This morning I sit here at my desk at home on a Monday morning; a time I would normally be in my office at work.  I am enjoying the first day of a week off for a stay at home vacation.  Of course there are things I need to do, but I plan on sleeping late, reading, listening to music and taking life a bit easier than usual.  (I smile from just writing that!). 

In the spirit of my first day off, my offering today is shorter than usual and consists of the borrowed words of others.  It is my hope that the lesser quantity of words will allow the meaning to be larger and easier to see.  The thoughts expressed have great meaning to me.  I am grateful for these favorite written companions of my life and the pronounced significance they have to me.  I hope you find them meaningful too.

Relationships – of all kinds – are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost. Kaleel Jamison, The Nibble Theory and the Kernel of Power 

 

Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time – when pursued like a bandit – will behave like one, always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you’re banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won’t. You have to admit that you can’t catch it. That you’re not supposed to catch it. At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you.”  Elizabeth Gilbert  

 

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. Sir Cecil Beaton 

 

 I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  Maya Angelou

 

Every day’s a good day.  Some are just better than others!  I hope yours is a rewarding one.