The Cure for Anything
is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea
Category Movies
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Sixteen Going on Seventeen
I just couldn’t resist this! So perfect, and also one of my favorite movies. 😊
It appears that my site, just like 2016, was experiencing some technical difficulties. My site wasn’t too hard to fix, and I wish I could say the same about 2016 and this country electing Trump as the President. It still doesn’t sound right when I hear someone say “President-elect Trump”. How can this be real?
But I digress. It’s New Year’s Eve, but that’s never been a huge thing for me. I not much of a late night person, I don’t want to be out on the road on a night when there’s the potential for a lot of drunk drivers, and I figured out a long time ago that you do not want to be a single woman at a New Year’s party. Every single (and some of the not so single) guys will hit on you. No thanks!
I love to cuddle up with good snacks and a blanket and watch my traditional New Year’s Eve movies. When Harry Met Sally is one of my top favorite movies and I always watch it with n New Year’s. One of the local TV stations here used to play it every New Year’s Eve and I’ve continued that tradition. What can I say, I’m a girl-y girl sometimes. 😉
Nora Ephron had a way with words. They just don’t write dialogue like this anymore. It’s a romantic comedy but it’s actually witty.
I wish I still had my telescope! 2016 ends with fireworks as three planets line up as if ejected from a Roman candle. Mercury, Venus and Mars are visible above the sunset horizon all month long. As Venus climbs higher in the sky, it looks brighter and larger than it appeared last month.
On New Year’s Eve, Mars and Neptune appear very close to each other. Through telescopes, rusty red Mars and blue-green Neptune’s colors contrast beautifully. Plus, there’s supposed to be a beautiful crescent moon tonight.
Have a safe and festive New Year’s Eve! 🎉🎊💥
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If
“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for the living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called OveThe trouble is, we always think we have time, done we? It’s a lie we tell ourselves that allows us to put off doing the things that frighten us. It’s a lie that keeps us from living our most authentic life. It’s a lie that makes us weep with regret when we finally realize it’s too late. Because sometimes it really is too late.
i just read this book this weekend, as I needed a diversion. But, like many good novels, it also prompted me to think. A book didn’t have to be non-fiction in order to teach you something. I also discovered that there is a movie based on the novel, and I definitely want to see it soon.
Everything in this life is linked. Everything.
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That’s It and Amen
Oh, how I love this! It makes me what to see if I can still put my foot behind my head. I’m still flexible, but I not sure if I’m that flexible! 😊
My my messiness is more on the inside than the outside. Perhaps I look put together to other people most of the time, but inside I’m often wondering to myself what I’m doing. I suppose we all do sometimes. I remind myself to simply relax into that messiness in my head and eventually it subsides. I suppose were all a little messy sometimes. It’s part of being human.I do think I’ve become a bit more enlightened, but even more so less “afraid of the dark”. The two seem to go hand in hand. It’s a beautiful thing; something that has brought much peace and self-acceptance into my life.
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24
Artwork from one of my favorite films, Amelie. I stumbled across a gallery of artwork from the film, and I think I’ll treat myself to one. Every time I watch the movie, I notice something new.
1. Being awake during the quiet peacefulness of dawn while the rest of the world is still asleep
2. Lollipops from the bank
3. Meeting someone with the same birthday as you
4. Smiling at strangers
5. Watching someone talk about something they love
6.The smell of a campfire at dusk
7.Hearing a good song for the first time
8. Re-watching a favorite film you had forgotten about
9. Walking barefoot in the summer
10. Subconsciously memorizing lyrics
11. Accomplishing something ahead of time
12. Exact change
13. Falling asleep in the car while it’s raining
14. Accidental photographs
15. Doing something kind for someone in secret
16. Making wishes on dandelions
20. Catching yourself smiling
21. Mix CDs
22. Finding something you thought you had lost
23. The first snowfall of winter
24.Naming a pet -
Ask and It Shall Be Given
We can’t ask people to give us something that we do not believe we are worthy of receiving. And you will know you’re worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else.” ~ Brene Brown
If you don’t ask for what you want, you’ll never get it. I struggle with this idea. The most difficult thing that any of us can do is to simply ask for precisely what we want. It’s so much easier to take what we get—to remain silent about those things that we want or need—because by not speaking up, we aren’t taking the risk that we may be turned down.
My dear (and wise) friend Sheryl wrote this a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since then:
“This week I somehow pulled myself up out of recent months of the burgeoning ennui-funk and fear of uncertainty and fear of loss. Waiting on others/powers-that-be/the universe so that I could react flexibly was an old survival mechanism that was making me feel deep dread and a deep lack of confidence.”
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Bits and Bobs
I read this quote yesterday and I absolutely love it! I need reminders like that, especially this time of year. I was talking with a patient this morning and telling me how January makes me feel “blah”. He calls everybody darling. He said, “darling, come with me” and grabbed my hand. We went out the front door and stood in the sunshine. He had me close my eyes and told me to breathe in the sunshine and exhale out all the b.s. He made my day, and I made sure to tell him that. Little things like that can change an entire day. I’ll try to do my best to pay it forward. 🙂
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Eye Color, Popcorn, and My Friday Night
I had some work to do last night so I booted up my laptop and turned on a movie. Sometimes I like to have on a favorite movie in the background as I work. I’m one of those people who can watch a movie I love over and over again. Last night it was me, my MacBook, a glass of wine, a huge bowl of popcorn, and Javier Bardem. Okay, it was actually the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I treated myself to a copy of it on BluRay because it’s no longer on streaming. The first few times I watched it, I couldn’t figure out what Penelope Cruz meant when she said “her eyes aren’t one color”. I was thinking of heterochromia, where a person has two different colored eyes. But then I realized that blue or green eyes are often made up many different colors. My own eyes are green, but the outer ring of the iris is blue and the rest is flecked with gold.
It’s a bit like reading Pablo Neruda’s poetry when I was younger and not being able to understand why he described someone’s nipples as purple in color. Because of my extremely WASP-y childhood, I had no idea what a person of color looked like. I’ll explain that someday. But I digress.
I absolutely love popcorn. We had it all of the time when I was a kid. I’m not a fan of that microwave popcorn crap. I have an air popper, but my dad always make it on the stove top, or if we were really lucky, over a campfire in the backyard. Have you ever seen Amy Schumer describe how she eats popcorn?
Stage one: Denial. People do not want to admit to themselves that they’re about to obliterate any bag of junk food. Instead, they pretend they’ll “just have a little.” Then, she shows us the hesitant, one-kernel-at-a-time approach.
Stage two: Acceptance. Here you get “real real,” as Amy puts it. “I’ve split my lip trying to get one more kernel”.
She also recounts the struggles of the movie date: First, you have to pretend the thought of purchasing popcorn at a movie theater has never before crossed your mind. Next, you fake like a small popcorn is enough to satisfy anyone over the age of six. “That’s like taking one Advil,” Amy says. “Like, get out of here. I want a trough and I want to dunk my head in it.”
That last part is definitely not me. I’m the first one in line to buy popcorn and it’s certainly not a small! Last night I had popcorn all over my sofa, on the rug, and halfway to the kitchen all over the floor. Mostly because I was shoveling in with two hands. Dainty I am not.
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Vast
Isn’t that the truth? Some days I do question what life is trying to teach me. I was just going about my peaceful day, getting in a good workout when a text message from “Seattle” popped onto my phone. “I’ve been thinking so much about you lately.” No. Just, no. It felt like a swift kick to the stomach. Still, after all these years. At least now it’s much easier to shake it off and not let it derail my whole day. I told Seattle no years ago. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But in my heart, I know that it was the right thing to do. Loving someone should not have to hurt that much. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved anyone that was actually good for me. Just once in my life, I’d like that to happen. Is that too much to ask? Probably. And that’s okay, because it has to be okay.
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You Just Can’t Please Everyone
Sometimes, I really wish that my parents hadn’t taught me to be so polite. Or maybe I should become a hermit. I don’t know. What I do know that is has been a very strange day. I’ve been stuck listening to a man I barely know talk for nearly three hours about how Obama is ruining this country with his “Obamacare”, he could never live in California like I did because it is, and I quote, “full of illegals”, and that he is a good Christian and I am not because he goes to church every week and I don’t. I found it all so completely offensive. My head hurts and I was biting my tongue so hard that I’m surprised it’s not bleeding. To top it all off, he had the audacity to ask me if I wanted to go on a date. Are you freaking kidding me? Not just no, but hell no. Politeness does not equal flirting. Men, especially, have a hard time with this concept. It frustrates me to no end. It should be okay to be polite and friendly without it being mistaken for flirting.
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Something Beyond
Watching the movie The Hours is a great way to cheer yourself up after a hard week, said no one ever. However, it is a truly beautiful but gut-wrenching film. I’d expect nothing less when it comes to Virginia Woolf.
Me too, Virginia. Me too.
“She was like a fire, a burning bush, and the candle flames about her head were silver leaves; or again, the glass was green water, and she a mermaid, slung with pearls, a siren in a cave, singing so that oarsmen leant from their boats and fell down, down to embrace her; so dark, so bright, so hard, so soft, was she, so astonishingly seductive that it was a thousand pities that there was no one there to put it in plain English, and say outright “Damn it, Madam, you are loveliness incarnate,” which was the truth.”
— Virginia Woolf, Orlando
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The Cure
As I’ve mentioned before, the name of this blog comes from a quote by one of my favorite authors: The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
This weekend I worked out hard- sweat, and cried over a movie (quite appropriately, Out of Africa)-tears. I’m only missing the sea. I suppose that’s why I’m yearning for the ocean today. It must be synchronicity that I came across this post on Colossal:
“Ocean Atlas” is the latest underwater sculpture by artist Jason deCaires Taylor. I snorkeled every week when I lived in Hawaii, and I’d love to visit some of his underwater sculpture installations. Add that to my bucket list. Snorkeling feels like a combination of floating and flying. It’s a complete sensory experience, the silky warm water enveloping your entire body, the rhythmic sound of your breath moving in and out of the snorkel, and the amazing sights that lie just hidden below the ocean’s surface.
Also found while browsing Colosal- a beach made entirely of sea glass, near Fort Bragg, California
At one time I had a large amount of sea glass that I’d collected from beaches where I lived and visited. The green is my favorite, because someone once told me that I had sea glass-green eyes. Blue sea glass may be rarer, but when it comes to eyes, only 2% of the world population has green eyes.I’ll leave you with one of the best scenes from Out of Africa:
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Hello, September
It’s Labor Day weekend and I’m winding down from 4 days off work. Four nights of sleeping like a rock, four mornings of waking up when I’m ready, not when an alarm goes off. Four days of good food, good wine, and good company with a lot of books, music, and quiet time mixed in for good measure. I’m a happy camper.
(I’m a big fan of Spanish wines. Robert Parker gave this one 92 points, and I agree)Speaking of happy, I highly recommend the documentary Happy.
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” — Benjamin Franklin
This compelling film is for anyone who thinks they’re happy, anyone who’s ever been depressed, anyone who’s tasted happiness and then watched it slip out of their fingers, anyone who feels like they’ve spent their whole life chasing happiness, and especially for anyone who’s given up on happiness or are feeling like they want to give up. So, basically, it’s for everyone. The film makers translate subjects like positive psychology, dopamine, and hedonic adaptation into clear and understandable terms for those of us who aren’t doctors or Ph.D.s. They weave technical facts with human behavior so beautifully that it’s hard not to be moved. The relationship between happiness and exercise, connection, community, cooperation, and compassion are uniquely explored. A magnifying glass is held up to things we’ve been taught will make us happy, like success, money, and beauty.
