Best Quote I Heard All Day
While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness.
--Gilda Radner


I should be busy polishing up my presentation for tomorrow's National Operations meeting in NYC. I will. It's important. But not as important as some other things.

Loss is a powerful thing. It can permeate your life forever. Losing your job, losing your health, losing a loved one.

I was going to avoid thinking about the 2nd anniversary of 9/11. The loss of so many and the loss to so many only reminds me of my own personal losses during the past two years: a job that was lost directly because of 9/11; a husband lost 3 months later to a violent disease that neither of us could battle; the loss of a man who made me believe I could love again and then vanished from my life without a trace; and finally, the loss of my house, the house that I was going to stay in for the rest of my life with Jim.

I think that 9/11 has made us all more fearful of loss and less confident in life. I know that I fight those feelings every day because life cannot be ruled by loss.

It seems a trivial thing, knitting. After all, what is it but some needles and yarn? A trivial pursuit, if you will, in the scheme of life. Yet it has helped me focus time and time again, taking me away from my worries and troubles, and restoring my sense of accomplishment and optimism.

While packing up all my yarn and books and needles and knitting accoutrements the other week, I found the sweater I was working on in the hospital the day Jim died. I will never finish it, most likely. It belongs to the past and my old life. But I'll keep the pieces as a remembrance and go on to new projects.

Sometimes the pain of loss can blossom into a whole new flower.

As we used to say in the '60s, peace.

Mar