It is my honor to present to you my and Neil’s third collaboration. Thank you sweet sir for sharing your divine words with me…the honor is and always will be…mine.
5-7-5 (you can find the full poem here) was written with a girl in mind. Last night, something happened. I merged Christina’s audio reading of the poem with a photo of a boy and some background music. The result was something unintentional yet wonderfully and indescribably different. I will never see 5-7-5 the same way again.
For mothers who know, live and breathe unconditional love.
(neil)
PS: A trillion thanks to Christina Gregory for this 3rd collaboration.
*You might want to don those earphones to hear the achingly beautiful theme from the movie Definitely, Maybe.
Each day we face similar choices depending on daily scenario’s. Recently…I have been reminded of how I was feeling a year ago and so with that I present…. ~ Enigma…
΅〜 ೋღ ♥ ღೋ 〜΅
΅〜 ೋღ ♥ ღೋ 〜΅
There on a path to future lies converging trails…
One reminds me of better days long gone…
One leads to the promise of future…
΅∼ ೋღ ❁ ღೋ ∼΅
I sit…think…ponder…
Why does one necessarily negate the other?
Conflicted confusion…
΅∼ ೋღ ❁ ღೋ ∼΅
The future is hope, risk, love, heartbreak, having, losing…
As is life in all of its ups, downs and all arounds…
Tumultuous emotions wash over me as I wonder which path…
All the while knowing, as I always have, that life moves in one direction…
΅∼ ೋღ ❁ ღೋ ∼΅
I cry silent hidden tears as the truth permeates me…
Time moves in one direction…
Always to the future…
Never to past…
I know this and yet…
It feels as though letting go of the past means it truly is gone…
΅∼ ೋღ ❁ ღೋ ∼΅
Two paths converge into one…
I know I must take the one to the future, because that is the way of life…
Always moving forward despite anyone or anything…
Time is an enigma which marches on irreverent of feeling…
Void of thought or emotion…
We choose to move with it or forever be trapped in the loneliness of the black void…
I will no longer be trapped in the void…
΅∼ ೋღ ❁ ღೋ ∼΅
Sweet encouraging voices beckon me to life, irregardless of the risk I know it brings…
I follow time’s path because of hope that will wash away melancholy…
I take the leap of faith..
Knowing only one thing for sure…
Time marches ever forward and now I am its companion…
I never thought you could imprint so strongly and firmly fixed to me…in me… that I find it hard to think of anything…now that you’re gone…
I’ll always remember how you came to me…how you wove into each facet of my life…with so much happiness and joy…I smile just thinking of yours…
Your laugh…your embrace…the taste of your kiss…memories so vivid and strong they follow me to sleep… where dreams and impossibilities rule…where time and distance do not exist except as a construct to recreate each perfect moment we shared…
Apropos… for you are my dream…a dream I could touch…could revel in for but a brief time before I had to let you go…
With promises…love and a kiss…you were gone…leaving a hole inside me where you dwelt completely…too briefly…
I shall fill myself with each memory…reliving them to cement them inside my heart…my very soul…
Until…
You return to me and once again dance me to the stars…
Once again ignite every wondrous and magical feeling…
I’m so excited to be posting my 100th blog post hot on the heels of my 1 year Blogiversary post, then getting to share about Our British Invasion as well! Since the main topic of the aforementioned visit was books and the awesome adventure shared to obtain them, I thought the following piece was absolutely incredible and wished to share it with all of you for my first video reading….Vlog, if you will.
I present to you “You Should Date A Girl Who Reads” written by Rosemarie Urquico ~ I am so hopeful you will enjoy my reading of her magical words…
Thank you!
Christina ~
~*~
~*~
“You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
~
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She…’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
~
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted.
~
Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
~
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
~
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
~
She has to give it a shot somehow.
~
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
~
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
~
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
~
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
~
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
~
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
~
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Well…I shouldn’t call inviting one of our most special friends here an invasion. But given our countries history this is my attempt at a snappy title.
We were so fortunate as to have the infamous and brilliant blogger StetotheJ(aka Ste J) in our home for a few weeks. All here…including the animals were most happy to share what we could of an American family with our visitor from across the pond…so to speak.
I did my best to make him a caffeine-a-holic, like myself…but we found it only made him sleepy. Tis alright though for we did make good friends with Tyler from Starbucks….whom you will have already heard of if you’ve read Ste J’s posts about his trip to America from his point of view.
I thought it apropos to share our point of view as well. Since we are all very verbal and chatty…he fit right in and I had to wait in line to speak with him as all here (mostly the children and animals) vied for his attentions. Jack and Emma had him racing Mario Kart style. Jack even made a few videos of Hotwheel’s Trick Track’s with some additions of Dominoes and such with Ste J as his helper.
By far the bestest and my most favorite part was the many trips to our various book stores about this small town I often refer to as “Podunkville” because it is small and I am a big-city girl having grown up in Portland, OR and traveled to most of the major big cities in America.
Treasure Trove of Books!
Honestly…it was bliss pure and simple. Good coffee…the bestest company and reading each and every spine in each store. We laughed in Time’s face as we paid it no mind on our quest for books. We quickly chose our favorite book stores and then re-visited. While Ste J may say that we were gracious hostess’s….in fact he was the greatest guest ever….having seen my new yet empty bookshelf he went on a mission to choose the very finest in literary selections to fill it with. In the end…there were 42 gifts….a virtual treasure trove of who’s who in modern and classical literature.
The first of the aforementioned gifts was Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s “Love in The Time of Cholera” and I have to admit his style is simply exquisite and inexplicably profound…no wonder he won a Nobel Prize for literature! Not even half way through and I am ready to replace my all time favorite book (Pride & Prejudice) with this one. Reading this is more of a literary delight than anything I’ve previously experienced.
Our trips to the local restaurants…walks by the river…and explorations of book stores…
Queen of The West on the Columbia River
not to mention some awesomazing Doctor Who watching made this visit more than memorable!
To Ste J I say…leave your Kingdom dearest sir and come back to us where we will all write and share our stories and find even more magnificent books to peruse….
I know what you’re thinking….but I am honestly….really going to answer your amazing full of love and continued encouragement comments! Right now…after I share this fun video of my quirky kids at their finest….
Note: To you Doctor Who fans….notice my eldest daughter’s hat….and that my son is doing his Dalek impression ha!
friends with Tyler from Starbucks….whom you will have already heard of if you’ve read 
∼ Reconstructing Christina ∼ 