Water Ripples

Dear friends, dear souls I have missed the pleasure of conversing with in some time.

Including the friends who email, hello again.

The absence has been felt. Somehow I wish you were across the street from me, so I could meet you at the window and talk back and forth happily like they did in previous times, ready to share, ready to listen.

For some weeks, I have been trying to be the best person I can personally and careerwise. Sometimes they collided, quietly, change causes sparks. It helps to be prepared. I spoke on the phone sporadically, emailed less. Itched to blog. Forgive my silence.

I hope you have been well, better than well. My thoughts would stray, sometimes even gallop to thinking of many of you individually. As weeks stretched, I would rush to write a post and then leave it, it didn't feel quite right for the time, as always the sincere thought requires a ready moment.

For January I had written an enthusiastic, bold, happy one, and then, Haiti collapsed. A house of cards, heaving tremors around the world. Somehow the happy post seemed inappropriate. But I remembered the posts you wrote and they touched me although I could not reply. How to reply, when you said it better than I?

Aghast and shaken, days after I thought of what happens to people after the rubble is cleared: We are left with questions: these encircle a magnifying glass to the people that were abandoned, hungry and needy before any earthquake shook them. I only discovered this after watching a Charlie Rose YouTube on Haiti. Yet we heard little for so long amidst our normal concerns. Little until one earthquake hurt them and jolted us.

Is selfishness individual complacency? Or an epidemic? Are we to blame for not seeking to know more about the world than we are spoon-fed?

Perhaps the magnifying glass can be held to ourselves. Who are we? Who am I?


Am I like the shape of water? Ready to fill the vessel I am given? Or do I build the vessel myself, grow within it, discard it when it cannot contain me anymore?

Without the analogies, I know one thing. I am in this world for reasons bigger than myself. This means I must share of myself freely and without expectation. This means that sometimes I am needed elsewhere. This is not weakness nor naivety. It is humanity finding its way.

The past few weeks have taught me that without cherishing the bigger truth, life is not quite right, contentment is not as surefooted. I reserve the right to be imperfect, I also reserve a right to aim for perfection knowing I will not attain it, as this is human. Yet how vital is this journey when we try for the right reasons?

I pray we all act on our words and good intentions at this time, however small the action, allow it to form and ripple farther than human eyes can see.

Peace,
x

Onwards, beyond words

The plan was to post about the witticisms and evolution of slang and lingo. It was to be garnished with a picture of a silhouette. Instead it became something other, something else, because of two people.

I posted last about what we are told to be and who we really are, in part, the meaning of this journey. It's a constant exploration and interest and I am so pleased with your lovely and personal comments, thank you.

Lisa, your compliment was extraordinary. As is her dripping with charm blog, A Bloomsbury Life which also recently contained a picture of a silhouette (book cover); thus my change of mind on using a similar image.

The photographs you see are from my camera-fuelled voyage through Morocco, a truly amazing experience as much as a place. This was alluded to in the “Retour” post. I might just have to punctuate a season of posts with the pictures I took there.

I then read this comment from setyourselfonfire, who after reading the post decided to change her career course:

“I've just had the realisation about living my dreams. I've always chosen more practical things for the reason of being financially stable. But i've realised I can't do that any more because i don't put my all into the practical things because it's never something i'm passionate about. I've just made the choice to quit my job and follow my heart. I'm excited.”

Immediately, I had to get up and walk around. Then sit back down again.

I am pondering and processing what our hearts and our minds can do, when they spell out that meeting truthfully. Astounded; everything we say and do can release small ripples that grow in ways we have no idea of. That comment felt like the splash of a wave, coming back after I threw a pebble out to sea. I don't know what your life will be like, I just hope it will be beautiful. Sending out my prayers and love to everyone.

Peace,
x

What do you want to be?

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

As I near a birthday in a few weeks, the thoughts of an old familiar question remind me of bygone times.

I remember that question being drummed into us kids from the age of three. We soon began to ask it of ourselves. "What do you want to be?", "What defines you?". Why? What? When?

Before the philosophical ramifications of such questions revealed themselves, the answer was simple. At the age of three I wanted to be a ballerina by day and a ninja at night. The power of flight, optional.

And why not? Is that not what innocence of the world teaches us? Be who or what you want to be?

I don't know if a simpler answer to the question "What do you want to be?" might not to have been, "Taller". After all, the truth we learn and the wisdom we gain is that we do not control the future. We have only a vested interest in it and must work hard for our place in that landscape. I don't mean materially or professionally, but more soul-deep and intelligently.

If all else fails and you are alone on a bare rock overlooking the ocean, who you are inside will carry you forward. Not the job, the attention or the paraphernalia.

Ballerina and ninja. The two choices define qualities I still admire. Grace and mystery. Softness and strength. Light and shade. Perhaps Filmmaker/Writer is a grownup amalgamation of both. As I now have no use for leotards (uncomfortable) and dressing like a ninja in London is likely to draw just a little too much attention. Although I'd like to see a ninja, just once, sipping tea outside a cafe.

I would suggest a revised approach to the above question. Let it not be about the job. Let it be a measure of the qualities that will shape the human being in this fleeting world. I hope one day to hear such answers as "Stronger, happier, patient". Perhaps even "I don't know". The honesty in that answer alone is beautiful. It gives one time to think, reflect and ultimately grow up.