Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment
when, nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today-list
maybe half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.
~ Marie Howe, “The Moment” (via Poets.org)
Photo: Eylül Aslan
You must learn to stop being yourself. That’s where it begins, and everything else follows from that. You must let yourself evaporate. Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That’s how it’s done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground.
Like so.
Notes: Quote – Thank you Whiskey River. Photo: Jacqueline Green, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Photo by Richard Calms. (via Mennyfox55)
Leave it alone…
let the bones cool…
~ Lisa Taddeo, Three Women (July 9, 2019)
Notes:
Why do I walk? I walk because I like it. I like the rhythm of it, my shadow always a little ahead of me on the pavement. I like being able to stop when I like, to lean against a building and make a note in my journal, or read an email, or send a text message, and for the world to stop while I do it. Walking, paradoxically, allows for the possibility of stillness…Sometimes I walk because I have things on my mind, and walking helps me sort them out. Solvitur ambulando, as they say.
~ Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
Notes: Photo credit: Vince_Ander via Visualhunt.com in Paris Walks. Quote: Brain Pickings
My life is quiet.
There is little beside working and walking.
I have no desire to see people, and I feel as though I am waiting for something new and strange which will burn the unburnt side of my soul.
~ Kahlil Gibran, (1912) from “Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and Her Private Journal”
Notes: Photo: Sébastien CHAZALET (Annecy) with Alone.
It is in the poetry of the simple things, in the gestures, the light and the bristling new day outside my windowsill. I see it all, with commotion, one that nature so candidly can display down this avenue that is life. The drenched pastures, the fleur d’orange inundating the kitchen parlor or the crackling sound of haulm wrapped up, headed to the farm down the driveway. It might seem like an ordinary thing, but in a frenzied life that we live in, this is a bit of bliss that needs nothing but appreciation for the candor it brings. This is my world. A world of calm and ease, to inspire and acquire the taste of the land and smallest details of living. Be it a line from a book, a nostalgic emotion, or a walk through he woods in Portugal.
~Ana Zilhao
Notes: Photo: Jorge Verdasca with Forest of Ivy (Portugal). Quote via Make Believe Boutique
Sometimes he thinks of her, of them. Of what could have been.
Sometimes it’s all he thinks about…
He can feel the weight of their lives in a single step forward.
And he is enchanted by the beauty of small things:
hot coffee,
wind through an open window,
the tapping of rain,
a passing bicycle…
— Simon Van Booy, Everything Beautiful Began After
Notes: Quote via see more. Photo: Milka Awgul
and the way the smallest animals breathe
burrowed into the hills.
(her) ribs
expand a little,
her soft lungs fill
partially, she feels the world
come in softly
as she inhales a breeze.
~ Amanda Beth Peery, from “A Poem About Breathing”
Notes: Poem via 3 Quarks Daily. Photo: Lydia Trappenberg with Breathe
We’re so driven to make ourselves “better” all the time…
We are mercilessly hard on ourselves for our losses, our defeats, our wounds, our failures, the parts of us that don’t measure up.
This is a weekend in non-self-improvement….
~ Francis Weller, in an interview with Tim McKee titled The Geography Of Sorrow. Francis Weller On Navigating Our Losses
Photo: Nap time by Aku*S
