It is necessary, especially for Americans, to see other lands and experience other cultures. The American, living in this vast country and able to traverse three thousand miles east to west using the same language, needs to hear languages as they collide in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

A tourist, browsing in a Paris shop, eating in an Italian ristorante, or idling along a Hong Kong street, will encounter three or four languages as she negotiates the buying of a blouse, the paying of a check, or the choosing of a trinket. I do not mean to suggest that simply overhearing a foreign tongue adds to one’s understanding of that language. I do know, however, that being exposed to the existence of other languages increases the perception that the world is populated by people who not only speak differently from oneself but whose cultures and philosophies are other than one’s own.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends.

Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

According to her Wiki page, Angelou speaks Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, and West African Fante. Amazing.

(via hollywoodpolyglot)

I’m so lucky that as a child my parents took me out of the country as often as they could. And that early exposure as a child is why I’ve lived abroad, moved around the United States, and try to learn the local language - linguistically or culturally - wherever I go. 

(via cijithgeek-deactivated20121104)

Source: hollywoodpolyglot

My mother’s first criterion for a man is that he be interesting. What this really means is that he be able to appreciate my mother*, whose jokes hinge on some grammatical subtlety or a working knowledge of higher mathematics. You get the picture. Robbie is about as interesting as a pair of red high-top Converse sneakers. But Robbie points to the mattress on the floor. He grins, slowly unbuckling his belt, drops his jeans. ‘Lie down,’ says Robbie.

This is interesting enough for me.

Abigail Thomas, as quoted by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird

On differences in perspective on the subject of ‘interesting.’

*While this may or may not demonstrate what I find interesting, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to my mother, who loves a good grammar joke but would never set that as  criteria for an acceptable, interesting man. 

My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night. The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so that the neighbors wouldn’t see him,until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, ‘Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.’ And I am slowly, slowly in my work - and even more slowly in real life - learning to do this.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird 

I wonder if perhaps the most challenging aspect of adulthood is accepting that the life you imagined, for better or for worse, may not be the life you lead. And that, at some point, you may have to leave yourself where the Universe flang you. 

Now it might be that your God is an uptight, judgmental perfectionist, sort of like Bob Dole or, for that matter, me. But a priest friend of mine has cautioned me away form the standard God of our childhoods, who loves and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you.

…

If you don’t believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth’s: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you were fond of and wish to encourage.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I would argue that it’s often much easier to be compassionate toward others than to be compassionate toward oneself. I wonder if Bob Dole would have sage words to offer on the subject. In the meantime, I remind myself that it’s alright if to stop hiking to rest, even if all the others are far, far ahead. 

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Instead, embrace the certain knowledge that you will be bad at some things. And just because you - and by you I really mean me - are deeply uncomfortable with that state does not mean that the things at which you are not perfect are not worth doing publicly and often. 

We found this piece of paper on in the grass near the picnic table outside of our house. I don’t know who this kid is, but clearly, he/she is my spirit animal. Meticulous notes for Day 4 of his/her Yellowstone trip.  Did you know that hundreds of earthquakes happen at Yellowstone? Well now you do, courtesy of this super awesome kid. 
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We found this piece of paper on in the grass near the picnic table outside of our house. I don’t know who this kid is, but clearly, he/she is my spirit animal. Meticulous notes for Day 4 of his/her Yellowstone trip. 

Did you know that hundreds of earthquakes happen at Yellowstone? Well now you do, courtesy of this super awesome kid. 

What ladies like

nprfreshair:

heidisaman:

Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women. — Nora Ephron

Why be lady-like when there are so many more interesting, more exciting, more  adventuresome things to be?

Or better yet, why not redefine lady-like?

I’m a lady, and here’s what I like:

  1. Strong bodies with scratches and scars
  2. Quick wit
  3. A bellowing laugh
  4. Cooking without a recipe
  5. But with a beer in hand
  6. Gracelessness, poiselessness, but exuberance, filled to the brim*
  7. Legible penmanship
  8. Dolling up in dresses, so long as it’s comfortable*
  9. A wanton disregard for tidy bedrooms

And an unquenchable thirst for the next-over horizon.

*List compiled with the help of my housemates Christina and Molly

Source: NPR

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

I woke up this morning, back from our trip to the Beartooths, and put Travels with Charley at the top of my list of things to buy when I go into Bozeman this weekend. I remember the first time I read Steinbeck. And the second time. And the third. I remember that try as I might, I couldn’t put his words, his magic, down. Every excerpt I read from that book is as though he looked into my life in the present continuous and transcribed all that is happening.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, he didn’t know me at the time, but he was looking into the future to write my biography. Either that, or he knew me better than I know myself.