quotables: soul mate

quotables: soul mate

quotables: going further

"Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of the beginning. Probably that’s why we decide we’re done. It’s getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that something strong comes out… I give this advice out of pure experience. Go further than you think you can."

Natalie Goldberg
(via Jody Watley: Style File)

quotables: going further

quotables: writing

"My advice to writers just starting out? Don’t use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college."

Kurt Vonnegut (Armageddon in Retrospect)

via Danyel Smith

quotables: writing

the criteria

not to get all carrie-on-her-laptop-pondering-love/sex-lives-and-whatnot, but...it's september and we're now at the end of wedding season around these parts. and all the festivities have naturally given rise to conversations about relationships, marriage and finding the ever-elusive 'one' people keep going on about. the other day, we had a pre-wedding gathering for my cousin, in which everyone was asked to give their list of the ideal mate.


it reminded me of the time that my girlfriends and i all sat around during happy hour a few years ago and made the same lists. we wrote them down, in detail, and they were hilariously long and incredibly specific. and a little ridiculous. (aside: idris elba was sitting at the next table, but none of us knew who he was. so busy making lists, we MISSED THE IDRIS!). after writing down our lists, and reviewing them, we tore them up. we decided that in all the list-making, we could easily miss someone standing right in front of us, and we could get so hung-up on criteria that we'll lose out on something real. i've tried to hang on this idea, since then. it's incredibly tempting to have criteria and--realistically--everyone has their own criteria even if they've never taken the time to compose a laundry list of expectations. it just doesn't make sense to have a detailed checklist because so few--if any--are going to manage to meet every single requirement on that list. today, however, i came across a quote that essentially sums up not what i want, but what i need.

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

Anais Nin

i think this encompasses whatever i would have on my [non-existent(kinda)] list. now...that's not too much to ask...is it?...er...IS IT?

the criteria

soul food: on taking risks

You have to take risks.
We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Paulo Coelho

Image Source

soul food: on taking risks