how quiet must our mouths be in order for our hearts to feel the stillness of light?
how often do we need to speak loudly about it until this happens?
if we blindfold ourselves, can we see more clearly than if we just close our eyes? does the temptation to look outweigh the possibility for growth?

--

Pina Bausch explains that keeping her eyes down behind closed lids, or centering them, made a great difference in how she performed. Something this small can make a difference. Yesterday after our walk, I marveled at this. I thought about how in the movie Garden State, Andrew Largemen points out: "It's amazing how much of [his] life has been determined by a quarter inch piece of plastic."

--

During our walk we came across a large empty space right in front of the water. I tried to slide the balls of my feet across the floor and you commented, "it'd be lovely for a milonga, wouldn't it?" and I almost collapsed to the floor with incredulity that you could tell what I was thinking just from the slight movement in my feet- and you have never even stepped foot at a milonga. You laughed and I realized just how amazing it is to have known someone for more than a decade and still have the kind of friendship we have.
--

I met Paritosh only twice, but the second time he made me give him my address. Gibran's The Prophet arrived in a neatly wrapped package. It's been 4 years and I haven't returned it yet.

I saw this on a chalkboard on the street today:

(Gibran writes):

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.