The Perfect Cup

The Perfect Cup
Joyce Rupp

it is time for me
to see the flaws
of myself
and stop being alarmed.

it is time for me
to halt my drive
for perfection
and to accept
my blemishes.

it is time for me
to receive
slowly evolving growth,
the kind that comes
in God's own good time
and pays no heed
to my panicky pushing.

it is time for me
to embrace
my humanness,
to love my incompleteness.

it is time for me
to cherish
the unwanted,
to welcome
the unknown,
to treasure
the unfulfilled.

if i wait to be
perfect
before i love myself,
i will always be
unsatisfied
and ungrateful.

if i wait until
all the flaws, chips,
and cracks disappear,
i will be the cup
that stands on the shelf
and is never used.

Wise Words

"I love for those who love me, for those who know me true;

for the heaven that smiles above me and awaits my spirit too. 

For the cause that lacks assistance, 

for the wrong that needs resistance, 

for the future in the distance,

and the good that I can do."

― George Linnaeus Banks.

Girls Who Read

"You should date a girl who reads.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. 

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. 

She's the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she's kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author's making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. 

Buy her another cup of coffee. 

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce's Ulysses she's just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. 

It's easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she's going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. 

She has to give it a shot somehow. 

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. 

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twlight series. 

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She'll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. 

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she's sick. Over Skype. 

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn't burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. 

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you're better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

-- Rosemarie Urquico

Wanderlust

I want to see the world. 

Follow a map to its edges. 

And keep going. 

Forgo the plans, trust my instincts.

Let my curiosity be my guide.

I want to change hemispheres.

Sleep with unfamiliar stars and

Let the journey unfold before me.

When I Fall in Love

When I fall in love it will be forever, 

or I'll never fall in love. 

In a restless world like this is, 

love is ended before it's begun.

And too many moonlight kisses 

seem to cool in the warmth of the sun... 

When I give my heart it will be completely, 

or I'll never give my heart--

And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too, 

is when I'll fall in love with you. 

Song To The Moon

La Luna...

Your light sees through endless time,

tell o' tell me, where my love lies.

O' moon e'er you pass,

wake my dreaming lover!

I am waiting, I am calling...

Tell him come, tell him o' moon.

Tell him. Light his place. 

Moon help him! 

Help him remember and dream of me!

Tell him, o' tell him

who is waiting, who is longing.

I am waiting, longing.

Tell him come, tell him o' moon.

Help to remember our laughter and tears,

mem'ries of summer nights.

Help him remember our triumphs and fears,

may this remembrance waken him.

Tell that I am holding firm,

for at least a while. 

Tell him, moon.

Moon, o' moon don't disappear.

O' moon, silver moon in the deep, dark sky,

your light sees through endless time...

Tell, o' tell me where my love lies. 

Tell him come!

La Luna...

Listen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XieeQcgQLns