Cupid...

Passport Stamps

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." 
~A. A. Milne

A Happy New Year

Counting the days to the New Year, to new footsteps on new sand, new oceans of peace and the wide open possibilities of the future.


Happy New Year to you, with our heartfelt wishes for the best of your years to come.

Scarlett and Viaggiatore

Wordless Wednesday

Letters To The North Pole

 Dear Santa,

In an effort to be more ecologically mindful this year, could you please trade out the coal for a renewable energy source; preferably sunshine.

Thank you!

Merry Christmas!
Love, Scarlett

Love Is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Do you think if I read this continually that I might believe it someday?

Where In The World?

The Arab League demanded that Syria end the violence toward its people.

Palestine bid UNESCO for full membership, UNESCO said yes and the U.S. cut funding to UNESCO.

These are headlines that CNN was publishing today. How well do you know this region of the world or any of the impact of these newsworthy events on our lives?

If you are up for a really good challenge, try to name the countries in this geography game:

Map the Middle East

Viaggiatore and I have used it several times to learn and remember the geography in this area of the world.
I only wish they had map games like this for the whole world as well as one for the better known astronomical bodies of our universe.  Wouldn't that be a fun learning tool!

Good luck with it!

Straight From The Heart

I was visiting my dear Cupcake Man and discovered that this friend had reached right down onto one of the soft quiet beaches shoring the deep oceans of my heart and discovered a lovely sea shell that he plucked up, put in his pocket and took back to his own shore.

He proudly displayed it by way of publishing it and there I discovered it, recognizing it right away but never  having seen it before. That familiar shell brought forth a sea spray of salt water from my heart to my eyes and the waves inside me swelled with a powerful current.

Here is the treasure he has taken from the dark and placed prominently in the light...

"Overboard I fell, overlong we dwelled. I was lifted up in the arms of that strong one, lifted up into his cape, too tired to thank the man, I spent a month harvesting his grapes. When he let me play with his children, when he let me sit at his table, I gained a position, small bit of dignity in the household a go to child when a salesperson dropped in from town. "Please sir sit down and let me pour you green tea." Please sir, I would think to myself, can you tell me what happens in town? I was thirteen and heard of the glass fountains in the main square, covered with lights in spring evenings." ~ Cupcake Man

It is his creation and it is my truth.

Isn't it surreal when we find ourselves in each other by mere whim or chance? Perhaps it isn't chance at all, perhaps it is not serendipity perhaps it is because we are all made of the same elements of everything in the universe and sometimes those elements rediscover grains of themselves when circumstance brings them near one another again & again.

Thank you, Cupcake Man, how very sweet this is.

Dear Daydream,

Dear Daydream,

They are hiring for a photographer and photo editor at a baby and mom business called Zulily - which I just love, based in Seattle. So, today I quit my job and hopped on a plane and flew to Seattle. Zulily hired me on the spot at twice the salary I was making before. I found a wonderful little apartment facing the bay, just a block from Pikes public market where I can go every day to buy an armload of fresh flowers, Starbucks coffee from the original Starbucks while seeing the street musicians outside and enjoy lunch at that little Irish pub that's tucked in the alley or that cozy seafood restaurant hidden in the market that looks over the water.  I can visit all the fun shops in the area and zip around on the train, go to practice for Wyld Stallyns, play outdoor chess and stand atop the highest needle in the world.
My new coworkers are amazing people who inspire me and are incredible to be around. My photography has never been better and things are simple and good. Having the ocean at my doorstep and the mountains right behind me in my back pocket does wonders for my soul...

....love, the Serendipitous Daydreamer

Fight Like A Girl

In hope for those who fight for their lives.

In memorium for those who have lost the battle.



Keep It Simple Scarlett

~K.I.S.S.~

To say that I have a busy, chaotic life is a monumental understatement. For a long time I've lived under the misconception that if there is a free moment, it should be filled with something that needs to be done. There is always something that needs to be done. Sisyphean tasks... always more to do... never done...

I am solely responsible for the life I make for myself; when did I ordain that I emulate Sisyphus? The things that spill over the edges of my time are not great steps to completing a magnum opus, they are like sea shells... lovely on the outside, hollow on the inside, save for the echo of something greater that isn't there.  Each duty a puzzle piece that builds the image of my life, filling moments with an immutable story that can never be unwritten, undone or remade.

There is no resource as precious and priceless as time. Not in the whole universe.

I procrastinate... and I've said that one of these days I shall stop procrastinating. I always carry my planner with me and I pencil in chaos until even a glance at the month I've made is overwhelming. Busy does not equal productive. Work smarter not harder.

Scheduling balance into life is a gamble at best... I allow so many things to come up and change the direction of the ever flowing river of time I navigate. Balance is imperative for stability, growth, strength and peace.

Peace isn't something to be scheduled into a day after the gym and before work.  We carry it within us, in every moment, in every place.

I decided to downsize. I decided to make a change to live simply. Less clutter everywhere in my life, my home, my work, my schedule; everywhere in every aspect. I began to eliminate at every juncture.
Then one of my friends moved and gave me half of the contents of her house. I have a lot of stuff. You want stuff? I got stuff. What I will not use now will be donated to those who need it far more than I. The Sisyphean task of elimination has begun again; only this time, that boulder will be resting at the top of the hill and I will walk off the mountain. Here's a great piece on what I mean by downsizing and amen to Zen.

There is a way to find peace and organization and simplicity and focus by creating it in our lives. Our hectic, noisy, chaotic, non-stop, stress filled, busy, runaway train lives.

I'll let you in on a little secret... shhh... listen...
~you really are in charge of everything in your life~.

If you don't like it, change it.

There are roughly 4 billion bits of information being processed by our brains every single second. That is a LOT of information. It does not help that we have so much more coming into us constantly (i.e. the endless stimulants to our senses that are an inherent foundation of our culture such as tv/radio/media/ads/phones/computers/entertainment/
noise/lights/all the amenities of our lives that are supposed to make our existence easier but somehow just fill up more space and time and leave us with a deficit of  enrichment).

Consider:

Environment ~ start with environment. A seed cannot grow in poor soil. If your environment isn't conducive to nurturing healthy growth, then repot yourself. Old soil doesn't have the nutrients we need to grow stronger, either, but instead leads our experience to stagnancy and inhibition.

Circumstance ~ we have basic needs to meet and the labor we trade for providing for those needs does require some of our time, but not all of it. Two things that matter here are; first, is the labor we are trading worthy of the recompense we receive? Are you happy in your work? Is it fulfilling? Will you look back at the days you've spent toiling and believe that each one was worth what you accomplished at the end? Second... all of the time that isn't given to supporting your lifestyle is yours to make what you will of it... what do you make a priority of in that time? What is it given to? Are those things something worth giving your time to? If you do not have enough time for the things you want, then change your life to make those things happen. Each second of our lives burns away so quickly, until they are gone. Make them count. Make them all count.
They don't all have to be big moments, but they should all count. Let go of the ones that clutter your precious time, the things that would continue on without you, the Sisyphean tasks that will subtly devour your life if you let them.

Opportunity ~ It has been said that the harder one works, the luckier one gets. I said above that it's a better use of time to work smarter not harder, but sometimes working smart is hard work, too. The more you go after, the more opportunity will favor you; this I know to be true in my own life. Many times people have asked me how it is that so many wonderful experiences have found their way into my life... the answer is easy. I go after them. I ask for and work for the opportunities in my life, and the rewards are that I am able to experience living outside the box. I take risks and chances. I dream big. I don't give up unless I know for certain that my endeavor isn't truly within my realistic grasp. There is always a way... like water that runs against a rock until it finds a way through, opportunity will come if it is sought. It is a rare visitor if one sits idly by and waits for it to come of its own accord.


In short... your life is what you make it. Make it truly good.

Passport Stamps

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."

- Ambrose Bierce

Con Amore

Asleep, my love?

What, dead, my dove?

O Pyramus, arise!

Speak, speak. Quite dumb?

Dead, dead? A tomb

Must cover thy sweet eyes.

These lily lips,

This cherry nose,

These yellow cowslip cheeks

Are gone, are gone.

Lovers, make moan.

His eyes were green as leeks.

O Sisters three,

Come, come to me

With hands as pale as milk.

Lay them in gore,

Since you have shore

With shears his thread of silk.

Tongue, not a word.

Come, trusty sword.

Come, blade, my breast imbrue.

And, farewell, friends.

Thus Thisbe ends.

Adieu, adieu, adieu.

 

 

A Golden Age

Woody Allen just premiered my favorite film of his, ever. Welcome to Paris in 2010, where  the city of lights by day is romantic, charming and enchanting as only this city could be. There is magic in this place where the light is pink, though, and at Midnight In Paris, wishful daydreams come true.

Enter Gil (Owen Wilson) who discovers at the stroke of midnight each night, that his dream of living in what he believes is the "Golden Age" of Paris in 1920, can be a reality. He climbs into a vintage car that stops for him on the Rue du Montagne Ste Genevieve and whisks him off to a party where Cole Porter is playing piano for all the guests, including his wife Linda, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Scott's wife, Zelda. Scott takes him to meet Ernest Hemingway who takes him to meet Gertrude Stein and we see cameos of Alice B. Toklas and Josephine Baker. Stein is, of course, hanging out with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. More visits to this beautiful golden era find Gil in the company of T.S. Elliot, Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel.

Gil meets a lovely lady in the 20's who dreams of being in Paris before the turn of the century when Maxim's was all the rage and her dream comes true for her, just as Gil found himself in the 20's of Paris, Gil and his lady friend Adriana find themselves back in time in her ideal golden age where they meet Toulouse, Gauguin and Degas.   

The question then becomes... are all those golden eras that we believe came before us really golden or were they just as common as our own era today is? I have said that I would love to have lived during the height of Egyptian and Greek and Roman glories, the Renaissance, and in the 20's, and in the 40's and that I was born too late for the old soul that I am, but perhaps I did live in those times and that's why they are precious to me, or perhaps the romantic in me loves the idea of being in a time and place that saw the birth of the things I love so much now.   

It's a wonderful query, and it is an abundant banquet of a film that is delicious in every single aspect; in writing, music, history, literature, art, humor, politics, 

romance, surrealism, nostalgia, idealism, and love...

and most of all, it is the very quintessential heart of one of the most special, wonderful cities in the world, the city of lights; Paris.

There is a day trip to the Palace of Versailles and some wonderful views of the grounds and the Hall of Mirrors there.

One of the sweetest moments in the film is found in a poetic comment Gil makes to Adriana on the 

Rue du Chevalier de la Barre stairway in Montmartre, just underneath Sacre Coeur, when he tells her that Paris must be the most beautiful city in the universe.

There is also a quick cameo moment when he walks out of Shakespeare and Company; an English bookstore across the Seine from Notre Dame, a bookstore which is owned by Walt Whitman's grandson.

 

This is Allen's crown jewel, I believe, and I can't wait to dance to the luscious, rich soundtrack, and find myself in this wonderful story and dream, again and again.

Faith Restored

I received a call from a gentleman this morning that restored some of my faith in humanity.  He'd found a wallet (no cash, he said), but there were credit cards and various things in it. The only contact information he could find in it was the phone number to my office, so he called us in an attempt to return the wallet to its owner.

I called our customers and left a message for them to come by the office and I asked the gentleman to bring the wallet by for us to hold. He said it would take a while to get to the office as he was in a different part of town and, being homeless, he'd have to take the bus to get to us but he'd arrive before we close.

Morality knows no echelon of societal class; but when one who does not have much holds fast to their ideals, it speaks volumes of their character and though this man may have no home, it is certain that he has a wealth of values.