Rubin Carter: What was the first book you ever read?

Lesra Martin: Yours.

Rubin: Hmm. You think that was an accident?

Lesra: No.

Rubin: No, me neither.
Lesra, short for Lazarus. "He who is risen from the dead."
Rubin. Genesis, chapter 29 verse 32. "Behold a son."
You put those two together, Lesra, and you have,
"Behold a son who has risen...
from the dead."
That's no accident.
Hate put me in prison.
Love's gonna bust me out.

Lesra: Just in case love doesn't,
I'm gonna bust you outta here.

Rubin: Yeah. You already have, Lesra.

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

To-day I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguish'd faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk when my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding,
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

Enjoy what ye's got, nae what ye have not,
'Tis a weak heart lamentin' with sorrow.
When the days seem cursed, it could always be worse,
Fight depression with sword and with arrow!

When there's nothin' as clouds and trouble about
And thunder is clappin' as the lightning strikes around
And just when you're thinking this may be your last
THROW A LASH 'ROUND THE MAST HOLD FAST!

When the world ain't right and it smites you with strife,
We can all buckle down -- it's a test they call life.
Very soon you will see what kind of animal you'd be
Takin' the bite outta life!

When they're testing the gallows you're hung like a dog,
Or they're marching us out to a firing squad
We'll just smile and recall all the good times we've had
IT'S THE BEST DAY 'TIL TOMORROW
It's the best day 'til tomorrow.

Don't consider surrender when you're down in the drinks
And you look down and notice you've still got your legs
So stand up and fight, use ye's might, seize the day,
IT'S THE BEST DAY 'TIL TOMORROW
It's the best day
It's the best day
It's the best day 'til tomorrow
It's the best day....
UNTIL TOMORROW.

(from the Real McKenzies album 10,000 Shots)

Two from Helen Keller:

I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Sweet little upside down cake,
cares and woes, you’ve got ‘em.
Poor little upside down cake,
your top is on your bottom.
Alas little upside down cake,
your troubles never stop;
because little upside down cake,
your bottom’s on your top.

From The Reluctant Dragon

"For myself I am an optimist -- it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

-- Sir Winston Churchill

This 'blog is devoted to little highs, glimpses of a perfect world, bits of upliftingness, and anything that recalls joy.