Rat's Country: X sees herself as a constant source of self-congratulation...

X sees herself as a constant source of self-congratulation.  She claps for every move and keeps moving so she has something to applaud.  Performer and audience.  Not a bad strategy.

Rat's Country: I'm thinking about aspirations...

I'm thinking about aspirations, the breaths I haven't taken.

Rat's Country: Happiness is...(#)

Happiness is walking into a room scented with roses, lying on a couch reading a novel with sentences so beautifully made I want to rewrite the book in longhand.

Rat's Country: Candie has a great attitude...

Candie has a great attitude.  Instead of complaining about how domineering he has become, she says, "That's how precious I've become."

Rat's Country: "Validate yourself"

"Validate yourself."  A cliche.  Nevertheless, you must stamp your own passport, give yourself permission to travel.  Don't forget.  You must fill your own gas tank, especially when driving into new territory.

Favorite quotes: "Actually, she was an enthusiastic woman..."

"Actually, she was an enthusiastic woman with a highly honed sense of the absurd, who was affected by blasts of bleakness."
                                    From an article about Diane Arbus by Arthur Lubow in the New York Times Magazine, 2003
                             Another very favorite quote, as if bleakness were cold Arctic air.

Favorite quotes: "Even after the worst storm..."

"Even after the worst storm the birds sing and so should we.  God wants us to be happy."

                       Rose Kennedy was quoted as saying this.  She died at 104.  It's one of my very favorite quotes.

Favorite quotes: "Discipline is not a punishment...

“Discipline is not a punishment.  Discipline is how you get to where you want to go.  You can see it as a way of ordering your life.  Discipline is not a restriction, but an empowerment.”

                                                from Walking in Beauty by Richard Olney

Rat's Country: What assumptions should I be making...

What assumptions should I be making about the future that will make the present better?

Rat's Country: Hardest of all...

Hardest of all is to find the third way:  empathetic, connected, and loving; but not diminished or distorted by his or her needs.

Rat's Country: What if I could trust myself?

What if I could trust myself? What if--in my own way--I am wise, intuitive, have good sense about things, like the omniscient narrator of a George Eliot novel.

Rat's Country: Would it help...

Would it help if I gathered photographs of myself laughing?

Rat's Country: I have labored in the soul's salt mines...

I have labored in the soul’s salt mines, the cold Siberian winters of the spirit, laboring in darkness, seeing silhouettes of trees, black and bare.  I have been the guard,  walking my own prison walls.  What a place for the soul to be.  I can remember, but I do not have to go back.

Rat's Country: Once, I began the New Year...

 Once,  I began the New Year wearing a cashmere sweater and reading a seed catalog:  luxury and hope.

Rat's Country: Thought for the New Year

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.  And to make an end is to make a beginning."
                                                              T.S. Eliot