actions

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying."

My initial response to this snippet is to think of all the times that someone in my life has not followed their words with actions. This could be anyone, and I am not thinking of one specific person, even so the thought persists. Blame, blame, blame. Yet that lowers me, especially I assume, in Emerson's eyes.

My internal dialogue should be one of asking myself if my actions are yelling so loudly about something else that the things I posit to be true are being doubted or overshadowed completely. Are my words true?

I certainly try. I certainly fail. Sometimes, occasionally, I live up to something worthwhile. Hopefully one day, I'll listen more. Maybe tomorrow.

Light

On reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Reading Annie Dillard has left me feeling as though I need to look more closely, to see nature appear and reappear, to feel the present moment, to see if evil is lurking near; is that really evil?

How can I make the time to catch more than a simple glimpse of things and see them from a different perspective in my hurried day to day life?

Those are the thoughts of the day, week, lifetime...

#3

On Friday my daughter turned three years old. It was a beautiful day, not nearly so hot as the day she was born, and we woke her with singing and birthday cake. As I brought her down the stairs, she rubbed her sleepy eyes, and didn't get too excited. I asked, "Nora, is this a good way to wake up?" She answered, "I don't know if you should have woke me up for this..." My mom said that this won't be the first time I would like her to get more excited about something than she will. I did the classic "look-straight-ahead and do not smile at all" on any ride, be it at a county fair or outside of Wal-Mart when I was a tot.



Nora seems to have grown up more in the last few months than I've realized. I have to almost study the past to clearly see all the changes. She dresses herself these days and spits out toothpaste. Those are so minute, but from my perspective so important. She has complained about her friends at daycare not always playing with her, and I know that she has some of my qualities to overcome. I can never really decide if I'm a loner at heart or not. I know I desperately miss time to myself when I don't get it.

There are so many changes to log away, and I hope I find the time to do it all. Nora is always telling me that when she gets big and I get little, she'll let me buckle the top part of the car seat or buy me ice-cream cones. She says I can pick out my own clothes and that she'll sometimes take a bath with me. I love the logic. If she is getting bigger, then at some point I must have to get smaller.