08/29/11, Abbotts Aerodrome

Saying goodbye to an old friend on the eve of its reincarnation.

Strange Sands Beach, 8/18/11

The following morning finds Miss Kitty and her husband lounging on the Community beach, enjoying the sun and waves in mostly silence punctuated by the odd occational mrewl of idle conversation...   

Sit and Think

If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. You will not be able to love others. If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not able of developing compassion for others.

- The Dalai Lama

 

I rarely go to Lauks Nest.  It is a place of very specific private meaning to me, full of my own memories.  Therefore, it was the only place I could go to consider, in depth, myself.

I don't think I like what I find.

But there is someone who thinks much more of me than I think of myself, and I have to consider that they may be right.  I could not think, could not comprehend, that they could be lying to me, when they say how I am loved.  Therefore, logic says either they are telling the truth, and I am more than I think, or they are lying, and I am exactly how I think, and I already know they cannot be lying.

So, I must learn to love myself as much as they do, that I may understand what it is to be worthy of that depth of love.  It's the only fair thing to do.

 

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.

- Virginia Satir

Oh, wow, I hadn't thought about that time when...

digging pictures out from random corners of random drawers; how much younger were we then?  had followed you, that perfect day, seeing where we would go and you spun on a heel and captured my soul unsuspecting (fortunately it was one I would willingly give) laughing as the shutter clicked... stunned expression frozen forever in halides and gelatin not betraying the laughter and hug to follow that will live on only in my memory

(Hoodie: Dutch Touch Woolen Cardigan Dark Grey; Shorts: fri.day Denim Shorts Light Wash; Socks: dcg; Shoes: Detour MixFlip Sneakers Pink Hearts; outfit inspired by http://lookbook.nu/look/2274423-All-the-truth-in-the-world-adds-up-to-one-big-lie)

In My Sky At Twilight

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.

- Pablo Neruda

8/1/11, at home in the garden

Lounging out in the garden below the Great Tree; warm air, cooler breezes in the shade of the trees, good book, hearing birds on the wind and the distant whispering of the Bay.  Cat, stealing a few quiet moments to herself, between storms of being tugged around by the inanities of real life that, alas, keep her fed and sheltered.  Dress: ~ imbue. vintage floral dress pink; Shoes: Pennywise Black Heart Sandal; Hair: *ARGRACE* Passion (Black).