quotes

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Did you know?

Her eyes lit up as she saw me walk by.

“Ming (Auntie) Soapie!!!” The seven year old tilted her chin up to look at me.

“Yes?” I answered.

“You’re a nurse right?” she asked in her high pitched, cute voice.

I nodded. Most people didn’t recognize me on the weekend, when I wasn’t wearing scrubs.

“Did you know, Continue reading →

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If You Only Do What You Like

 

“Mom’s eyes held yours for a moment.

‘I don’t like or dislike the kitchen.
I cooked because I had to.
I had to stay in the kitchen
so you could all eat and go to school.

How could you only do what you like?
There are things you have to do
whether you like it or not.’

Mom’s expression asked, What kind of question is that?
And then she murmured, ‘If you only do what you like,
who’s going to do what you don’t like?”

― Shin Kyung-sook, Please Look After Mom
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It’s a Good Calling, then…

One panel featured during the "More Than a Number" Exhibit featuring the stories of Cambodian Genocide Survivors. 2012.

The “More Than a Number” Exhibit featuring the testimonies of Cambodian Genocide Survivors. 2012.

“We live in a world where bad stories are told,
stories that teach us life doesn’t mean anything
and that humanity has no great purpose.

It’s a good calling, then, to speak a better story.
How brightly a better story shines.
How easily the world looks to it in wonder.
How grateful we are to hear these stories,
and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”

― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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To Spend Christmas Alone

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a giant wooden bear. Harajaku, Tokyo.

It’s not so bad, you just need a plan:

1) Start a few weeks early, mailing out cards and gifts in advance. (Just because you can’t be with your friends and family on Christmas Day doesn’t mean you don’t send your season’s greetings.)

2) Go grocery shopping before Christmas Day, because on the day of, the stores will be closed and you’ll be left hungry. Since you’ll be alone, there ain’t no one to cook for you but yourself. (And if you don’t know how to cook, maybe it’s a good time to start learning..)

On Monday and Tuesday I had to work as usual. It was a cold and rainy evening commute. Without an umbrella, I couldn’t walk to the full service grocery store (aka ‘Whole Paycheck’) so I walked to a nearby store and picked up ham, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately they didn’t have real potatoes or fresh green beans so I was obligated to buy boxed potatoes and prewashed green beans. Don’t judge. =P  

3) All the love you would have given to your friends and family- give to your neighbors and those around you instead. 

The reason why I couldn’t spend Christmas with my family is because Continue reading →

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“The clock had run down…”

new england sunsets (fall 2011)

new england sunsets (fall 2011)

That was it, he realized; the clock had run down. All of the clocks in the room had wound down- the tambours and carriage clocks on the mantel, the banjo and mirror and Viennese regulator on the walls, the Chelsea ship’s bells on the roll top desk, the ogee on the end table, and the seven-foot walnut-cased Stevenson grandfather’s clock, made in Nottingham in 1801, with its moon-phase window on the dial and pair of robins threading flowery buntings around the Roman numerals. When he imagined inside the case of that clock, dark and dry and hollow, and the still pendulum hanging down its length, he felt the inside of his own chest and had a sudden panic that it, too, had wound down.

When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart.

When he realized that the silence by which he had been confused was that of all of his clocks having been allowed to wind down, he understood that he was going to die in the bed where he lay.

-Paul Harding, Tinkers
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“Tell ’em about the dream, Martin…”

“I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

…

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character… Continue reading →