Lately, I've been the first time I heard the morning call to prayer in Istanbul.
I remember waking up to a haunting, tinny, megaphone song floating in through our window.
I remember being confused and scared for a few seconds ... until I was awake enough to realize that I was in Turkey and it was normal.
I remember my mind turning - as it does - to the things it wanted to be anxious about on that trip (bird flu, political violence, money, homesickness).
I remember the sheets on the bed - a comforter covered with a clean, white duvet and no top sheet.
I remember sitting up and looking out the window and the sky being silvery gray with mist and the cool light that comes before dawn.
It’s been 9 years but suddenly it is as if it happened last Tuesday.
Playlistening
Some new and old things on rotation lately ...
Enjoy!
Happiness
Happiness is 60 percent good habits, 30 percent deep understanding of yourself, and 10 percent blind faith. You have to wake up in the morning and instead of thinking, "I don't want to get out of bed. I hate my life," you think, "I'm going to get out of bed and make some tea and think some good thoughts, goddamn it."
Primordial Radishy Love
But when a radish meets another radish and they see each other clearly and support and love each other for their sharpness and their bitterness and their incomparable zing (yes, I am beating this metaphor into the ground. That's what we radishes do!), it's a beautiful thing. The very best of everything springs forth from that kind of primordial, aching radishy love.
Heather Havrilesky
CHANGE
Does anyone else feel change in the air? Maybe it's the spring. Maybe it's the astrological events. Maybe it's this age ( ... nearing 30 over here).
I was a very convicted young person. I thought I had things figured out. I knew what I believed. But it seems like the older I get the less I know - in a good way.
In the last year, scary things have happened (a melanoma diagnosis) and revelatory things have happened (an ADD diagnosis) and wonderful things have happened (a sweet new nephew) and banal things have happened. And a person keeps seeking and a person finds out that maybe there aren't any answers or tricks or requirements or secrets to any of it.
Maybe it comes down to this: if you are lucky enough to be 'free' - unattached and unconstrained - and you want adventure, you simply reach for it. Courageously or terrifyingly or both. And then you see what happens.
On that note ... I've been working on a new song. My sister says "More! I want more!" Here's a snippet. What do you think?
