Leaving you with this bit of wisdom from the inimitable Iris Murdoch this Friday afternoon. (Also, macarons. Because macarons.) Happy weekend, friends!
Category: Musings
bowl of cherries
dark and sweet
as your kiss
the one I want and cannot have
but right now
I have this taste of summer
on my tongue
feet bare
in front of this kitchen sink
spitting seeds as the sun slants
liquid-slick and ephemeral
as the bitter finish on my tongue
so pink and so lonely
for the company of yours
cherries in summer
(just like you)
always leave me wanting more
slightly dissatisfied
but also grateful
for the sweetness they bring
a skirt and a bra, honey
and I’ve got a mouth full of summer
so melancholy for the memory
of this moment
before it is even gone
–Charla M. DelaCuadra
Photo via WolfBlur
it’s been a while…
i want
to stretch the muscles
of my life
let my sinews find a broad wide freedom
to move think act love live
outside these walls
that hem me in
so subtly
I sometimes forget
they are there
at all
and yet…
you beckon…
and I remember.
–Charla M. DelaCuadra
On goals…
A chat with a friend last month got me thinking long and hard about goals. Goals — those things we had all throughout our growing-up years, shimmering ahead to work towards, keeping us moving ever-forward. A week or so prior to our talk, I realized that hovering here in my mid-thirties, goals are conspicuously absent. I mean, I have the vague desire to travel as much as possible, to succeed at work, to surround myself with people I love and trust… but those big goals I had outlining my paths over the last three+ decades? Conspicuously. Absent.
This worried me. My school years were full of both immediate and longer-term goals. Learn to ride my bike. Get straight A’s. Become section leader in band. Pass that year’s Advanced Placement exams. Get into a good college. Graduate with honors. Get into a good grad school. Get an advanced degree. Get married after getting my degree. Find a job. Find a job in my field. Find a full-time job in my field that would allow me to do the very adult thing of saving for retirement. The realization that I didn’t have an immediate goal hovering out there… bothered me. I wondered if I had gotten less ambitious. If perhaps I was less driven than I had been. That possibility rattled me as much as the lack of a goal, to be honest. Being smart and driven were things I felt were part of my identity. If I wasn’t, then what was I?
(To be clear, I do have some “goals” in the back of my mind, but they are the kind that are on autopilot. Pay off my student loans in X number of years. Keep saving for retirement, that pie-in-the-sky happening that may not ever materialize for my generation.)
As my friend and I chatted, she reminded me of the plethora of things I am doing right now that I should be proud of, and I am so immensely grateful for her reminders. It helped me find a little perspective, but it also made me wonder: are we focusing so hard on setting goals that we are missing the joys of those we have successfully achieved? To be honest, I am not sure I ever have stopped to enjoy mine. What a sobering realization.
This past weekend I had very little desire to do much of anything. I felt guilty napping the hours away, but a small part of me did realize that there is a season for everything, and there is an ebb and flow to life. We need idle times to give productive ones their verve and satisfaction, just like we need seasons of striving and seasons of reaping what we’ve sown. That seems to be my big lesson recently in terms of goals: that I can be a person rather than a perpetual motion machine, and that I can (and should!) enjoy the fruits of my labors from time to time. Otherwise, what is the point?
Made of stars
This art print was a nice reminder this morning, in the midst of a hard week, that we are all part of a bigger picture. What are the the trials of a single day, when we are made of the dust of millennia?
image via sfgirlbybay
Trauma and aid
I am full of anger and despair today, moved to tears by the inhumane policies that are tearing children from their parent sat the U.S. border. Men and women are fleeing fatally dangerous gang violence in their home countries to seek asylum in our country, braving dangerous journeys that seem better that sure death or sexual slavery. And yet, they are unknowingly walking into more cruelty, and it is breaking my heart. These families do not have up-to-the-minute news coverage to know what is awaiting them. They do not know that their children will be wrenched from them and left in “detention centers” where they will be refused even the most basic of human comfort. They only know they will die if they stay in their home country.
Entering at the legal ports of entry is becoming difficult or impossible. U.S. border protection agents are physically preventing families from entering the country. They’re telling people at the borders that there is no room. “They are systematically violating U.S. and international law by blocking immigrants at international ports of entry on the southern border from entering the country so they can claim asylum,” writes Texas-based immigration writer Debbie Nathan.
Plus, it’s important to note that agents are also separating some families at the legal ports of entry. “They are turning people away at the bridges, they are holding people indefinitely in prisons, they are neglecting medical needs, and yes, they are even separating parents and children at the ports (especially dads and their kids),” says Allegra Love, director of Santa Fe Dreamers Project.
via Cup of Jo
People cannot seek asylum if they are prevented from entering through legal points of entry. The argument that these families are “illegals” only serves to dehumanize them enough that this cruelty seems justifiable. But these are human beings — with dreams and rights and families. Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor, so unless you think petty theft or jaywalking also warrant confiscation of one’s children and what amounts to a death sentence, I’d urge you to think again. There is no law that requires families to be separated. This is a Trump administration policy.
Here are some ways to help. These families need aid, they need hope, and they need justice.
Donate or volunteer with RAICES
Support kids at the border with ActBlue
Find a demonstration or protest near you with Families Belong Together
photo via John Moore
Lighter
Yesterday, inspired by all those brave souls who have KonMari’ed their way to organized bliss, I decided to tackle my closet and really declutter. Every so often I will do a cursory purge of worn or ill-fitting items, but this time, I was determined to embrace the “spark joy” mantra and really go at it. While I didn’t physically pull everything out of my closet and drawers the way Marie Kondo advises, I did review everything in my closet, drawers, and storage — all of my clothes, shoes, and (perhaps most overwhelmingly) handbags. I was much more ruthless discerning than in the past, and a lot more items wound up on the bed as a result. The leather jacket I wore not-quite-often-enough that is a little too snug now? Out. The dress that proved to be way too fiddle-y to wear a bra under? Out. The bag(s) I bought because they were pretty and on sale even though they were a little too small for everyday? Out. The cute shoes that I figured would “break in nicely” that hurt my feet all whopping two times I wore them? Out! I realized that many items I was holding onto were things I wouldn’t use much, if ever, but that I couldn’t get my mind around being a sunk cost. And I had no idea how much lighter I’d feel until I got into bed last night! Freshly laundered sheets, a no-longer-crammed closet, a successful drop off to charity, and many tiny psychological weights lifted? Yes to all of the above.
I’m hoping I’ll get more use out of the things I do love now that I can find them easier. This also reaffirmed the concerted effort I’ve been making to only buy things I love rather than getting an item because it is a good deal (and boy, do I love a good deal — just ask my mom!). Plus, it feels good to know that some things will be going to friends and family who will get use and enjoyment out of them — certainly more I would having them take up space in our little house. Perhaps I was a little late to the gate on spring cleaning, but it sure feels good to start my summer with a clean(er) slate.
Sources: green lamps, black shades, and gold pillow from Target; Klimt canvas from Ikea, upholstered bed frame from Cost Plus World Market, patterned pillow from Cupcakes and Cashmere Home, linens from Matteo LA
Links to ponder
It has been a difficult couple weeks for a variety of reasons, perhaps most especially because we lost some amazing and luminous figures to suicide just days apart from each other. Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, you will be missed. As we hold ourselves gently, gingerly, and move forward, here are some important/poignant/touching/thoughtful reads for you to ponder:
The kind of “bad boy” we need more of…
Why “you are loved” is not enough.
An important read on size appropriation.
Quick, curious, playful, & strong.
Cravings
Empty.
Yearning.
She craves the raspy-nothing of sandpaper
to free her from
skin.
To open her to the light flash whiteness of wider, more infinite
skies
plains
roads
heavens
twilight
living
being.
Sun to bleach her bones.
Cravings unsated, raw.
Itching for release
and
redemption.
–Charla M. DelaCuadra
“…than all the blue in the world.”
“238. I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.
239. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. ‘Love is not consolation,’ she wrote. ‘It is light.’
240. All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets
It is difficult, but I am trying to be a student of light. I find I get caught up in longings, in the ways I wish things could be different. It is a challenge to be content in the present moment, but I am working at it — every day.
Pink&GreenMusings 