Priorities

Found this pic on Flickr, and couldn't help but agree with the quote from Ana Quindlen that Kristi (Flickr screen name: effulgence- which means a brilliant radiance...I looked it up!) used to title her work. Such a cool shot, and one that means a lot to all of us readers out there. As for the quote, well, it's just superb. Here it is:

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

Really says it all, you know? Raising two readers, I can see how this applies to my life, and I have books everywhere. In a marathon cleaning session earlier in the week this hit home. I cleaned it all from top to bottom, really sweated it out because the house was a mess and the summer affords me the time to attend to these things, and in that process ended up re-shelving at least twenty books. Some were in piles, some were on nightstands, some were on coffee tables and dinner tables and breakfast bars and counters, well, you get the idea. And it made me happy to think that my kids are being raised in this environment, where their rooms, although not necessarily clean, are the repositories of lots of books.

My youngest is reading the Camp Confidential book series, and my oldest can't squeeze in enough Harry Potter and Twilight (she's read both sets at least five times each) between summer reading books like About a Boy and The Notebook (not really a literary masterpiece, but different in that it had no vampires or wizards!). I'm finishing Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country, a mammoth combination of three books about the Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century and a National Book Award winner.

And this makes me happy (as my friend Tricia will attest to; come to think of it, her house is pretty well stocked with books, too!), because even if your house is messy, as long as there are books in it, it is a home, a place where ideas can roam as free as the dust bunnies, and where the soul can fly free. I suppose you still have to clean, though.

Landslide

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I've been afraid of changing
cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
Im getting older too

Oh, take my love, take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down

If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down

Love Letters

When I get stuck sometimes with my writing, and I get stuck pretty often these days- damn personal life poking into the creative realm!- I like to cull some inspiration from the muses. Of course, the internet is the new muse. Just a few clicks away and inspiration jumps right off the page (and, no, I'm not talking about the adult themed kind of inspiration). So, in that spirit, I have found a love letter from Ludwig van Beethoven. I found it on Flickr- go figure- embedded in a photostream whose author (photographer) was going through a divorce. Now this has really no relevance, but I thought the juxtaposition of this love letter that her husband apparently found and reprinted for her just pages before the horribly sad photos that she posted after her breakup was too ironic. But the letter is beautiful, as beautiful as her photos are sad. Life is a strange journey, no doubt. Well, here's the letter, followed by links to the photograph and her photostream.

July 6, in the morning

My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -

Your faithful LUDWIG.

Photo here.
Photostream of Un4gtableann here.