September 11, 2024
Gleanings
- We all know the answers, but we need to hear them again and again. We need to listen to the work, our life’s work, most of all, because it tells us what we’re required to do.
- I’m half Pakistani, and occasionally I wonder if it’s odd that this expresses itself almost exclusively through food. Is it odd? Is it enough? Is it okay to only express part of who you are in a highly specific way?
- I know, some of us are the gatherers. The ones who reach out and invite and create the space. And some of us are the gathered. The ones that say yes, that show up, that ask, that listen, that learn. Our tables need to be filled with both. Maybe we need to try the one that’s harder for us … or not.
- In the breaks between death defying formation stunts; modern fighter jets screeching across the sky; the stately elegance of the Lancaster bomber; and lifesaving waterbombers scooping Lake Ontario and regurgitating it back, we discussed this weird fascination we share and how at odds it is with our environmental and political views.
- Nearly 100 years after Mrs. Dalloway was published, I sat on a bench and felt chills all over my body. What is this terror, what is this ecstasy. What was it? Something had happened to me beyond what was intellectual, and beyond what was emotional. It was, I concluded, so spiritual I could not put words to it.
- When my mom finally sold the house and the smell became very rare, I finally became able to smell it—there’s a few items and areas in my mom’s current place that contain it, certain cupboards I stick my head in and sniff and remember.
- This morning, at the beginning of my swim, a little silver trout jumped out of the water just beyond where I was heading, the curve of its body an opening parenthesis to my thinking.
- The cold, hard, truth about enjoying a spectacularly good day is that it is, simultaneously, someone else’s very worst day. Life’s Yin and Yang, our shared burden – knowing that the houses of joy and anguish both have revolving doors. Understanding that as we are born, someone is dying; that as we rise, someone is falling; that as we laugh, someone is crying and that, despite clinging to hope, we cannot end or even pause that cycle – we are all constantly trading places.
- I’m a very clumsy, generally inactive person but when I’m on the ice, I feel fast and light and strong. Let’s be clear: I’m a terrible skater! I haven’t figured out how to stop yet. But the feeling of being on skates is paralleled only when I’m in the water: where I suddenly understand the strength of my body and the joy in movement.
- Parents understand that the real New Year begins in September, and my mindset has shifted accordingly over the past week. My kids are back in school! The sun is setting earlier each day! What am I doing with my life?!
- What are the values we’ve internalized along the way? We are all part of our varied pasts and upbringing, but there are some values we all (or most of us) subscribe to and which are non-negotiable in our friendships and relationships. Apart from the Dream Big and Laugh out Loud type of superficial exhortations, I think the underlying message on the placard is: Be someone who others can respect and trust. Be considerate. Be genuine and kind. Be a person of integrity.
Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?
