sunday lessons

This morning we got a lesson in going with the flow... We got all ready for church and our food ready for the church picnic and when we went out to leave the car battery was dead! Guess *someone* left the key on last night... I'm blaming the squirrels! So, we had to wait while the battery was charged... It was nice to have an extra cup of coffee and just chat. We missed church but we got there in time to help set up and hang out! Also, we got pictures of the girls which is of course my main priority every day.
Sometimes its better when things don't go as planned because that time together is great.

pictures are up!!

we had an amazing time having our pictures taken by aubrey - you can find her website here at photobyaubrey.com  she was fun and funny and took it in stride that we were a little late and a LOT hung over. it was important to us as a family to be able to have these photos taken and i am so happy about the way that these turned out - we can't WAIT to see the rest!

 

 

 

 

a sunday adventure!

we.... both of us... needed to get out of the house and the weather here has been absolutely beautiful! so we headed out to wander and along the way we took a few pictures. the first two are by emma - of her dog who she loves more than anything and the second is a self portrait that she took. the rest are of what was around on the first part of our journey. after lunch we're headed back out to this great park and then over to a friend's house for dinner. more pictures to follow!

just realized they didn't all come through here... you can go here to see them! http://picasaweb.google.com/alexisgillmore/November2009AWeekendAdventure#

 
 
 
 

be still my beating heart...

i absolutely for sure no doubts about it know why i'm not married.... it has nothing to do with all the crap we usually discuss... it is simply because this man is married and he is without a doubt the ideal of perfection.... if there are anymore out there like him i would gladly put up with just about anything to have him make me pancakes in the morning, take naps with me in the afternoon and sing to me at night. (sam beam from iron & wine)

if you've ever had a question about if there is sheer goodness and perfection and loveliness in the world i urge to watch this and maybe if you're lucky you'll get little butterflies in your stomach just like i do.... i recommend "innocent bones" because "no one is the saviour they would like to be...."

little known facts

some little known facts about me:
i love the smell of morning and flowing streams and rain and irish spring soap...
i really love jameson, reading emerson, naps, the sound of the ocean and taking pictures of trees
i daydream of falling in love with a man that can live with me a cabin in the woods, sings to me in the morning and at night, will make me banana pancakes for breakfast and is willing to be honest with himself and others and live with integrity... everything else we'll work out.
i watch movies that are period pieces or historically based... i love great costumes and the feeling of being carried away... i also love foreign films and subtitles and quirky indie films
i don't like french toast or gin or any kind of carnation (even the milk)
i hate feeling frustrated or misunderstood and the idea and practice of karaoke
i write everyday here on my blog, in my personal journal, poetry and in what we're currently referring to as the novella of sorts
i never know what is going to come of those writing sessions and i never plan them ahead of time... i start by finding the playlist and then write how i feel based on what i wanted to listen to.
i find that my life revolves around music more than i ever knew... i have a soundtrack to most things in my life.

sometimes in my life i think about missed opportunities and the things that i didn't give enough time or effort to. i wonder if i had been different in the moment or ready for different things if my life would be different or if i would have gotten here regardless of the path that i took. sometimes i ache for the days back when i was just a child and everything was unwritten and unstarted and unknown. sometimes i long for these moments to be over so i can just be past them.

i worry (sometimes daily) that i am supposed to be doing more, feeling more, committing more, growing, learning, changing and experiencing more. sometimes i feel stagnant in the middle of change like a person feels in the eye of the storm... sometimes even with my life in upheaval things are so quiet and calm at the center of me. i wish that i needed less change and adventure. i wish that i would be content with a small life that involved less time on the battle ground.

i have become weary in the past few days of being on the forefront and wish that i could apply for furlough although i know there is no rest and there is no leaving the front lines. i hope for a person that can accept all the things that i have come to understand and own the battle with me. there are days when i wonder how i'll ever explain to someone how i got here and what the purpose is for continuing. more and more i've become afraid that there will never be another night's sleep without worrying about the things i've come to know and there will never be another moment of sanctuary or peace that i don't have to fight tooth and nail for. i find that in this particular time of beginning to understand and finally open my eyes that i hold certain people even closer to my heart... they have become an indelible part of my past, present and future. i could never release that bond because without the role model of living in love i think i would forget easily... or give up when the fatigue and the frustration at the state of the world became too much. they are my reminders and my talismans that true north exists, that there is a standard of gold and of love, that sometimes there are people in your life you are simply meant to love and lastly that all the answers are here if we are just quiet enough long enough to hear what our hearts are telling us.

tonight my heart is telling me to make tea, put my feet up and relax.... i don't have to do everything right now... just breathe and relax. and since my heart has had years of practice listening to that very sound advice i'm going to take it once again... while doing that i'm going to reflect on this:
"If we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and modes of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the Romans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler. There is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again,--not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul." Emerson

today we all float on... even if things get heavy

i took this picture today when i was out... it's so sad. it really pulled at my heart and then i thought about all the things it could mean and all the lives and all the people that were affected.

i'm a big fan these days of audio to go with what i'm blogging about... so here is the song for today: a lack of color (live) - death cab for cutie. just right click on the song title and ask it to open in another tab so you can still read. your music experience will start while we get to the rest of it.... although the rest of it lately has disappointed even me.

have you ever wondered what happens to dreams when they die? like if they shrivel up and become old discarded cocoons inside ourselves... stinted butterflies that rot and decay inside our brains instead of growing big and beautiful? perhaps somewhere there is a graveyard of all the things that have been discarded and lost and didn't become what the dreamer had in mind. i have dreams... lots of them... dreams about having a small house on a piece of land with no one around for miles and miles, a photography studio, writing a book, having someone to come home to, emma growing up healthy and happy, being sung to in the morning and at night, pancakes for breakfast, a fireplace, a garden and a small life filled with quiet and solitude that makes me happy and content in a way that i could never explain here. an uncluttered life. a simple life.... do those things exist anymore? simple lives? lives built for people that don't care about the "other stuff"? sometimes i wonder. sometimes i worry that my chances have all passed me by.

okay onto the next song: float on - modest mouse. again just click right there... and i'll just say out loud that streaming modest mouse is a huge pain so enjoy it as much as i do. the point of it is this.... yes, sometimes life is just okay and we have to just float on. we have to just move forward trusting that taking that leap will be rewarded with experience eventually. remember that sign i saw in washington that said "experience is something you get after you need it"....wow. perhaps this is just the experience i need and i'll have it later after it all comes to a close.

you can see the rest of the pictures of today by clicking here.

sometimes

sometimes in my head i pretend that my life is completely different. sometimes its the recent decisions that have changed. sometimes its old decisions that have changed. mostly i pretend that i am somehow different. i'm changed in a way that alters my whole life and the people in it.

sometimes i pretend that my relationship with my parents was different. especially now. especially now that everything is changing so quickly that i can't seem to get a grip on even one of the corners of the polaroid moments that go sailing by. click. cancer. click. friends are distant. click. home is different. click. we still aren't close. click. things that are unresolved still sit larger than life in our living room. click. click. click. sometimes i pretend that there is a nice memory in there and then the clicking of the past, all the old memories click by, and i know there isn't.

i wish i could be brutally honest with one person about how i feel. i wish i could tell one single solitary person what exactly is in my head. i wish that the clicking would stop just long enough for me to get a full breath - repetitive sound drives me nuts. i wish i was still in connecticut... losing myself in others and in all the old habits. i wish that i was still in alaska sitting by water. i wish i could just stop the movement and turning of the world just long enough to be able to sort it all out. all of it out. maybe just some small things.

pictures are up of this past weekend just go here.

Burma

Burmese Bloggers without Borders

More News

Haircut Tuesday

i have a new haircut and i LOVE it.



you can see more pictures here:

New Hair Cut

the phrase is almost retired

the picture is the closest i could get to me circa 10 years ago... it's close... 7 years i think... and i post it in honour of having a friend from 10 years ago and to the person i was, am and will be.


all time top ten favourite things in life:
crushed ice
flying (not on planes but actual flying... duh)
good talks with old friends
new perspectives
making mistakes and having the opportunity to correct the mistakes
loving someone enough to trust them completely
the phrase "we're almost there"
the sound of someone singing in the morning and at night
pancakes
waking up each day and facing all the potential that a brand new day brings

tonight i had the pleasure... the absolute blessing... the infinite privilege of talking to an old friend. a friend that i have known 10 years. wow. fucking 10 years. we've always been friends but along the way i think there was a time where we didn't value or trust each other like we should have. perhaps there was a point where i wasn't a good friend to him and for that i have always had regret. luckily he has forgiven me. luckily i had the opportunity to continue to be his friend past that icky point and into the present. so tonight we talked about where we are now. no bullshit. no punches. the truth about who we are and where we are now. i was so happy to say to him that he didn't need to explain because i knew and trusted him. i was so elated to tell him that i am proud of him. can life get any better? after we got off the phone tonight i went back and reread my journal... the good things and the bad things .... things that are no longer public domain and i still can't think of anything to say but i am grateful. i am so so grateful. how could we have come to this if we had taken a different path? how could we be ourselves if we had gone a different way? i suppose it's confirmation of faith, of karma, of the universe and for a plan greater than ourselves. what a wonderful wonderful thing.

i'm a pretty lucky girl. on that note i am going to dream sweet dreams of flying with infinite amounts of crushed ice and love in my heart.

the week in review

Over the past week I have been reading and watching the events in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). On Friday night as I lay down to sleep I reviewed the information from the week. I reviewed the things I had done and said to increase awareness and inform my family and friends of the events. I thought about the amount of wealth, time and power we have as Americans and how little we use those things in defense of others.

I admit that I feel powerless and overwhelmed in the face of global crisis. I have information at my fingertips and see injustice. I want to be able to change things and to use my power as a person to make it right. However I can’t change it with a keystroke, a signature, and all the funds in my bank account or with the sheer force of the emotion that I feel in my heart. I know that the only thing I can do is provide information to the people who want to listen and be faithful to my beliefs. I am one person and I stand against violence, hatred, injustice, cruelty and evil. I stand against the things with every fiber of my being.

The situation in Myanmar is declining. People around the world held their breath at the end of last week hoping that the UN Envoy to Burma would bring Peace to the crisis. Unfortunately those prayers and hopes weren’t answered. A UN statement from Sunday said that the special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has so far been unable to talk to Burma's most senior general, and he is extending his stay in an effort to secure a meeting. The politicians and the head of the Burmese military have ignored the international community and the UN’s effort to bring stability and peace to the region. The news has begun to trickle out again despite the loss of internet and phone lines and it seems that much to our horror the real death count is much higher than anyone could have imagined. Today a photo was released of a monk floating dead in the river beaten and tortured. Thousands of people have been arrested. There are monks that are being tried in mock courts after being forced to take off their sacred robes and cruelly abused in prisons – their only crimes being that they will no longer quietly sit and allow the dictatorship to subject the citizens to poverty, genocide and rape.

I found the words below to really put things into perspective for me.

“We are just the ordinary people struggling and working for our family’s needs everyday. We stage our protests out of our courage to fight against the dictatorship. We are not well-funded, well-supported nor well-organized. Against all the odds and all the bullets from the soldiers rifles, there are monks, students and people out there in Burma marching and sacrificing their lives for what they believe and what they have been longing for - free Burma where everyone is free from fear, free from dictatorship, free to think, free to express one’s belief, free to do a business and free to have a control over one’s own life. For many ordinary people in Burma, their only glimpse of hope to stop the military regime's act of atrocities, is the intervention by the international community. They keep praying that UN or international forces will miraculously appear in Yangon where people are being killed and evidence of corpses are being removed by burning them.”

I know that I cannot sit idly by. I know that I cannot sleep well with the freedom and comfort that has been inherited by my citizenship. I feel that I owe it to myself to give everything I can in an effort to make the world a better place. I received a response the other day after my first email out about this subject and it simply said “I should be removed from your list. I’m not much for changing the world.” Now I realize that there are different ways of living and different ways of looking at the world but that was shocking. That was a friend that I have spent years listening to and supporting. I have given my time and love to someone that will not return kindness to people that cannot help themselves. Please don’t misunderstand my words – I don’t think everyone has to feel the way I do. I don’t think that everyone has to sign a petition to be friends with me but I DO believe strongly that there is no room in my life for people that are simply selfish. Who thinks to themselves ‘I have the power to change the world but I don’t really care and so I’m choosing NOT to. I’m making a conscious decision to deny hope, change and peace to people in need.’

It’s not that I think I am better than anyone. It’s not that I think I know all the answers. It’s that I think and feel and act with compassion and with love towards others. I’m simply trying to be the best person I know how and using my voice. I hope that the world will one day be a place in which war and atrocities are a distant memory. I pray for it everyday.

May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

pictures from myanmar

a simple request

Picture of a sign held by a Buddhist Monk during protests against oppression in Myanmar (Burma). This is his message to the world.

Friends and Family,

This email is somewhat out of the ordinary.

The situation in Myanmar (formerly Burma) has declined to a state of horrific violence and injustice. It is to the point where the military-forces are beating and killing peaceful Buddhist Monk protesters. The protests, beginning on Sept. 19, 2007 were triggered after the government hiked fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. This most recent string of protests reflects a deep-rooted discontent with a repressive military rule that's dated back to the early 1960's. I could enumerate the horrible things that have been going on there for decades, but I believe each one of you is intelligent enough to know the nature of these things.

I am asking each of you to get involved now in the way that you can. I have included below two links. The first is a short video from BBC about the current state of things. The second is a link for you to sign an online petition and letter to the leaders of Government of the People's Republic of China. This is important because, "China has an unequivocal leverage with Burma's military regime." Mahatma Gandhi once said that "You Must Be the Change You Wish To See In the World" and that is what I am asking of you. Small things to ask. This is the thing you can do right now to create a world that we all are proud to live in. This is the thing you can do right now to be the change for the better, the change you wish to see in the world. Use your voice and use your power as a citizen of a country that enjoys freedom to extend hope and freedom to citizens of this planet.

I love all of you and have faith that each one of you will act and help to change the world.

Always,

Lex.


PETITION - 2 Minutes to sign

Video from the BBC

ketchikan graffiti

i had some time to take some pictures today of an awesome basketball court i found. when i got inside i found lots of graffiti... (is that the right spelling?) anyway there are more pictures uploaded here: http://picasaweb.google.com/alexisgillmore/KetchikanSeptember

go check em out and see the town while you are at it.
this is by far my favourite one....

persimmons

i found this today and was amazed by it... just thought i would share.
(image found at: http://www.u-aizu.ac.jp/~niki/photo/index.html )
(poem found at: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1245.html )

'Persimmons'

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down the newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew on the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down,
I teach her Chinese. Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten.
Naked: I've forgotten.
Ni, wo: you me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words
that got me into trouble were
fight and fright, wren and yarn.
Fight was what I did when I was frightened,
fright was what I felt when I was fighting.
Wrens are small, plain birds,
yarn is what one knits with.
Wrens are soft as yarn.
My mother made birds out of yarn.
I loved to watch her tie the stuff;
a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn't ripe or sweet, I didn't eat
but watched the other faces.


My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang. The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father would stay up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents' cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.

He's so happy that I've come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie
three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

-- Li-Young Lee

something like... hope floats

there is something about the ocean... the simple smell and feel of salt water quickly washing up onto the shore and pulling back into the depths of the dark ocean. there is something about living here on the exact spot where salt water and fresh water exchange in perfect harmony. the water runs down from the mountain where it was dropped after evaporating from the place that it returns to. the circle, the symbolism, the cycle... the sheer beauty and pureness that are involved in the circulation of the ocean.

i have long thought that all problems are smaller when by water - these waters come from distant lands and have touched the dreams, hopes and thoughts of millions of people over thousands of years. how can i be so self centered as to believe that my thoughts, worries, anxieties, imperfections, questions and doubts are any bigger or smaller than all of the rest. the ocean is my confidant, my home and the place i go when i need everything to come back into perspective. i often talk of being by water and how much that means to me - it is a place to recharge and literally leave myself.... i am able for that small period of time to forget about all the things that i obsess over and become calmer and more certain.

everything is smaller by the ocean and that is reassuring and soothing.

i am grateful for this summer. i am grateful for this island and for what has come from it. the moments - happy, wonderous, bittersweet and frightening. i am a better version of myself for them.

on arrival here i wondered what the hell i had done. it was pouring rain in black fat drops; it was cold, windy and dark. i slept in a soaking wet tent for three days and cried for at least part of the day during each of them. i wandered around the area and looked at the mountains, trees, sky and ocean and felt like there was something here if i could just be strong enough to stick it out. i found tim ferris' carving in the table at the arctic bar and used it as a touchstone. i watched people and wondered what it would feel like to call this home. mostly i ached out of homesickness and worry that things wouldn't work out. in all my moves and all my searching i have never felt so isolated and so afraid that this was the one time i had gone too far.

four months later i have that kaleidoscope of memories and moments and they are all mine. i no longer need a touchstone or a voice from miles and miles away. i met myself here in the long days. i found the perfect salt to fresh water exchange. i learned what i was really made of.. and what i could aspire to be if i put my heart into it. i could in fact be the best version of myself.

with that said i have great hope. i have great dreams. tonight as the sunsets in a light show of yellow, blue and orange i know (perhaps for the first time) that what i came here to figure out is "what if" and only now can i say i know the answer to that.

the answer is that "if" can happen all it wants and i will remain. those moments of strength and certainty aren't traded or changed when i regress or have a moment. each moment exists... they simply exist in a collage of everything i have done.

tonight i am proud. i am sated. i am certain. all the other things simply wash away back into the depths of the ocean - i can leave whatever impedes my progress on the beach and be certain that when the salt water to fresh water exchange happens that in return i will receive the happy moments that have floated to the top.

the only way is forward

picture at right of when things were easier... i spent all my time being a mom and emma was so small that she never wanted to be away from me.

there is this pressing ache in my heart and in my chest that grows bigger everyday. it never subsides, it is never lessened and it has become more difficult the more time goes by. i miss emma with all of my being. every part of me needs to be with her... i am not whole without her and it hurts me to think that she is doing well without me. (i realize that statement is selfish and shitty) tomorrow is her first day of school and i keep wishing i could just see her for a minute - smell her hair and be close to her for a little while. i want to be the one that takes her to her first day and to hear all about the new things she gets to do. she isn't much of a phone person and so our conversations daily are about 2 minutes.... sometimes it's hard when she forgets to say she loves me or she asks me to call her back when she isn't busy.

these are the sacrifices i made for this summer alone. for this waking dream of work and the outdoors with the sound of the creek running through my mind. the sacrifice that paying for school required... or at least that was the excuse i made. i came to find myself and figure out what it was that i thought was the next step. i keep asking myself if i've done that... if i've found what i was looking for.... and i still don't know the answer. in true form i found a lot of what i wasn't looking for but it was easy to identify and easy to discard. i found some of what i was looking for and have a better idea. i made a plan for the future and got a grip on what it is that i'm wanting... but in the scheme of things did i make the right choice? i sacrificed precious time with the only person on earth that i love in a true and pure way... and i'm not so sure about that decision.

i suppose i'll have to move forward.. onward... through... we can't go around, over or back. the only way is forward.

and on that note...

thank you and goodnight.

I can't stand how cute she is...

photos courtesy of drew anderson