milk milk!*

I just popped in to share a video--a video that made my heart melt.

A Love Story… In Milk from Catsnake on Vimeo.

As cute as it is powerful, in my opinion. And I'm not even that fond of milk...

*Nobody will fully understand the title of this post unless they've seen this, the Cravendale advert.

the sun sets, the sea laps the shore

Tonight Arnold and I walked along the beach, then watched the sun set---and in that moment, on a slanted rock and in a chilled breeze, I asked over and over again to please, not let this end. And I didn't mean the sun---no, not the way it hid its upper lip of fuchsia and ochre and bronze---I meant everything: the unity, the simplicity and the absolute assurance. Because in lives so often swathed in uncertainty (and I do not mean that melodramatically---we all, after all, are uncertain about something)---tonight was what I needed---what I craved---what I hungered for.* Because tonight, in conversations on living and believing and seeing, there was absolute contentment. But more than that? Conviction---conviction in the choices we had made and the people we were---and are---becoming. And for a second, too, all tangible worry---worry about those dreams I pile up and those hopes I place on us---faded, under the shadow of a fading sun and on the scurf of an ebbing tide.

Tonight was a night to be grateful for---then to remember, over and over again.

(And no, I can't lie. Posting things like this makes me a little uncomfortable---because these things, things made up of such heart, I do not want to jinx. Because no, I never, ever want this---us---to end).

*Laura (one half of Someday Hopes---the blog I so often praise in my I'd Like To, Please posts) is one very wise lady. Please check out her post today---it is insightful and it is inspiring and it, most of all, is honest. We all need a little more of that---a little more of those calls to wake us up. And boy, was my evening---and then that post---just that.

awe

This is sadness and beauty holding hands.

"If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same."

(Source).

friday finds...

This week has ended with compassion and with thought for a fallen country. I have heard many people remark on the almost lacklustre effect prayer or thought can have when financial or medicinal aid is so desperately sought. Yet I am not of that belief. I believe that as much as that is needed---and it truly is---thought and prayer is almost just as necessary: it seals the Earth's cracks and settles its souls. I am not of an organised religion---and I hope that isn't too contentious a remark to write so publicly---but I will be spending much of tonight praying---on my own terms, in my own way---for those affected by the Japanese earthquake/tsunami.

Here are a few---incomparably trivial things---from around this week.

I have been listening to this song and this song a lot.

A thought-provoking article on the way the media portrays a sensitive subject.

Nickelodeon appeals to my nature as a '90s child (who spent a lot of time watching American television---and often references such too often in everyday life).

A clever little thing on publishing and its future.

A collection of musical theatre stamps!

I am crossing my fingers for many things this weekend---and am especially hoping for the health of the world.

x

on samuel richardson

I am struggling to fall in love with Samuel Richardson. Sometimes he is just too wordy (and this is not something I usually dislike).

To cheer myself up a bit (and put off the 2000 words I feel like I will never complete on his letters), I found this.

The rest of the cartoon can be found here.

I sure hope you have a lovely weekend!

on new friends

I have never been a cat person.

Ever.

But, gosh, do I miss this little lady.

She is the one, the first one, that stole my heart.*

We have been friends for a little over a year and from what I hear, she is a little lonely right now.

I sure hope I get to see her next weekend.

*And it's okay, because her owner stole my heart too.

on the planet

Twenty or so minutes ago, I finished watching a documentary on The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and realised that the phrase "lost in thought" has never had such poignancy. Because I am just that; I am thoughtful, now, but I am lost inside those very thoughts. The complexities of the issue are astounding; the hypocrisy, the sorrow, the expectancy, the rueful hope. Throughout it, I found myself empathising and agreeing with the delicately oppositional points of both presenters: the one who frustratedly named BP the greatest villains and the other who reasoned that they are actually doing their best. Yet it is the crab fisherman who said BP weren't to blame that first stole my heart. Because he is right. I am to blame, you are to blame, him and her and him and her and her and him are all to blame. Because everyday we use that oil in some shape or form. We did not set fire to the rig or forcibly spread the oil across the ocean, but we facilitate it. Our very demand is what caused it and our very demand is what caused the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill to still be felt today. And yet we are so far stuck in a rut of using oil (or coal, or gas for that matter) that we do not yet know the way out or the way to change. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives are, at the moment, dependant upon it. And yet we can very legitimately sit and criticise BP for their dealings with it; we can say that they shouldn't drill where they don't have the measures to protect against its failings, and we can say that they shouldn't be the capitalist predators that they are. But until we change it, until we are strong enough to recognise and alter our behaviour and fund our future in another way, we are just as much to blame as they are, albeit in a slightly different way.

Our planet is beautiful and often, very often, I do not believe we deserve everything it has given us.

butterfly

There is a bench I visit most evenings, not far from my house, that boasts the sort of silence I have been craving lately; the sort that tempts and teases out worries, coaxing them into the open air. Tonight as I left it, a butterfly landed on the waistband of my skirt. Before I could tell her she was beautiful (and she was, daintily flaunting the curves of her papery wings), she flew off. It made me wonder how many people in the world find someone beautiful but haven't the time, nor the courage, nor, perhaps, the honesty to tell them so.

I am not sexist; I simply admire chivalry. I would like all the boys I know to turn to their girls one day soon and tell them of their beauty, as they see it every day. But I don't want them to stop there. I want them, then, to tell them of all their virtues; their imagination, their creativity, their intelligence, their wit. Because that is the thing: beauty, unless she is wed to something meaningful, is always superficial.*

I like to think that the butterfly today was not just beautiful in her aesthetics, in the way she waltzed, un-partnered, through the air, but also in her kindness. Her landing and the blushing of the sun on her wings was just a little reminder that everything will be okay.

*A quotation from The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. Read it.