patience and safety pins.
in Funny Stuff, I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as apartment, armor, bathroom, buste, c est la vie, gist, green jeans, knight, knight in shining armor, new friend, pair, personal assistant, prospective clients, purse, replacement, safety pin, safety pins, sun, today
My zipper totally busted today. While I was out. Well, I was actually in. In the bathroom of a new friend’s apartment. And I was taking an extraordinarily long time in said bathroom. Because I kept trying to zip. up. my. fly.
So finally I just walked out of the bathroom and explained the situation to her. Though, seeing my fly open probably gave her the gist of it before I opened my mouth.
Enter: safety pin.
Have I mentioned that safety pins are basically my knight in shining armor? They are right now responsible for holding together: my purse, a pair of boots, and now my bright green jeans.
Who needs a personal assistant when you have safety pins?
“The good news is that a replacement zipper costs $10,” my friend told me.
And the bad news is that I’m out for the day and my zipper is busted and a safety pin is reflecting the sun from my crotch, I thought.
Oh well, C’est la vie, right?
I took pilates today with a teacher I’d never had before. And I happened to be waiting for the elevator with her before the class. And she kept hemming and hawing over the length of time it took for the elevator to get down to us. And then she got all frustrated over the fact that it was 6:30 on the dot and the instructor who was presently teaching in the studio had not yet finished. And then she got all mad at the lady giving a tour to prospective clients because she interrupted the pilates class (once it was well underway) by touring it briefly. All this to say: no matter how good the class was, I would have been less than impressed.
Because we are in a world that involves other people.
And they use the elevator, too. And they teach classes, too. And they have to do their job and give tours, too. And I think if we realize this (and if I realize this, because I sometimes get frustrated with the elevator and forget that maybe Suzie on the tenth floor needs it a little bit more than me right now. Maybe she’s got to go to the bathroom. Maybe she has a busted fly and–horror of horrors!–NO SAFETY PIN!) –well, if we realize this, then we start to practice patience. And when we start to practice patience, then all the good parts of life become much more accessible. Not that they weren’t there before in droves–but now we notice them. And, honestly, whether the good parts are there or not doesn’t matter as much, I think, as whether or not we notice them.
So, here’s to practicing patience. And realizing that we share the elevator with a whole building full of people who lead VERY! IMPORTANT! LIVES! too.
And, just to bring it round full circle, here’s to safety pins. Because they sure help when my fly has decided not to.
in the rain.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as cats and dogs, city, city rain, cold city, front desk, grand central station, jack, jack daniels, love, niagra, phone, plastic, raining cats and dogs, sips, skin, sun, thought, time, ukelele
I just spent some time in a hot shower, washing off the cold city rain. Replacing it with some soap. Actually, I’m so tired right now that I cannot remember if I actually used soap in the shower. It’s a nice thought, though. I’d like to think that all of life is so simple.
You feel cold. You’re soaked. So you wash yourself off under hot water. You feel warm. You’re dry.
It’s so comfortingly simple.
I admit, I bet life is simpler than I think it is. Than I make it out to be. I think I sometimes refuse to see the hot shower, the soap that is available. Instead I wallow in the bone-chilling cold. I’m wet and I refuse to get dry. My thoughts can be little sips of poison hidden under the mattress; the bottles of jack daniels the alcoholic can pull out as needed.
Or they can be clean, stunning things. They can reflect the very sun. They can hint at a dream, not just mine, but something the Creator thinks about a lot, I’m sure–the very thing that caused all of this–all of us–to even be.
Yes: love.
But I was soaking wet tonight. And I know, I don’t melt. My skin stays on pretty well. But wow, the skies had opened up something fierce. It’s like nature was saying ‘Just kidding, man!’ over and over again about this dry season we’ve been through. I had just finished capoeira and, see, I am not what you would call perceptive when it comes to the weather. Read: I don’t even check the weather app on my phone.
So, I hadn’t grabbed an umbrella. And Grand Central Station wasn’t exactly close. And it sure doesn’t feel close when you have to walk through freaking Niagra Falls to get there. Both the American side and the Canadian side. So, I asked for a plastic bag from the front desk in order to seal off my dear little ukelele. Then I grabbed my phone and zipped it up tight in my plastic makeup bag.
And then my friend and I resolutely walked into the kind of rain that makes people sound crazy because they tell their friends that it’s raining cats and dogs. We waded through huge puddles and made fun of ourselves for our total state of umbrella-less-ness.
We got drenched.
And we laughed.
“You’ve lived here for only three months now and you can already say that you’ve gotten completely soaked in the East Side while holding a ukelele wrapped in plastic,” my friend said to me.
And I concurred.
And we laughed some more.
And now I’m about to fall asleep with my thoughts lining up with love tonight. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, I like to try to stay a while.
most of the time.
in Funny Stuff, I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as brother jason, cash money, earth and sun, emotional kind, endorphins, family, handstands, kind, mad at the world, money, physical exertion, sky, something, stand by me, subway, sun, sun and sky, time, tonight today, training
I was really happy to see some special family members who are visiting from the too-far-away West Coast. It’s earth and sun and sky to be with them, believe me. And I was really happy to get back to training in capoeira tonight. Today has been a strange and emotional kind of day. I felt [...]
the ocean again.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as afraid of tomorrow, beach, falling, good heart, heart, home, krista, ocean, photo, photo credit, skin, sun, tomorrow, Touch
*Today I did this. It was at the beach. But I guess you can tell. Doing that was not without some trying, either. Zach and I fell on each other a few times before it actually worked. Some things are worth falling over for a couple of times, I guess. Or more than a couple. [...]
conversations with god and the stars, I think.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as blue sky, conversations with god, date, deer friend, exact answer, fireflies, Gently, God, hand, kind, light switch, pretty faces, skin, small heart, sun, switch, warm breezes, watching the stars, way, while
The nighttime air feels soft on my skin. I like to go out in it. I feel much less restless there. I used to be scared of the dark; I used to be afraid something would sneak up on me. Not anymore. Not for a little while, now. Now I like to go out right [...]
quotes you will never see crocheted on a pillow.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as beautiful book, bone, dance of death, dark dance, don t cry, everything, freedom, grain of wheat, life, melody beattie, moment, perfect life, perfect moment, person, pillow, righteously, stream, sun, visible energy, Yesterday
I have been reading this beautiful book, Codependent No More (Melody Beattie). It sounds rather dry and textbook, I know, but let me assure you, it is not. It is life-giving; it is marrow to my bone. Yesterday, I read it down by my stream, with the sun streaming righteously upon my shoulders and my legs [...]
what a day!
in Thoughts and Feelings
as area code, collarbone, date, day, exercise, feeling, friend, friendlier place, High, high line, kind, Line, martial arts, mine, nothing, romance, roommates, shoulders, state, stranger, sun, time, time one, today, train, warmup, weather, whoa, word
Today was an undeniably good day. I met David, a friend of mine who I have not seen for some time, and together, we strolled the High Line. It was once an elevated train here in New York, but has for some time just been empty. But now it’s renovated and planted all over with [...]
oh, this day.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as benediction, course, Criminal, Dang, expletive, kind, life, little boys, onesie, outfit, planting pansies, poor aim, pop, prison uniform, rite of passage, someone, Speaking, sun, two dogs, word master
Today the sun was shining and it was warm enough to wear shorts. So I wore a faded denim onesie that makes me look a little like I just escaped out of jail. Or rather, like someone about five sizes larger than me just escaped out of jail and then lent me her outfit. Cause [...]
the open spot.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as ace of spades, beautiful people, bruise, christian book stores, color, empty hotel rooms, entirety, feelings, Felt, freedom, good, hair, headsho, headshot, headshots, kind, middle man, perfect fit, pretenses, prisoner, progress, resolution, sad place, season, sidelines, sort, spot, sun, tension, terrible thing, way
This is a fact, without commentary: I don’t miss him. That is a good thing, a very beautiful and good thing. Because he is not here. He left before I knew to look for him; he left but pretended to stay. It was a trick and in the end, I think we were all tricked, [...]
yes, that’s right, she bakes too. outside, no less.
in Funny Stuff, photography
as bake, cake from scratch, carrot, carrot cake, clay, clay oven, concept, cooking show, home, kitchen aid, mad props, new girl in town, peanut, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rachel ray, reason, show, sort, sun, today
So I got home today, and saw that my parents were hard at work on the kitchen floor doing this: Which was a problem only because I had to bake a cake. So my mom was all, “Don’t worry, there’s the great outdoors, you know. You can make your cake out there.” To which I [...]
