Day by day, moment by moment

I just got out from seeing what critics are calling 'the most romantic movie of the summer,' The Notebook. It came later to our sleepy little resort town than the larger cities, as many movies do, so I am sure I'm close to the billionth person to see it for the first time. Anyways, it is a good one. Your classic love story, with it's own unique twists and turns of course. One thing that really "spoke" to me is the part where the heroine has to decide what she wants in life. She has to search out her deepest desires and longings, and ultimately decide between two entirely different lives...I wont tell you what happens, in case you happen to be the billionth-and-one person to see it (hee hee). At any rate, I was left wondering how the film makers (novelist, in this case) were able to know what I was thinking about just this evening before seeing the movie??? I mean, sure, it is your typical searching-for-true-love-and-meaning type story, so it makes sense that nearly everyone would relate to it in some way or another; that it would touch some natural human desire in any heart---but to say some of those very same things that I myself had said just hours ago, and then see it on the big screen??? Too trippy. I have been feeling so torn lately...I have a good solid job, the freedom (for the most part) to dictate my own schedule, my own space, friends and family that love me deeply, growing relationships---and SO much more! Yet here in my heart there remains a yearning for adventure, love, learning and far off places...I wonder why I continue to relate each of those first three with the last as being the answer--that those things can only be found far away from where I am? You know, lately I feel that my thinking is probably much like that of Anne of Green Gables, who went looking for her "ideals" and found later that she had looked so far outside of who she was and where she came from, that they were not there at the end of her search, but right back in the town and home that she had begun from...I wonder if that is what is happening with me? If so, it would make sense to simply stay and grow, learning to be content. Yet I also wonder whether that journey away and back again was what actually caused her to see what she had left behind, and whether or not she would have come to that conclusion had she not ventured off.... Hmmm, well I guess all I, or anyone for that matter, can do is take it a moment at a time. Day by day, hour by hour, learning to live in the moment. I don't want to miss a single breath of it, and if I continue to try and see into the future, I will miss not only moments, but perhaps a whole wonderful life! So, here we are...I must learn to BE first, then do. I have a feeling that this is where I will find the water for this thirsty soul and sustenance for my hungry heart...day by day.

whisper voice

contented people all around me, my heart in the middle of them, still aching for some form of contentment...i've watched for years till now, to what seems like forever sometimes, and i still wonder how they can be so happy. i am not trying to seem dismal, i just don't get it. i mean, here i am, and there they are--so enjoying where they are in life, this normal life they live day in and day out, one i've even tried to live also, yet it seems i've always had this inner pull inside that tells me again and again, in it's rasping whisper of a voice, seeming so loud in my head at times it could have been shouted out at the top of healthy lungs..."Janina, there's more than this! Life is not meant to be lived so small..." whispers growing stonger and stronger every minute until i almost think i am going to go crazy! it calls and calls...it never goes away, never. it is always there. i don't mean to call the lives they are living small or insignificant by any means, and there are times where i get wrapped up in the moment of things as well, and for a short time don't really hear that calling whisper, but as soon as the din around me fades, there it is, remaining ever present, solid as steel (and how can a whisper seem so solid?) at any rate, the question i am asking tonight is one i've asked myself again and again: how is it that these around me never seem to hear the voice? ok, so maybe not the same voice as the one i hear, but at least a similar one i would think, coming from inside their heart; they seem just fine with the way things are! so much so that at times i deeply hunger to know what their secret is!! if only i, too, could live so in the moment that i have no desire to see anything altered--so loving what is happening in the here-and-now that i really don't want it to change, ever......yeah, "if only"...so what is my issue? IS it my issue? just this once i wish i wasn't asking some cyber black hole and that an answer or two would be ricocheted back to me! but it is like all the other times: i will click the "publish" button and send this out into the cyberland void, still wondering where i fit and what that "bigger thing" out there is that i am supposed to be doing...also still wondering whether that "bigger thing" may not be out there somewhere, but right under my nose...in the present here-and-now, where if i could only learn the contentment i see around me, i'd also know that happiness...and then maybe the voice would go away.

Trail runner in training

i am new to this whole blog thing. my best friend has one and she turned me onto it. i used to write allllll the time, but that skill (if you want to call it that!), or rather hobby, has been collecting dust long enough, as she says. so here i am, having created a blog of my own...i figured, what the heck--i am waiting for my last load of laundry to dry, so here i write......

if you'd have asked me 5 years ago, i wouldn't have had a clue that trail running could be such an amazing addiction! ok, so maybe i need more of a life, but for now it has been the main reason i get out of bed in the morning. to make it just that much more invigorating, i've discovered the most wonderful trail near my house that leads up into the backwoods of the ski resort near where i live. it is full of twists that satisfy my adventurous side. you can't imagine my thrill to have found this series of winding paths! you see, i just recently moved to this area of town and was missing the neighborhood i came from, mainly because it also was very near the forest (ok, so i might miss the people there too just a tad, hee hee!), so now that i have reconnected with nature, i feel more at home, away from home. though i was raised in the mountains, i haven't really begun to take advantage of it until just recently . i LOVE being outside! maybe it was working in a bank cubicle for 3 years that put a hunger for the outdoors back in me, who knows, but i will continue to let this oxygen feed my soul from here forward if i can help it! this is where i feel more alive than anywhere else, for now--that is, besides when i am singing or writing music at the piano, but that is another story, for later on maybe..... so i found this really cool book at barnes and noble about women's running, and was pretty surprised to find it so useful! some "manuals" are nice and full of information, but no application. not so with this one baby! i am learning how to track my progress as a distance runner and journal my routines. it has everything you'd need to know from what kind of shoe to use to how to train for a marathon--complete with a schedule to follow every step of the way (no pun intended). so though i am "in training" i can feel a bit closer to some of the ol' pros by learning from what they have to offer. who knows, ask me again in another year or so and i might be telling you all about my latest distance race or marathon and all the challenges along the way!

ok, so my laundry is dry now and i'd better head home--besides, i want to get my rest in (-hem, yet another important thing in training your body to perform at higher levels of excellence, tee hee!) so i can hit the trail in the morning before church! (ok, ok so i already admitted i am getting addicted to this stuff! what do you want from me????) goodnight.