Hi everyone! I’m taking a short break to do some traveling and enjoy the sunny skies, so I’m reposting one of my favorite weekend posts from last October (original post HERE). Enjoy and I’ll catch up with you all soon! Love, Christy
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This is the latest installment of quotes and words that move me for the weekend of 10/13/12 (Volume XIII). I hope you enjoy them too.
* For a little twist this week, all quotes are from Anne Lamott. Her quotes inspired the selection of this week’s song and poem as well. Anne’s work is available on Amazon HERE.
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Cause you can’t jump the track
We’re like cars on a cable
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table,
No one can find the rewind button boys so cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe, whoa breathe just breathe
2Am and I’m still awake writing this song
If I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me threaten’ the life it belongs to.
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary screamin’ out aloud
And I know that you’ll use them however you want to…
~ Anna Nalick, “Breathe (2AM)” (lyrics), from album “Wreck of the Day“
Alternate Song: “Breathe In Breathe Out” by Mat Kearney:
“Breathe in, breathe out, Move on and break down, If everyone goes away I will stay. We push and pull, And I fall down sometimes, I’m not letting go, You hold the other line. Cause there is a light in your eyes, in your eyes…”
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“Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe,” he said. “Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.” ~ Anne Lamott in Salon, April 25, 2003
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Source: Pinterest.com
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Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived…Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation… Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here. ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
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Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
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Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are. ~ Anne Lamott
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Source: Pinterest.com
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Joy is the best make-up. ~ Anne Lamott
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Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don’t give up… Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. ~ Anne Lamott
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Here are the two best prayers I know: Help me, help me, help me and Thank you, thank you, thank you. ~ Anne Lamott
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Source: Oprah.com
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Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. ~ Anne Lamott
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If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. ~ Anne Lamott
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VIGIL by Dennis O’Driscoll
Life is too short to sleep through.
Stay up late, wait until the sea of traffic ebbs,
until noise has drained from the world
like blood from the cheeks of the full moon.
Everyone else around you has succumbed:
they lie like tranquillised pets on a vet’s table;
they languish on hospital trolleys and friends’ couches,
on iron beds in hostels for the homeless,
under feather duvets at tourist B&Bs.
The radio, devoid of listeners to confide in,
turns repetitious. You are your own voice-over.
You are alone in the bone-weary tower
of your bleary-eyed, blinking lighthouse,
watching the spillage of tide on the shingle inlet.
You are the single-minded one who hears
time shaking from the clock’s fingertips
like drops, who watches its hands
chop years into diced seconds,
who knows that when the church bell
tolls at 2 or 3 it tolls unmistakably for you.
You are the sole hand on deck when
temperatures plummet and the hull
of an iceberg is jostling for prominence.
Your confidential number is the life-line
where the sedated long-distance voices
of despair hold out muzzily for an answer.
You are the emergency services’ driver
ready to dive into action at the first
warning signs of birth or death.
You spot the crack in night’s façade
even before the red-eyed businessman
on look-out from his transatlantic seat.
You are the only reliable witness to when
the light is separated from the darkness,
who has learned to see the dark in its true
colours, who has not squandered your life.
Source: pinterest.com
