I Wished You Were Here

Many times, I wished you were here

Through the velvet shadows of my dreams

Many times, I wished you were near

Through the darkness as it came

... Just Tell Me You Love Me, England Dan and John Ford Coley

The Promise

If you wait for me

Then I'll come for you

Although I've traveled far

I always hold a place for you in my heart

Remembering

Your touch

Your kiss

Your warm embrace

I'll find my way back to you

If you'll be waiting

Together again

It would feel so good

To be in your arms

Where all my journeys end...

... The Promise, Tracy Chapman

Where You Been?

Nostalgic listening to these homies back from Colorado.

Memory is a dangerous thing...

Who I am, Who I'm not, and Who I wanna be

No way to know

How long she will be next to me...

Why'd you have to wait

To find me?

To find me?

You And Me

What day is it?

And in what month?

This clock never seemed so alive

I can't keep up

And I can't back down

I've been losing so much time

... You And Me, Lifehouse

Everything About You

I miss those blue eyes

How you kiss me at night

I miss the way we sleep...

I see your blue eyes

Everytime I close mine

You make it hard to see

Where I belong to

When I'm not around you

It's like I'm not with me

I miss everything about you...

... I Never Told You, Colbie Caillat

As A Guide From Beyond

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

... The Guest House, Mevlana Rumi

Breathe In The Same Air, And Step On The Same Ground

I traveled around the world to create the film which concept is 

"collecting the steps from all over the world
and playing a music with the steps".

All of us breathe in the same air and step on the same ground
... Takayuki Akachi

Life...

Life is an opportunity, avail it.

Life is beauty, admire it.

Life is bliss, taste it.

Life is a dream, realize it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is costly, care for it.

Life is wealth, keep it.

Life is love, enjoy it.

Life is a mystery, know it.

Life is a promise, fulfill it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is a tragedy, embrace it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.

Life is luck, make it.

Life is life, defend it.

"What is the meaning of Life to you?"

... Blessed Teresa of Calcutta 

Just This Little Space In Between

Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The film follows Jesse (Ethan Hawke), a young American, and Céline (Julie Delpy), a young French woman, who met on a train and disembarked in Vienna, where they spend the night walking around the city and getting to know each other.

The plot is minimalist. The two characters' ideas and perspectives on life and love are detailed. Jesse is a romantic disguised as a cynic, and Céline is seemingly a romantic, albeit with some doubts. Taking place over the course of one night, their limited time together is always on their minds, and leads to their revealing more about themselves than they normally would, since both believe they will never see one another again.

50/50

One of the best movies I've watched this year! Highly recommended.

Are You Living The Good Life?

... And Then Dies Having Never Really Lived

Q: What surprises you most about humanity?

A: Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

It Is Quite A Warm And Tender Place

"Today, my prayer consisted in simply going to my heart and remembering all the folks I've stored there. 

It is not cold storage. 

It is quite a warm and tender place"

... A Tree Full Of Angels, Macrina Wiederkehr

All My Days

Well many a night I found myself with no friends standing near

All of my days

I cried aloud, I shook my hands, what am I doing here?

All of these days

For I look around me 

And my eyes confound me 

And it's just too bright

As the days keep turning into night

Now I see clearly

It's you I'm looking for

All of my days

So I'll smile

I know I'll feel this loneliness no more

All of my days

For I look around me

And it seems you found me

And it's coming into sight

As the days keep turning into night

As the days keep turning into night

And even breathing feels alright

Yes, even breathing feels alright

... Alexi Murdoch

Colder Weather

... At a truck stop diner just outside of Lincoln,

The night is black as the coffee he was drinkin',

And in the waitress' eyes he sees the same 'ol light shinin',

He thinks of Colorado

And the girl he left behind him ...

Oh I wanna see you again

But I'm stuck in colder weather

Maybe tomorrow will be better

Can I call you then?

Cause I'm a ramblin' man

I ain't ever gonna change

I got a gypsy soul to blame

And I was born for leavin' (born for leavin')

When I close my eyes I see you

No matter where I am

I can smell your perfume through these whispering pines

I'm with your ghost again

It's a shame about the weather

But I know soon we'll be together

And I can't wait 'til then

I can't wait 'til then

... Zac Brown Band

The A Team

And we're all under the upperhand

Go mad for a couple of grams

And we don't want to go outside tonight

And in a pipe we fly to the Motherland

Or sell love to another man

It's too cold for angels to fly

Angels to fly

To fly, to fly

For angels to die

... Ed Sheeran

Alfie

We haven't spoken in months

You see I've been counting the days

I dream of such inanities, such insanities

I'm lost like a kid and I'm late

But I've never taken your calls

You see, I've put a block on my phone

I act like an addict, I just got to have it

I never can leave that alone

Old habits die hard

Old soldiers just fade away

Old habits die hard

Harder than November rain

Old habits die hard

Old soldiers just fade away

Old habits die hard

Hard enough to feel the pain

Through Fidelity To A Worthy Purpose

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.

... Helen Keller

Hiding My Heart

This is how the story went

I met someone by accident

who blew me away

blew me away

And It was in the darkest of my days

When you took my sorrow and you took my pain

And buried them away, you buried them away...

Dropped you off at the train station

Put a kiss on top of your head

And watched you wave

And watched you wave

Then I went on home to my skyscrapers

Neon lights and waiting papers

That I call home

I call that home

I woke up feeling heavy hearted

I'm going back to where I started

The morning rain

The morning rain

And though I wish that you were here

on that same old road that brought me here

It's calling me home

It's calling me home

I wish I could lay down beside you

When the day is done

And wake up to your face against the morning sun

But like everything I've ever known

You'll disappear one day

So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away

... Original by Brandi Carlile 

Cover by Adele

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

... Edgar Allen Poe

You Can't Take The Sky From Me

Take my love, take my land

Take me where I cannot stand

I don't care, I'm still free

You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black

Tell 'em I ain't comin' back

Burn the land and boil the sea

You can't take the sky from me

There's no place I can be

Since I found serenity

But you can't take the sky from me

... Firefly, Sonny Rhodes

But It Is For Your Private Pleasure...

“You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind wonders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.”

... Of Human Bondage, William Somerset Maugham

The Bell Jar

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet"

... The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Felicity

"Felicity" - one of my favorite television series back in the days - a poignant reminder of college life, and a second chance of re-living it in Boulder. And it was indeed nostalgic to see scenes all over New York again in this series. In a few year's time...

It all starts the moment shy, beautiful Felicity Porter asks Ben Covington to sign her high school yearbook. It was graduation day, he's gorgeous and she's had a four-year crush on him. Even though the two have never spoken, what he writes in her yearbook is so insightful, so perfect, it persuades Felicity to change the course of her future from Stanford to New York - a future defined by medical school and the dreams of her parents. She surreptitiously follows Ben to UNY (the fictional University of New York) and is quickly swept into a romantic triangle that brings both discovery and heartache. Felicity moved to New York to find romance but ends up finding herself.

Dear Felicity, 

(Here it goes.) I watched you for four years, always wondered what you were like, and what was going on in your mind all that time when you were so quiet, just thinking. Drawing in your notebook. I should've just asked you, but I never asked you. So now, four years later, I don't even know you. But I admire you. Well, that makes me sound crazy, but I'm okay with that. So take care of yourself. 

Love,

Ben. 

PS: I would've said, "Keep in touch," but unfortunately, we were never in touch.

- Ben's yearbook message to Felicity

Ben Covington: Look, I... I understand why you rather see Felicity with someone like Noel. Someone who's obviously going to make it. And probably long before, I mean, I figure out what I'm going to be doing with my life. But I always remember this one thing a teacher said, which was, all the interesting people she knew they had no idea what they were going to do with their lives when they were 20. So chances are, I'm going to turn out to be a pretty interesting guy. Look, for some reason, Felicity cares about me. And on a good day, I feel like I might become everything she sees in me. It is because of that, it is because of about a million other reasons that she means pretty much the world to me.

Sally Reardon: I've become a real believer in not defining every single thing. Seems like everytime you think you've figured out what something is, it just becomes something else.

Felicity Porter: Maybe getting over someone you’re in love with isn’t impossible. Unless, maybe you don’t actually get over it. Maybe you just learn to live with it.

Sally Reardon: The hardest part about moving forward is not looking back.

Felicity Porter: Dear Ben. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. But you know that. At least, I know you used to. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I thought we’d be spending the rest of our lives together. But now it’s six months later and you’re in Arizona. And I’m here in Palo Alto. And somehow it’s okay. I mean, it’s actually good. Just so you know, everyone’s doing great. Sean and Noel have, like, a real business. They’re happy. And Meghan, despite her issues, still wants to be a psychiatrist. She’ll probably be amazing at it. I’ll probably become her first client. It’s ironic how sometimes the thing you’re fighting is actually yourself. After everything, despite everything, I realized I wanted to become a doctor. Of course, my parents couldn’t be happier. But now I know, I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for me. Because maybe I can make a difference. So who knows, Ben, maybe we’ll both be doctors. Anyway, I know you’re busy, but, um, gimme a call or write me a letter... or send me a tape. I’d love to hear your voice. 

Love always, Felicity.

Have you seen yourself today?

Could you recognize your face?

Can you tell me what to say

Mine's lost without a trace...

How do you feel when all the diamonds have run dry?

How do you feel after bittersweet goodbye's?

Today I found my face

Floating in a puddle of grace

A porcelain doll with cracks to mend

Oh momma, I found a friend

It's Easier To Be Alone

Meredith: There is a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't because I thought I would be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It's easier to be alone. Because what if you learn that you need love? And then you don't have it. What if you like it? And lean on it? What if you shape your life around it? And then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is, death ends. This? It could go on forever . . .

... Grey's Anatomy, Season 7 Finale

And A Time To Let It Go...

How far up the river

Would you go, would you go

To meet me again?

And I built the cathedral

With the shelves that you held

In the hole in a tree...

There's a time to let it grow

There's a time to let it slow

And a time to let it go

... Cathedral, Cocoon

Come Back When You Can

you left your home

you're so far from everything you know

your big dream is crashing down and out your door

wake up and dream once more

come back when you can

let go you'll understand

you've done nothing at all

to make me love you less

so come back when you can

come back i'll help you stand

let go and hold my hand

if all you wanted was me

then i'll give you nothing less

so come back when you can

.. Come Back When You Can, Barcelona

Life Is Painting A Picture

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

... Oliver Wendell Holmes

Less And Less, More and More

As I grow to understand life less and less,

I learn to love it more and more.

... Jules Renard

Take A Broom And Clean Someone's House

There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point.
What do you do then? 

Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough.

... Blessed Teresa of Calcutta