Category: Quotes

Swirl it around and find it

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Set aside 10 minutes before you go to bed each night to write down three things that went really well that day. Next to each event answer the question, “Why did this good thing happen?”

Instead of focusing on life’s lows, which can increase the likelihood of depression, the exercise “turns your attention to the good things in life, so it changes what you attend to,” Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman said. “Consciousness is like your tongue: It swirls around in the mouth looking for a cavity, and when it finds it, you focus on it. Imagine if your tongue went looking for a beautiful, healthy tooth.” Polish it.

~ Julie Scelfo, excerpt from Get Happy: Four Well-Being Workouts (NY Times, April 5, 2017)

Photo: Pinterest

Berg!

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An iceberg ran aground over Easter weekend just off the small Newfoundland town of Ferryland, population 465, drawing knots of tourists eager to catch a glimpse.  Some are locals or travelers who happened to be nearby, but many are a special Canadian breed, the iceberg chaser — People who flock to the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland at this time of year hoping to see the huge frozen chunks of broken glacier that drift by on a stretch of sea known as Iceberg Alley.

The berg at Ferryland rises about 15 stories above the waterline — and that is only about 10 percent of its mass. Some of the submerged ice comes into view when the berg is seen from above…

The stunning view that is causing traffic jams of onlookers on the coast road is actually a snapshot of the iceberg’s death throes, 15,000 years in the making. What began as snowflakes falling on Greenland during the last ice age has crept to the sea in a glacier and then broken off, probably sometime in the last three years, to float slowly out into Baffin Bay. Bumped and nudged by one another and by melting pack ice, the bergs eventually get caught up in the southbound Labrador Current and sail down Iceberg Alley.

~ Dan Levin, excerpts from a story in the NY Times, April 20, 2017

Don’t miss the full story and other fantastic photographs by Jody Martin here: A Chunk of the Arctic Stops By for a Photo Shoot

No question looms larger

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No question looms larger on a daily basis for many of us than

“What’s for lunch?”

and, when that has been resolved,

“What’s for dinner?”

~ Jim Harrison, A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand

 

Photo: Easy Indian Masala Burgers @ yumi-food. (Masala Burger @ Trader Joe’s is a blend of seven different vegetables – potatoes, carrots, green beans, bell peppers, onions, corn and green peppers – with authentic Indian spices like coriander, cumin, red chili powder and turmeric.)

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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For all matters having to do with that four chambered, fist-shaped muscle we carry – that carries us – with constancy. That beats – did you know? – more than one hundred thousand times a day. Imagine that. Even when we’re pressing snooze and rolling over in bed, folding ourselves into our covers and postponing the day’s bubbling over, and soon after notching cold butter on warm toast, or later coming to a halt as we bound up a flight of subway stairs only to stall behind an elderly woman whose left leg trails behind her right leg – one leaden step at a time – even then, when time decelerates and the relative importance of our lives, of our hurry, undergoes a sudden audit, even then, our heart never stops…My heart continues as ever, pulsing towards its daily quota. More than one hundred thousand times a day. Eighty beats per minute.

~ Durga Chew-Bose, from “Heart Museum” in Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays

Photo: Durga Chew-Bose @ Twitter

Running. With Pus.

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Location: South Beach.
Temperature: 74° F. Humidity: 70%. Wind: 5-12 mph and gusting.
Run Plan: 11 miles.
Time: 6:45 am.

This is Dad and Daughter’s second run in preparation for her 1/2 marathon in two weeks. Run 1 here: Running. 10, on Good Friday.

Mile 1.0: The shoe-to-sock-to-skin chafing is working up a blister, not on one foot, but on the ball of each foot. With each step, the fluid-filled bubbles form from the friction, the high humidity, the sweaty feet, the damp sweat socks. The result? A stinging bite with each footfall. So early in the run, a (very) bad sign. Wore the wrong shoes, and paying a hefty price. Mind rolls forward, I’m in the bathroom post-run, in awe at how anxious I am to prick the juicy, squishy bubble, when I know I will be suffering with each step for days.  Awed again at the creation of this pus, it’s as clear as the run-off from a mountain stream in Spring. Miracle really, my mind and its workings, and this pus, this beautiful liquid created from something so raw and painful, and the healing process begins.

Mile 2.0: Feral cats meander on the boardwalk.  Lady with wild hair (and wild eyes) feeds them Li’l Nibbles Dry Cat Food from a Ziploc plastic bag, scooping a handful, and letting the nibbles slide out of her hand like sand from an hourglass. Cats watch from a distance, hungry but wary. She organizes the nibbles in the shape of a half moon, and walks to the next drop zone, eyes stare blankly ahead. Continue reading “Running. With Pus.” →