One Single Moment of True Joy

 

Isn’t it funny how the world changes sometimes? How the streets you’ve walked your entire life suddenly seem darker, colder? How the silence isn’t so quiet anymore? How eyes you’ve barely even noticed now look at nothing, but you? How the walk home every night is no longer a routine, but a victory? And then you begin to wonder...maybe it’s not the world that changed, maybe it’s just you…and then, suddenly, you begin to wonder all over again…

There are days when everything seems wrong, when little things hurt you for no good reason, and then there are days like today, when the world just sings to you, from the minute you can open your eyes in the morning to the minute you shut them again at night…

It is easy to forget how perfectly life works out. When you are down, you believe that things never work in your favor. But if you look back, you see that, in many cases, things happened exactly the way they needed to…
~ Roswell Missing Episode ~

The bad things in life open your eyes to the good things you weren’t paying attention to before…
~ Good Will Hunting ~

It’s what you learn after you know it that counts…

~ Doubleday, Earl Weaver ~

Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course we wouldn’t fall in love or be who we are. After all, seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go. But it’s comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away…
~ Sex and the City ~

That’s the thing - sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else…
~ Five People You Meet in Heaven 

Sometimes you just want to put other people’s happiness before yours, because you love them, because they deserve it. Sometimes you want to go out of your way for other people just because you know that it’s important that they get a chance to smile once in a while…

I do honestly believe that people enter our lives for a reason - that everyone we meet, who forms an impression, has something to teach us. Everything that happens to us is an experience, and because of that it can never be bad. An experience can only be good because it all serves to shape the person that we are, the person that we become…
~ My So-Called Life ~ 

Time has a way of making everything alright. It’s just there is not enough of it…
~ Bright Eyes - Conor Oberst ~ 

 

There is a story about the Greek Gods; they were bored so they invented human beings, but they were still bored so they invented love, then they weren’t bored any longer. So they decided to try love for themselves. And finally, they invented laughter, so they could stand it…
~ Feast of Love ~

There’s nothing like the deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons…

~ Stephen Chbosky ~

It’s a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself, makes you wonder what else you can do, that you’ve forgotten about…
~ American Beauty ~ 

It’s a powerful thing when you get your biggest wish in one moment…

~ Dawson's Creek ~

Do you ever have those moments in life where everything’s okay? You know what I mean? Just for like one moment, everything is great… when you catch yourself in a moment and you’re like…
"Wait! Wait! …I’m happy!" …
~ Reality Bites ~

Yeah, it’s the strangest thing, but it all makes perfect sense – funny how life falls in place when you dare to take a chance…
~ Break Me Down - LeAnn Rimes ~

What are we, after all, without our memories, without our dreams?…
~ Nicholas Sparks ~

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware– beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one…
~ A Cab Ride I'll Never Forget ~

Sometimes it seems like we’re all living in some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It’s good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth: that when you really look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they’re actually…beautiful…

~ My So-Called Life ~

A single moment of true joy is powerful enough to supersede a lifetime of sorrow…

~ Dawson's Creek ~

Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? It’s not on the calendar, it’s not a birthday, it’s not a new year, it’s an event – big or small - something that changes us, ideally  gives us hope, a new way of living and looking at the world, letting go of old habits, old memories. What’s important is that we never stop believing we can have a new beginning, but it’s also important to remember amid all the crap are a few things really worth holding on to…At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don’t really expect it. It’s like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than your dream. The castle, well it may not be a castle. And it’s not so important that it’s happily ever after – just that it’s happy right now. See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you. And once in a while, people may even take your breath away… At some point you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out, they fence you in. Life is messy, that’s how we’re made. So you can waste your life drawing lines…or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross. Here’s what I know. If you’re willing to take a chance…the view from the other side…is spectacular… Messing up…it’s what makes a person. It’s how we learn; where we find joy. And the things you don’t plan for…are the things you never see coming…

~ Begin the Begin - Gray's Anatomy ~ 

Stumbled upon & randomly picked at luaquotes.com

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If Thou...

Must Love me...

If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love's sake only. Do not say

"I love her for her smile...her look...her way

Of speaking gently,...for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" --
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or changed for thee, --and love, so wrought

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

"If Thou Must Love Me" By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Fear

Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is quite small. He has a vivid imagination. He composes horror music in the middle of the night. He is not very social, and he keeps to himself at political meetings. His past is a mystery. He warned us not to talk to each other about him, adding that there is nowhere any of us could go where he wouldn't hear us. We were quiet.  When we began to talk to each other, he changed. His manners started to seem pompous, and his snarling voice sounded rehearsed.

Two dragons guard Fear's mansion. One is a ceramic and Chinese. The other is real. If you make it past the dragons and speak to him close up, it is amazing to see how fragile he is. He will try to tell you stories. Be aware. He is a master of disguises and illusions. Fear almost convinced me that he was a puppet-maker and I was a marionette.

Speak  out boldly, look him in the eye, startle him. Don't give up. Win his respect, and he will never bother you with small matters.

Excerpts from The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler

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Childhood Reverie

Perhaps it was an illusion. Perhaps not.  Something about furry creatures symbolized all of my youthful enthusiasm. 

There were four roly-poly puppies. Three black and one brown. Born into our family. They were magical. Their sharp little puppy teeth nibbled at my childish hands. To inhale their sweet smells was to drink in a concoction of sugar dust and ocean spray. To roll with them, giggling and conspiring, was to know joy.

One day they escaped from their confines to race, unbidden, down the hall.

But the sweetest memory of all was a puppy, too tired from play, falling asleep on my chest. Innocence slumbering on innocence.

Is it any wonder that my childhood ambition was to be a veterinarian?
(Later all that would change ad the puppies would be sold.)

But for the moment...they gave sweet love, uncomplicated and pure.

And for a fleeting time, precious puppy kisses.

Excerpts from Childhood Reverie by Ashley David Prend

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Pure Salt - No More, No Less

An aging Hindu master sent his apprentice to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

“How does it taste?” the master asked.

“Bitter,” spit the apprentice.

The master laughed and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. Again he asked the apprentice to drink it. The master asked, “How does it taste?”

“Fresh,” replied the apprentice.

 “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.

“No,” answered the young man.

The master replied, “The pain of life is pure salt - no more and no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things….. Stop being in a glass. Become a lake.”

~ Unknown ~

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Sayonara No Natsu

Hikaru umi ni kasumu fune wa
(A ship veiled in the shining sea)
Sayonara no kiteki nokoshimasu
(Leaves behind a steam of goodbye)
Yurui saka wo orite yukeba
(If I went down that loose hill,)
Natsu iro no kaze ni aeru kashira
(would I meet the summer coloured wind?)



Watashi no ani sore wa melody
(My love is a melody)
Takaku hikuu utau no
(which I sing high and low)
Watashi no ai sore wa kamome
(My love is a seagull)
Takaku hikuku tobu no
(that flies high and low)
*Do 2x*
Yuuhi no naka yonde mitara
(If I tried to call out in the sunset,)
Yasahii anata ni aeru kashira
(I wonder if I'd encounter the gentle you)



Dareka ga hiku piano no oto
(The sound of a piano that somebody plays)
Uminari mitaini kikoemasu
(very much resembles the rumbling of the sea)
Osoi gogo wo yukikau hito
(Do the people come and go late in the afternoon)
Natsu iro no yume wo hakobu kashira
(carry a summer coloured dream too?)


Watashi no ai sore wa daiari
(My love is a diary)
Hibi no peji tsuzuru no
(that spells the pages of my life)
Watashi no ai sore wa kobune
(My love is a boat)
Sora no umi wo yuku no
(that goes throughout the empty sea)


Yuuhi no naka furikaereba
(If I looked back in the sunset,)
Anata wa watashi wo sagasu kashira
(I wonder if you'd be looking for me)




Sanpo michi ni yureru kigi wa
(On the promenade shaking trees)
Sayonara no kage wo otoshimasu
(cast shadows of good-bye)
Furui chaperu kazami no tori
(Can the old chaperu and chicken weather vane)
Natsu iro no machi wa mieru kashira
(be seen in the summer coloured town?)
Kinou no ai sore wa namida
(Yesterday's love is nothing more but tears)
Yagate kawaki kieru no
(they will soon dry out and disappear)



Ashita no ai sore wa refuran
(Tomorrow's love is a mere refrain) 
Owari no nai kotoba
(words that have no end)
Yuuhi no naka meguri aeba
(If we met by chance in the sunset,)
Anata wa watashi wo daku kashira
(I wonder if you'd embrace me.)


Performed by Aoi Teshima
Composed by Satoshi Takebe, Up On Poppy Hill OST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HrnaVzqRfs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BxhIM_EfhM

Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world. ~ George Santayana

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When we are not afraid to show our feelings in a song.

Joy Unmasked

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which you laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is greater than joy.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

- Khalil Gibran, The Prophet - 

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