Darling Clementine

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, & demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long & its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people & grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food & for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one & no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools & robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep & pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song & die like a hero going home.”

–Tecumseh

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

“It takes a lot of courage to
show your dream to someone else.”
– Erma Bombeck

The only place a woman can go to be alone
is the bathroom.
A woman would like to be wrapped in strong arms
when she cries, without having to explain,
or huddle on the couch wrapped in a blanket and a cat.
But all over America, women crouch instead
on a white, cold monument to wasting water.
We lean against a chilled tile wall,
stare at ourselves in an icy mirror,
flush the toilet to cover howls and curses,
brush our teeth twice to cover the taste of anger.
We lock the door, fill the tub with hot bubbles,
take a long time shaving our legs and armpits,
study the way waves break over bulging stomachs.
We scour the sink and rearrange the bottles under it,
refold towels, throw away old prescriptions,
count bandaids and bottles of suntan lotion.
We turn out the lights, stare into candle flames,
light incense, try to pretend we’ve taken our troubles
to a glowing temple, placed them in the lap
of a smiling golden Goddess.

Outside, men who wouldn’t know what to do
if a woman curled up in bed and cried
can relax before bloodless images on TV
and think, “She’s only in the bathroom
doing some woman’s thing.”
Behind a locked door, a woman
spins the empty toilet paper roll
like a Tibetan prayer wheel,
chanting “Help me, help me, help me.”

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

– C.S. Lewis