Fourth of July

I don't like the 4th of July: all that boisterous banging and war games rattles me, reminds me of how many kind and loving people love the bang of power. I also don't like the banging on New Year's Eve or the booming when the blue angels fly and refly over our home again and again at Seattle's Seafair. (My puppy doesn't like them either. I'm angry. She shivers.)

Having survived the 4th, I need to clear my mind, so I'm cleaning my desk. (I can now see the wood in one corner--I've been working on this about eight hours.)

I've come across some lovely quotations and poems in the process. They calm me. Maybe they will calm you, too:

“There are some things we learn on a stormy sea that we never learn on calm, smooth waters.”—Danny L. Deube

 "If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat."  --John Ortberg, Jr.  

Raise your words, not your voice.

It is rain that grows flowers,

Not thunder.

--Rumi

Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. – Ernest Hemingway

“Let today be a day where you take nothing for granted.
For life is fleeting, fragile and precious and can change on a whim.
Say all the things you really want to say to your loved ones today,
say the things you would regret should they pass on and your words remain unspoken. Rejoice, for you and they are alive today …
and should you or them pass on to unknown shores,
rejoice even more for you have a wonderful love story to tell.”

– Jackson Kiddard

 “Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.” 

--Yoda in Attack of the Clones

“Luminous beings are we…not this crude matter.” 

--Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back