“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” (Martin Buber)
“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” (Colette)
My world lost a little piece of sunshine today.
Miles Murphy is here no more and this makes my heart hurt.
I cannot believe that he is gone.
I miss him more than I can ever say.
“Where thou art - that - is Home.” (Emily Dickinson)
“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.” (Christian Morgenstern)
what is it exactly that makes a home?
i look around my condo, finally filled with my things and my pets and i wonder, when will it be home?
is it a matter of time?
or is it something more?
i stare at the walls but they are silent on this night.
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” (Carol Sobieski)
“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” (Garrison Keillor)
The sunrise over Baltimore city was especially beautiful this morning. In fact, I did something I’ve never done before – I sat in the dark corridor outside of my office and watched the sky fill with color and light. It was truly breathtaking, and as I sat in silence, I realized that it was the first and last time that I will ever take in the Baltimore sunrise from the second floor of the Gerontology Research Center. My time here has come to an end, and I’m filled with conflicting emotions as I accept this fact into the reality of my morning.
Endings are never easy. There’s a bittersweet quality to each goodbye. Whether professional or personal, stepping away is hard. It might be the right thing to do, it might make sense in the big picture, but the actual act of leaving the people and the places that have been a part of your life is, fundamentally, difficult.
I am sad to say goodbye to the people who have filled my days for the past three years. I am sad to close the door to the office that has been my home away from home. I am sad to walk away from the program that I have helped to develop and shape.
On this day, despite the brilliance of the morning sun and the awesome painted sky outside my window, I am saddened by the realization that the goodbyes are coming, and I am not ready.
Not yet.
I need just another moment to take it all in and feel safe in the world that I’ve created before I step out, and close the door, and walk into the unknown.
Perhaps, the next time, I’ll stop to enjoy the sunrise before it’s time to say the next goodbyes.
Someone I don’t know and will probably never meet wrote something about me. Okay, technically, it’s not about me, but, if I were to ask someone to describe me in words, I couldn’t dream of something more perfect than this:
“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon.
You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.
She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell.
All your tomorrows start here.”
(Neil Gaiman)
It’s strange when you come across something that cuts you right to the core. Something that speaks to that part of you that only wakes for moments of clarity and transcendence. Something that is absolutely true.
This much I know: I am a complicated person. I am not easy to define. I am certainly not easy to know. But don’t ever let my quiet nature and cool detachment distract you from the truth. There is a kaleidoscope of things lurking just beneath the surface – things that are constantly in motion, forming and reforming, sometimes fragmented, often fragile, but always beautiful in their potential for greatness.
If you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of this when the mask slips…
If you’re patient, I might let the mask slip, just for a moment, just for you…
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