Yikes!

Keep Your Distance

Or Death could be closer than you think

Sign on the back of fuel truck I passed on the commute home*. Needless to say, I drove very, vewwy carefully as I went past and for the rest of the drive.

Nothing like a warning about imminent death to raise your alert levels!

*The picture wasn't actually on the truck but it adds a nice touch don't you think?

Girl Alone in the Dark

So I get a call from a friend saying "hey, wanna catch a movie?" Well, in somewhat less American terminology. I'm leaving the gym feeling virtuous and tomorrow's a holiday, so I release my spontaneous side and jump on board.

Of course, since this is my life, she got irrevocably delayed (reasons very valid), so I end of watching Shutter Island by myself. In the dark.

Now, this is NOT a movie you really want to see by yourself. I felt kind of silly doing the fingers across my eyes thing with no one else familiar beside me to get the joke... and share the fear.

Suffice it to say... freaky movie. Really good and not at all horror, which I was afraid it was going to be, but freaky. I won't tell you what other freaky but good movie it reminds me of - I hate spoilers - but once you see it yourself you'll know exactly which movie I mean.

Just don't see it alone.

Dark Places

I still find myself being blindsided at times with grief over my Aunt Pearl's recent death from cancer. It's been just over a month and I'll go long stretches without consciously thinking about it. But then something happens to let my usual walls down - a certain song at church, watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (always a tear-fest), it could be anything really - and it washes over me again.

Christine Sine's post, "Nouwen on Lent: Strength In Dark Places" on the God's Politics blog just really spoke to me today. Especially this quote which reminds me that grief is as much a part of life as anything else:

the hard dark places strengthen and give shape and form to the soft and vulnerable places of light and laughter

This is only the second major bereavement I've had in my life that I can really remember. I know, I've been very lucky. Still, I think I'd prefer to avoid any more "hard, dark places" for another good long while.