"Get yourselves sorted out and shut up."

-Michael Caine, 1969 version of The Italian Job

I was at TCBY tonight and as I waited for the guy behind the counter to finish my chocolate Shiver-ma-jig with Butterfinger swirled in, I found myself perusing some boring calorie chart taped to the plastic divider. My eyes skimmed over it and suddenly locked in on "Less calories then--" and that's as far as I got. I jabbed a finger towards the offending sentence, sputtering, "SARAH, LOOK!!" ::sigh:: It's what we call the curse of the English Major. We should all be consigned to an eternity of proofreading as penance for our insensitivity. I mean, this TCBY chart was as well-meaning as a Salvation Army Santa and all I can think of is "SOMEBODY HAS NO IDEA HOW TO USE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!!!"

How often do I meet life in general with criticism? How often do I want things to be different from how they are and endlessly move to make it so? How often do I forget to just throw my hands up at the kinks and bumps (even if sometimes they hurt) and just soak up the joy itself alone. Like in The Darjeeling Limited when Francis and Peter and Jack are stranded in the desert night and Jack says, "Wouldn't it be great if we heard a train go by in the distance?"

Peter: "Not really."

Francis: "It'd probably be annoying."

I can so be like Jack, just waiting for the train to come back, to take me on, instead of waiting and watching and sitting in silence as Clair de Lune plays in the background. (OK, so maybe minus the personal soundtrack.) I rarely realize that the train would be SUPER ANNOYING. Just chill out.

I think what I need right now is a lot more starry night and a lot less train whistle. Because of my job, I can't stop traveling, working, pouring out into people. But I can make time to hold the stillness before me and think.

"One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on." -D.H. Lawrence

I need to get myself sorted out and shut up. :)