inspiration.

i'm back in new york this morning, about to head out to my favorite corner coffee shop for a latte and some eggs (a late start today). one of my oldest friends is visiting new york this week and i plan on showing him the town. he was on his own the last day-and-a-half and when he told me that he had lunch in the basement of macy's yesterday, i told him: thank God, i'm here. 

 

greg is a really good photographer so he'll be photographing new york and i'll be cajoling him into letting me post the photos on the blog.

but for today i thought i'd share some words and images that have been fueling me of late:

"Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you're sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again."

Max Lucado

"The minute you start enjoying yourself and the person you've become, when you walk into a room with your head held high, the minute you wake up and are glad to be you, the possibilities and opportunities will come knocking at your door."

Author unknown (to me--if you know please tell)

"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time--waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God--it changes me."

C.S. Lewis

"You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and mind with the eyes and hands."

Jeff Melvoin

"We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing--an actor, a writer--I am a person who does things--I write, I act--and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun."

Stephen Fry

"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'." 

Ayn Rand (my pinterest page). image 1 via. image 2 via. image 3 via. image 4 via.  image 5 via. image 5 via.

showing my heart

a few weeks ago, the lovely blogger micaela of dolce vita, wrote to ask me if i might consider participating in a series in which ladies show their heart through a picture, a poem, a song, a quote, a piece of clothing, and a place. i'm often not a fan of the typical "blog series"--i find them to be tedious and a little boring. but not this one. i so loved looking at what the others before me had done. so little said and so much revealed.

in fact, i liked it so much that i thought i'd share it here.

the other heart posts are so wonderful i must suggest you hop over to micaela's blog and scroll down--you'll be introduced to a whole new group of wonderful bloggers.




a picture: 





this picture was taken this last summer by one of my oldest friends and good lord was he making me laugh!
i've struggled a lot over the years with having my photo taken, but this has to be one of my favorites. because it's so not about vanity. i look at that photo and think, yeah, i'm happy there. and because i look at it and see that i'm happy, i then look and fall in love with my veiny forehead, my mole-peppered arms, and the way my nose crinkles when i snort.


a poem:

a song:

(so hard to choose, but this go round, let's go with this one)

a quote:

I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. 

John Green

an item of clothing:

i got this rain coat when i was fifteen and about to head out on a two week tour of munich, salzburg, and then lucerne. over the years it has weathered quite a bit with me. i almost threw it out just a few years ago-- it was looking a little worn, but i couldn't bring myself to do it. there's too much history there. and thing is, end of the day, when it's raining, it still does the job.

a place: 

i don't have a picture for this one, so bear with me. a place? well, i'm in park city, utah right now. slowly, over time this place has begun to feel like home. it is a respite. a haven. the place i came as a child with my family and fell in love with the mountains. where i learned to ski and learned the power of the sport. now as my parents toy with idea of one day settling here, i find myself rooting for this, because it already feels like home. there are roots to this place. but really, the end of the day, home--a place--is with people. and family, well, that's all there is.

but when all else fails and i'm feeling a little blue...i'll take a bathtub any day of the week!

tub image

a different kind of link list (food and health)

it's been a while since i've written about food and my relationship to it. for any long-time readers of this blog you know i struggled with a severe eating disorder for years (about six to be exact). while i consider myself almost completely healed, i would be remiss if i didn't say there are days in which i struggle greatly and moments in which the disease reenters my life in a startling fashion. though, i now wonder if this isn't so much a product of my history as the culture in which we live.


i was having a very difficult time this past fall. i went home to texas for few days and i remember my mother asking me why i had taken down the side-link on the blog that detailed my history with the eating disorder.

i don't want it to define me, i said. i'm just not sure i want or need everyone to know now. 


but for better or worse it is a part of your story, she replied.

(boy how things have changed since i was just out of college and my parents were so opposed to the whole blog thing).


i've begun no less than seven or eight posts about my relationship with food now, because my mother's right. for better or worse it is a part of my story, and believe it or not it is something i am deeply grateful for. but in trying to write about it, there just seems to be so much to say, and i get overwhelmed and those posts fall to the graveyard of half-written pieces that litter my blogger dashboard.


so i'm working on it. on writing about where i am with food now. and i can see where others will look at this and think, what does an eating disorder have to do with me?

well, God willing, not much.


but food is an issue in this country. health is an issue. and it is not the purview of the wealthy and elite to worry about it. the way in which eat has changed drastically over the last fifty, sixty years. and our poor bodies just can't keep up, nor can they made heads or tales of it--we have gotten so far away from natural, biological inclinations.

so i'm gonna keep talking about it. because it is vital and nothing is more of the moment.

but until i get my act together, i implore you to take a look at these.

you see, we need to take what we think we know about food and health and turn it on its head:



the real cause of heart disease, according to a heart surgeon.

exercise changes DNA.

hello giggles does it again: a brilliant article, by a brilliant woman. this one about body image.

the reasons for obesity in this country are many, but this audio article is worth a listen. (i mean, seriously, please give it a listen).

occupying or rather, de-occupying big foods. now this is a movement that i could get behind.


and should you want to know more about my story... (it goes backwards, so the most recent posts are the ones that will come up first).

skiing

it was spring break during my second year of college that i went and saw a life coach. depression had just hit and it was so dark and murky that i was grasping at anything that might help. i remember quite liking the women. her no-nonsense approach to certain things, her look-to-the-future attitude. one of the things i remember with startling clarity is that she had me list out the things i wanted in a life-partner. the idea was that if you were able to name the things you wanted than you were more likely to attract those things to you (energy and whatnot). there were three categories: deal-breakers, basics, and icing-on-the-cake.

i want a man who can ski well. that was my icing-on-the-cake, at least the one i remember.

here's what i have to say all these years later: i still want it. and it may not be such an icing-on-the-cake thing as a basic desire. and the good news (for me) is (1) that the majority of men who ski are extremely attractive and (2) the ratio of men to women on the mountain has to be something like 6:1.

all the men-gazing aside, there is just something about the mountains that centers me--reminds me of my size and place in this world, my own fragility, but mostly of that little seed of fearlessness i so seldom let out.

really must expose that to the sun more often.

You, Me & Charlie

remember when i wrote this? 

well today it was featured on dianna agron's lovely and brilliant site, You, Me & Charlie. 

needless to say, i'm deeply honored. it's always interesting to see your words somewhere else and know they no longer belong to you--you start to see them through different eyes (usually kinder) and that in itself is an experience worth chasing.