for pondering

With her Florentino Ariza learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them. Alone in the midst of the crowd on the pier, he said to himself in a flash of anger: "My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse."

- Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

things I like this week, vol. 27

. . .

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

. . .

I wish I could give you an infallible rule for success in writing. I know but one. If you feel the urge, write and keep on writing. There is no short cut.

. . .

. . .

You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.

. . .

Her last photo shoot. She crossed out the negatives of the photos she didn't like. An odd sort of memento mori.

. . .

unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.

. . .

I understood that passion and art could be more important than money.

bear

My parents put down their Great Pyrenees yesterday. He had cancer in the joint of his left front leg.

We got him almost six years ago. I had already moved back in with my parents when I found out I was pregnant with a girl. My dad, realizing that he would be the only male in a house with (soon to be) four female humans and two female dogs, decided to find a boy dog to help him stave off the estrogen.

He found Bear through a rescue program. The story goes that there were several other families that wanted to adopt Bear that day, but when my dad saw him, he knelt down so they were at eye level and Bear came right up to him, and the rescue people knew my dad was the one who should take him home.

We used to joke that Bear would be the dog that Joley could ride, and in fact, he was the only one of the three that tolerated her babyness without complaint. He watched out for her more than the others.

He drooled constantly. He was so stubborn that we could never cure him of his deep, slow barking. And he was huge and lumbering, and when he'd just been groomed his fur looked and felt like a marshmallow cloud. He had tiny soft triangles for ears and big droopy jowls, and he was incredibly strong.

I loved him. And the worst part, besides feeling like I've lost some bulwark in the world, is feeling like his life could have ended differently. That better choices could have been made.

It didn't hit me until today. I kept hoping that my parents had changed their minds and decided to amputate the leg instead of putting him down. Then, moments ago, an image of his huge carcass on its side, somehow deflated to only skin and bone and wiry hair, floated to the surface of my mind. And now I can't help but face the fact that everything that was Bear is gone.

He was a good dog, and I miss him terribly.

things I like this week, vol. 26

Perfect insouciance.

. . .

From a friend of a friend's facebook page.

. . .

A self-portrait less self-conscious than mine have ever been.

. . .

Four figures in the scene. So fascinating.

. . .

Cate Blanchett without Photoshop. I love her, and this photo only confirms it.

. . .

It's unusually shaped, and supremely sinister. I want it in brass to wear with everything.

. . .

Who knew a bowl cut could look so sexy?

. . .

Perhaps the moment that door slammed shut is the instant from which all the time springs.

the tucson tango festival: a reflection

I am finding it difficult to write anything cohesive about this weekend. I've started this post at least three times already.

It is not enough to tell you that it was exhilarating, or to tell you how many hours I danced - I don't even remember well enough to count. It is not enough to describe the leads I met, or explain the ways my dance improved (and then degraded from soreness and lack of sleep), or to say that I went to milongas six nights in a row, or to say that I stayed Saturday night from 9 pm to 6 am and danced almost every tanda.

Perhaps it is enough to say that when there was music on, my feet moved, whether I was on the pista or not. Or that my friend Melissa's voice was so soulful as she sang and danced simultaneously with a man who was simultaneously playing a guitar and dancing with her that I shed two full tears. Or that Sunday morning dawned so grey and misty and lovely that I felt nothing but energized as I drove the long, damp road home, the sun burning orange below the clouds to the east. Or that, in the end, I was happier with good conversation and a slim female arm through mine than I would have been attempting to please the upper crust of dancers.

There was much about this weekend that was good and beautiful. I love tango for the reasons that I love so many things: because it involves intimate connections with people I value, and because it is ephemeral. It exists only as long as we are dancing, only as long as a shared breath.