Uploading pictures regularly to Flickr.

Passion: Music for the Last Temptation of Christ (soundtrack) — Peter Gabriel

At the end of our time she looked thoughtfully at the ceiling and said, these questions that keep bubbling up, these questions that won't go away: this is the sound of your life waking up.
— June 1, 2004


To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely -- this is for man what running is for a horse. — Blaise Pascal

As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night. — Dorothy Parker

All that is true is hidden deep in the body of the world and cannot be taken by force. it must be dreamed and attended and received with awe and affection. — Rikki Ducornet





I can be reached at romanlily ~at~gmail.com. Or you can join the notify list here.

May 30, 2005
Questions

At the end of the day, there are always more questions than answers. There are more questions than anything — than dollars, than friends, than tears.

And I think this is just fine. I'm returning to the idea that questioning is our natural state, one from which we've become too estranged in our lofty, rational uncuriosity.

My housemate Tom works occasionally as a visiting blacksmith at the Atlanta History Center. He's there in the History Center's forge, with smoke and hot metal and huge heavy tools, sticking things into giant fires and pulling them out glowing. The adults come through the forge on their tour, look around casually, sniff, move on. "Cool." They don't ask questions. But the kids come through, and they want to know everything about everything.

cut silk samples, Northside Drive

"Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation — in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open." — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

magnolia matchsticks

So there are always questions. And lately I am learning to love these questions, instead of backing off in sheer terror whenever they show up at night. A good question is every bit as valuable as a good answer.

I wonder:
Who am I in this?
At what point will I feel at home in my own skin?
What am I most afraid of?
What is on the other side of this?
...or is there not an "other side"?
If they make a U2 edition iPod, why don't they make a Rufus Wainwright edition iPod?
What is it about Rufus Wainwright, anyhow?
How do I move through these incredibly painful changes while honoring those around me that are also hurting?
How do I remain soft?
How do I open myself instead of shutting down?
Why is it so hard to get used to the idea that I am inevitably going to disappoint other people, and that's just a fact of life when you're a grownup?

the hydrangea in the back yard of the abandoned house

Lately I come home from my client's office at the end of the day and I write in my journal and I mark engagements on my calendar in magic marker and I do laundry and I think about where I'll be in five years. It's terrifying to not really know. Terrifying and kind of exciting.
me, doing my best impression of a smoker. Photo by dearoot.