Women have a tendancy to reply to a compliment in one of two ways; 1: the deflection, "Oh, no, not me really, but YOU, You are..." and 2. The Secret, "This? Really? I got it at Walmart if you can believe that and for only $2.00"
I have tred to teach my children and myself that when given a compliment simply reply with, "Thank you." Try it. it is not as easy as you may think.
I was humbled into silence by your review and observations of my little nest. I immediately wanted to negate everything you said, and probably could with ease. Things like, :Everything looks good in candlelight...if you only knew what it took to pull that off...did you not hear my daughter demand I go out and buy ink for the printer in the middle of the party???
But all that mess is part of my nest. Being the accute observer that you are, I do believe you were complimenting me on what was not seen that night, you know me well enough to know what it takes to put on a show, you see through the candle light into the harsh daylight.
So with grace and humility, to you I say, thank you.
G.
PS I have been hearing God louder in recent days. But like an annoying call I hit the ignore button.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
"everyone in me is a bird..."
maybe there will always be a voyeuristic element to my personality--that element that makes me claim over and over again that I have often felt like a ghost haunting even my own skin--displaced, oddly unhinged and out of time, looking at photographs (szarkowski has nothing on me), wandering through time.
But what I am trying to say on this, your birth day, is that I meant it, sincerely. You have a beautiful family--this coming from the ghost who has haunted all the pretty families. What you have created is a masterpiece from unlikelihoods, and just like the great impressionist paintings, perhaps from so close a vantage point you cannot see the cathedral, but I see it.
And the love you have sown along the way, ("Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings" --anne sexton
They are, they are there, beating their wings, bearing up the beauty of it all.
But what I am trying to say on this, your birth day, is that I meant it, sincerely. You have a beautiful family--this coming from the ghost who has haunted all the pretty families. What you have created is a masterpiece from unlikelihoods, and just like the great impressionist paintings, perhaps from so close a vantage point you cannot see the cathedral, but I see it.
And the love you have sown along the way, ("Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings" --anne sexton
They are, they are there, beating their wings, bearing up the beauty of it all.
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