A friend of this page named Judy sent this to me…you KNOW I love it! (I do wish there were just a few more curses, of course, but otherwise: a perfect message!)
Onward, bad-asses!
🙂
LG
TEMPORARY TATTOOS, TEMPORARY LIFE…
Dear Ones —
I know a woman who gets tattoos all the time. She acquires new tattoos the way I might buy a new pair of earrings. She wakes up in the morning and announces, "I think I'll go get a new tattoo today." If you ask her what kind of tattoo she's planning on getting, she'll say casually, "I dunno….I'll figure it out when I get to the tattoo shop. Or I'll just let the artist surprise me."
Now, this woman is not a teenager. She's a grown woman with adult children, and she runs a successful business. She's also really cool, uniquely beautiful, and one of the freest spirits I've ever met.
When I asked her how she could mark up her body so casually and so permanently, she said, "Oh, but you misunderstand: It's not permanent! It's temporary."
Confused, I asked, "You mean, all your tattoos are temporary?"
She smiled like a sexy rock 'n roll Buddha and said, "No, honey. My tattoos are permanent — it's my BODY that's temporary. And so is yours. We're here on earth for a very short while. I just want to decorate my temporary self as playfully and beautifully as I can, while I still have time."
I love this so much, I can't even tell you.
I myself am not covered with tattoos. (Although I do have two of them. Before I went traveling for Eat, Pray, Love, I had two words written into my forearms in white ink: COURAGE and COMPASSION.) But I do want to live the most vividly decorated temporary life I can. I don't just mean physically. I mean emotionally, spiritual, intellectually. I don't want to be afraid of bright colors, or big love, or major decisions, or new experiences, or risky creative endeavors, or sudden changes, or even great failure.
BECAUSE IT'S ALL JUST TEMPORARY.
So let's try to be a little more playful with ourselves, OK?
How do you want to decorate your beautiful, transient self? Your beautiful, transient world?
HEART,
LG
Rest in Peace, Maya Angelou, Bringer of Light.
1928 – 2014
Today she rises to her final home:
Safe passage, Dr. Angelou. We bow our heads in gratitude for your gifts, your courage, your words, your power.
In addition to her well-known autobiographies, Maya Angelou has steadily written poetry over the years. In this video Professor Angelou recites her poem, "An…
OPEN HOUSE THIS SUNDAY (June 1) between 12 – 1:30pm!
Anybody wanna buy my house?
It's niiiiiiiice….
🙂
If you're interested, contact my friend Rayya Elias to schedule a viewing. Here's her email address:
propertymanager3R@gmail.com
Otherwise, just enjoy this dorky video tour I made of my home!!
Onward to the next chapter I go! I've loved living in this place so much. But my favorite house is always the next one!
HEART,
LG
Eat, Pray, Crib | Buy author Elizabeth Gilbert's beautiful home. | eatpraycrib.com
www.eatpraycrib.com
Dear Ones — I’m selling my beautiful perfect house. Why? Because I’m a restless person and I need to move all the time. It’s time to move, then! Otherwise, there is no sane reason to sell this exquisite and lovingly renovated “four-over-four” Italianate Victorian house that was built in 1869 by the…
Dear Ones —
I woke up this morning feeling incredibly grateful to you.
I'm always grateful to you, of course, but this morning my gratitude seemed doubled, and I think I know why.
Allow me to explain. Yesterday I read the article in Vanity Fair that Monica Lewinsky wrote about "The Culture of Humiliation" and the years that she has spent enduring public shame. If you haven't read this article, do read it. It's intelligent and thoughtful and self-accountable and completely absent of cheap self-pity. Her essay holds up a mirror to the some of the most disturbing realities about our contemporary culture of gossip and humiliation. She particularly discusses what a toxic and bullying place the Internet can be. (Monica was the first, but not the last, Internet casualty.) And she is absolutely right: The Internet can be a monster.
Of course, the Internet can also be a place of rich humanity and shared grace — depending completely upon how it's used.
My feeling about the Internet is that it's neither good nor evil; it is deeply morally neutral. It has no consciousness of its own. It becomes what we make of it. It's just a hugely powerful neutral energy source (like the sun, or money) which can be harnessed by humans to either destroy or create.
We blame and praise the Internet constantly for its impact, but when we do so, we speak of it as if it is something separate from us, when really it is just US. It is nothing but a portrait of us, in all our meanness and all our goodness.
So I woke up this morning wanting to thank you all for having made this page, at least, into an oasis of creativity and kindness and positivity. I hesitated for years to sign up for Facebook — afraid of opening myself up to the attacks of trolls and brickbats. But in the year and half that I've had this page, all you have ever offered me is love and generosity, and a willingness to be open and searching, as well as playful and absurd. You are always good to me, and you are always good to each other.
I have come to love it here. I look forward every morning to visiting this page and encountering your voices and your thoughts. The sense of connectedness, intelligence and shared aspiration uplifts me more than you might know.
You took this massive neutral energy source and you shaped into something small and lovely here. That means the world to me.
It's a pleasure to know you, is what I'm saying. And thank you.
Heart,
LG
