2012

This New Year's Eve I am going to lie under the stars with the people I love. I am going to think, and feel, and be. This year I will be brave. I will love and be loved. I will drink wine and climb mountains. I will be more than content, I will be free.

from A well traveled woman 




1.sow 2. nourish 3. appreciate  4. be brave

Wind

“If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.”

- Toni Morrison

Understand

“A person hears only what they understand.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ah yes

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

- C.S. Lewis

Impostor

Our innate need for connection makes the consequences of disconnection that much more real and dangerous. Sometimes we only think we're connected. Technology, for instance, has become a kind of impostor for connection, making us believe we're connected when we're really not--at least not in the ways we need to be. In our technology crazed world, we've confused being communicative with feeling connected. Just because we're plugged in, doesn't mean we feel seen and heard. 

~ Brené Brown

Paris

“Paris is always a good idea.” ― Audrey Hepburn

Exactly

“Sometimes, she reflected, she dressed for courage, sometimes for success, and sometimes for the consolation of knowing that whatever else went wrong, at least she liked her clothes.” ― Emma Bull

Cups

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” ― Ray Bradbury

Everything

“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.” ― chuck palahniuk

Bookstore

“What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore it knows it's not fooling a soul.” ― Neil Gaiman

Light

"Light creates ambiance and feel of a place, as well as the expression of a structure."
-Le Corbusier

Pace

“We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are.” Marjorie Hinckley

Voice

"...I was searching for something outside myself-- some sound that did not belong to me, that was not a part of me and was never to be created by me. And all the time I could have spent investigating my own instrument was instead trying to imitate [the] 'perfect voice'... Remember your true voice can only be arrive at with a relaxed concentration and careful attention to individuality."

-Carolyn Sloan
"Finding Your Voice", page 46

Judgment

Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship. 

~ Brené Brown

Eyes

"I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile, because it’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you, but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony."

Roald Dahl, Danny, the Champion of the World

Riches

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”

- Oscar Wilde  

Pain

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

- William Faulkner

Soul

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities