February 29

Quote of the Day

[or Poem of the Leap Day]

Of everything I have seen,

It is you I want to go on seeing.

Of everything I have touched,

It's your flesh I want to go on touching.

I love your orange laughter.

I am moved by the sight of you sleeping

...

That is why I love you, and yet not why.

There are so many reasons,

and yet so few,

for love has to be so involving and general,

particular and terrifying,

joyful and grieving,

flowering like the stars,

and measureless as a kiss.

Pablo Neruda

I don't know whether it was foresight and immeasurable wisdom or just a perfectly fitting coincidence,

but writing this poem down on the page at the end of February in my last year's calendar, definitely brings a smile on my face today.

This is a poem I love and dedicated to my love a year ago, and today, on the extra day of love we're all given [which for me, though, has been filled with everything but...uhh], I am again reminded of how little every little stressor, fear, annoyance or burden really matters when I look at my bab and feel him in my heart.

I love you, Love.

Aina.

February 28

Word of the Day

Preternatural:

Surpassing the normal or ordinary, what is

usually considered natural.

How can I do something every day that surpasses the normal or ordinary?

And if I do this every day, does it become normal,

thus causing me to chase a constantly rising high?

Or rather than my first thought above, is the source of whatever is preternatural the ordinary?

Do the normal days and those beyond complement each other, making both that bit more wonderful?

Lately I've been rather enjoying ordinariness.

Routines, steadiness, predictability...all things wonderful, that make the next high that much higher. Or the slightest high that much more preternatural.

February 27

Quote of the Day

Life has taught us that love

does not consist of gazing at each other,

but in looking outward

together

in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

But what happens when I tire of achieving; will you love me then?

What happens if I change directions, or want to, with you? Will we love still?

What about if I lose my will to plan and pursue? Or to strive. To keep at it, the rat race.

Will you still love me if I'm feeble, witless, afraid? Tired?

Where do we draw the line of changing within the constraints of the same person, versus turning into someone else. And if I turn into a being unknown to you, will you still love me?

Should you still love me, if I can no longer be who you loved?

And what is this "same direction" in a world that throws curveballs and pitfalls behind every corner?

They say couples who sleep with their backs turned at each other have true trust in one another and their love.

February 26

Quote of the Day

I love her, and that's the beginning

of everything.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

That's it, the feeling of having found your place in the world and who you are.

Even if this discovery has brought with it characteristics completely alien to you, feelings that feel uncharacteristic, desires that pull you to places you feared before. Even if this discovery pulls you to even further confusion about your true being or identity, it is a goal, it is a start and it is a journey all in one.

Everything else stems from it or sprouts into new directions because of it.

Photo from: http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com/france-wedding-photographer/ All Rights Reserved to www.luigirota.it.

February 25

Quote of the Day

As if you were on fire from within,

the moon lives in the lining of your skin.

Pablo Neruda

I've always been a night person, and maybe to an extent because of that, this is one of the most beautiful, passionate, quotes I have read. It evokes feelings and thoughts of heat, love, long nights, moon-filled thoughts and dreams, and the sensation of bursting at the seams from all the power and beauty that's waiting to escape into the world.

February 24

Quote of the Day

Someday, somewhere - anywhere -, unfailingly, you'll find yourself.

And that, and only that,

can be the happiest or most bitter hour of your life.

Pablo Neruda

We talk about this a lot with my best friend.

Figuring out who you are, what your life is about, what you want - what you should want, and where you're striving to go.

What is it that makes you happy? What is it that will bring you peace of mind, make you focused, steady, certain.

These talks are some of the most beautiful, yet most agonizing, ones we have. Discovering each other, but mostly ourselves, together, but mostly selfishly focusing on ourselves, is glorious, yet most of the time painfully misleading, discouraging, seemingly hopeless, or all-round ridiculous.

There are so many things that you wish to bring into who you are, so many people whose image of you you want to match, fulfill, mirror, whatever. There is so many crossroads where you wish you could split - or do you really?

It is difficult telling apart the you inside and the you under the pressures of the external. Or can they be told apart? Can they be separated? Are they - or have they ever been, even meant to be - separate?

Honestly?

I believe with all my psychologically biased and sociologically educated mind and my strong but silly heart that, whether you is you only when you are able to separate yourself from the expectations of you coming from outside or whether all that is outside and from the outside forms you just as much as all the you that is on the inside, discovering what you're made of and what you're about - finding yourself - will sneak up on you.

It hasn't happened to me yet, but the beauty of the moment - the deep, all encompassing sigh and relief that I trust come with finally knowing who you are deep down and with all that you are - is hugely reliant on the not knowing and frustrations along the unknowingness that come before it.

Until then.

February 23

Quote of the Day

You can cut all the flowers,

but you cannot keep spring from coming.

Pablo Neruda

That's right biatches!! 60 degrees (15'C) and sunny in New York today!

Ahhhh. Feels so good to be warm. To open your coat and let the warm air onto your skin. To look down at the ground and see flowers growing. And to think of the coming season! I'm so ready.

Winter isn't fun with no snow and, thus, no reason to becold. Winter isn't fun with a cold breeze hitting your face in the Manhattan wind tunnels. And winter definitely isn't fun when all you can think of is spring and summertime.

So, LET'S GO! :)

On another note, you can put me down, you can spit in my face, and you can tell me I'll never make it, but what's coming is coming, and what's ahead for me will without failing come meet me sooner or later. And where I'm going is good, and you can't stray me from my path.

So, walk with me. LET'S GO! :)

February 22

Quote of the Day

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.

Jane Goodall

That's all.

February 21

Quote of the Day

An artist cannot fail;

it is a success to be one.

Charles Horton Cooley

I love this one.

It highlight art, taking the commerciality out of it. It speaks volumes about the value of an artistic idea, of a thought transformed to something concrete through whatever means.

And since I love art, I love that this quote loves art.

And since I cannot fail, here are a few pieces of my art:

In the Hourglass

I am sand

and I am out of your embrace.

No longer can you contain me .

tic-toc time

and grain by grain

I moved on.

February 20

Quote of the Day

We can't help everyone,

but everyone can help someone.

Ronald Reagan

Everyone can.