a few of my favorite things

<--------- This, for one. This is one of my favorite images -- it's St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England, being bombed during the Blitz of World War II. And people volunteered to stay in the city, on the roof of this church, instead of evacuating like everyone else, with buckets of water to put out fires in case it got hit. They risked their lives because of this beautiful church -- and so I love this photo and everything it represents -- the triumph of the spirit of humanity and its generosity over bombs, and war, and hatred. Beautiful. I like quite a few other things too, not just this photograph. It's been one of those weeks, and so I find myself focusing on gratitude, and all the wonderful things that are in my life that I enjoy and make me feel calm, happy, joyous, and grateful. I thought I'd share a couple more with you. Right now, I am particularly looking forward to this movie, and the trailer gives me chills I think it's so good, not counting the fact that it utilizes a fairly awesome Coheed and Cambria song. It's a little dark and weird, but then, I suppose I am too. :)



Some of my other favorite things at the moment (that I'm starting to get a little obsessive about, oops) are sweet potato fries (especially with bleu cheese dressing), the color aquamarine, which I just matched my entire bathroom to (did you know you can search by color on Etsy? This made it really easy for me to buy a matching aquamarine soap bar from Etsy seller Sunbasilgarden), wooden elephants (with their trunks raised for good luck), anything with owls (don't ask me why), goat cheese on my pizza, girl scout cookies (no explaination needed there), red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, chocolate croissants, wooden bowls, and old black and white photos of London and Paris. Oh, and this poem. which helps me keep it all in perspective:

"Antilamentation"
by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign

on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

There are times, I suppose, that are harder than others, and times that are easier than others. I don't pretend that I'm the only one who has bad moments, bad days, bad weeks, or bad months. I don't pretend that I've never made mistakes, or have no regrets, or that half the time I even know what I'm doing. But things are a little less heavy, and the burdens feel a little lighter, when I forgive myself, and others, when I see all of us as innocent in our own way; and when I do this, it allows me to open up my hands to accept even the smallest amount of light that life gives to each of us, even on the darkest of days.