Another Lifetime: message from your long lost friend

Oh my gosh, it has been so long since I've talked to you guys and there is a lot to say! My husband and I are expecting a baby in May! This means I am just over 12 weeks along. Morning sickness, fatigue, yes, but things are going well and we are very happy. The experience of telling people our news has been very positive. For some reason this is the part I was dreading. It was very weird for me to go from non-pregnant Sheila to pregnant Sheila in people's eyes, but this was just one of those irrational thoughts that tends to harbor in my mind every once in a while. Family members are super excited. Friends are unbelievably supportive. We feel very loved and blessed.

This, however, is not why I haven't been on here. The truth is that I have zero space left for photos on my computer, and a camera full of pictures that have no where to go. Sometimes I let a very basic obstacle become an enormous mountain, and I shrug my shoulders and say "I don't feel like hiking today". I can be laaaazy. I've missed you guys. I hope you are well and I am sending you happy thoughts and wishes for a great week ahead!

Love,
Sheila

What I'm Reading

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb

The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
"Esme stares at the spiked rocks. She stares and stares until they begin to lose their third dimension, until they begin to look unfamiliar, insubstantial. Like the way words said over and over become just a slurry of a sound. She says the word 'word' over and over in her head until she hears only 'dwur-dwur-dwur'. She is aware of those numbers, the two and the eight, trying to find a place to slip back in. They have been lurking at the edges where she pushed them and they are mounting an assault, a break-in. She won't have it. She will not."

The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
"But as for the old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, and its boards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge, clustered chimney in the midst, seemed to constitute only the least and meanest part of its reality. So much of mankind's varied experience had passed there, -so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed,- that the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart."

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
"She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things"

The Life You Can Save: Acting now to end world poverty, Peter Singer
"In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. Three quarters of them own a car. Three quarters of them have air conditioning. All have access to health care. I am not quoting these figures to deny that the poor in the United States face genuine difficulties. Nevertheless, for most, these difficulties are of a different order than those of the world's poorest people."

Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My search for love and art, Gene Wilder

Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
"I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in a security mirror's reflection. In that moment my brain did an odd thing-it fired off this split second message: 'Hey! You know her! That's a friend of yours!' And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar......Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend"

The Kindness of Strangers, Katrina Kittle

The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho, translated by Alan Clarke
"'Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him,' his heart said. 'We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them- the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place. So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts.'"

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
"For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, our self, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves;"

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
"The room hovered around me with great gentleness, as if the chairs and the tables and the walls were witholding their weight out of sympathy for my sudden frailty"

9 comments:

Beverly Ash Gilbert said...: So excited for you!! But I remember those early weeks - feeling peeked and not much energy - don't worry if you don't get everything done you want to. Sleeping and nurturing yourself are top of the list!; October 26, 2009 at 9:02 AM
What About The Girl? said...: Oh if you could see me...I am smiling the whole time I was reading your post. Oh you must be glowing!! :-); October 26, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Maria said...: This is fantastic news, I am so happy for you both!!; October 26, 2009 at 5:42 PM
Cindy said...: congratulations, sheila!; October 27, 2009 at 4:55 AM
onesilentwinter said...: oh i am one of those who now see you as sheila the mother to be, but you are and it is wonderful! i will stop saying things like, rest, be careful! oh but must i:); October 27, 2009 at 9:06 AM
kendalee said...: Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!!!! Sheila, congratulations to you and your husband! How wonderfully twirlingly exciting... I feel like doing a little jig around the room {huge grin} and if I were able to reach through the ether and give you a big hug, I would! Sorry about the exclamation mark explosion but !!!!! I'm so thrilled for you !!!!! Yay! That's the best news I've heard in days. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Sorry you're feeling tired and sick at the mo, but hopefully that'll pass soon and then you can just bloom and grow... :); October 27, 2009 at 11:11 AM
♥ Boomer ♥ said...: Congratulations!!!!!!! ♥♥♥; November 12, 2009 at 5:17 AM
Unknown said...: to be honest when i got your email i was so excited and then the next day, the idea of you being pregnant was something that my mind could not quite picture so i can relate to what you are writing...

really excited for you both.

as for the mountains we create. i have a few of those at present. glad to know that someone else also just shoves the hiking boots aside and says "not today: : )

xox; November 14, 2009 at 11:59 AM
Iva Messy said...: Congratulations!!; December 3, 2009 at 9:20 PM

Another Lifetime

Monday, October 26, 2009

message from your long lost friend

9 comments:

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