I can't sleep…
Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more.
And we also once. Never again. But this having been
once, although only once, to have been of the earth,
seems irrevocable.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
For 20 children and 6 adults in an elementary school in Newtown, CT, “Once” has proven to be shockingly short. Peace be with them and their families.
Sources: Image – amorecheiro. Quote: A Poet Reflects.
My initial reaction to Wendy MacNaughton’s illustration was “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” I let it marinate and then returned to it. My reaction shifted to “please, please, please let it be wrong.”
Wendy MacNaughton. I’m a big fan. She’s an illustrator and graphic journalist with a long list of brand name clients including the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, NPR and a slew of others. Some of my other favorite illustrations include:
Source: Explore
We have time for everything
Sleep, run back and forth,
regret we made an error and err again
judge others and absolve ourselves,
we have time to read and write,
edit what we wrote, regret what we wrote,
we have time to make projects and never follow through
we have time to dwell in illusions and stir through
their ashes much later.
We have time for ambitions and diseases,
to blame destiny and details,
we have time to look at the clouds, at the ads, or some random accident, we have time
to chase away our questions, postpone our answers, we have time
to crush a dream and reinvent it, we have time to make friends,
to lose them, we have time to take lessons and forget them
soon after, we have time to receive gifts and not understand them. We have time for everything.
No time, though, for a little tenderness.
When we’re about to do that, too, we die.
~ Octavian Paler (1926-2007. Romanian writer, politician, journalist and activist.)
Source: For Quote, Thank you Yama-Bato. For photo: Cristina Otero
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
– William Stafford (The Way It Is)
Sources: Poem – Thank you WhiskeyRiver. Photograph: Rangefinder
Fragments of Iceland from Lea et Nicolas Features on Vimeo.
Wonderful short clip to put you in that Sunday morning frame of mind. The video is beautifully paired with music by The Cinematic Orchestra called To Build a Home. Good Sunday morning…
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