Rumi, always

“Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”~Rumi

bienvenido, summer!

*So far, just a couple days in, I’m digging this summer. I simply LOVE this time of year. May it be a radiant, joyful one for us all.*

It’s Weekend!

Truth be told, I’m still quite out of whack from last week’s emotion-packed agenda. I’m working to get grounded here again.

Yet, there’s no rest for the weary, as it’s time to gear up for my neighborhood’s huge annual to-do! There will be naked cyclists and kooks on stilts and music in the streets and BBQs on the rooftops, and I’m really looking forward to getting in on the fun.

Happy weekend, friends.

(*With warm memories of last Friday’s deck dinner, this song goes out to my Chicago family members, who are so deeply present in my thoughts and heart.)

*we are the lucky ones*

You know when you come back from a foreign land, and you have that country’s language swirling around in your head for a couple days (even if you don’t happen to speak their tongue or understand one lick)? Well, right now I have the little voices of wee ones (my cousin’s four adorable kiddos, to be exact) echoing in my head, and I miss them so—their sticky fingers and high-pitched, silly cadences and innocent questions and infuriating, illogical tantrums and soft hands that curl around yours in those tender, break-through moments when they decide that, even though you’re not mom or dad or nanny Laura, you’re worthy of their love, too. (I will choose to set aside the comically ridiculous comments like “You’re never gonna be my best friend” and “Just go back at your home; I don’t even care!” in lieu of the precious times they care to ask, “Mommy, how much longer is your cousin staying with us?”)

There’s something really tough going on in these sweet little ones’ lives right now, and you wonder how much of it they grasp. You want to shield those innocent, big brown eyes from all the world’s bad, to protect them from ever understanding the cruelties life sometimes throws our way. But the thing is, at times like this, you can’t even protect yourself from the unfairness of it all. And so for their sake—and for yours—you trust it will all be fine. Because it has to be. There is no alternative.

These are the precious, exhausting, wonderful little dudes I spent the last week with:)

*enlightenment*

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”~Adyashanti

I’m still processing this quote, but I think I get it.

Happy weekend, friends. With these recent evening skies we’ve been having around here, even when I stray, I just can’t help but return to a place of immense, immense gratitude.

Questions I Never Thought I’d (Regularly) Answer…

“Do you know where the troll is?”

So strange, yet so endearing. Man, I love this city.

These summer-like days when I am very tuned into the beauty and the kindness, I am completely, absolutely, head-over-heels in love.

On Repeat

I’m back from an unbelievably spoiled, delicious, VIP, special, fun weekend in sun- and wine-soaked Walla Walla, Washington, and until I figure out how to summarize it all, I’m staying quiet. But there’s music. There’s always music:)

Enjoy.