Plopped in the grass to read, lazily watching some winged thing float from blade to blade. Glanced over at the bushes, hoping to catch sight of a hummingbird or butterfly, but instead found the steady gaze of Cheshire eyes.
Unpacking boxes and happened across some old journal entries—rarely keep one going for more than a few weeks at a time, if even, and they’re always strewn about different notebooks in a chronological nightmare. From October 25, 2008, thinking on paper about what I should be doing with my life as my “gap year” was downshifting toward its end; snippet of afterthoughts about an interesting interaction with a stranger at the post office earlier that day:
… not the big billboard kind that made me aware of what I should do next, but the reaffirming kind of answer I probably most needed right now… whether I realize the entire spectrum of it or not.
Obnoxiously vague yet so applicable even now, more than four years later, and undoubtedly for all of the rest to come.
Where I’m at these days… kinda sorta… at least more than here at p-s.com. That’ll change eventually, probably some day when I should be working on everything other than hobby sites, but find myself inspired to do so. Naturally.
http://ybba.tumblr.com
P.S. There’s currently a 93.7% chance I’ll be spending a month plus in Europe this summer for a study abroad program and adventuring. My brain won’t shut up about it.
P.P.S. Spring semester started Monday. Cultural Anthropology, Piano, French, English, Psychology, and Fundamentals of Music… picked the best of the best instructors for all classes this go-round, and absolutely thrilled to be back in school!
Snippet from a great article featuring Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes—saw them perform during the Railroad Revival Tour, and this captures their vibe quite well.
“From Zeros to heroes… the rise and rise of a superband”
The Independent, 28 August 2011
I had a South African teacher at school, a sort of hippie who played the acoustic guitar while us five-year-old kids would sing along, playing our tambourines and recorders in unison,” explains Ebert. “It was just this deep sort of atmosphere, you know, of not taking it too seriously, but feeling a sense of community while playing the music. That’s partly where this all comes from – I’m acting like a five-year-old and it’s impossible to bullshit at that age.
Happening across quotes that so perfectly apply to the current situation.
Don’t waste your time complaining about what brings you down. Instead, get yourself away from it in whatever way you can. If you’re in a negative pattern, break the pattern by establishing a new, more meaningful, positive and empowering one. Doing what you’ve always done will continue to get you what you’ve always gotten, and to get a change you must make a change. Reach inside and reacquaint yourself with what you truly care about. Your authentic purpose is far more important than keeping up old habits or superficial appearances. This is your life and this is your opportunity to do something positive about it. You are far more powerful than you’ve allowed yourself to be. Decide to use that power in the service of what is most important to you. Though a change of focus will initially be frightening and uncomfortable, you will soon feel you’re right where you belong. The beautiful possibilities are calling. Now is your moment to focus your life upon, and to allow, what really matters.
–Ralph Marston
“Write when the book sucks and it isn’t going anywhere. Just keep writing. It doesn’t suck. Your conscious is having a panic attack because it doesn’t believe your subconscious knows what it’s doing.” —Cory Doctorow
“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter—they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.” —Sylvia Plath
The rare times I open up to people, pulling out thoughts and memories so carefully tucked beneath the day-to-day, have a hard time handling the rawness that follows.
People underestimated the speed of thought. It was possible to cover just about every major incident of a lifetime during the average bar band’s set. —Juliet, Naked