pinion noun. the outer part of a bird's wing including the flight feathers
Several months ago I went for a run in the mountain reserve near my home with my son in his stroller. I remember not feeling particularly well that day and being in a bad mood about something I can't recall. Running is a stress reliever for me but I always listen to loud music in order to ignore the pain that running causes and to not hear my own huffing and wheezing all along the way. That particular day, I had forgotten my earphones. Like I said, I was in a bad mood but I still needed to run because I knew it would make me feel better. Instead of focusing on music I focused on the nature around me and tried to ignore my bodily groaning. I noticed a sparrow in the middle of the trail, not flying or walking, but just looking up toward the sky. Of course when I got closer to him, he took flight, but I was left with an amazing feeling that things would be okay. That all I had to do was remember to look up and the sky would still be there the same way it was for the bird.Throughout my life there have always been symbolic birds. It all started with my mother when I was a child. I had never met her father, my grandfather. He died when my mother was around 20 from a heart attack, but I can tell that she loved him very much. She always told me that her father came back as a pigeon after he died. Now, we are Catholic so we don't believe in reincarnation, but my mother was very sure that whenever she saw an animated pigeon, or one that stood out among the rest, it was her father. Maybe it was because her father used to keep pigeons on the roof when she was growing up in Brooklyn or maybe the pigeon's stout stature and tenacity recalled fond memories of her dad. Either way, my grandfather is a pigeon.The first grown up book that I ever read was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I still have the paper back copy that my dad gave me and have read it over and over again. I kept the same bookmark I used as a kid in the book and every time I open it to read I feel like I am sitting by the pool at my grandmother's house in Bergenfield reading it for the first time. I've noticed over time that memories of my father become fainter and I have to think harder to recall him. This book is like a totem for my memory. If there were ever a fire in my home and I could save something other than the obvious - baby, husband, dog, wedding photos - I'd reach for this book next. In a way, if my grandfather is a pigeon then my father is definitely a seagull.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGh8IpBg4wY]But back to my bird story. So this sparrow I saw was looking up at the sky and I had never noticed a bird doing that before. Usually the birds that I see are scavenging for food or picking up bits of garbage to build a nest. Somehow I feel connected to that sparrow. He wasn't looking at the sky because he longed to fly again...he took off and flew seconds later. The sky is a sort of home to a bird...second only to their nest. Perhaps the sky can be my second home as well. The place I look to in order to clear my head and get above all of the nonsense clouding my sight on the ground.The sky is special place that only clouds and birds can really call a home. People and planes can visit it to get from here to there, but not really experience the sky the way a bird can. It's interesting to think about skydiving and space needles and all the odd ways humans interact with the sky. It is as if we go up high to make where we actually reside and live every day seem a little more special so that when we go back down to the ground, we have a different perspective.The difference is we have to work pretty hard to get above the ground to look down. The sky is always there in abundance and all we have to do is look up for a different perspective.Who would have thought that keeping your head in the clouds would help keep you more grounded?
voulu
voulu adj. lacking in spontaneity; contrived
How many words do you know that end in a "u" like this one? I don't think I know any others, hence the reason I chose it. Voodoo ends in an "o" but that doesn't count. It's the "u" that makes this word special. For some reason this word makes me think of the Lululemon shopping bags they give out - because spending 80 dollars on something you are going to sweat in should come with a little free inspiration. So in the spirit of spontaneity, I am going to ponder some of these sayings from my shopping bag as an exercise for today's post. Now some of these quotes are well known and wise, while others sound like they came out of the mouth of some type A, female, yoga freak psycho...so I'll include both varieties."Do one thing a day that scares you." - Eleanor RooseveltOkay. I think have this covered. I wake up and deal with a screaming child that's usually covered in urine and jumping on a crib mattress. I also face several different kinds of poop - baby, dog and if I'm not careful, some other kinds when we go to the mountain for a walk or run. Poop is very scary. I don't know if Eleanor got the verb in her quote right though. Am I supposed to drive the wrong way down the highway or drink bleach? I suppose in the Lululemon yogaverse I'm supposed to do a head stand in class and be in the moment while fearing that my $80 tank top will flap down and expose my flabulous belly..."Salt + High Fructose Corn Syrup + Butter = Early Death"What if I dip a carrot in it?"Friends are more important than money."Does this hold true if you go shopping with friends? I would think that the two would cancel each other out. What if you wanted to buy a special present for your friend and you have no money? What if the friend is dying and it's the very last thing you can do for that person before they expire? What if you and your friends have no money and you can't buy food? No, wait. What if you and your friend have no money and you need to eat but the only way to get money is to not be friends anymore? What's more important then? Gotcha Lululemon."This is not your practice life. This is your actual life."Shit. I thought we were just practicing and I'm already sucking at this. Well, I'm going to stay in bed and eat donuts all day since I've already screwed this up."Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live in this moment."So this morning while munching on half of a banana I visualized my death. Hm. Now let me go do something that scares me. Hand me the bleach and a donut because this ain't practice. Tootles! I'm going to drive the wrong way down the highway now!"The world moves at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you two steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!"This is the last quote because the bag is yelling at me now. Unfortunately, I know people who live like this - many of them. I had never really met anyone who was like this until I moved to NYC and worked on 5th Avenue. They are the perfect young ladies in the Chanel boots with perfect teeth and pencil skirts. They carry their lunch in little Lululemon bags and talk about their Wall Street boyfriends and where they ate dinner last night. They can take you down with one swipe of their perfectly manicured paws in a meeting and then pop 3 Aderalls in the ladies room 30 minutes later. They are on top of their game all of the time - except they are ALL THE SAME. Like little fembots from an Austin Powers movie waiting to shoot you with their boob guns.The thing is, if you are constantly forcing yourself to change, eventually, you will not be the same person. Change is good on a small scale. No one is perfect and I think trying to be a better person or eat less fat is a fine thing to strive for. It's a matter of what you are changing and for whom. So DO IT NOW is a dangerous thing. If anything, Lululemon should be a little ashamed of this quote on their bag. Yoga is about being in the present, meditation and self acceptance - at least when you are doing it right. This element is important even in Bikram, which is pretty intense.So here is a quote that would be more fitting to be on a yoga bag:"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - GandhiThe world would be a better place if we spent less time on changing ourselves and more time trying to change the world around us through our deeds and actions. This is the change we should DO NOW.Namaste:)
osculate
osculate verb kiss
My son just recently learned how to kiss on demand. He opens his mouth wide and suctions it to your cheek with a loud "mmm---ahhh" sound when you ask him for a kiss. It is my favorite thing in the world. When I was kid I used to dread family occasions or holidays when people were over and I was forced to kiss or hug people. I remember I would run and hide when I heard the doorbell ring just to avoid it. I come from an Italian family so the formality of kissing friends and family is important and one is considered rude if you do not do so. I suppose the main reason I clam up is due to being shy - an attribute I truly believe I was born with.The world can be very cruel to people who are shy. It is not a trait that the majority of people find endearing. Shyness is often misunderstood and in our extroverted culture, not something that gets you very far. I have been shy since as far back as I can remember. You probably wouldn't tag me for this trait these days as I most often disguise this aspect of my personality. There are still clues to it but I fear that most people mistake it for weirdness, snobbery, or pretension - which is most unfair.It seems most people stereotype shy people as being sweet and mouselike, hiding in corners, timid and shaking. But that is not the case at all. Shy people have opinions and passions just as strong as extroverts. Just ask someone who is shy and I am sure you will get an ear full - once they get to know you. I don't know if all shy people are this way, but I just enjoy observing and not participating. I'd rather take in everything and make a story about it than participate. I don't enjoy making the first move. I like to go slow and ease myself in when I think it's safe and when I'm ready. There's nothing wrong with this in my opinion. And shyness doesn't mean that one has to be a wallflower either. Shy people are like little secret packages waiting to be opened.I have always channeled my shyness through writing. The first time I did this was my senior year in high school where I wrote an article in the county paper about not going to the prom...and about how happy I was not to go. I received many cheers and jeers from it, but for once I had a voice and I didn't have to speak to put it out there - and people listened. In college, I wrote for the newspaper for 4 years in the commentary section, no less. Unfortunately, upon graduating in a bad economy, I wasn't able to work as a journalist as I had planned and gave up my voice for a long time...until most recently with this blog. My writing has become an extroversion where my everyday life is lacking.My shyness makes me fear being the center of everyone's attention, yet long for it with all of my being. I believe there are many people like me. Instead of overcoming or ridding our lives of this attribute, we find a different language - writing, dancing, singing - that releases our voice in a different way than just playing a role at a party and keeping up conversation.Shyness is at the core of creativity, grace, humility...all of those traits that people find lacking in society and that most people strive for. Perhaps they are so rare because most people misunderstand them as negative attributes...the way the world mistakes shyness for so many other unsavory things.
sponsalia
sponsalia noun engagement or marriage 
When I was married, we had no money so I bought a dress on sale at David's Bridal for $500 - including all of the crap that goes with it - and my sister in law did my hair. I bought the minimal flowers - daisies - a few bouquets and boutoniers from a flower shop just because I liked it's name - "Consider the Lilies." I found a photographer who taught at RISD part time and hired him on the cheap along with disposable cameras on the tables. We chose a wonderful old gothic church that didn't need decoration and rented an old mansion called the Arcade in Roger Williams Park Zoo for the reception. When the rain poured down that day, we still had outdoor photos on the deck and micro brewed beer from Trinity Brewhouse, who catered for us. We hired our favorite live jazz band from the Custom House in Providence for music and everyone danced and even sang on stage. The day for us was a celebration of who we were together and all of the things we loved and shared in the place that we met and called home. It wasn't about looking like a model in my photos or 2 inch thick paper stock invitations embossed with our signature logo. We didn't prance through corn fields holding hands in the sun beams or stare into each others eyes under the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk for engagement photos either. We had no money so we had to be creative, and I am very happy for that..The marketing of marriage is constantly thrust upon me, whether it is in magazines or Facebook, and I find it truly hilarious. I especially love looking at the glamour shot engagement photos. Everyone has the same shot in Grand Central and Central Park - you know you've seen it too. I would think the last thing I would want is a photo that looks just like everyone else's - but alas, when I used to work at "the Blue Box" people traded bridal photographers like Garbage Pail Kids. I think it may be a status symbol here in the Big Apple, oddly enough.And the dresses. My office used to be across from the famous Amsale on 5th Avenue so many of the girls I worked with would purchase dresses there for their big day. My poor little Gloria Vanderbilt whose lace hem I thought was so pretty and understated looks like some sad schmata compared to the runway Moniques and Veras I have seen, but I loved it nonetheless. It's absurd that there are entire television programs devoted to wedding dresses - more than one! The Lifetime network probably has 3 alone. Women in New York also trample each other for off priced Vera Wangs on a certain day of the year. I've seen it on the evening news.If I could do it all again and if I actually had some cash this time, I wouldn't really change anything about our day. Maybe I would have nicer flowers or more champagne, but we created our own day and I haven't been to a wedding like it before or since. When I look at our photos I don't relish how perfect the lighting or staging is, I just marvel at how young and happy we looked. It's been almost ten years, 2 houses, 1 dog and a baby later. We have wrinkles, have lost some hair and gained a few pounds. So maybe I didn't look like the most awesome princess in the universe on my wedding day. I have never been one to want that in the first place. I can gladly say that as great as my wedding day was, my marriage has been far greater. I'd rather have incredible photos of each other from all of the places we have travelled then some schlocky picture post card I can send so people think I'm in love.
cordate
cordate adj. heart-shapedThe first thought that came to mind with this word was Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box" and how goofy it would be to sing a song called the "Cordate Box." But anyway, the figural heart that we associate in love, affection, Valentine's Day and religion looks nothing like our own internal organ heart at all. Our hearts have a vaguely similar shape if you turn it sideways, but otherwise it more closely resembles a steak. So I was curious and I looked up where the figural heart shape originates and it turns out there is quite a lot of debate about this subject. Apparently, it can be traced back to the silphium plant - which served as a form of contraceptive in Africa. I was going to post a photo of a silphium seed pod but it turns out that I cannot find one that actually looks anything like a heart - just a bunch of photos of coins with something that looks like a heart that is supposed to be the seed pod...so I don't really buy this theory...and I don't understand how NOT creating a baby means love...that would be the antithesis in my mind, but to each his own.Other theories hold that the heart shape comes from Christianity, ie. the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus. However, nothing I have found dates the depiction of this symbol back to an actual figural origin. Now, I have looked for all of 10 minutes so it might exist, but I still find it interesting how it is not very clear.The third origin of the figural heart that I found in my brief searchings was its similarity in shape to the female vulva or buttocks. But then I also found reference to testicles...which in my opinion more closely resembles the heart shape than female naughty bits. Men have asses too so I don't buy the female tie to the heart shape that is so often referenced.The cordate symbol of love that we have come to know is arguably one of the most important shapes in our society. We come across it everywhere...and we don't know exactly where it came from. Interesting...Music[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6P0SitRwy8]...and in lots and lots of logos....
The heart shape has it's own holiday and is most likely one of the first drawings most of us make as children (well, girls anyway) and yet there is no clear idea of its origin. We know where the circle came from and can read hyrogliphics but something we see everyday remains a mystery. It symbolizes all of these warm, fuzzy cozy sentiments yet we don't know who to thank for it.Maybe just being something purely good makes us forget it is essentially a stranger as far as symbols go. It is a universal symbol of goodness, of joy, and in my opinion, there are too few of those in our world so perhaps it's best to just cherish it and smile when we see it.
eudaemonism
eudaemonism n. a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood of actions producing happiness.
I have always fought a losing battle with the concept of "happiness." I'd like to think that someday I will find the true, innate meaning of the word, but I doubt it. I read a fair amount and know that few people really find the core, "holy grail-like" meaning of happiness. That is why this word truly intrigued me. To have a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood that it will produce this enigma we call "happiness" is absurd - like the infinity symbol...some never-ending loop. Happiness doesn't seem to have just one definition. It means so many different things to so many people. To a starving child in the Sahara, happiness is endless clean, cool water and food as compared to someone diagnosed with a terminal illness where happiness might be a night without pain or 10 extra days of their life to be lived with their family. Donald Trump deems happiness a much different thing than I do...or does he? It would seem that as life gets increasingly happy, the bar rises - like an addiction, a drug that makes us believe that we deserve much more than we actually do - but is that the case? Is happiness much more simple than one would think? Maybe Donald Trump find his true happiness in a box of Malomars while I dream of a yacht sailing on the mediterranean.And then there is that lucky place in life where happiness becomes monotony. Where we reach a certain level of what we call "happiness" and expect that it will exponentially grow from that point. Somehow we begin to think that the world owes us the next level because we have earned a certain amount of points or reached a certain threshold, like a game. That is where things most often fall apart. This is the juncture of where happiness meets its counterpart - not sadness - but gratitude. Every truly happy person in life at some point must come to terms with gratitude. At the height of our life's bell curve where we have reached the highest arch of happiness and when the line gradually descends, gratitude begins - where some turning point make us turn away from the easy happiness we have and make us grateful for ever having experienced it at all. This is the point where people find their greatness, their groove, their reason to live. I fear that there are few of us who get to this point. I believe the majority of people either find stasis and accept their level of happiness or - worse - constantly strive to a higher, unattainable level - possibly leading to greed and arrogance.To follow the curve downward is much harder. Seemingly it leads to things like gratitude, humility and humbleness. I believe only the great can follow this path - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa. It's a completely selfless place - perhaps a power greater than ourselves - where we surrender things over and are happy just to experience life.Or maybe, happiness is inconceivably simple...like a surprise party or unexpected treat. No bell curves or expectations...just a feeling of joy that seems so rare in life because it is meant to be truly enjoyed and not dismissed like every other minute we live - like that little kid feeling you got running down the stairs to see what was under the tree at Christmas. It didn't last long...probably only as long as it took to rip that first piece of paper off the first package...just a few seconds. That fleeting, giddy sense of exuberance that makes your heart race and your face beam without trying...like the day your child was born...or the day you fell in love. That intangible feeling of being fully and totally appreciative of life and what is happening in the present - and not thinking about the future or past.For me, true happiness is found in that short, fleeting moment and I am learning to accept that in the totality of my life, I may chase it relentlessly to only experience it a handful of times and constantly strive to be grateful for those hard earned moments.
oneiric
oneiric adj. relating to dreams or dreaming[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Wnh0V4HMM]As my husband can attest to, I love to sleep. Perhaps I have ADD or some other disorder, but during the day I just can't relax. Work has always been the thing to set me straight and provide me with a course for concentration and focus, but since I am at home now with my son, I find it difficult to avoid boredom. I've never been good without human company. As shy as I can be at times, I need human contact to feel occupied and useful. So being a alone with a dog and a one year old in the suburbs is a form of torture for me...and somedays I count the minutes until I can retire and surrender my brain to slumber.When I sleep, I feel like I am watching some strange and bizarre movie. My brain finally lets go of trying to organize and solve problems and my imagination takes over. When I was a kid I developed the ability to force myself to dream about certain scenarios...most often I wanted to be in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark or Working Girl (I had a thing for Harrison Ford). I could insert myself into the action and adventure scenes. I don't know if this is some special kind of ability or not, but it helped me to escape from the unpleasantries of my childhood. I could be anywhere or anything I wanted to in my dreams, no matter how implausible or crazy...and no one knew about it or could tell me not to.As I grew older, I stopped forcing myself to dream things and just let my brain do the inventing. This was fun as my brain connected different things I had seen or known from different parts of my life. This is pretty much how I dream currently.In college, I finally just slept. I don't remember dreaming during that period. I was pretty busy and slept as little as I ever have either due to school work or just going out and having fun. My brain was pretty much filled up during my college years. I was writing a lot and facing a life of possibilities.There was just too much going on for me to really dream at night. When I did dream, I had the same recurring one of driving my car into a lake...or off a bridge. I still occasionally have this dream and sometimes I fear driving near water. I am always backing up into the water in my dream and once I am immersed, I wake up. I know it has some sort of deep meaning, but I don't care to know what that is. I spend enough time analyzing my conscious life. I don't want to know about the secret passages in my brain.Pregnancy was a new milestone in my dream life. I dreamt too much when I was pregnant. I had recurring dreams about dropping my baby on the floor repeatedly...and losing him. I had dreams about someone taking him away from me or Dan being pregnant. Pregnancy dreams for me were more nightmarish than anything. Sometimes they were funny. I don't remember all of them specifically but I remember telling other people about them at the time, mostly coworkers. They served as good stories.The reason why I am even on this topic is because I had a dream last night that a specific company I am interviewing with called me back in for another interview (I've been in twice and met the founder of the company). Lately my dreams are manifesting my worries and fears. I am dreaming the next phase of actual events in my life, only I am creating these absurd and disturbing scenarios. I suppose it is a way of forcing myself to be grateful for what I have, showing me nightly that things could be so much worse. Or perhaps I am just afraid of what comes next...or bored to tears by the present.Life was so much simpler when I was a kid and hanging out with Harrison Ford every night...
muliebrity
muliebrity n. womanly qualities; womanhood 
Muliebrity
by Sujata Bhatt
I have thought so much about the girl
who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket
along the main road passing by our house
and the Radhavallabh temple in Maninagar.
I have thought so much about the way she 5
moved her hands and her waist
and the smell of cow-dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies,
the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes
and the dust from crows’ wings which smells different –
and again the smell of cow-dung as the girl scoops 10
it up, all these smells surrounding me separately
and simultaneously – I have thought so much
but have been unwilling to use her for a metaphor,
for a nice image – but most of all unwilling
to forget her or to explain to anyone the greatness 15
and the power glistening through her cheekbones
each time she found a particularly promising
mound of dung –
Many times when I begin these posts I will use a Google search to get myself motivated or to generate some ideas. I had never read this poet before today, but I can say that this poem captures the full meaning of the word. When I chose the word, I started thinking about what makes a woman "womanly" - outside of physical appearances and the ability to bear children. Is there a grace that women possess simply because they are just women? What exactly makes a woman "womanly"?
There is a huge difference between being pretty, pink and girly and being womanly - and it has nothing to do with body weight. I find it interesting that our society labels clothing for females above a size 12 a woman - and everything under her as juniors or misses. As if having a larger ass means you are more mature and matronly. However, it raises an interesting point about the relationship between female anatomy and this idea of womanhood. Larger breasts and hips used to be what defined beauty. A young lady was deemed a woman once she passed out of puberty and developed the trademarks of her sex. Even until the 1950's, "t & a" were essential to being considered the height of womanly beauty. Today there is no doubting that the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren were women - not girls. I'm not going to make the analogy to our current societal predilections of beauty - you already know what there is to say about that. I just think it's a little sad that the feminist movement is most likely to blame for this drastic change.
I drive around with my son a lot and I see these bumper stickers everywhere that say "Save the Tatas." I know breast cancer is a devastating disease and one that I might have to face in my lifetime if statistics say anything, but these bumper stickers offend me. It's like having a bumper sticker on my car for testicular cancer that says "Save the Sacks" or "Don't Bust My Balls." I doubt the man with testicular cancer would find it funny. It's not that I think that breasts have super powers, but God did give them to only women so we should probably honor them. We have Playboy, the plastic surgery industry and Victoria's Secret to exploit them already. Can we please not degrade them further by calling them "tatas" on the same vehicles we shuttle around the future of women of America in?
There is something more to womanhood than boobs, though. A certain grace (regardless of how clumsy they are) that women possess in their movements, actions and auras. Maybe it's in our eyes or the sway of our walk or the fact that we can give birth to a child. I'm not quite sure there's any way to pin exactly what it is down, and I think that it's better that way. We need to keep it secret so no one exploits it and gives it a goofy name.
absquatulate
absquatulate v. leave abruptly
This sounds more like an exercise move than a verb that means to leave abruptly. It could be a combination ab -slash - squat - slash Pilates move. I think I should develop a new workout with this move - like Zumba - but more sophisticated, with less ass shaking. Instead of Latin dance moves perhaps we could incorporate hip hop or Bollywood. Maybe I should use pan flute music...anything new age would work too.People talk about the lack of innovation in our society, but there is quite a lot of innovation going on in the world of exercise. Take Zumba, for instance. I purchased the Wii version to do at home and it's pretty bazaar. If you have a tight ass and abs, of course you look awesome doing it...but if your 34 and you had a kid - it ain't pretty. The game comes with a belt that holds the controller and tracks your moves so that the console can tell if you are hitting the marks. So on top of feeling like a fat ass secretly working out to a Zumba video game in your family room, you get to wear a remote control fanny pack. Sigh.Then there is the Shake Weight, which I do not own but have seen. There's nothing further to say other than it's obscene and looks as if you are practicing something I choose not to write about on this blog. There are also many ab muscle electric pulse belts that you can wear during the day to tone your abs - even if they're buried under a layer of flab.Then there are the encyclopedic DVD collections like P90X and Insanity that are designed to endanger your well being in your own home. Many of these transformative collections use something called "muscle confusion" to tone even the smallest muscles. To be fair, I have never tried one of these, but the names alone scare the shit out of me. I don't want to confuse my muscles. Can we figure out how to confuse my fat so it thinks it's muscle?There should really be a Hall of Fame for icons of the exercise genre. We need to honor Richard Simmons, Jane Fonda, Denise Austin, Jake, the scary Tai Bo guy, Susan Powter...and of course, John Basedow, who may or may not be moonlighting as Paul Ryan...there was that whole P90X reference...just saying...[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB_fl7cXCLM&feature=related]
diaphanous
diaphanous adj. (of fabric) light, delicate or translucent
I don't think of babies as being light, airy and delicate. Perhaps it is because my own son is a toddler now and destruction seems always in his wake. Sure. Babies are delicate and "diaphanous" in some ways. In the grand scheme of life, however, I believe that at birth we are our strongest...let me explain.When we are born, we are new. All of our parts have been oiled and our bones and skin have never been used. We are taken out of our packaging and arrive into the world in a most dramatic way. Even our lungs have never breathed air before. And from that day of birth, we grow to be more and more used. When my son walks around, he seems so solid and strong - like his legs are made of steel - but each day they learn a pattern, a gait. They get worn in.It is as if the world erodes us and makes us more light and delicate as we journey through life. "Diaphanous" makes me think of the delicate, translucent skin of an old woman's hands...or the thinning white, wispy hair of my long deceased grandmothers. And why cannot this be as beautiful as birth and youth? The fact the the world has washed away the newness of a person the same way the ocean waters erode the land and shores? I think it is just as beautiful, if not more so.I think it best to live life in quest of losing more and more of yourself. Life is to let the world take of you what it will until there is nothing left. Sometimes perhaps it will be pain that leaves a permanent scar, but other times it will be the joy of laughter that will force a dozen breaths from your lungs...never to return again - permanent and beautiful all the same.We are born with the strength of steel, and if we are lucky die with the delicate lightness of lace.