Currie's Gratitude 31 May 2014

Do not sit still; start moving now. In the beginning, you may not go in the direction you want, but as long as you are moving, you are creating alternatives and possibilities.  [Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes]

This is a lot like the way I am moving in my Life Now. I’m NOT happy about the cancer, but it has given me so much already. I suppose having Gratitude for anything helps one’s perspective to shift…

Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts...  [Robert Fulghum]

I’ve had a lot of awakenings about how I am. I suppose that will happen sometimes. But what I know I don’t want to have BE part of how I am is my irritability and unkindness. I really DO get how useless they are. These words give me encouragement to keep letting those bits of me go.

There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them.
But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.  [Paulo Coelho, The Fifth Mountain]

Life is meant to BE embraced. JOYously.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 May 2013

And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.  [Hafez]

So too much of love, in me anyway, has been about rules. About having to and supposed to DO. It is no wonder, I realise, that this is what a Life of loving like that looks like. I am more about lighting up, mayBE NOT the whole sky, but someone’s face. So mayBE it is time I BEgin to love like the Sun.

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.  [Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love]

BEing a bit of a controlling sort, I am slowly waking up to BEing out of control. To BEing following the bouncing ball in a bouncy sort of spirit instead of with creases of concern twisting my face into a grimace.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.  [Maya Angelou]

Oh my, that is something!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 May 2014

One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.  [Edward de Bono]

I am realising that cancer is really quite a gift. That might sound and even BE weird, but it is true for me. Instead of BEing fearful and angry and reactive I have found the pony in all the poop.

It’s an act of our will to choose to see people simply as wildly loved by God, to assume their beauty before guessing their depravity.  [Mary E. DeMuth, Everything: What You Give and What You Gain to Become Like Jesus]

This reminds me of the idea that we can’t love people when we are busy judging them. I have really been looking at pretty much everything with refreshed curiosity. And seeing every person along this path as an angel. It makes Life pretty interesting to shift perspectives.

I knew if I stayed where I was, nothing would get better; nothing would change. If I wanted to ease the pain, I had to try something different.  [Sharon E. Rainey, Making a Pearl from the Grit of Life]

Isn’t that just like Life?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 May 2014

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.  [Robert Frost]

I love that.  So often I have asked why I am NOT a better listener. I mean I try to BE, but there are times when it is just about impossible for me to listen. Understanding things Now I didn’t understand Then, I can see that one of those two things was probably running the circus.

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen.  [Stephen Covey]

There is nothing like really BEing listened to. Really sensing that someone is leaning in and wanting to hear. It’s NOT an everyday experience in my World, but it has been and is, on occasion…

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.  [Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings (William E.Massey Senior Lectures in the History of American Civilization)]

This is just exquisite, you know?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 May 2014

Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.  [Henri J.M. Nouwen]

It’s true. Sometimes when I share myself, my thoughtsandfeelings, I come away different. Sometimes like something precious has been given, and sometimes taken. But it is all really about a willingness to share.

Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.  [Mitch Albom, For One More Day]

I suppose this is good, when I look at it from one place. But… for me, I kept sharing tales of some people for too long. And after a point, well, I guess there is a difference BEtween losing a person and Letting Go.

The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.  [Carlos Barrios, Mayan elder and Ajq'ij of the Eagle Clan]

I really am trying each day to live as simply as possible. Cancer or no cancer, I think it’s really the way to live.

Especially it is for me. Now.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 May 2014

Family was even a bigger word than I imagined, wide and without limitations, if you allowed it, defying easy definition. You had family that was supposed to be family and wasn't, family that wasn't family but was, halves becoming whole, wholes splitting into two; it was possible to lack whole, honest love and connection from family in lead roles, yet to be filled to abundance by the unexpected supporting players.  [Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming]

I was thinking, out walking this morning, how connected I feel. It doesn’t look as though I am connected at all. Really. How oddly nice a thing to discover about myself Right Now.

Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing, a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.  [Gary Ryan Blair]

I try really hard to live in each one of my days, but this idea has really got hold of me. If I fill my days with what I love DOing, then BEing is that much more delicious.

From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way.  [Bill Watterson]

This is like me following the bouncing ball with this cancer stuff. I’ve done the next right things.

Now I’m just bouncing.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 May 2014

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.  [Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart]

I never really grasped this. Now, of course, it is easier. One of cancer’s perks, y’know what I mean?! I am learning moment by moment to Let Go and Let BE. DO I have wants or wishes, hopes, and dreams?! Sure, but they are the jimmies, the cherry. Totally unnecessary.

Lean in a bit so you can see the beautiful world, but don't lean in too far because you can fall.   [Nina Boddin]

I’ve fallen. A lot. I’ve gone too fast and chosen without really considering. This is what astonishes me about the time I am taking, Now, learning, finding out what’s possible, and making a choice I’ll BE happy to live with. No regrets.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.  [Laurence Sterne]

This is a fact. I have done the studies. I know for certain it’s the truth.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 May 2014

A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.   [Alice Munro, Selected Stories, 1968-1994]

Rare to find words that read like the voice[s] in my head. Okay, I know, but it had to BE said.

Just imagine you are dying tomorrow. Everyday. You will be much kinder to the world, there will be more love in you. That way.  [Minhal Mehdi]

I’m seeing the great wisdom in this notion.

I have a habit of letting my imagination run away from me. It always comes back though . . . drenched with possibilities.  [Valaida Fullwood]

Amen!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 May 2014

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.   [Steven Spielberg]

I never felt comfortable with myself until I BEgan to get comfortable with my own company. And that took way too long, at least in my opinion. But, letting go of judgment, I am glad that I know what I know Now since Now is all I ever need BE concerned with.

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.  [Holly Near]

She’s absotively posolutely on point. Instead of BEing ashamed and trying to hide my mistakes, I have started to celebrate them. To welcome them. Even invite them in for a cup of tea!!

And I have been given gifts I canNOT even put into words for my efforts. Bring on the mistakes!!!

The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.  [Frances E. Willard]

People talk a lot about boundaries with other people. In creating my own momentum I have to BE watchful of lines within my thinkingandfeeling that I sometimes cross. That awareness is giving me an unobstructed momentum for living.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 May 2014

I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.  [Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society]

I know it may sound really weird, but I have BEcome this person for me. I struggled too long to NOT [have to]BE alone, only to discover living alone can BE [is] such a deLIGHT. It takes me a little by surprise. This is an un-DOing sort of surprise.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.  [Walt Whitman]

I used to BElieve I needed “more,” but I was wrong. I only need enough. Even if cancer means asking me to make a lot of decisions, choices, and “plans,” nothing has changed. Okay, mayBE I am quicker to pull out of quicksand, but, really, that’s been a long time about time!!

Whatever and whoever is or isn’t is fine. I think this is more about trusting myself. I can swing like a chimp wanting others’ “agreement” or “happiness” with my decisions. Now I know I am enough.

When what you want is a relationship, and not a person, get a dog.  [Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming]

There is so much wonderful truth there…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 May 2014

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.  [Martha Graham]

I feel a rush of goodness from these words. There is no one else who can DO Me better than Me. No one who can DO You better than You.

I like that. It has a BEautimous symmetry.

The first question she was asked was What do you do? as if that were enough to define you. Nobody ever asked you who you really were, because that changed. You might be a judge or a mother or a dreamer. You might be a loner or a visionary or a pessimist. You might be the victim, and you might be the bully. You could be the parent, and also the child. You might wound one day and heal the next.  [Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes]

I have thought about this lately, answering the same questions for new people. Trying to fit ME within the spaces on forms…

I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.   [Sarah Kay]

Oh my, YES!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 May 2014

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here.  [Eve Ensler]

I have learned, slowly, often with great resistance, that I thrive in Solitude. I would NEVER have guessed this to BE true of me. I am glad to know it Now.

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.  [Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper]

I would have campaigned for this notion. Some years ago. Now I know differently. And only about myself.

I have tried to blend. Still DO try on occasion. And it is less about disappointment than the simple JOY found in my own companionship.

If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company. [Jean-Paul Sartre]

So true…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 May 2014

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.  [Anaïs Nin]

Which is WHY we encourage the “young things” in ourselves, and Life itself, to grow.

Even when the growth is messy and especially when it feels too hard. That is why the encouragement is essential.

We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.  [C. JoyBell C.]

This is the encouragement I give myself. Clearly I listen since I’ve been leap-frogging ponds for decades Now.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. …Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.   [Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky]

Really there’s no place to come back to. It’s all growing.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 May 2014

Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.   [Veronica Roth, Divergent]

This is very true. That BEing or BEcoming fearless is NOT the point of anything is so simple and so complicated at the very same time. It is DOing things with your fear that makes fear less. It does NOT stand there, fearlessness, like an oasis in the desert. It is NOT a destination. And no matter how ridiculous I have ever seemed to BE, I have always been operating from fear to sometimes a greater and other times a lesser extent.

The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever the reason, ask yourself a simple question: do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want defining you forevermore?  [Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing]

The problem here is thinking that I am anyone who will BE defined “forevermore.” I mean, really, DO I think I am THAT important?! I would rather go down giving too much filled full with fear than withhold what I have to give.

Mostly…

Life demands much. Give more.  [Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway]

This is fearlessness.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 May 2014

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. [Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version]

I have been dealing with a lot of “strangers” lately. I have had to put myself into the hands of many strangers, BEginning with the moment I stepped into the ER in March. Strangers have been passing me along, one to the next for 2 months Now.

Only recently have I realised that I, too, have been a stranger to each and all of them.

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.   [Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

This has BEcome very challenging. I feel I have nothing but angst and confusion seeping out of me. I don’t want to give that to anyone. I don’t even want it myself. Still, I keep showing up. And I keep answering questions. And I keep DOing what seems the next indicated action. I don’t know if it’s sorting itself out or making things all that much more tangled. A lot of my time is spent quietly alone. That helps me.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?  [Eleanor Roosevelt]

I find this a most brilliant idea to consider.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 May 2014

Whatever it is you are really desiring, give it away. If it's companionship, give it to someone else, and just listen to them and be there. If it's money, give it to someone who is less fortunate. If it's encouragement, give it to others. If it's friendship, become the best friend you can be to others. If it's time, serve others with your time. You will be amazed to see how much more of everything you have when you are willing to freely give.   [Osayi Osar-Emokpae]

Even when I know something is true, I still find it so difficult to DO.

But at least I know that. And I didn’t always. So progress is, well, enough for today.

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.  [Khalil Gibran]

This really is deLIGHTfull, eh?! I also like how simply it turns things round and right side up.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help. [Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection]

I’ve been struggling with this lately. A LOT. And I’m getting very tired.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 May 2014

Anything that you learn becomes your wealth, a wealth that cannot be taken away from you; whether you learn it in a building called school or in the school of life. To learn something new is a timeless pleasure and a valuable treasure. And not all things that you learn are taught to you, but many things that you learn you realize you have taught yourself.   [C. JoyBell C.]

I sincerely hope this is the last “Learn” writing I will DO in this series. However, I think that writing an entire month about Learn would BE a month well-spent. Amazing how much I don’t know I have learned…

I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. [E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler]

I’ve been enJOYing a LOT of days with letting things swell up inside me. I have been more deliberate and I pay attention Now to the feel of BEing more than to the result of BEing.

Practice is the hardest part of learning...   [Ann Voskamp]

You know, this is so true.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 May 2014

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.  [Ayrton Senna]

It’s been a wild ride the past few weeks. Seems just yesterday it was March. Yet the calendar is quite insistent. We’re in May Now, approaching its mid-point… WOW!!

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.  [Khalil Gibran]

Sometimes the things I write about are so simple, so deeply understood ALREADY that even I wonder what point there could possibly BE to writing about them AGAIN… But you know, I really just love to dive deeper and mayBE even “fly” higher. What can I say?! [that I have NOT already said?!]

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.  [George Bernard Shaw]

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.  [Michael Jackson]

Sometimes I’ve nothing to add only to share…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 May 2014

They say you shouldn't try to be someone you're not, but what about someone you almost are?  [Denise Jaden, Never Enough]

Learning I have cancer has been a non-stop adventure. I’d got so good at BEing Me and DOing Life the way I was DOing it.  And Now?! Well it’s like a new realisation each new day. In moments I almost touch BEing Me with cancer…

You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying. To do the best you can do everyday.  [Jason Mraz]

This is a workable ideal. Live each day. DO the best I can DO and accept that as my best. Somedays it works really well. Somedays it just works. And other days?! Well, what can I say?! Somedays ARE just like that…

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions—as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.   [Friedrich Nietzsche]

Sometimes a thinker also thinks too much, asks too many questions, and BElieves that KNOWING can make BEing a better deal. More successful. The thing that makes it all worth the bother. But it’s all still a grand experiment. Keep thinking.

There’s always a third way, and it’s not a combination of the other two ways. It’s a different way.  [David Carradine]

Yes.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 May 2014

speak quietly to yourself & promise there will be better days. whisper gently to yourself and provide assurance that you really are extending your best effort. console your bruised and tender spirit with reminders of many other successes. offer comfort in practical and tangible ways - as if you were encouraging your dearest friend. recognize that on certain days the greatest grace is that the day is over and you get to close your eyes. tomorrow comes more brightly...  [Mary Anne Radmacher]

Somedays are harder than others, eh?! You have to keep reminding yourself that you are still upright, walking, talking, breathing, and above ground. YOU have to BE there for yourself.

Nah," I said. "But if it does, just tell him I said to get back on the bike."
"What?"
"He'll understand.” 
[Sarah Dessen]

It can BE almost Too Much sometimes to get back on whatever “bike” we need to get back on. But it is ALWAYS worth it. Always.

I love that there's no cutoff where we get labeled and sent off to a home for hopeless, cranky, depressives. Every day is a new chance to listen longer and be braver and love more. We get to try again and again and again.  [Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith]

Me, too.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 May 2014

“But what if I make a mistake?' Will asked.

Gilan threw back his head and laughed. “A mistake? One mistake? You should be so lucky. You'll make dozens! I made four or five on my first day alone! Of course you'll make mistakes. Just don't make any of them twice. If you do mess things up, don't try to hide it. Don't try to rationalize it. Recognize it and admit it and learn from it. We never stop learning, none of us.”   [John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom]

Earlier I was writing about why Learn is such an important word for me. Why I write about it so often. I think it is BEcause Learning IS my heart. It is the one thing that I find essential.

And, while breathing is probably more essential, nothing about Life appeals to me so much as the getting to learn bit. It’s just that simple.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher … does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.    [Khalil Gibran, The Prophet]

Yes. This is how it is.

Learning never exhausts the mind.   [Leonardo da Vinci]

Isn’t that just so utterly amazing?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 May 2014

It's not the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled. Credit belongs to the man who really was in the arena, his face marred by dust, sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs to come short and short again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. It is the man who actually strives to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasm and knows the great devotion, who spends himself on a worthy cause, who at best, knows in the end the triumph of great achievement. And, who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and cruel souls who know neither victory nor defeat.  [Theodore Roosevelt]

It’s hard, living failure-to-failure, keeping up anything remotely resembling enthusiasm. Yet without this essential ingredient, Life is prone to hobbling us. Since we’ll fail far more often than we’ll succeed. Why NOT DO it enthusiastically?!

I'm more interested in arousing enthusiasm in kids than in teaching the facts. The facts may change, but that enthusiasm for exploring the world will remain with them the rest of their lives.  [Seymour Simon]

Yes. YES!!!

We are all failures- at least the best of us are.  [J.M. Barrie]

YES indeed!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 May 2014

Adventure is about what we do; not what we plan, strategize or dream about. Adventure begins with “what ifs” and “why nots.” “What if I were to step out to chase that dream? Why not take the first steps and see what happens? When we step through the doorway of adventure our life is suddenly worth the living. And we experience life as it was meant to be. [Kevin E. Beasley, What If...Why Not? Through the Doors of Adventure]

I prefer to enJOY the moments. I DO NOT enJOY making plans or trying to BE strategic and deliberate in the ways I live my Life. It sucks all the JOY out of moments when they are planned and orchestrated.

At least for me.

You’re worried about what-ifs. Well, what if you stopped worrying?  [Shannon Celebi, Driving Off Bridges]

I have been asking myself this sort of question for a month Now. What if I did NOT know that I have lung cancer?! What if I did NOT have to figure out how I am going to deal with it?!

Of course this is NOT an easy ask, but that is NOT the point. The point is we always have options. Always.

You see, the what ifs are as boundless as the stars.  [Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon]

You see?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 May 2014

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.  [Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

This is what it means, to me, to reach with imagination. It is about seeing things that aren’t there, and things which others canNOT see.

Yet. Seeing them whole and complete even though you haven’t one shred of evidence to prove it possible.

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.  [Richard Bach]

It is hard to say that I fully accept that what I am walking through, especially Now, is something that I have chosen. But… Perhaps it is. And if it is, can I stop long enough to look at it with imagination?! Without fear and resistance and especially without everyone else trying to tell me what to DO?!

Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.  [Harriet Tubman]

When I remember that I am the only one who CAN live my Life and who CAN make my choices, I really quite enJOY Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 May 2014

I learned the bad guys are not always bad, the good guys are not always good, and to quote Captain Barbossa, the parameters are like rules, mostly guidelines. And that it takes a little bit of bad boy to fight the evil in the world.  [Sherrilyn Kenyon, Phantom in the Night]

Having cancer is like trying to cram a year, mayBE years of learning, into a short stretch of Time. I suppose it CAN BE done, but it’s NOT satisfying. And for me, learning is satisfying.

I love to learn. [which is good since apparently I also love to make mistakes, fail, and get things wrong]

I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.  [Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible]

If I had one penny for all the times I thought I had to BE smarter, or at least look like I was, I can tell you I would have money to burn…

And I don’t think I am that unusual. I think most of us suffer, to some extent, from managing our impression on other people and finding our place on the spectrum of whatever it might BE.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.  [Cicero]

Oh yes…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 May 2014

That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed. [Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake]

The thing about a dream is that it can never really BE shared. I mean, sure, we can tell the stories of what we dreamt and remember it to a certain degree, but it really canNOT BE given whole to anyone. Even, I BElieve, to ourselves. It is like a breath. You canNOT hold it or pin it down.

In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.  [Michael Jackson]

The World is what it is. We are Here, Now, in it, DOing our best, keeping ourselves moving, one foot following the other. It is a daring adventure, living. It asks a LOT of most of us.

The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and you fly.   [Israelmore Ayivor]

There are some really very simple and straightforward things to know about living.

This story is one.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 May 2014

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.  [Kevyn Aucoin]

It might sound a little weird, but every single morning is a gift. I choose to see it that way. But oftener than I wish were true, I have NOT subscribed to this perspective.

I can BE a World-class complainer. I’m the Sherlock Holmes of finding what is wrong with things. Thankfully, I am changing. I CAN embrace Life rather than kick it to the curb.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.  [Lao Tzu]

This is the way I Now embrace Life. I keep it as simple as I possibly can. I stay in this moment. I don’t spend energy reflecting and I avoid projecting as much as possible. This is the meaning of “embrace.” For me.

A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it.  [Nikki Giovanni]

So simply true. So simply.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 May 2014

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.  [Harper Lee]

BEginnings can sometimes BE the #1 cause for Procrastination. At least this is true for me. And I am who I know best. And the really odd piece of this puzzle is how good it can feel when I am wrong about things when I see how things unfold.

Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.  [Richard L. Evans]

This is so true, eh?! I often will catch myself thinking that I just simply canNOT DO what I want or imagine [or even am asked to] BEcause of whatever it is that I think I lack. But that is only my head trying to steer me into the wall instead of spreading my wings and taking to the sky.

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.  [Barbara Kingsolver]

This is how it rolls for me, too. I canNOT explain what it is that I love about writing. I guess love is just like that.

I love you, Currie