When I Grow Up # 5

Ireland 2013

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I want to be a teacher and live in Washington. I want to have a big bedroom. I want to have three babies and live on a farm.

- Savannah Cox 
   1995

Another gem from one of my second graders, circa 1995.

In The Fabric Of Things

This is what the heart knows beyond all words, if we can find a way to listen: that beyond our small sense of things a magnificent light surrounds us, more than anyone could ask for. This is what prayer as gratitude can open us up to.

~ Center yourself, and as you breathe, close your eyes and cease all asking.

~ Simply breathe with gratitude for the air.

~ Relax and feel your frailties and imperfections, and let the simple air fill them.

~ Breathe deeply and slowly, and from your tender imperfect insides, ask for nothing and give nothing: just feel without words your soul's place in the fabric of things.

-  The Book Of Awakening by Mark Nepo
















The Book Of Awakening is one of the most beautiful, healing books I've ever read. I keep it by my bed, carry it from room to room, travel with it.

Peace and blessing to you on this Sunday. xo b

It Always Turns Out

Dublin 2013

On my first day (June 29th) there was a huge Gay Pride parade, thousands and thousands of people pushing down Dame Street, then squeezing onto Nassau Street. People were shouting and laughing and singing and all this I heard from my bedroom window on the Trinity College campus where I'd checked into #17 in the Botany Bay section for a two week stay to live the life of an MFA writing student. The thought crosses my mind a few times a day,

what the hell am I doing here?
maybe I should quit while I'm ahead?

nope/

how incredibly lucky can a girl get?

yup/

The rainbow parade was preceded by a rainbow arching over the tarmac as the plane lifted off at Newark Airport which had everyone murmuring about signs and good omens. The lift-off was flawless. 

So, it's been a week -

I thought I'd be sending hot off the presses diary notes for This Being Alive, brilliant updates, The Dublin Diaries, but no, I've hardly written at all! 

The swirling of last week, leaving family and Jesse's bone scans (which all came up CLEAN), knowing she was starting a course of chemo on the first of July, the quiet recognition of the 15th wedding anniversary, the 4th of July family gathering, Dad's 87th birthday today. All these things calling me home.

But I'm here. 

The sun is shining after a week of 
cold
blustery
rain showers. 



















I should be outside but all the windows are thrown open and sitting on the wood floor in our kitchenette feels fine. I've learned from experience, you have to watch the energy on these kinds of retreats. 

overload  + shoulding yourself =

turning into a weeping pile of dust on the floor 

Remember my Vermont Buddhist meditation writing retreat? I thought I'd leave serene and enlightened? I could've been institutionalized after a week of meditation and writing but for the love and care of my Vermont soul-family, a hot bath, red wine, de-programming? ~

I've been crossing bridges, literally and figuratively. Even if we hold to one side for a while there comes a time when you have to cross. I'm learning again + again you can try doing it with some sweet messy grace on your own, or something will push you. 

A fellow writer lost her husband in August. She has two sons who've gone off to live their lives in other parts of the world, London, Japan. She is alone in her home, in the western part of Canada. She told me about a conversation with her son, Dashiell.

He said, " A life without risk is no life at all for me, Mom, and here's the thing. Every time I've ever risked, it always turns out."

namaste from Dublin,
xo b