Happy face.

Despite a dismal day in DC today, and even more sad weather reports of 70% chance of rain and snow in New York this pre-Halloween weekend, this gray but absolutely great photo from Ben Heine put on a happy face on mine as well.

Check out the rest here.

Women need real moments.

"Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away."

- Barbara De Angelis

...

I've always known this.

And in addition to knowing it and embracing it, I am infinitely fortunate to have met a man who not only understands this need of mine, but also encourages it and reminds me of it when my life gets a little hectic and I forget about taking care of myself before I take care of others.

May I never be.

May I never be complete.
May I never be content.
May I never be perfect.

- Chuck Palahniuk

May we never become complacent or indifferent to all that surrounds us. Happiest Friday.

Mother Nature.

Last Saturday, Manfriend and I went on a six-hour hike with our recently wedded friends on Old Rag Mountain.

The fog and morning air. The fall foliage. The sun. The sky. The view, from way up there. 

It was amazing, and overwhelming, and perfect, and decaying, and dying, and most of all, it was beautiful. It all filled me up with something I can't quite describe; can't quite put into words. 

In the age of social networking, information overload, and endless competition - in my everyday life of noisy commutes, and hustle and bustle of city living, and personal pursuit of knowledge and lofty aspirations - at the very peak of that mountain, in those very moments, I was so relieved and content to simply just be.

Think about it.

"When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. 'This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar' she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. ‘My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.’ It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions?"

- Sandi Toksvig

Perfecting the art of doing nothing.

Thursday night, and I'm starting to realize more and more that I need tons of alone time to make it through my weeks - alone time to think, reflect, write, dream, create, read. 

Except, between work and school these days, those moments spent alone, doing absolutely nothing substantive, have been fewer in between.

One term down. Let's get this 4.0 GPA streak going, shall we? 

Follow your bliss.

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

- Steve Jobs

The beauty of life - my life - is that I have a wide range of possibilities and opportunities at my disposal. Maybe more than some people. Maybe even more than many people.

In accepting this realization with graciousness and gratefulness, I am also reminding myself to listen to my own voice. The past two months have been challenging - balancing work, grad school, interviews, extracurriculars, family matters, while also trying to keep sane, and looking for that "next step". Moving forward, I need to, once again, redefine my priorities. 

I know I'll have the courage to follow my bliss. Right now, I just need to focus on what that is, exactly.