Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Sunday, July 28, 2024
Friday, July 26, 2024
If—(by Rudyard Kipling)
If you can keep
your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can
dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one
heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk
with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Monday, July 22, 2024
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Friday, July 19, 2024
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Saturday, July 13, 2024
My Brain and
Heart Divorced (by John Roedel)
my brain and
heart divorced
a decade ago
over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become
eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other
now my head and heart
share custody of me
I stay with my brain
during the week
and my heart
gets me on weekends
they never speak to one another
– instead, they
give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week
and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:
“This is all your fault”
on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past
and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future
they blame each
other for the
state of my life
there’s been a
lot
of yelling – and crying
so,
lately, I’ve been
spending a lot of
time with my gut
who serves as my
unofficial therapist
most nights, I
sneak out of the
window in my ribcage
and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut’s plush leather chair
that’s always open for me
~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up
last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head
I nodded
I said I didn’t know
if I could live with
either of them anymore
“my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,”
I lamented
my gut squeezed
my hand
“I just can’t
live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,”
I sighed
my gut smiled
and said:
“in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,”
I was confused
– the look on my face gave it away
“if you are exhausted about your heart’s obsession with
the fixed past and your mind’s focus on the uncertain future
your lungs are the perfect place for you
there is no
yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either
there is only
now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment
there is only
breath
and in that
breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out.”
this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves
and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs
I packed a
little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs
before I could
even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said
“what took you
so long?”
(www.johnroedel.com)
Friday, July 12, 2024
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Friday, July 5, 2024
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
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