a reminder.

i've posted this before. but i'm beginning to think that when i sit down with my coffee each morning, this should be the first thing i read--as a daily practice, a reminder, the mantra by which all other mantras are eclipsed.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

i have a question.

yesterday a black vespa crossed right in front of me.

i was stepping off the sidewalk and it zipped right by. it was so close i could have reached out and touched it.

and so my question is...

if a black cat crossing your path is an "omen of doom" (yes, one website described it as just that, an "omen of doom")

then a black vespa crossing your path is omen of ...

good tidings?

i'm gonna go with that. after all, you know how i love my vespas.

photo still from Roman Holiday

pulling the same face.

three things that seem important to me when looking at this photograph:

1. i'm quite sure it was done using a self-timer

2. my adrienne vittadini outfit was worn every day of that visit

3. i am in fact making the same face as my father (which is noteworthy, because to this day we pull the same faces and i used to think it was a relatively recent development, but obviously not).

sometimes i think if there is a set amount of luck for each person in this life, i used all mine up in choosing my parents.

i have parents who actually parented. who sat us down as a family after dinner to read a book aloud, together. who held family meetings--miserable, awful things they seemed at the time, but important too.

my dad's birthday was this past weekend. and not a day goes by where i don't find myself catching my breath--awed by the daily sacrifices and hard work he has put in so that my brother and i might have every and any opportunity we choose.

my father literally gave us the gift of choice.

so if i don't say it enough (and i don't) thank you, dad.

and a very happy birthday to you.

saturday night and gatsby.

friday marked my last shift at the restaurant.

just before going in i stopped in the local bakery for a bottle of pellegrino to save me from the unsavory new york heat.

i pointed, asked, and was met with questioning looks.

silence.

backtrack. replay. click-in. oh. i had asked for a bottle of prosecco. freudian slip? (after all, the end of my tenure as glorified restaurant decor is cause for celebration, no?)

so when alisha came over on saturday night i asked her to bring sparkling things. she kindly obliged with a bottle of pellegrino and prosecco. you see why i like her, right?

point of fact: my friendship with alisha is the best thing to have come out of my time working at the restaurant.

friendship is a funny thing. it can take a lot of work. and friends come and go. but every so often you (or, well i do) meet someone and think, i'll keep them for life, please.

when i first met alisha i had been working as the new girl for three months. and i was ready to not be the new girl. but i was not ready for alisha. she was just so damn...sparky. and very short. and from a height of 5'10" both things seemed cause for concern.

i think it was that so much pep could be packaged in such a little body that i found off-putting.

i soon came to learn that this pep was a brilliant ploy to appease management and cover a deeply intelligent and sarcastic sense of humor.

i love how smart alisha is. and i love that every time i suggest a book, she declares that she's read it (chances are years ago...probably dreamt it up before it was even written). and then she goes and does something like flapping her arms all about because she's so darn hot and once she settles into the heat she starts waxing nostalgic about great gatsby and don't you know, she can actually quote the thing.

it was beastly hot on saturday night. and while we laughed the whole way through it, by night's end we had "lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry."

all in all, perfection.

spot me if you can.

tonight i found this photo of my family and immediately started crying.

it's from my cousin's wedding back in march.

i look at it and see my little cousin kevin who got four shirley temples into the night before he was cut off. and his father who late in the evening commandeered the mike and rendered us speechless with a rendition of build me up buttercup in the style of elvis. then there's my cousin katie who's gonna be such a stunner when she's older (and has no idea). i see uncle bill who appraises it all ever so coolly (because truly he's far, far cooler than the rest of us). and my aunt mary-beth who gets down on the dance floor like it's nobody's business. and uncle joe who asked my mother to dance (during the polka or something like it) and i don't think her feet touched the floor but twice.

the list goes on and on.

and i shed tears of joy because i'm so thankful to be part of such a... (let's call it boisterous)...clan.

photo by dolce studio