"Patience Has Tender Feet." - Austin O'Malley

"Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age. Behold her appearance and her attire! Her countenance is calm and serene as the face of heaven unspotted by the shadow of a cloud; and no wrinkle of grief or anger is seen in her forehead. Her eyes are as the eyes of doves for meekness, and on her eyebrows sit cheerfulness and joy. Her mouth is lovely in silence; her complexion and color that of innocence and security; while, like the virgin, the daughter of Sion, she shakes her head at the adversary, despising, and laughing him to scorn. She is clothed in the robes of the martyrs, and in her hand she holds a sceptre in the form of a cross. She rides not in the whirlwind and stormy tempest of passion, but her throne is the humble and contrite heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of peace." ― Bishop Horne

~~~

"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." ― Rainer Maria Rilke

~~~

"Patience and Love agreed to meet at a set time and place; beneath the twenty-third tree in the olive orchard. Patience arrived promptly and waited. She checked her watch every so often but still, there was no sign of Love.

Was it the twenty-third tree or the fifty-sixth? She wondered and decided to check, just in case. As she made her way over to the fifty-sixth tree, Love arrived at twenty-three, where Patience was noticeably absent.

Love waited and waited before deciding he must have the wrong tree and perhaps it was another where they were supposed to meet.

Meanwhile, Patience had arrived at the fifty-sixth tree, where Love was still nowhere to be seen.

Both begin to drift aimlessly around the olive orchard, almost meeting but never do.

Finally, Patience, who was feeling lost and resigned, found herself beneath the same tree where she began. She stood there for barely a minute when there was a tap on her shoulder. It was Love.

..................................

“Where are you?” She asked. “I have been searching all my life.” “Stop looking for me,” Love replied, “and I will find you.” ― Lang Leav

Fall Running Playlist

"Geronimo" by Shepphard

"Further On" by Bronze Radio Return

"Bailando" (Spanish version) by Enrique Iglesias 

"Blank Space" by Taylor Swift

"Ce Jeu" by Yelle

"Heaven Sent" by Mr. Little Jeans

Links I'm Loving

Just another reason why I'd like to move to London

This song and basically all of Taylor Swift's 1989

Goop's most recent issue - foam rollers and 'womb' space

Letter from Kurt Vonnegut to the people of 2088

A lovely (and true!) quote that Joanna found

People who just made me feel better about life overall

So, I fell in love with Kayla and I'm pretty sure you will too

Dark chocolate homemade Twix bars - Hallelujah!

Once I finish the Divergent series, I'm adding these to my queue

I've made this crazy good tuna salad twice in the past week

Hero of this Story

Couple of the year: Ursula and Cruella DeVille!
A gruesome gang: Cruella, Khaleesi, Tink, Batman, Zombie, 90's gal
My costume, inspired by heroes who move in the dark.
"A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended." - Batman, The Dark Knight

Growing up, Halloween was always my favorite holiday. My mom tells me that when she asked me what I wanted to be, I would always reply with aplomb "something scary."

"Wouldn't you like to be a princess? Or a fairy? How about a ballerina?" she'd suggest.

"But Mom, that's the whole point of Halloween - to be spooky!" I'd say, rolling my eyes at her very tragic lack of awareness.

Halloween was always a time to be wildly creative, a time when I could create and not feel tethered by the assumptions that what I created need be "pretty" or "pleasing" to the eye in some way. My creations, and the creation of my costumed alter ego self, could be as dark and as loony as I wanted. I can still remember the thrill of creating my own costumes (Dracula painted in dripping blood and a drawn-on widow's peak, an Edward-Scissor-Hands-esque waitress who served up a tray of decapitated and dismembered Barbie and Ken dolls with ketchup blood oozing out) and setting up my own Willy Wonka candy factory on the windowsill of my bedroom after the neighborhood haul. After pouring our loot onto the floor, counting our pieces and sorting them into the appropriate piles of chocolates, sweets, sour things (my favorite), and the inedible amalgam of confusing candies reserved for my parents (i.e., O'Henry's, Good & Plenty's, Sugar Daddies, etc.), me, my sister and brother would take our bulging pillowcases filled with confections to our rooms to eat at our own discretion. (Note: the fact that my parents allowed us to take about 2 pounds worth of straight sugar to keep in our bedrooms seems both negligently ludicrous and deeply wise at the same time.)

Once in the confines of my room, I'd remove the wrappers from Starbursts and roll them together in my palms to create Starburst flavor-melange lollipops which I'd then place on toothpicks. I'd "glue" Twix bar sticks to the tops of Crunch bars with pieces of torn Tootsie Rolls, and slice mini Milky Ways into halves to stick (cut side down) onto the tops of 100 Grand bars and sprinkle with Nerds. As always, the reward for me was not so much in the trick-or-treating, or eating the candy but in the creation of my costume (and its accompanying shock value) and hybrid candy concoctions.

These days Halloween isn't so much about candy (though I'll never turn down a piece of black licorice or dark chocolate) or costume creations (every year I just want to be Hermione any way) as much as it is about admiring the irony of how the flora and fauna around me begins to wither, fade and die in such spectacularly brilliant displays of color, enjoying the delicious produce that begins to crop up in the stores for consumption (gem colored squash of all kinds and sweet and tart Pink Lady and Honey-crisp apples to name a few) and sensing the cooling temperatures that hold the promise of nights spent indoors with friends playing games and sipping spiced pumpkin soup. I find that the internal creative juice begins to flow more as the natural world begins to die; as if it is only without the distraction of nature's brushstrokes that we can begin to create our own work, as there is no competing with the work of this planet. The more I grow up, too, the more I realize the importance of observing the death and eternal renewal of nature, for, in nature, death, by its nature, holds the promise of birth (or rebirth). Awareness of death and acceptance of death (the "scary" stuff that as a little girl I always sensed Halloween opened the doors for) can be intensely healing, energizing and helpful for our creative selves. Since often times limitation spurs creativity, knowing our limitations as mortal human beings can allow us to be more creative, careful, intentional, perhaps even more kind. We might be more acutely aware that we are all made of and from the same stuff, and that we are the creators (and the heroes) of our own life stories.