tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1671305447910570072024-02-02T15:57:53.876-06:00The Secret Life of DaydreamsRachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-39726336177004138182013-08-15T15:30:00.000-05:002015-07-30T13:46:22.702-05:00You Are My Yes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was late. I had plans. I rearranged.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She was laughing at her own joke. Simply, effortlessly,
uninhibited. And I kept thinking of how she was her own yes. Hell, was she a
yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had met in the middle, some diner along main street. It was
almost a supernatural force, some kind of enigmatic coercion, each unable to
fight the impulse to get to that middle ground. We were magnets drawn together to
fill the voids of the opposing charge, to counteract the negative forces each
carried. It was as if our entire being depended upon it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>
<i>Get in the car</i>, she had said. <i>Drive. drive in my direction. </i>I obeyed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She was my little 2 am secret, my sister. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The waitress had stopped passing by to check if we had signed the
bill. Though there were people and events and responsibilities pining for our
presence elsewhere, neither she nor I could leave. not yet.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are the talks I remember. The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words. The silence not awkward, but a shared intimacy of the unfilled spaces.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Words were sparse and chosen carefully. They were words we had not yet dared speak aloud,
as if the saying alone made them true, made them real. They were words that terrified and engrossed,
suggested and enchanted.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And in this disclosure, we offered ourselves, unguarded, knowing that if our self vanishes, there would be another to lean on, one separate and distinct, but pumping the same blood through different veins.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She was tripping on those words as she twirled the ice in her water glass with a straw, her purple fingernails reflecting the dim lighting.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>I don't know how it came to this, </i>she said. I<i> enjoy his presence. </i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She loved him, some boy down the street. She didn’t know it, couldn't find the words, but we both knew once she did, there would be no need for me to give her an answer. The answer would be in the telling.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I realized as </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> leaned into the edge of the table in rapture, that in her dismayed disclosure, </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> saw myself.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And what about me? She waited for my answer and </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> felt that </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, too, was waiting for my own reply. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> told her </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> needed nothing more than the sea and someone to share it with and a million reasons to write.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Yes, </i>she said. <i>Yes, and when you find it, always say yes.</i></span><br />
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An answer to her own question.</span><br />
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<i style="color: #444444; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">© 2013 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved {photo source <a href="http://awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com/page/1157">via</a>}</span></span></i><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-10197077652268004212013-07-29T19:28:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:17:12.424-05:00The Tepui Chronicles: South America, Part III<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">DOS·PIES</span><span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">·EN</span><span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">·EL</span><span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">·</span><span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">SUELO: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">idiom \dos</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">-Pi</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ēs-en-el-Su</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ēlo</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">\ <i>both feet on the ground</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He was a reticent, I could tell. He demonstrated a subtle kind of panache, a cool sort of sobriety, sitting a row above the group of chattering maestros engulfing two American girls.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jess and I had landed in the heart of South America with little more than a touchy four wheeler, two battered suitcases and a bag of foreign coins. And finding ourselves at a local soccer match with new friends, in an exotic, mountainous village 200 miles into a thick, lush rainforest, we swore we had found paradise.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They were teaching us the rules, speaking rapidly in heightened animation. With each phrase we mimicked came an ejaculated <i>si, si </i>from our new friends. Phones were passed hand to hand, pics snapped absent-mindedly, and an intermittent cheer for the goalie.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Words, it became clear, were useless — unnecessary, even. We resorted to other means of communication: hand motions, gestures, a game of charades and a repeated <i>vamos, a </i>word that had come to encompass so many more meanings: yes. now. go. act. move. pursue. ascend. fly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He was taller than the others and, I presumed, older. He stood apart, speaking only when probed for a translation. He knew english, and had overheard Jess and I when we assumed ourselves beneath the guise of a language barrier.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The way he knew the words both sides needed to communicate but withheld them, gave him an ascribed sort of power, an esteem among the others. S<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">omething about that, </span>his insinuating silence, captured my intrigue. I had to make him out.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I entreated delicately: an imploring question — direct, yet subtle. He returned. It became an inquisition: a play of the cards. my draw, then his. a move and a response.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They wanted to treat us to our last night in Monteverde, they said, as we stepped away from the arena. We followed. He kickstarted his bike, calling my name. I jumped on and we flew across the bumpy road of that small, uncharted rainforest.
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I could see the pull of his veins as he held the handlebars of the old motorcycle with familiarity. He weaved in and out of jungle terrain, flying past large, wet foliage and ducking beneath low-hanging bunches of bananas. I lifted my eyes to see a sky full of stars, splattered across the sky like diamonds unstrung. He eased off the gas and I brought my arms outward. </span><br />
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As he put on the brakes and I beheld a view that made my pulse quicken. There, at the peak of Monteverde, a panorama of a magnanimous jungle stood before me, cocooning the distant chattering of monkeys and whoops of playful birds below the settling mist. A dense, humid wilderness wild with life, with a pulse, its own heartbeat. </span><br />
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<i>The top of the world</i>, he said easily.</span><br />
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How loosely rang the rhythmic cadence of his tongue in the presence of his own, but here words were sparse and chosen with care, as if the telling itself would cheapen all that the silence suggested.</span><br />
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Words were unconfined by the jurisdiction of a definition, each infused with new meanings and connotations that challenged the mediocrity of commonplace words. Lacking access to verbal communication made it so much the more tantalizing. We were fraught with the need to share, to tell, to let loose the billowing surge of something from within.</span><br />
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I told him I didn't want to leave this place. He said he never intends to. And there in the silence, I</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> laughed. Then he laughed. There was no reason. No witty aphorism or comical remark to warrant it, but there we were snickering into the vast magical darkness purely as a release of uncontainable awe amid such splendor. </span><br />
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Perhaps the impermanence of it made it all the more magical. And I fell all over again, for not a man but a people on this night in which so much was said, but so little was spoken.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://rachelllowry.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Rachel Lowry</a>, <i>The Tepui Chronicles Part III</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Image </span><a href="http://explorelovestrength.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">via</a></div>
Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-58827107437431480552013-07-22T18:53:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:15:15.763-05:00The Tepui Chronicles: South America, Part II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;"><span style="color: #444444;">MONTE·VERDE:</span> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">noun \'m</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">än-t</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ē-'v</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ērd</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ē</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">\ <i>Green Mountain</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">The sharp jab in my side sent me quickly out of my dream and sitting straight up. Sweat crept down my spine and memory of the prior night came to mind: driving, lights, passion fruit, a trek across the entire continent of costa rica that ended at the beach. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Jess had done the jabbing and I immediately realized why. Three cops stared back as I blinked my eyes into focus. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>Passport, license! </i>they called in accents as harsh as a German soldier.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Jess and I exchanged a glance of shock. She clutched my arm in support as we searched for our wallets. </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">The paperwork was passed and the men went into a huddle a few feet away as three more cars and motorcycles pulled in, sirens ablaze. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">We waited. The journalist in me kicked in, racing with headlines: Two american girls arrested. Found sleeping on a private beach in an identified four-wheeler — with valid identification, no past traffic citations and no alcohol? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">48 hours in and few things would surprise me, at this point. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">They returned. There had been a gunman on the loose. He had robbed a convenience store just a few buildings down. He had fired a shot at dawn. They would escort us out, surrounding us with the kind of coverage that would make the U.S. secret service look weak. </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">Of course I was attempting to interview them for a story to write. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">"You call me," he said, motioning a telephone. "If lost or need help, I come."<i> </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Jess and I would let out high verbal squeaky noises of delight when seeing any Costa Rican man in a police suit from that moment on. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We drove on.</span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> Morning light fell upon the terrain we had blindly navigated: It was green like </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">this girl from the West</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> had never before seen. The lush, dense foliage loomed above us like an archway to a grand palace. The bird calls and rustling within suggested we were in an unfenced zoo.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">We wound upward around the mountain, reaching Monteverde. T</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">here I discovered that it is possible to miss a place you've never before seen. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">My time spent in that little mountainous Costa Rica haven is a melding of luminous moments: g</span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">allivanting around an enchanted rainforest on bridges that swung in the air in torrential rain that bucketed down; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">swinging through the cloud rainforest from one zip line to the next; plummeting 50-foot jungle swing just like Tarzan</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> python sitings</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">galloping on horses through the forest</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">eating the best fish taco I’ve ever had in my life</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">learning Tae Bo in </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">a local martial arts class</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">eating a home cooked breakfast from a local Costa Rican</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schooling an Israeli military man in pool</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">reading Ayn Rand in a hammock on a porch while it rains</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> more fish tacos</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">smoothies made of fruit plucked straight from the tree</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> spanish karaoke</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">climbing the center of 150-foot fig tree</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">salsa </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">d</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ancing with an Indian at Bar Amigo</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">;</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.3999996185303px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">exotic fruit tasting.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">It was </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">paradise. Absolute paradise. Right out of a fairytale. </span></div>
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<div style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://rachelllowry.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Rachel Lowry</a>, <i>The Tepui Chronicles Part II</i></div>
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Image <a href="http://explorelovestrength.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">via</a></div>
Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-61194027315900756612013-07-15T19:00:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:16:24.569-05:00The Tepui Chronicles: South America, Part I<div>
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Te·puí:</span></h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">noun \a</span><span class="unicode" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #717274; font-family: 'lucida sans unicode'; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">u̇</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">-</span><span class="unicode" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #717274; font-family: 'lucida sans unicode'; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ˌ</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">yän-tā-</span><span class="unicode" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #717274; font-family: 'lucida sans unicode'; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ˈ</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #717274; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">pwē\ <i>Land of the Gods</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We were mapless.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Chucking our battered suitcases in the back of a touchy four wheeler, my Aussi friend Jess and I</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"> whizzed down the streets of Ipis, Costa Rica. The lush, humid air was so dense it felt as if it were combing through our hair. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Flashes of green bombay shoots whooshed past as I veered along the winding, crooked streets of this model-like village. L</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">ocals walked along the mossy canal waterways, disappearing into close-quartered colored houses. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">It was the beginning of our love affair with South America.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">We were sitting cross-legged in a small seafood shack on the corner of the street, catching glances and sometimes smiles from passerby's as we feasted on crab legs and calamari. And I realized that this was it. Wholesome living. Caught in the fear of missing out, I had forgotten that at the root of it all was something as simple as deep breaths, fresh food, human connection and, if necessary, words. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">The rest of the night was a blur of faces and spanish phrases didn't understand. It was a mingling of conversation over hymnals sung in a local cathedral, followed by stops at exotic fruit stands </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">and latin dances with men whose hips shake better than any lady I've ever seen. And then I again took the wheel.</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> Where to? The wind would be our compass, our intuition our guide. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">As the miles under our wheels increased, time was measured by thoughts rather than minutes. We ventured into the rainforest terrain. It was pitch black, but beyond our car window there seemed to be a vast unknown something — something that seemed to suggest we were cradled in the palm of some mysterious, immense natural wonder. We drove through tall vegetation and across what had to have been towering bridges. Under the guise of nightfall, the vast rainforest was </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">untouched by the prying eyes of tourists.</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> A</span><span style="line-height: 18px;">nd at that moment I swear we were in an undiscovered ocean of foliage that was neither East nor West. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">I felt a sense of possession. I wanted to lay claim on it, call it my own, without the dictates of paperwork or the convention of bills. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">The road took us completely across the country in one night, to the Pacific Ocean, where we </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">ran headlong into the waves. We breathed in salt that stung our noses and cleansed so much more than our air passages. We fell asleep in our car, to the gentle lap of water at the edge of this continent.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">We had determined it would be our little secret, this place </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">that remained hidden from a cheap brochure. This place</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> touched by the gods — or rather, as I would believe, one God. </span><br />
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<div style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://rachelllowry.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Rachel Lowry</a>, <i>The Tepui Chronicles Part I</i></div>
<div style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: right;">
Image <a href="http://awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">via</a></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-84344460317621945232013-06-01T20:17:00.000-05:002015-07-30T13:34:21.612-05:00Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhachq8QnrlctpBCcQzNhJPQWme1jIVMHSEME_iArVxLnja_HSQbG3TDKAYAwxNotfzMbEFaVlZ4KJjXzxiDU9sjcCYspDEMiLw1RtBHZA7mJPLLy8cG8cnqIhzE7VU_8wr2S6oJ0acDFE/s1600/4255100792_118911dc96.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604893599375358306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhachq8QnrlctpBCcQzNhJPQWme1jIVMHSEME_iArVxLnja_HSQbG3TDKAYAwxNotfzMbEFaVlZ4KJjXzxiDU9sjcCYspDEMiLw1RtBHZA7mJPLLy8cG8cnqIhzE7VU_8wr2S6oJ0acDFE/s640/4255100792_118911dc96.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="660" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">lets be adventurers.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">let's transcend beyond the everyday routine for something grand, something bold, </span>something they have told us is not yet possible.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">some days, darling, we may need to uproot adventure in the mundane, </span>peddling furiously between the pang of the uneventful, to defy the chasms of repetition and monotony.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">but most days, we will stumble upon it without effort, </span>stealing away into the night as self-proclaimed vagabonds, buccaneers, or runaways on a grand heist of Homeric valor and courage.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">let's find a place where time is the ample liquid trickling endlessly between our fingers, and loss a mere preference.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">let's create a place where alarm clocks elicit twirls & trigger dimples, and our dreams aren't nearly as majestic as reality.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">oh darling, these boots were made for so much more than just walking. </span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">post inspired by <a href="http://www.thedarlingadventurer.com/2012/07/the-origin-of-oh-darling-lets-be.html">her</a> </span>@ 2011 Rachel Lowry. </span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>All Rights Reserved.</i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-56894887420589363652013-04-19T11:56:00.003-05:002015-07-29T22:47:42.104-05:00Monday Quote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" /></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I'm not sure what I'll do, but, well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">F. Scott Fitzgerald, <i>The Ice Palace</i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-78184031516986429062013-04-16T12:13:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:20:31.767-05:00Boston<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image via <a href="http://sorakeem.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Sorakeem</a></span></div>
Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-44547422109579748062013-03-06T15:52:00.000-06:002015-07-29T22:53:14.514-05:00Monday Quote<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s640/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" width="153" /></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I would hurl worlds into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws at us all.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Richard Wright</span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-18325880835102184282013-03-06T01:49:00.002-06:002015-07-30T15:24:46.352-05:00Do you write in the margins?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mar</span></b><span id="internal-source-marker_0.2594257004093379"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">·gi</span></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">·na</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">·li</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">·a: pl.n. Notes, scribbles and comments made by readers in the margin of a book.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can't tell when I first put pen to page, can't pin down the initial </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">moment I first committed to the act. But it led to a tendency, which became habit, which resulted in a full-on dependency. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon my notes became more extensive — underlining, asterisking, annotating, brackets, parentheses, circles, boxes. I made footnotes. I observed broader themes connecting passages. I measured cadences with arrows. I scrawled enthusiastic "yes!"'s and cavalier "ha"'s in the miles of blank page. My favorite books were thick with ink running along, below, into the text. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I as much as decimated the pages of my books, commandeering the white perimeter with a gust of scribbles in my feverish excitement. </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books have become my confessionals, my diaries, my critical notebooks. They've become a chronicle of my progression, charting my moment-by-moment responses, encapsulating a mindset I held at a moment in time. Books have become a place to record those intimate, honest, knee-jerk reactions that a thousand scholarly papers can hardly get at.</span></span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I rarely pick up a book or a newspaper or a magazine without hovering over the text with a ball point pen in hand, poised to scribble my thoughts as they come. </span></b><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marginalia have always been at the center of serious reading," wrote Mark O'Connell in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/01/the-marginal-obsession-with-marginalia.html" target="_blank">The New Yorker</a>. "It's admirable pithiness aside, the quip's popularity probably has a lot to do with its egalitarian spirit: you don't need to be able to give a detailed account of Heidegger's ontology or have published a monograph on Proust to gain access to the club; you just have to keep a nicely sharpened HB in your hand as you read."</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While accessible to all, O'Connell wrote, marginalia have a place, too, at the margins of literary history. </span></b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mark Twain and Voltaire were prolific marginalians, as were William Blake and Charles Darwin. The act of writing in the margins was more common in the 1800s, according to New York Times' <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/books/21margin.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Kirk Johnson</a>. It wasn't until the 20th century that it became regarded as a graffiti of sorts. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the tradition continued, Johnson wrote. "When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa in 1977, a copy of Shakespeare was circulated among the inmates. Mandela wrote his name next to the passage from 'Julius Caesar' that reads, 'Cowards die many times before their deaths.'"</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then there are the lesser known commentators. Pressed between the covers of a dusty book, the brash markings find their way to bookstores, libraries, thrift shops, awaiting the chance discovery of another:</span></b></span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">image <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/books/21margin.html?_r=0" target="_blank">via</a> and <a href="http://awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com/page/48">here</a>.</span></b></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-85346562476032199082013-03-04T10:24:00.000-06:002015-07-30T14:21:14.792-05:00Wom·an /ˈwo͝omən/ n. she who feels invidious distinctions of sex exactly as the black man does those of color<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday, someone turned to me and said, "Woman, you don't know the half of it."</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">And I didn't. But as the conversation shifted to another topic, I </span><span style="background-color: white;">lingered on the word <i>woman</i>. And for the first time, the designation felt fitting, as right as rain. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">Somewhere between the gangly, knobby-kneed girl who owned more baseball caps than her cootie-beset cronies, to the </span><span style="background-color: white;">now budding journalist who feels curiously comfortable in her own skin, I became a woman. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think it happens when a girl stops requiring the approval or consent of others to make a decision;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she recognizes the value in being there for friends even when it's not convenient for her;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she becomes able to acknowledge her shortcomings;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she can keep a secret;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she learns to be gracious at the forefront of adversity;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she learns that losing some things for the sake of something greater is true greatness;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she has determined what she will and won't put up with;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she acquires a self-respect that cannot be jolted by others;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she gets a big bed for herself;</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">perhaps it begins when she starts paying her own bills<span style="background-color: white;">;</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">or when she finds her signature dish;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she learns that a dress can make her feel like a million bucks;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she discovers the art of coyness;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she finds the necessity of kindness and softness and femininity;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she finds perfection in her flaws;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when her smile becomes default;</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when she discovers that people, above all, are really what it's all about.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And though she does not yet possess all the traits God intended her to have, she now begins that interminable process of aiming for such an ideal.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">And in this feat, she joins the ranks of those before her who so proudly called themselves <i>woman</i>.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span></i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">{photo <a href="http://blackeiffel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/chance-collection.html" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;">via</a>, quote via Elizabeth Stanton</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">}</span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-5695828254439213692013-01-22T00:40:00.002-06:002015-07-29T22:57:19.476-05:00Monday Quote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s320/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isaac Bashevis Singer</span></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-57827869691466815042013-01-01T12:50:00.000-06:002015-07-30T14:21:38.173-05:00This, the Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Recurring milestones have a way of gauging how far you've come.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every new year when the ball drops and the countdown begins, so comes a recollection of the years before. Each is a frozen encapsulation of a time, a place, a moment signifying progression: girlfriends dressed to the nines in a confetti wash, slow dances with a man, pot and pan clanging in pajamas and bare feet with cousins, falling asleep against a friend on the floor as the ball drops on screen.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how despondently a girl sees a year come to a close; how she feels as if she were dismissing some portion of herself into the muddled myst of memory. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess that no year, as of yet, has seen so much growth than this past one. Twenty four sent me into a tailspin, plunging this tantalized small-town dreamer into the throng of a professional, downtown scene. and in this year a girl became a woman.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;">I'm compelled, however, to speak not of the past, but of what is to come. </b>For now that I've flown, walking makes me restless. And now that I've sprouted wings, I must learn how to fly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I love change. the alteration of a common course of action dishevels the stagnation of redundancy and ripples through all components of everyday life. And as I stand at the crux of such a catalyst, this new year, I've been given a new start, a fresh page, a blank staff. It's an opportunity to start anew, to relinquish the old self and begin again.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Twenty five is the start of a new me. A bold me. A daring me. An honest me. I will stop scolding myself for missing personal publishing deadlines. I will write for me, just for me. I'll go with my gut. I will date men, not boys. I'll learn to love the wretched havoc that is monday morning. I will row to Antelope Island. I'll successfully grow herbs. I'll learn yoga and take indoor cycling classes. I will see the northern lights. I will apply to graduate school. I'll move to Boston or New York or Chicago. I will see more of the ocean. I'll pick up the violin again. I'll get a dog. I'll finish that damn novel. I will cross the lines I drew in my early twenties. I'll embrace my vulnerabilities. And I will learn the slow, elegant art of living.</span><br />
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-30579348046687228412012-10-12T18:14:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:21:58.371-05:00on punctuation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ok friends, hear me out here. i left my soapbox back in my <a href="http://www.rachellowry.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-we-werent.html" target="_blank">grad school post</a> about three pages away, but i really have no mind to drag it over here. and i don't think i need it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">when i first accepted the <a href="http://www.rachellowry.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-punctuation-challenge.html" target="_blank">punctuation challenge</a> the praises i anticipated i would proclaim for punctuation afterward were already forming in my mind. it's vitality in disambiguating the meaning of the sentences we string together could not be overstated, i would say. it is crucial to that great art we call communication.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and yet to now say such things and leave it at that would be some kind of a half-truth i cannot let alone.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the problem with punctuation is threefold: it's more often esteemed as mere utility; its rules strike me as arbitrary, if not despotic; and, to badly paraphrase Lewis Thomas, has us spending so much time separating the clauses by physical barriers to attain greater precision and exactitude for meaning, when doing so is stripping my writing from its essential flavor of language, which is its wonderful ambiguity.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">for once i relinquished my need for the certainty that every idea will end, succumbed to the unpredictability of a loosely strung thought, i found freedom to explore the spaces in between. and i found that sometimes the meaning of something is not subject to the delineation of the end stop, but to the way it must slow with the weight of words.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">but then i may just be playing devil's advocate, for though i have my vices with anything that hints to incarceration of expression, i am so very fond of a well-punctuated sentence.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">the comma</span>, a <a href="http://rachellowry.blogspot.com/2011/02/welcome-welcome-to-world-my-midnight.html" target="_blank">bushy-tailed freckle</a>, which gives pause for respite in light, taking a moment to linger, to saunter, to breathe, just to breathe. A comma pulls you from a moment, allowing it to expand, enlarge, grow wings, seeing that there will never be an end, but a continual shift in ideology and perspective, perceiving all that is encompassed in a moment I would have missed, without the pause, the comma.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">says mr. thomas: "It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows in all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashed up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">the period</span>, i find rather irksome, unless it's function is better interpreted. the period presumes to tell you that is that. over and done. no more shall be said on the matter. but more can always be said. and i lose distrust in an author who attempts to tell me otherwise. and yet, when used appropriately, the period becomes a means of dictating speech in a way a comma never could. nothing pulls me closer to the writer's confession than a string of short overused stops that diminish the finality of a period and indicate he does not presume to know that there will ever be enough to be said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Colons</span> are a lot less attractive for several reasons. mr. thomas says, "firstly, they give you the feeling of being rather ordered around, or at least having your nose pointed in a direction you might not be inclined to take if left to yourself, and, secondly, you suspect you're in for one of those sentences that will be labeling the points to be made: firstly, secondly and so forth, with the implication that you haven't sense enough to keep track of a sequence of notions without having them numbered."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Exclamation points! </span>"the most irritating of all. Look! they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else's small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn't need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!"</span><br />
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-78097429212625156962012-09-14T12:19:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:22:21.211-05:00Link Off<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2012/09/good-grammar-is-sexy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FbboSV+%28A+CUP+OF+JO%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">grammar is sexy</a> over at <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/StudioNico?ref=pr_shop_more">this etsy shop</a></span></div>
<a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2012/09/first-date-story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FbboSV+%28A+CUP+OF+JO%29"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">cutest first date story</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/2012/08/longing-for-fall.html">Meg</a> and <a href="http://taza-and-husband.blogspot.com/2012/09/its-most-wonderful-time-of-year.html">Naomi</a> find reasons to look forward to this coming fall</span><br />
<a href="http://janefriedman.com/2012/09/10/extra-ether-2/"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">what amazons kindle series could mean for writers</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">literary films to look forward to</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSAbAuLhqs&feature=player_embedded">do we choose to be born or are we fitted to the times we are born into</a> & <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPGLRO3fZnQ">there are as many loves as there are hearts</a> & <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARN6agiW7o">i wish id done everything on earth with you</a> & <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjmrDDD9o_k" target="_blank">you have to choose between life and fiction the two are very close but they never actually touch</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">sharpen your platform as a writer with <a href="http://adiaryoflovely.blogspot.com/2012/09/lets-talk-business-cards.html">new and creative business cards</a></span><br />
<a href="http://artistsroad.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/creativity-tweets-of-the-week-91412/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">creativity tweets of the week</span></a><br />
<a href="http://mandymadson.blogspot.com/2012/06/do-everything.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">new life mantra is do everything</span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">monday i will share my punctuation challenge recap</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">happy weekend folks</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 1.4; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 1.4; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved {photo via <a href="http://fridamarie.tumblr.com/post/8147942241" target="_blank">Frida Marie</a>}</span></span></i></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-30471411916450159622012-09-12T10:26:00.000-05:002015-07-29T17:29:29.015-05:00your own being<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgo5pDTdLh_F-P8mjtp8Vv1gn3Pd9WvHhlwYiqb112MSMWiP7t42sNcVjH_3PXMA4s3BFjFqjAr0q3bXESzQkyCQLXlQ4J66zZhRFIi6s0RPFpdUSwMPseZPfhfmEn0tiECvpgcC3kCsQ/s1600/7312467466.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgo5pDTdLh_F-P8mjtp8Vv1gn3Pd9WvHhlwYiqb112MSMWiP7t42sNcVjH_3PXMA4s3BFjFqjAr0q3bXESzQkyCQLXlQ4J66zZhRFIi6s0RPFpdUSwMPseZPfhfmEn0tiECvpgcC3kCsQ/s640/7312467466.jpeg" width="550" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i wish i could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">hafiz</span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-64711301185945821842012-09-11T13:25:00.000-05:002015-07-29T17:29:15.903-05:00on moving forward<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i can hardly believe its been twelve years since <a href="http://www.rachellowry.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-salute-you.html">the day</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">on this period of twenty four hours</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">this day that seems to come closer every year</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">though the memory of it slips farther away from our grasp</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">this day that stands at the crest of a new season</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">a coincidence i find not so fortuitous </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i think i speak for many of us when i say</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">we can feel the ground beneath us shifting</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">change...more markedly found between the lined pages of our notebooks</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">or between the margins of our books is underway</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">yet as i reflect on the effects of that day</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and call to mind the chaos of that sunny morning</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">in juxtaposition with the stillness of this days murky cold dawn</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i am made more aware of the constancy</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">of our nation than the change</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the capacity that a body of individuals has to</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">soldier on when their counterparts will not</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and the ability to retain a constancy in something that itself has changed</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to hold on to some things in a world that hungers for and demands alteration</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and though the men and women who gave up</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">more than we can even comprehend</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">that day deserve a recognition that is beyond words</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i also commend the rest of us who have sought to build upon that</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and make something of the loss</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and while many things set before us this season look to</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">renovation and modification and new ways of being</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">can we all silently squeal for the new apple iphone</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and hold our breaths as the election moves forward</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i appreciate the fixedness of this nation</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and the permanence of our values</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the consistency of our perseverance</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to compensate for the voids we have</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">both as a whole and as individuals</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">that most certainly deserves a tip of the hat</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to many who may not be too long gone to reciprocate</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved.</span></span></i></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-6689197480710033262012-09-10T09:33:00.002-05:002016-10-21T16:29:14.715-05:00The Punctuation Challenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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He wanted to go to lunch, but was side-stepping the question.<br />
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"How are you?" He wondered. "How was your day?"<br />
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I had given my number, against my better judgement, so I wasn't surprised when the text came through.<br />
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Though letting a stranger in on the minute details of my day seemed fairly unorthodox, my misgivings more strongly arose with the text itself. "Three ellipsis used in place of a period. One misspelling. No punctuation."<br />
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"Too atrocious," I told jess during lunch. "Not only overused, but wrongfully placed."<br />
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"You're being ridiculous. Nobody punctuates in text," she had submitted, though two others sided with me. "Atrocious."<br />
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"I'll bet you couldn't go one week without using a punctuation mark," she challenged.<br />
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And so the bet is on: no punctuation save the repugnant and ill manipulation of the ellipses I so purport to disdain<br />
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pardon me dear readers...for what i am about to do<br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></i></span>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved.</span></span></i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-22123454777001432082012-08-30T09:24:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:23:28.660-05:00Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Diane Setterfield's Thirteenth Tale is the story of a renowned author, Vida Winter, whose aging body has led her to reveal the truth about her violent and tragic past. Young Margaret Lee is summoned to her mansion and as she learns of the gothic tale of two beautiful twins, Margaret and Vida both face the truth and the ghosts of their past. </span><br />
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times." </span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The book, which became a New York Times No. 1 best-seller, has garnered talk of a possible film contract. The story reflects the Gothic writing tradition, with an unmistakable similitude to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Getting lost in the telling, I was perpetually fixated by the way she melds the words, stringing them slowly together like pearls on a necklace. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Setterfield gives the reader a discomforting fly-on-the-wall point of observation of an old mansion that houses a family queer and eccentric, violent even. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A remote setting, supernatural occurrences, gothic elements, a mysterious turn of events, and every reason to turn back or put down the book, but an unnerving inability to do so.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Setterfield is a British author who studied French Literature at The University of Bristol, with a PhD on autobiographical structures in the fiction of Andre Gide. In the late 1990's, she left academia to write.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: xx-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 1.4;">{photo <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/the-thirteenth-tale?utm_source=google&utm_medium=imgres&utm_campaign=framebuster">via</a></span><span style="line-height: 17px;">}</span></i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-48352192328447606982012-08-14T19:29:00.002-05:002015-07-30T14:23:43.757-05:00Back to My Roots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Sometimes I forget </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">'m holding my breath, until </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> let go. A torrent of new air infiltrates my lungs and my chest rises with the surge of oxygen. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">Whole again. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">This weekend was just that for me. I returned to the family farm my mom grew up on, in the heart of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">daho falls, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">daho.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">My stiletto heels had no place there. They came off quickly and as I sunk my bare feet into the moist dirt of the farmland, running until the sunlight flickered between the wheat stalks of those endless fields</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> like a strobe light, I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">realized </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">'ve been holding my breath for some time now. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;"> released and heaved in. Slowly. Deeply. Deliberately. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">It was good to be back to my childhood sojourn. Though this may have been the first time </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;"> fully recognized the hold it had on me. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Diane Setterfield once wrote, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><i>All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. you want to know someone? heart, mind and soul? ask him to tell you about when he was born. what you get won't be the truth: it will be a story. and nothing is more telling than a story.</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> used to long for a different story,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> once abandoned this one in hopes of a new one, an exotic one, alluding to distant lands and places not well known, so very far from here. Beyond </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">my exploits along the coast of Mexico, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;"> told of Nicaragua and London and New York City </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">or my road trips through the southern states of America. There were </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">my failed attempt to find a blues bar in Chicago, or my cleverness in navigating Rome for the first time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">But returning to those rolling fields of a simple town in the middle of nowhere resounded with me in a way those other places never could: the three-story treehouse my grandpa build with his own hands, the silo my cousins dared me to walk into at night, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">these side canals we ran alongside through fields of barley, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">the rope swing we swung upon each summer, the old house my mother was raised in, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">the muddy field we played football in when it rained, the tree my uncle cut down when playing pirates. These spaces reminded me that a place can give stability in a world of clashing opinions and divided perspectives. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">That it was always bigger than we knew. T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">hat it had a hold upon us we hadn't recognized. T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">hat it was more vital to our upbringing than we imagined. T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">hat there was more power in the simplicity of it than we could have anticipated. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">I would come to find a fierce pride in being a part of it and a dignity in knowing how deep the roots, how rampantly it runs through my veins. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">will always return, so long as there is an I</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 19px;">daho Falls to return to. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: xx-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 1.4;">{photo via my cousin, <a href="http://www.riversidephotography.blogspot.com/">Hilary Cook</a></span><span style="line-height: 17px;">}</span></i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-69051679129568725902012-08-09T18:56:00.002-05:002015-07-29T22:49:31.793-05:00Monday Quote<div style="line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; text-indent: 0.1em;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnRq_vJryl0qG0Ai93BJlhAwtFLi00VPxNeKyHvg0elxvQuq4-nOXw8HfaFTOp9cco5V_FA4Zuy0iRQiS66plznh5il1v-CV0WOHesw94nX97Hb8G3AKHGoYOnguKL5CyGB5r7zSmOJo/s1600/quotation-mark-gray.jpg" /></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers....No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Brian Doyle, <i>Hummingbird</i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-3998999111092558752012-07-27T12:45:00.003-05:002015-07-30T14:24:03.347-05:00Little Letters: Dear All<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dear BBC,<br />
Thank you for so consistently providing me with such great entertainment through period dramas.<br />
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Dear <a href="http://gourmandisethebakery.com/" target="_blank">Gourmandise Bakery</a>,<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">You redeem my every monday morning. And Tuesday morning. And maybe every morning thereafter. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Dear Mr. Nolan,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">It was, as it almost always is with you, worth the wait. </span><br />
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Dear stranger I passed this morning,<br />
Thank you for making me smile; yours was contagious.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Dear American ladies and gentlemen gathered in London for the Olympics today,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Give a shout out for me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Dear Mr. Tolstoy,</span><br />
You have transcended the ordinary and illuminated the spaces in between. Thank you for your stories.<br />
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Dear Kenzi,<br />
I would give up an entire night's sleep to talk about men and existentialism with you any time.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Dear Readers,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Thank you for your comments. I so enjoy them.</span><br />
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Dear Editors,<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Be harsh. Please. Even if it is my darling. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 1.4;">{photo <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2012/07/anve-on-inattendu/" target="_blank">via</a>, </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.6;">post inspired by </span><a href="http://taza-and-husband.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.6;" target="_blank">Naomi</a><span style="line-height: 17px;">}</span></i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-33153548903492506112012-07-06T10:21:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:24:23.697-05:00All of us, We are Writers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;">We — yes we. all of us, we are writers. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Not with pen, nor keypad, do we write. No. But by tongue — between the partition of hello and goodbye. </span><span style="background-color: white;">It begins</span><span style="background-color: white;"> at the onset of a first meeting. Hands shake and names are given. One probes further and the other writes — what I mean to say is that the other narrates, sculpts for his inquirer his own character. Out of a barrage of facets that make up your life experience, you carve out a persona that stands apart from the kind of indeterminable creature you have been set out to be, by the uninformed acquaintance. You, in essence, try to</span><span style="background-color: white;"> fit the three-part, million word trilogy into a children's storybook. With pictures. </span><span style="background-color: white;">We all do it. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Me? Yes, I write too. </span><br />
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"Rachel," I say, "Rachel Lowry"<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">"How do I keep myself busy? Why, I would say my busyness keeps me, rather than the other way around." Yada yada yada.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">For some, we give trinkets, "I have never had a cavity." </span><span style="background-color: white;">For others, we supply the given, "I studied at the Y. English. Yes, I write." </span><span style="background-color: white;">For most, I avert the usual. "Never mind how old I am." F</span><span style="background-color: white;">or many, I digress. "I find poppy seeds a strange thing to be considered eatable." </span><span style="background-color: white;">For the few, I implode with some exciting something to say. "I haven't given up on the idea of living in New York yet. Maybe in the fall." </span><span style="background-color: white;">And my acquaintance does the same. </span><br />
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I, like you, have lived long enough to have one hell of a good story or two to tell. And here we sit before one another, talking of ghost towns and New York in the fall. <span style="background-color: white;">Yet for most, we keep our lips pressed before divulging those deep wells of what give us our drive. We hold this portion of ourselves for later.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But for a few. </span><span style="background-color: white;">For them, we share because we sense they need it more than we do. Because sometimes, our agenda is irrelevant and </span><span style="background-color: white;">these experiences are not ours to hoard.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>And so I string my story and you string yours.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">And then there's always the fear that our tale will be inaccurate, that our telling could never really show the way a moment still trembles beneath the surface of our skin some ten years later. How i wish this falling short of truly knowing somebody weren't the ever-present reality.</span><br />
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But then, how beautiful is the attempt to share this round thing we call life with the other. As I eagerly wait with my lips parted at the edge of my tea cup, to be given a trinket or two from a new acquaintance across the table, as if the sharing of it were the whole of our being.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span></i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">{photo <a href="http://blackeiffel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/chance-collection.html" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;">via</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">}</span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-39022635103561980392012-05-30T06:00:00.000-05:002016-03-25T00:42:44.959-05:00I May or May Not Have<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not have</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> thrown out some pas de deux moves in the elevator at the end of work on Friday after a stellar interview.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not have</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> given up on the notion that I could always have an organized purse. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not have</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> Red Ginger Sushi on speed dial. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><b>I may or may not have</b> underestimated the effect of gravity upon canon-balling into the shallow end of a pool. somehow, I am okay today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may not have </b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;">had a valid enough reason to keep me from shopping at </span><a href="http://shopcitycreekcenter.com/" style="line-height: 20px;">city creek</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> during my lunch breaks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not have</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> finished an entire gallon of samoas cookie ice cream.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not have</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"> registered to vote this week.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 20px;">I may or may not be </b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;">blogging when I should be sleeping. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. {photo <a href="http://weheartit.com/?page=2" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;">via</a>}</span></span></i></span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-31964097780843831072012-05-28T06:00:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:28:36.301-05:00Link Off<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToJHTAJNFLMXgRFuWnbufF3dvQkd_08a4sW1xnATCMsn_p855tn3bd5pP1TCghm85cldC3Ke8l8UH-cD7UL7WTUiVZtZ-iPKEzlTfYtfZYB-NFoQ-KVJ2Zj4E7z5VuNN7mCTz7H2vFjA/s1600/FishersIslandHomePage_Image1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToJHTAJNFLMXgRFuWnbufF3dvQkd_08a4sW1xnATCMsn_p855tn3bd5pP1TCghm85cldC3Ke8l8UH-cD7UL7WTUiVZtZ-iPKEzlTfYtfZYB-NFoQ-KVJ2Zj4E7z5VuNN7mCTz7H2vFjA/s640/FishersIslandHomePage_Image1.jpeg" width="660" /></a></div>
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I hope you having a great Memorial Day. What fun a link off this holiday affords:<br />
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—<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANVQScgIeag">A song</a> for those taking work off for the holiday.<br />
—<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/06/the-50-funniest-jokes-eve_n_95279.html">A little anecdote</a> for those still in the office.<br />
—Plan <a href="http://camillestyles.com/2012/pinned-down-memorial-day/">a memorial day party</a>.<br />
—<a href="http://www.wiseinkblog.com/storytelling/memorial-day-post-six-influential-literary-contributors-who-died-in-2011/">Six influential literary contributors</a> who died in 2011.<br />
—Figment writers share their<a href="http://figment.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&site_search=memorial+day&x=0&y=0"> short stories</a> on memorial day.<br />
—How endearing is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg">she</a>? If only we could all start our mornings this way.<br />
—The Semi-Great Gildersleeve <a href="http://www.greggildersleeve.com/2012/05/memorial-day-writers-reflection.html">reflects on</a> the travesties of war.<br />
—<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/05/a-memorial-day-poem-by-longfellow-from-the-atlantic-june-1882/239636/">A Memorial Day poem</a> by Longfellow at The Atlantic.<br />
—<a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/111041947032683780/">These</a> are all the rage for any event.<br />
—Memorial day sales kick off with <a href="http://www.gap.com/">GAP</a>.<br />
—<a href="http://heart-of-light.blogspot.com/2012/05/reading-lately.html">This book</a> is spreading across blog posts like wildfire. I don't think it's because people like the office.<br />
—I love everything about this <a href="http://blackeiffel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/chance-collection.html">chance collection</a>. Give me some sandals, red-and-white stripes, and watch me go.<br />
—<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/memorial-day-will-never-be-same_b_1547312.html">Memorial Day will never be the same</a>.<br />
—Considering watching this <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Memorial-Day-Jonathan-Bennett/dp/B00772M1D8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338065686&sr=8-1">today</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20px;">© 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All rights reserved. </span></span></i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">{photo <a href="http://blackeiffel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/chance-collection.html">via</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: xx-small;">}</span></div>
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Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167130544791057007.post-40891493529320036892012-04-23T01:48:00.000-05:002015-07-30T14:29:25.990-05:00Little Letters Series: From My Future Self<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwrLQvxOPbasxnQnQ-BxkFEuKGUxEaJ7-ql9GJ-lPZw40DIQyEwtojZeOSjhS8PQMnmws1gPCoiS5nreht0FhOkebrPnt6LZtajZfVswKZdaszB2d0ArKZc2SUU-_BWOSyc5lHNPCz8w4/s1600-h/back,dress,horizon,water,alone,girl-f7237054f369aca58041b635c3bfa3d2_h.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="410" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438002438000545250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwrLQvxOPbasxnQnQ-BxkFEuKGUxEaJ7-ql9GJ-lPZw40DIQyEwtojZeOSjhS8PQMnmws1gPCoiS5nreht0FhOkebrPnt6LZtajZfVswKZdaszB2d0ArKZc2SUU-_BWOSyc5lHNPCz8w4/s640/back,dress,horizon,water,alone,girl-f7237054f369aca58041b635c3bfa3d2_h.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="660" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmipetEeYkcWs_NdBZ5uVIf7ADjW8x_veOj1qpciX4W93CiKqPImFkZN8DjR3xkgy-_4uOd4t1yShwF8vXF9nEYc3E45bjs7MWKgwG1ICdybgMwmmNZE534f3wlSWcRQboiUYy1Oq8wuA/s1600/DEAREST+RACHEL.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmipetEeYkcWs_NdBZ5uVIf7ADjW8x_veOj1qpciX4W93CiKqPImFkZN8DjR3xkgy-_4uOd4t1yShwF8vXF9nEYc3E45bjs7MWKgwG1ICdybgMwmmNZE534f3wlSWcRQboiUYy1Oq8wuA/s1600/DEAREST+RACHEL.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">One day you will lay claim to residence upon the edge of a continent. The paint on your front door will be chipped by the salt of the sea. The drapes of your windows will be worn by the wind. Your feet will be calloused by the unrefined grain of the boardwalk upon which you will walk. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Walk. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Never stop walking.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">For </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">one day you will have walked the miles you now have before you. Your hands will be stained with the ink that has formed your stories. Your sleeping patterns will be upset by late nights spent in your grand undertakings, for some most powerful some kind of good that is entirely your own</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">. Your eyes may be strained in this search for good. Your fingers may weaken in their attempts to recompense for the deficiency.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Deficient.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px;">Some days you may be. your heart may tire of the pulsations your foibles could cause. Your posture may have, at times, lapsed at the possibility of failure. Your ears may ring with their criticisms. But they cannot touch that part of you that hungers to prove them wrong, that part that whispers dim secrets of what you could be.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Be. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Continue, ever, to be.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Persist, sift, pursue.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">For one day you will know it. Your muscles will ache under the long days. Your throat will be dry with interviews. Your hair will be </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">unkempt from the days there are not enough hours. </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">And one day, yes, one fine day you will have forgotten that it ever could have been for anything else.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">One day, darling girl, you will lose all the right things.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Yours sincerely,</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">@ 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All Rights Reserved </span></span>{photo </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">via:<a href="http://vi.sualize.us/" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"> </a><a href="http://vi.sualize.us/" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;">vi.sualize.us</a>} (post inspired by <a href="http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/2012/03/letter-from-me-to-myself-wiser-lived-in.html">meg</a>)</span></i></div>
Rachel Lowryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14361057537951585956noreply@blogger.com6