Conversations with my Father

Grace Paley

I started the day wishing you Happy Birthday wherever you are - whether you’re Stardust or a being in a different ecosystem. Your memory is still so alive in all our hearts. But oh how I miss the sound of your voice and your laugh.

"Ask yourself one question: does this path have heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use." 
- Carlos Castenda

I’m not even sure I know how to truly sense the heart of some thing. My mind plays tricks on me and I project what I think are peoples intentions. I’m still working on trying to find my heart; to listen to its desires. I feel so lost, sometimes trying to let my heart lead. Perhaps just for today I will listen.

The Original

I saw Saturn this past year through a telescope. It was one of the highlights of my year. It's funny to say since it looked like little more than a low res version of a photo of the planet that I might find on the web. But it was cool because for a brief moment, lenses and mirrors were reaching across our universe to project one beautiful planet into my world.

I took miss M to see it. I had promised her we would star gaze one night at Observatory Park. We skipped the talk and went straight to the telescope. I forgot what a beautifully 'ancient' tool it is in an old building. As I watched them adjust the wooden ladder so she could climb it, I thought about my Dad watching me do the same. Though I wasn't as young when I visited this place with him, I'm sure he navigated me through moments of apprehension knowing the payoff would be awesome.


We stopped at the Biosphere 2 during my college visit to check out the University of Arizona. During the tour he kept reminding me that the earth was the original biosphere. Typing this, I wish remembered more about the visit and about the things he tried to teach me that he knew and found interesting.

Still, looking at this photo, I see one of the most important things: one of my original friends in this biosphere and love... so much love.

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” - Carl Sagan

The Reading Mother

by Strickland Gillilan (1869–1954)

I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea.
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth;
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness lent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch.
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be --
I had a Mother who read to me.

One of Miss A's teacher's pulled the last stanza out for me a while back. I completely forgot about it until I just found it now on a piece of paper in her cursive writing. I am feeling a moment of gratitude for her taking the time to pass this along. Reading to kids is one of my most favorite activities. It was after I came in and read to Miss A's class on her birthday.

2013


"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." 
- Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Thanks to Melanie for this lovely quote included in the book club holiday party ornament she gave me. It has set a great tone to my new year's transition.

Each Friend...

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a vision board type. This month, I'm changing it out; making space for fresh, new meditations in my life. I pulled down all my clippings this morning and I'm letting them go. I want to find something new to mull over in my mind. As I discard all these thoughts that normally I would pack in to in a box somewhere to save for my eyes to review when I'm 80, I want to catch this quote and hold it in my history.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not possibly born until they arrive, 
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin