“Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn’t it wonderful? Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand new!
A new year … a fresh, clean start! It’s like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on! A day full of possibilities! It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy … let’s go exploring!”― Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: It’s a Magical World
…Hoping your 2013 is off to a fabulous start!
“I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy – but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying ‘write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep’, and ‘cheer up’ and ‘happiness is our birthright’ and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position – it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say ‘Quick! Move on! Cheer up!’ I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word ‘happiness’ and to replace it with the word ‘wholeness’. Ask yourself ‘is this contributing to my wholeness?’ and if you’re having a bad day, it is.”
~Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social researcher
…hope you feel whole today (and all the days hereafter)!
{Image via here}
“Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”
—Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
{Click images for their source}
As I navigate my own grief…I find inspiration & comfort in the words of those who have done the same.
“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
― Leo Tolstoy
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses. ”
― Colette
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”
― William Shakespeare
“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
{Click images for their source}
M’Lynn: I find it amusing. Men are supposed to be made out of steel or something. I just sat there. I just held Shelby’s hand. There was no noise, no tremble, just peace. Oh god. I realize as a woman how lucky I am. I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life and I was there when she drifted out. It was the most precious moment of my life.
“But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that’s life, isn’t it?”
―Gabrielle Zevin
A few of my happy (& sad) moments from this week…
{Back at the Guthrie with my mom…}
{…to see a re-imagined classic!}
{Said goodbye to a dear friend’s father}
{Reading & daydreaming about France}
{An unexpected gift of my very first fine china}
…What made you happy (or sad) this week?
Have a lovely weekend!!
{Images by Me}
“…no one is born a great cook,
one learns by doing.”
—Julia Child, My Life in France
{Click images for their source}
“Being happy isn’t having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it’s about stringing together all the little things.”
― Ann Brashares
Here are a few of the little things I got happy about this week…
{Sushi solving a case of the “Mondays”}
{Mmmmmmm…motorboatin’}
{Pure happiness on the lake…}
{Dog-sitting some lovely Golden Retrievers}
{Bloody Mary drinks…more like meals}
…What made you happy this week?
Have a lovely weekend!!
{Images by Me}
