January 16, 2010

MLK, Jr. quotation

"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends"

Each day if I have nothing in particular to write about, I think I shall search for a quotation that strikes a chord or at least makes me contemplate. I like this one, because today we did some chatting about Martin Luther King, Jr.... How he encouraged people to use words instead of fists and love instead of hate. My first graders really seemed to get that message. One of them even made a connection to another story we had read (4 feet, 2 sandals i think it was called, about a refugee camp in afghanistan), where the girls were not allowed to go to school but the boys were. I think the idea of "unfair laws" is a grasp-able concept. The Discovery Education streaming video I found was totally age-appropriate... A good pre-cursor to the book "Martin's Big Words". If anything, I have more kids verbalizing the fact that everyone should get along and make an effort to be nice to each other. One of my girls said, "I like it when people are nice to me, so I think I should be nice to everybody."

January 10, 2010

dry.

While reading Dry., by Augusten Burroughs, I came to a part that immediately brought tears to my eyes. A woman is at an AA meeting with Augusten sharing her story-- how she was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to many other areas of her body. She is talking about the alcoholism in this next section, but I truly think it can apply to us with regards to anything that we are spending time on that isn't "right" for us (like an unhealthy marriage, or bad habits, or jobs people hate)...

""When he told me I had maybe four months to live, my very first thought was, I'm going to go get sloshed at Old Town Pub. But then I thought, I am not going to die a drunk. I am going to try to live the best I can. And that means as somebody who is sober. You see, even though back when I was drinking I thought nothing bad ever happened to me, something did. Time passed. A lot of time passed. In bars, at parties with people I didn't care for. It was always the drink. It wasn't about love or reading the Sunday paper in bed. Or housebreaking a puppy. Or anything that people call 'life'. It was about drinking. So actually, something bad, very bad, did happen to me. I wasted my life. And now, what little I have left, I want.""

And I think maybe it made me get teary-eyed because I know how that feels. Don't we all really? Doesn't everyone at some point find themselves facing their choices? I am just so thankful that I chose to make my life more like the life I want to live.

The book is good, by the way. And Magical Thinking is his short-story book that I absolutely loved... totally laugh-out-loud funny.

January 8, 2010

15 months ago

Just found a journal entry from October 5, 2008...


"Not feeling well today; is it illness, allergies, or the blues? Throat + tummy hurt, didn't get anything done.

Making my playlist because somehow I find solace in song. The aches of my inner mind unfolding in melody. Does everyone find themselves here? Wondering how we became ourselves and if it's true to our souls?

I am lonely. Fake Plastic Trees is on now. And I can identify because it wears me out to be me in a spot I might not want to be."



I like the last line. And 15 months later, I am happy to report that I am feeling quite the opposite today.
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