies
who watch for my mistakes in grammar
my mistakes in love.
This is the day of atonement; but do my people forgive me?
If a cloud knew loneliness and fear, I would be that cloud.”

- Adrienne Rich, from “Yom Kippur 1984” (via growing-orbits)

“You go on by doing the best you can, you go on by being generous, you go on by being true,...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 12:27:15 -0400

“You go on by doing the best you can, you go on by being generous, you go on by being true, you go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on, you go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days, you go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.” — Dear Sugar aka Cheryl Strayed

prettyfucking-ninja: Jolene - Ray LaMontagne

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 12:18:39 -0400

prettyfucking-ninja:

Jolene - Ray LaMontagne

who’s strong enough, all the days of the fall, to not let the cold creep in; who’s...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:19:35 -0400

who’s strong enough, all the days of the fall, to not let the cold creep in; who’s strong enough the warmth slips away, not to turn the cold inward?

today is rosh hashanah, the jewish new year. i’m not particularly secular, but spiritual in a...

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:40:56 -0400

today is rosh hashanah, the jewish new year. i’m not particularly secular, but spiritual in a particular way. i recognize that some holidays hold more meaning than others. that by celebrating them, i am taking part in a long legacy of tradition which connects me to the past of my ancestors and first tiny inklings of my DNA. my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, all the way back to before i think there is any record that my family existed at all: they all marked these days as a new beginning. l’shana tovah - for a good year. somewhere, 200 years ago, someone with the same bridge in their nose, the same tough fibers and dark eyes, with the same guttural depth to her voice might have said that to her neighbor. my great-great-great-great-grandmother.

these days are the days of reflection; remembrance of the bitter, the sweet, the totality of shifting that can occur in only 365 days. this fall marks the beginning of a new life. 365 days of change; not necessarily transformative, but so grounding. so full of love. so solid. if last year was about breaking free and moving upward, this year was about sending down roots. roots that can’t be pulled up, can’t be moved.

in one year: i had just started seeing lauren, which really meant i had just fallen terrifically in love with lauren. we went away together to nyack for the first time. i moved into a new apartment. then we moved into a new apartment, slowly, slowly. i re-evaluated my life. i quit my job. i started teaching full time. i helped open a yoga studio. i taught two teacher trainings. i got certified in antigravity yoga. i went up to the catskills, twice. i started a new business. some friends left, some friends found. my teachers turned out to be flawed human beings. lauren and i went to california together. our moms met for the first time. we split thanksgivings. we split christmas. we shook off the past. we fell more in love. we found kittens and took them in. we regretted that after the bills. and also we didn’t. we learned how to know each other. we learned what we didn’t know we had to learn. we cried, we laughed uncontrollably. i never loved anyone more. we struggled to make ends meet. we grew. we worked hard, we worked harder. at everything. we said forever. we got engaged. we said forever.

little by little, the world changes around me. who i am, changed, little by little. and now we’re planning an engagement party. a wedding. moving to a new apartment. opening a joint bank account. melding our worlds together, a day at a time. we move forward. we create a new life.

l’shana tovah is shortened from l’shana tovah tikitevi v’taihatemi, which means “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good new year.” i feel now, more than ever, that a new life is starting, a life that i wanted but didn’t really understand how it would feel. it feels like walking for the first time, like re-learning who i am, who i can be, and who we are together.

on this holiday, tradition states we walk to a river to wash away our sins from the past year, to cast off the old and let it sink into the water. you have to be willing to take the first steps in, and inch by inch the water laps up, crawls up the skin, pulling the old away and clinging to the stones that keep you in the past. pulling them down, and you slip under you hold your breath, and when you come up the inhale becomes your first breath, is a new breath, is the first of the year.

“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good new year”. i think its time to step forward, to start clean and seal this journal for good. you must let go of the stones you hold in your pockets or you will sink with them. i want to let this year swell with new beginnings, with this sweet new life, to write the final lines of this year, and to close the book; a clean white page. the strongest, blackened ink. the taste of honey. to walk back out of the river, soaked in blessings, to reach for her hand, and start our new life together.

thingsandschemes: - SMBC HA HA HA

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:23:21 -0400

thingsandschemes:

- SMBC

HA HA HA

“what is this ‘going for a run’ you speak of” — said the person...

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:59:13 -0400

“what is this ‘going for a run’ you speak of” — said the person sitting at the kitchen counter for 2 hours deleting old emails and entering her schedule into i-cal.

wingspan: Lali Puna- Remember its fall.

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:46:40 -0400

wingspan:

Lali Puna- Remember

its fall.

fishingboatproceeds: It is of course always dangerous to make...

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:44:19 -0400

fishingboatproceeds:

It is of course always dangerous to make conclusions about an author from her/his books.

But like a lot of readers, especially teen readers, I thought about the lives of authors all the time when I read their books.

I was a big fan of Bret Easton Ellis in high school, but I always suspected he was a jerk.

For better or worse, twitter has allowed us to know much more about the actual human beings who write books. It turns out that I was totally right about Bret Easton Ellis being a jerk!

Wallace’s work can be needy (but it is self-consciously needy). It can be conservative (but so what? In both structure and language, Wallace’s work was also more radical and disruptive than any contemporary novelist I’ve read. Certainly up there with Toni Morrison. The tension between the conservative ideas in a postmodern context is part of what makes Wallace’s work so important and interesting).

But I am really bothered by the accusation of pretension. I don’t really know why it annoys me so much. I guess Ellis’s central talent is as an irritant. I suspect he wouldn’t even mind my saying so, which is even more irritating. But anyway, in my opinion Wallace’s writing is radically unpretentious. Wallace’s stories tackle very complex ideas in ways that are consistently playful and accessible, and that is their genius. Yes, Wallace’s work can be exhausting and tedious because of its obsessive need to be clear and precise and intellectually rigorous. But that isn’t pretension.

WOAH omg could you be any more melodramatic*. Mr Ellis please SLOW YOUR ROLL you are crusin real fast into former headcheerleader that didn’t make the squad this year territory. relax.

tsunamis: capecodpastapasta:jamesnord: I saw this couple last...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:01:43 -0400

tsunamis:

capecodpastapasta:jamesnord:

I saw this couple last night in Bryant Park and asked them if I could snap their photo. After showing them the results, I sat down for a chat. The first leaves were shaking themselves off the trees in the strong breeze and I asked what the occasion for their picturesque picnic was figuring an anniversary or birthday. The man put his cards down and smiled at me saying, “I have been married to the best girl in the world for 30 years, I am doing my best to make sure she knows that.”

Ohhhhh shoot.

can’t. :)

reminder to self on this and many other occasions : step up to the plate. be strong. push...

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 11:50:22 -0400

reminder to self on this and many other occasions : step up to the plate. be strong. push through. now is your shot. to carry through the people you love most. don’t falter. don’t waste it. push through. open your eyes. look fear dead in the face. light up. fall, but get up. be light, illuminate the world. carry those closest to you. step up; swing low.

looking in the same direction. this is the love of my life....

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:12:58 -0400

looking in the same direction. this is the love of my life. #engaged !!! (Taken with Instagram)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 (Taken with...

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:08:33 -0400

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 (Taken with Instagram)

"Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they..."

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:17:30 -0400

“Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.”

- Andrea Gibson (via speak-slow)

"Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you..."

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 16:10:28 -0400

“

Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.

After the two of you left Grandma’s womb, you enjoyed the protection of your mother’s prepubescent ovary. Then, sometime between 12 and 50 years after the two of you left your grandmother, you burst forth and were sucked by her fimbriae into the fallopian tube. You glided along the oviduct, surviving happily on the stored nutrients and genetic messages that Mom packed for you.

Then, at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed. They did not merge with you, or give you any cell membranes or nutrients — just an infinitesimally small packet of DNA, less than one-millionth of your mass.

Over the next nine months, you stole minerals from your mother’s bones and oxygen from her blood, and you received all your nutrition, energy and immune protection from her. By the time you were born your mother had contributed six to eight pounds of your weight. Then as a parting gift, she swathed you in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin that continue to protect your skin, digestive system and general health. In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.

”

- - Men — Who Needs Them?

A counterargument to the conservative “sperm is maaaagic” trope… written by a man lamenting his waning biological utility.

(via egryan)

pretty much on the top of the deck as a topic of conversation for all/most of my life.

#yoga #rebelyoga I would geotag this but I don’t even...

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:00:35 -0400

#yoga #rebelyoga I would geotag this but I don’t even actually know where I am. (Taken with Instagram)

thebengalcat: Israel is rounding up and deporting Africans and...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:45:04 -0400

thebengalcat:

Israel is rounding up and deporting Africans and will soon be putting tens of thousands of them in detention camps.

Meanwhile, they invited 350 Jewish north American immigrants to the country, 127 of whom will be serving in the Israeli army.

The immigrants arrived today and were greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself at a special ceremony, a stark contrast to Israel’s treatment of Africans. The Zionists were welcomed with open arms, while Knesset Members Miri Regev and Danny Danon called Africans “a cancer in our body” and “infiltrators”.

More than 4,800 American, Canadian and British Jews have or will be making aliyah (“ascent”) this year; immigration to the Land of Israel — one of the basic principles of the Zionist ideology.

(Photos: Getty Images / Reuters)

gross. hash tag zionist racism.

"Finally on my way to yes I bump into ..."

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:40:30 -0400

“Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.”

- Pesha Joyce Gertler, “The Healing Time” (with thanks to soulclapitshandsandsing)

tuesdays are starting to make me have borderline anxiety-attacks. things i hate: being stuck...

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:53:00 -0400

tuesdays are starting to make me have borderline anxiety-attacks.

things i hate:

being stuck inside for interminable hours of conference calls on the phone
talking on the phone about things i don’t give a fuck about
having my entire schedule based around someone else’s arbitrary decisions on what/when/where they think things are important
doing redundant work because other people don’t have their shit together.
sitting. and sitting. and sitting…

things i need to change:

quit freelance job which is no longer freelance but has instead turned into indentured servitude?

i hate complaining, but to be honest sometimes when i complain i can actually hear myself complain. by that i mean i say: OH this really does bother me so so so much that it must be a pretty legitimate issue.

i really loathe tuesday. it makes me skin crawl. it feels like torture. it makes me depressed. it makes me devalue myself.

is that enough of a reason to drop whatever responsibilities i have agreed to take on for that day? i think so. i think i’m starting to trust that my gut knows what’s up, even when me scared-self balks. business mind wants to hold fast to whatever opportunities come my way, because:

“What if something else falls through?”

i always have a little back-up plan, if it has to do with financial things. so much fear around money. yikes. and when it comes to tuesday, its making me miserable. its affecting the things that i love, like my yoga classes and my enthusiasm for teaching them, or my personal health, or my time to just reflect and breathe and be and have opportunities to develop other facets of my personality. which i have been… falling by the wayside.

it’s hard to trust my gut when i’m freaked i might fuck it up if i let something go. and “my gut” — not a quantifiable factor in making decisions. not a pro-con list. not a concrete thing. or a place i can diagram. its just an idea. and idea that connects to my heart and some eerie feeling that it knows better than i what to do.

but trusting it, even when something is wrong, is a whole different story.