getting prompted

After a couple of days of holiday merry-making (eating, drinking & lounging around), my brain is feeling a bit sleepy, so I'll continue using the previously-mentioned 'blog prompts' to churn out a new post.  Rest assured 2012 will see the return of new insights care of once-again-functional synapses and cognitive ability!  Hope everyone is enjoying reminiscing about 2011 & getting ready for a new year.

on the tracks, manitoba - mrl 2010

A Few Favorite Quotes:


The real challenge is not to survive.  Hell, anyone can do that.  It's to survive as yourself, undiminished.
- Elia Kazan

You are not dead yet,
it's not too late 
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life that reveals itself
quietly there.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Creative work needs the whole sky to fly in,
and no eye watching it 
until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to
- Mary Oliver

...You step delicately into the wild world
and your real prize 
will be the frantic search.
Want everything.
If you break
break going out not in.
- Michael Ondaatje

...If you could only stop 
shimmering for just one moment,
you would see your own reflection
mirrored in the stars:
glittering serenely,
only occasionally exploding
while waiting for that promised dawn.
- Karen Hayes

self-portrait

I recently read a blog (I can't remember the name of it unfortunately) where the author had posted suggestions for 'prompts,' to help bloggers get started on new posts.  I thought her list was really helpful, so I'm going to give it a go following it.  She suggests daily posts, which I think excessive, but maybe I can get into a weekly swing, we'll see :)

The first thing on the list is a self-portrait, so here goes:


10 random things about me
1.  I think too much.  Sometimes my brain feels it's overheating, the way my cheap cellphone does after a long call.
2.  I love music.  I really love it, sometimes so much it's overwhelming.  I can't imagine life without it.

[An aside:  this past summer, a guy named Kris Ellestad played a show in Picton, where I was staying.  I didn't go to the show because I was tired or whatever, and I guess hardly anyone went and he talked between songs about what a rough tour he'd been having & how he was a bit down about it.  So then I heard his album afterward and have ever since regretted not going.  Please give him a listen.]


3.  I am very particular.  That's a nice way of saying I am stubborn :)
4.  I meditate every day.  I'm also a certified Yoga & Meditation Instructor.
5.  I have a great sense of humour. 
6.  I have a ridiculous amount of dietary restrictions due to a very sensitive tummy.
7.  I love to run.  I forget that I love it sometimes, but when I get going, I'm happy as a clam.
8.  I'm afraid of heights, even after taking a trapeze/aerial silks course to try & overcome it.
9.  I'm half Italian.  And yes, I speak it.
10.I'm really good at keeping in touch.  Write me a letter and you can bet I'll write you one back.

me in my studio, just now, on my fuzzy webcam