It was a sunny Thursday morning. With no early meetings to get up in the dark and no lengthy afternoon meetings to dread, I was driving leisurely to work with cool, crisp, autumn air blowing into the car. At a stop light, I checked email. There it was. His mother passed away last night.

Before that Thursday, the news about Steve Jobs was plastered all over the web.

Once in a while, when you think everything is peachy, when you think you re-gain control of your life, when you think you are safe and protected and maybe even…invincible. Death bestows itself upon you to kick things out of balance. You are reminded of the ephemerality of life. You are reminded that death is not waiting at the end of the road, rather it walks among us.

The first time I watched Steve Jobs’ speech many years ago, I remembered, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Watching it again after the news of his death, his words on life and death resonate even more.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Friday morning, waking up from a restless sleep and thinking about all the sad news in the past week, I felt a little lost and unconfident of decisions I made in life right now.
I had to ask myself if I let unimportant things cloud my judgements and choices. The even harder question is what desires are quietly, and unknowingly driving me? Am I going down the right path?

The phone rang when I was having that fruitless conversation. I should have picked up the phone to join the other conversation instead of pursuing a losing argument.
I let the eager to win overrule the need to make the right choices for the right people. Now, that conversation didn’t solve anything, and the person I should talk to instead flew back and we never got to talk. If I stopped and reasoned with myself, I would have done it differently. But I pressed on…letting the foolish passion to win blind me.

Being an expecting mom for six months, I did not make the right adjustments or any adjustments at all. I am not paying attention to what’s important in life. I think I am simply lugging around the extra belly while trying hard to still keep up with my formal lifestyle and routine because I can’t let things go. I want it all and don’t want to give up anything. I am ignoring the fact that I need to make a choice now.

Life it short. I can’t do it all. I need to make a choice, and select what’s important to me.

Lately, we have been getting patches of fog in the mornings that will hang around until after noon. By the time I leave for work, plants are still ornamented with visible dew.

Today the clouds moved in and stayed all day. We even had a few drizzle of rain falls in the morning.

Is summer really gone?

It is usually a steep step from summer to autumn. The temperature drops over night and next thing you know….its scarves, sweaters and Uggs season already. (OK. that was inaccurate. the Uggs never really left us completely even during summer….)

I like the change. The dazzling sun breaks the world into brightness and shadow, blazing air and cool shade.
But the overcast has a similar blending effect as snow that casts a shade of grey on everything and muddling the boundaries from earth to sky and everything in between.

I felt comfortable enveloped in this grey, wet air.

It was so beautiful. I cried.

May the long time sun shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light that’s within you
Guide your way on

Here is a quote from a youTube comment:
”
May the long time sun shine” came into the tradition of Kundalini Yoga, because band members of the “Incredible String Band” attended a lecture with Yogi Bhajan in London and donated this song to him during a talk they had with him afterwards.
The text “May The Long Time Sun…” was not written by the “Incredible String Band”, but was used originally in Ireland in the middle ages as a blessing for people, who started a long journey.
”

If I could hang my middle school teacher on a wall, I would.
Not for my own revenge, (OK maybe a little….OK Maybe more than a little…) but to save other kids’ lives from being ruined, to save them from being thrown into a dark hole left with nothing but their own hands, had nothing to go on except scrapes of self esteem…..then watch them try…to climb out of that dark hole.

Am I out yet?

“In some quarters, among the chattering classes, there exists a cynical view that human beings as a collective are incapable of developing more ‘humane’ ie, kinder, more generous, more cooperative, more empathetic relationships with one another.
I disagree.”
“I believe we have at least a chance to aspire to something better than the dog eat dog ritual slaughter that is our current response to our institutionalized fear of each other.”

- Roger Waters, 2010

ROOM 417! I know!
Just entertaining myself with random thoughts as usual.

Sitting in this vomit color hotel room chair next to the window and looking at the rain outside, I notice that, strangely, I am enjoying this.
I guess I lied. Maybe I secretly like traveling even for business. It’s an escape for me, to escape from the real world into a place where no one knows me, where I allow myself to sit idly and wonder aimlessly. There is little else to do anyway.
I will never work up the courage to drop everything, and really run away although I fantasize about it all the time. I am a coward, this is my hideout, and that’s enough.
Every October, and November, when it rains, I listen to this song.
California dreamin…

It brought me to tears countless times before.
It still touches a soft spot inside of me when I am listening to it on repeat today. But I am OK now, even a little happy, giggly happy.

片段中有些散落 有些深刻的错
还不懂这一秒钟 怎么举动怎么好好地和谁牵手
那寂寞有些许不同 我挑着留下没说
自 那生活还过分激动 没什么我已经以为能够把握
而我不再觉得失去是舍不得
有时候只愿意听你 唱完一首歌
在所有人事已非 的景色里
我最喜欢你

片段中有些散落 有些深刻的错
就快懂这一秒钟 怎么举动怎么 好好和你过
你知道你曾经让人被爱并且经过
毕竟是有着怯怯但能 给的沉默
在所有不被想起 的快乐里
我最喜欢你
　
而我不再觉得
而我不再觉得

Are you goin’ to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green).
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground).
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain).
Then she’ll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call).

Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves).
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Washes the grave with silvery tears).
Between salt water and the sea strands
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun).
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions).
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill).
And gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they’ve long ago forgotten).
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine.