This past year, I think, will turn out to be the most critical of my life. It gave me a direction which only accident can change from here on in. I am in no position, anymore, to “go back and choose again.” As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I’m not even sure that I’m going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says “you are nothing,” I will be a writer.

 

Hunter S. Thompson

Welcome SPRING!!!

I’ve been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs lately. A move, a new job, [actually 2, one is pretty stellar…more on that in future updates] and then…well, then there’s the end of a 4 year romance.

I’ve been staying so busy now that I don’t have time to think about the latter, which was the biggest problem leading to its demise in the first place.

No time for dancing…or lovey-dovey as The Talking Heads would say.

Life during wartime and economic hardship puts folks in ‘survival mode’. Welcome to the ‘new normal’. Though, I can’t help but think this is ‘same as it ever was’.  I’m too far removed from the system to plug back into it like I had before.  Once you leave it, there’s really no returning and living with yourself, let alone pretending you don’t see what you see.

No more than a butterfly could go back into the cocoon.

After 8 months in the woods away from civilization, I found I missed social rituals. [Not social media.] We are strange critters. We love privacy but are compelled to seek each other out when things are worth celebrating…and only occasionally when things go totally to shit. I find that sad because that is when we really need each other most; when we’re most vulnerable, when we are most human.

“Shared joy is a double joy. Shared sorrow only half a sorrow.” – Swedish proverb

It can be hard to share your joys with those who covet their sorrow like a mourning cloak. It’s best to let them mourn as long as they wish. No need to pretend the cloak isn’t there or worse, force joy like a deranged, ham-fisted clown. Happiness, like wearing the cloak, is a choice, after all.

I’ve made my choice and I’m learning it is best to let it be. You can’t rush healing anymore than you can rush spring. I’ll just save my love a peg where my cloak used to be and a place reserved in my heart.

There’s plenty of room there. He made sure of that when he insisted on loving me when I wanted to hide in my cocoon. I can only love him more now that I am learning to fly.

Happy Spring Solstice to all!

~ Gabrielle

“Biologically, females have more potential…females have more sensitivity about others’ well being…. If the circumstances are such that a female Dalai Lama is more useful, then automatically a female Dalai Lama will come.”

  • His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Profound erosion of press freedom in the U.S. ~ Reporters Without Borders

According to a new report from Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders / RSF there was a profound erosion of press freedom in the U.S. in 2013.

The United States has plunged 13 spots in the group’s global press freedom rankings to number 46.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1okCslx