Baby's Arms

Lullaby

Sleep sound my darling boy, I hope you are more comforted than I in this bed tonight. You can see into my heart because language doesn't make as much sense to you. Lovers and children, and children and lovers, they see to the soul as clearly as looking through glass. Their beauty in their simplicity.

I can't believe among all the rubble these feelings (feelings?) are still there and still so strong and clear. I look back over the last couple months and I see a different person who has emerged. And this is what my mind sees when I rescue a cat from a tree with a tiny red fire truck.

New York, New York. You have changed my whole world. Stronger, darker, smarter; so completely stripped. Bare. But that pin through my heart I can still feel. More than ever the farther I dance (or trudge) away.

I don't know if I'm in the clouds or fastened to this concrete ground.

I'll try to hold this little boy and find the words to some lullaby I haven't heard since I was a child and my mind floats away from me. I wonder if this spell will break or if this is my reality.

Stare at the Clouds

Stare at the Clouds from samanthaleev on 8tracks.

New Sleigh Bells

How to be Sweet among the Stone.

What is to be successful and what is to be happy?

What is one worth without the other?

I learned in "Pursuit of Justice" that Aristotle believed in the balance of the virtues.

I went from Happiness to Success. Both incomplete with out the other.

I watch the successful and how lonely they are.

Have you ever been more lonely?

You live here, to work here.

To make the money...

To live here.

To work here. To make the money.

I need something else.

Between Two Points

UWS

My dearest, you might be my only link to sanity and I'm about to leave you too. Every few weeks my home changes to a new subway stop and I think I want to cry. I think I'm happy, am I shaking now? Is this living? Between the thoughts of telling you I'm not coming to you via an internet screen and plunging into yet another fairy, I can't seem to figure out what is real. I don't know if I'm dreaming or awake.

She asked me in her car if "it was worth it?" Well it's hard. Everyday is hard. Is that worth it?

I just sit on the floor and wonder if people or experiences are what I'm living for. Maybe it's both. Everyone else seems to hold on while I just let go. And let go. And let go. And let GO. "Hello, nice to meet you, I love you, now I feel it's time to go." A few linger in my mind longer than others but then my head starts physically moving forward and everything and I mean everything tangible gets left BEHIND.

I sit in the kitchen of the apartment with the balcony overlooking Central Park with a beautiful girl born with no running water and watch her connect with a GRINNING child who loves her like she is his very own being. I have never been more intimidated in my life as I have felt in NEW YORK CITY and I'm supposed to rise every morning. Nothing you are or have done or have struggled though is more than those of the faces who stare at you on the subway and trains Every. Single. Day. You are not remarkable here.

I don't know who I am. What did I used to be? I thought I was remarkable.

From pull-out couches and $40 dollars to my name to house keepers and apartments on the Upper West Side. My head does not slow down because my feet never can. Sleeping is a luxury, and one I do not get to indulge in often.

What will I be when I leave here?

I went from Googling Shakespeare to anti-fatigue tips.

Love Vigilantes

Socrates Sculpture Park

Life is so good. I woke up this morning: Had my first day off in over a week, went to the market and got some food, dropped off our laundry, and came back to the apartment. I love walking around Queens. It's beautiful, it's real New York and the sun shone all morning. Our new roommates are unreal. They're both so different but so interesting and we can't wait to know them better. We're so lucky. I think one of my roommates is going to help feed my frozen yogurt addiction, since we've done most of our bonding while at 16 Handles (this amazing froyo place). Later after my other roommate told me he wanted to take me on a "Welcome to Astoria" day, we walked around town with his friends which ended up at the Socrates Sculpture Park overlooking Manhattan at sunset. Really? Is my life real? It was beautiful. It feels like moving to Austin all over again. Amazing people, an amazing city and endless new adventure. I'm so happy.

George Harrison

It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.

TED: Born to Run?

Christopher McDougall explores the mysteries of the human desire to run. How did running help early humans survive -- and what urges from our ancient ancestors spur us on today? At TEDxPennQuarter, McDougall tells the story of the marathoner with a heart of gold, the unlikely ultra-runner, and the hidden tribe in Mexico that runs to live.

There She Goes

Daring Adventure

Austin was for my head, most definitely for my brain.
Ireland was for my soul, most definitely for my courage.
New Jersey was for my heart, most definitely for my first love.
New York City is for my darling, most definitely for my sister.
Australia will be for adventure, most definitely for freedom. 

If felt so simple.

It felt so simple. from samanthaleev on 8tracks.

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

"Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that, from early infancy, the mind of the child is poisoned with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood, he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. It is for that purpose that America has within a short time spent four hundred million dollars. Just think of it--four hundred million dollars taken from the produce of the people. For surely it is not the rich who contribute to patriotism. They are cosmopolitans, perfectly at home in every land. We in America know well the truth of this. Are not our rich Americans Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany, or Englishmen in England? And do they not squandor with cosmopolitan grace fortunes coined by American factory children and cotton slaves? Yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like the Russian Tsar, when any mishap befalls him, as President Roosevelt did in the name if his people, when Sergius was punished by the Russian revolutionists."

Trick Your Brain for Happiness

Check out this link I found on Berkeley's Website:

Here

The best-selling author of Buddha's Brain explains how we can boost our positive emotions and positive experiences.

Ghost Town

Adapt or Die.

Some situations just force you to grow up. For some reason I always think of the Holocaust when I think of human behavioral mutation. This is because it's baffling to me to think which parts of human behavior would immerse in that kind of situation. Does man become Good or Evil, or does it depend on there genes and past experiences? Anyway, what I'm getting to is...living in a one bedroom apartment in the middle of Manhattan with four girls. It's absurd watching each of us adapt and grow out of necessity. We will either figure out how to survive or die. Adapt or die. I think this is a great lesson in evolution and growth. We've heard that the most successful species "adapt or die," but it's far more applicable than that.

In your everyday life, you must change and work through situations or be crushed by them. This can all go back to my thought of all life as continual lessons. I choose to call them lessons, because if I'm not learning from them then I'm stagnant, and nothing will change and life will remain the same and so with my perception of it. But the point is to have new and deeper experiences and to better be able to handle the instability of life.

It's so interesting watching each of us working through our daily problems while working through 40-60 hour work weeks, barely sleeping with aching feet and very little patience. The funny thing is, I've never seen such beauty and maturity out of any one of them as I have in the past few weeks. It seems like when it was absolutely necessary to be mature and problem solvers, that part of us emerged. I can see us each changing every day in many ways, and I wonder who we'll be at the end of this experience.

More soon.

The World Won't Let Me Go.

I'm sorry I had to leave you there. You feel abandonment and I feel freedom. It's not that I don't love you, it's that I do. I very much and truly do. For you to love me I must leave, because in order to be me, I could not stay. There's more to do and more to see and from where ever I am to where ever you are, I feel you. There is no separation between us two. Each thing you've taught me stays with my every move and I cannot see a single frame without your hue over the picture. I am me because of you. Take me with you, I take you with me.

I am me because I leave. And I love you very much.