“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
-Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
“Not belonging is a terrible feeling. It feels awkward and it hurts, as if you were wearing someone else’s shoes.”
-Phoebe Stone, The Romeo and Juliet Code
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Human psychology is the most mysterious thing in the world.”
― Munia Khan
“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
–Henry James
“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it. Basically, because you feel good, very good, when you are near them.”
Charles Bukowski
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
—Mother Teresa
I had the pleasure of experiencing my first book signing recently at the Barnes & Noble in Palm Desert, California. It was, in all ways, a positive learning experience. Barnes & Noble allows and deftly facilitates signings for ‘independent’ authors. Theoretically, it’s a win-win for both parties; the writer gets exposure, and hopefully they bring customers in the door for the host. When I asked Mike, the genial employee who set up the event, for advice on how best to maximize the experience for all, he said something like, “Create a relationship with the customers – it’s all about that.”…
Apparently there’s a new movie out about women in a retirement community (could be a nursing home or the refrigerator room of a funeral parlor – same thing) who start a cheerleading squad. Let’s take a moment. I thought I’d seen it all on the big screen when it came to being offered ‘seniors’ in circumstances depicted as people with no dignity, nothing to offer or a modicum of self-awareness. Actually, I haven’t seen it all; I wouldn’t go to one of those road trip/buddy movies populated with old people doing silly, stereotypical deeds if they offered free admittance and…
Recently, while spending several hours in a hospital waiting room and having sped through the one book I’d brought, I furtively gathered as many germ-infested magazines I could before all the other bored and anxious inhabitants of the freezing, ‘We’re not even going to bother putting art on the wall here’ room could take the booty themselves. All of those coveted publications, by the way, are ones I wouldn’t pay a dime for in an airport shop. No matter. It was like that stack of slick covered papers were a pile of Snickers bars and I didn’t know any better…
