Half a Life
Darin Strauss
Darin Strauss’s moving memoir, Half a Life ,is painfully honest and inherently dramatic without seeming either precious or self-pitying. When the car he was driving hit and killed Celine, a high school classmate whom he knew only casually, Strauss’s life was, as one might suspect, altered forever. Although he was held to be blameless in Celine’s death (what insurance companies refer to as “a no fault fatality”), Strauss found that this event—which occurred nearly 20 years ago—has now shaped almost half his life. In prose that is introspective, evocative, and unaffected, Strauss shares with us his musings on life, death, blame, and self-doubt. I wondered, as I read it, how I would have lived the rest of my life after the parent of someone for whose death I was, however innocently, responsible, says this to you:
“I know it was not your fault, Darin. They all tell me it was not your fault . . . But I want you to remember something. Whatever you do in your life, you have to do it twice as well now . . . Because you are living it for two people . . . Can you promise me? Promise.”
So how do you live your life after that?
- Librarian Nancy Pearl
Learn more at Goodreads
Reclining Figure
Henry Moore
Reclining Figure 1951 Photo by Andrew Dunn
The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do. –Henry Moore
Learn more about sculptor Henry Moore
Healing Quote of the Day
Photo by Mark Krengulec
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights up the whole sky. ― Hafiz
More by Hafiz
Into the Mystic
Van Morrison
We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic
More by Van Morrison
Youtube Post by hcloudforest
Letter to My Daughter After Watching “The Bachelor”
“Whimsy Ma” Janice
Photo by Jennifer Angus
My sweet Belle,
I sat and watched a show the other night where a roomful of beautiful women competed with one another for the love of a man. I watched the drama as they quarreled, manipulated, flirted, cried and triumphed, but all I could think about was you. I saw your fresh face smiling at your baby brother, heard your silly giggle as you told Daddy a joke and felt the weight of your head as you laid it sleepily on my shoulder.
I know your two-year-old mind dismissed everything I told you that night so I wanted to write it down for you. Because someday, Lord willing, you will be old enough to listen and you will be wading through all the confusion that the world will toss at you about these things. Things like beauty, strength and love.
So, my precious girl, here are the things I desperately want you to know.
1. The most beautiful women in the world look ugly when they are mean.
Beauty is complex. It involves your hair and skin and eyes, but all of those things are just a shell. That shell is transparent and I promise you that whatever you fill it with will be perfectly clear for the world to see.
Your eyes will always be beautiful when they look kindly at someone. You will have lovely lips whenever they smile a genuine smile. And your nose? Well, noses are tough. You either have a good one or you don’t. Luckily for you, yours is adorable.
If you cultivate goodness and kindness and wisdom and strength then not only will that beauty shine out of you but you’ll find that you breathe joy and beauty into the lives of those around you.
But if the most beautiful woman on earth lets herself be filled with jealousy and hatred, she will look like a troll.
2. No one, in the history of the world, has done anything out of jealousy and made it look good.
You’ll be jealous a lot, sweetheart. Trust me. You’ll be jealous of other girls shoes or hair or elbows. You’ll be jealous of their friends, their boyfriends, their poise, their intelligence, their humor. (Maybe even of their mother, just don’t tell me about it if you are.) You’ll be jealous of people you’ve never met and people you love dearly.
When you focus on that thing that some other person has you stop caring about them at all and only care about the thing. Jealousy will make you act like a child because it is an utterly selfish feeling. Trust me, whatever you do or say when you are driven by jealousy will make you look like an idiot.
So be on your guard against it. When you see jealousy sneaking around (and you will) take a little time to be grateful for the things you do have. And if you can’t come up with anything, call me. Because I can see that you have so much beauty and strength and wonder in you that it makes my heart ache and I’d be happy to tell you all about it.
3. Don’t confuse SELFISHNESS with STRENGTH
Some of these women said terrible things to each other then defended themselves by tossing their pretty hair and saying, “I’m just being honest. I have to say what I feel.”
Well here’s a little nugget of wisdom for you, sweetie. Not everything you feel is worth saying. There will be plenty of times when you will have emotions tumbling around inside of you like a litter of puppies on crack. Some of them will be worthwhile but some will be stupid and you should do your best to send them packing.
You’ll meet plenty of girls who don’t agree with me. They’ll claim it is strength of character to blurt out any thought that crosses their mind regardless of who will be devastated by it. But honey, a woman of strong character has the wisdom to shut her mouth until she’s thought for a moment about what she’s feeling to decide whether it’s an emotion that she wants to own, an emotion that makes her into the woman she wants to be or one of those emotions that she should look square in the eye and say, “Yer outta here. You and the hormonal horse you rode in on.”
4. Love
This one is a bit complicated, honey. You’ll spend a lot of time looking for it and thinking about it and being jealous of it. It doesn’t come in the same way all the time and it often ends up looking different than you thought it would.
But I will tell you one thing. If your hunt for love begins with manipulation, jealousy and games, it’s going to have a very hard time finding its way to a happy ending. Real love will start when you find someone, get to know him, and you guys spend time being kind to each other.
And if you do it the right way, with the right kind of boy, it will involve a lot less drama than Hollywood says it should and a lot more happiness.
Oh, and one more thing the show made me want to tell you: If there is ever a boy who you are – I was going to say “kissing” but the thought of you kissing boys will probably give your dad a stroke, so lets go with – rollerskating with and he is openly rollerskating with several other girls. Like six…or seven…dozen…other girls, STOP ROLLERSKATING WITH HIM.
This is not the type of boy that makes a good skating partner. Someone who’s really fun to rollerskate with will like you because he sees what an amazing girl you are. He’ll never ask you to prove to him that he should pick you over a dozen other girls. He’ll be smart enough to know you’re the greatest thing he’ll ever find.
The only reason you should ever even go near the guy again is to point him out to your big brother so he can kick his #**. No, forget getting your big brother. You do it yourself. Go straight for his…ankles. Those two-timin’ rollerskatin’ ankles.
I love you, my darling girl. Go back to playing with your trains. We’ll chat again about all this in a decade or so.
Love, Mommy
Reposted with permission from Whimsy-Ma-Blog
If You Knew Me You Would Care
Zainab Salbi
If You Knew Me You Would Care is a celebration of women’s stories and strength worldwide.
“The women in this book are an inspiration to all of us who aspire to triumph over adversity. It is a personal peek at the most initimate stories as told by women who have survived war. It is a tribute to them, to their survival, their achievements, and their dreams. I hope people everywhere will take away the powerful message of survival this book inspires.”
—Zainab Salbi
From Goodreads
More about Zainab Salbi and the Women for Women Foundation
Gorge Improvisation
Wassily Kandinsky
That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul. –Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) was born in Moscow and is credited for pioneering pure abstract painting. During the cultural revolution in Russia, his artistic views were rebuffed by his peers. Kandinsky left for Germany and taught at the Bauhaus School of Art and Architecture until the Nazis closed down the school. He then moved to France where he later became a French citizen. Kandinsky believed it was his spiritual duty to create paintings from what he called “internal necessity”.
View artwork and learn more about Wassily Kandinsky.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
Photo by Kevin AKA Charlie
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
More poetry by Emily Dickinson
What a Wonderful World
The Ramones
Written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss.
More music by The Ramones
Youtube Post by Walter Ezequiel
Wear Sunscreen
Mary Schmich
Photo by Xiaobo Song
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’98: Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
More from Mary Schmich