The Adventures of Ange

A random and eclectic blog inspired by the bohemian ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love. Themes: Media, reading, writing, music, movies, television, nature, relationships, travel, humor & spirituality. Motifs: Moulin Rouge, nautical, dogs, Montana, New England. Dedicated to the old souls, lovers, dreamers, thinkers and wishers of the world. May the world be filled with light and laughter wherever you may go. xoxo Ange Share Tweet

[astrophysicsstudent]

[theadventuresofange]

I hope you catch a little stardust today.

[philosophybits]

“I was too enamored of truth ever to mourn lost illusions.”

— Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life

[theadventuresofange]

Indeed.

[greatestshowmanfilm]

#Repost Keala Settle:

Hugh Jackman, Justin Paul, Benj Pasek, Michael Gracey it’s ALL #yourfault I’m going to The Academy. 📸: Niko Tavernise

[theadventuresofange]

How can you not smile?

[theadventuresofange]

Seven

Happy Seven Year Anniversary, Blog! Can you believe it’s been this long since I started writing you? I was a different person then, as statistically every one of the cells in my body has since sloughed off and regenerated.

In the last seven years, I:

* Moved across the country

* Had 7 different jobs!

* Lived in 5 different homes in 5 different towns

* Traveled coast to coast solo on the road

* Read hundreds of books

* Fell in love a couple of times

The #Truth is, I still love to write. The #Beauty is, I can still do just that because I have #Freedom at this particular time in my life. And the reason I do it is for the #Love.

[spiritualgateway]

The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises. Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.

Pema Chodron

(via spiritualgateway)

[aspiritualwarrior]

Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom.

Sogyal Rinpoche (via aspiritualwarrior)

What is meant to be will always find a way.

[aspiritualwarrior]

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

Eckhart Tolle (via aspiritualwarrior)

[mythologyofthepoetandthemuse]

As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

Carl Jung, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” (via mythologyofthepoetandthemuse)

[antigonick]

Because of the romantic novels that were her only reading matter, she liked to picture him in thick-soled boots, his skin tanned from the desert winds, clawing the earth in search of pirates’ treasure, Spanish doubloons, and Incan jewels.

Isabel Allende, The House of The Spirits (via antigonick)

[introverts-hideaway]

[theadventuresofange]

Dogmother

A letter I wrote to my dog on Mother's Day: Dear Allegra, I am not a mother. But I am YOURS. I chose you, little runt, from your three other sisters. When you were six weeks old, I carried you inside my shirt on a treacherous highway through a snowstorm over a mountain pass between the Painted Hills of Bozeman to your 2nd home in Billings, gripping the steering wheel and trying not to mind your terrified cries. I brought you into my home, which immediately became your palace. I left work in the middle of the day to run home to be with you, using my lunch break to check on you and make sure you had everything you needed. I learned that my schedule was not my own and was up at 2 or 3 AM many a night, consoling you or taking you outside. I also had to clean vomit, poo, blood and tried to stop your tears. And when it comes to poo, I've stepped in it with bare feet, transported it and even sat in it! You've peed on me, my family and even a few of my friends. All a part of your charm, I'm certain! I've shared my bed with you, giving up my own comfort to allow you to sleep smack in the middle of the bed. Or sofa back, or futon, or lap. You're the princess of my palace. I've taken you to the vet and worried about you (especially the time you had pancreatitis), and waited days to bring you home and nurse you back to health. The Lyme scare and the liver enzyme issue were just another notch on our belt after that. I've taken you regularly to the groomer to get your bath and pretty haircuts whenever you needed one, and you didn't seem to hate me too much when I was broke and had to sacrifice and groom you myself, although I know it wasn't the same. Whenever I need to get away or be away from you at work, I have been a problem-solver and found a way to provide for your day care or vacation care if you're not able to accompany me. You and I have been through bad relationships, countless jobs (you've even come in to a couple of them), varying work schedules, moving six times (once across the country), trips, concerts, stores, volunteering, picnics, fireworks,countless walks and a never-ending parade of soft squeak toys. You always seem to bring me little presents: kisses, hugs, ratty toys, secrets. You even brought me fleas once recently, and it cost me $150 to quarantine and protect us from their wrath. I know your life will not last forever, so like other moms out there, I just try to enjoy every day I have with you and make as many memories as I possibly can for us. I know that you're only here for a short while in the span of a human life, but I have always wanted to spoil you and let you have as many worry-free moments as possible. Because while I may not be anyone's mother, you are and always will be...my baby. With gratitude, Your Dogmother

[theadventuresofange]

Living a More Inspired Life

Balancing the work for a livin’ and the work for a lovin’ can be a challenge.

Lately I’ve been finding inspiration in the following:

* The scents of spring, including dampness, fresh rain on concrete and the scent of freshly-mowed grass

* A lovely bouquet of bright pink and deep rose long-stemmed roses from a dear soul friend

* Music.  Always music.  (But lately it’s been a mix of Sam Cooke classics, and a couple of singles:  “Dancing on my Own” by Calum Scott and “Story of my Life” by Boyce Avenue

* Good books.  You know, I went through a time where I didn’t read a lot of books, and that was a really dark time in my life.  I have re-discovered the joy of weekend and evening pleasure reading.

* Conversations.  Every day I wake up grateful for the fact that I live in a populous area where there are new people to meet and speak with.  I learn so much by listening, and inspiration can strike from having the most simple and/or random conversations.

* Nature.  Even if I’m stuck in the car/commuting, and I catch a glimpse of the ocean, I remind myself of how lucky I am to be near the water, and I smile.

* Wildlife.  This can be anything, but lately it seems to be birds that swoop down or seem to materialize out of nowhere -- hawks, ducks, swans, seagulls, robins, grackles, sparrows, chickadees.

* Trying new things/having new experiences/meeting new people.  Also, what’s old is new again.  Maybe it was that night I picked up a paintbrush again, or laced up a pair of roller skates.  Something magical happened when I allowed myself to do something different from the ordinary.  My more creative self emerged.

* Flashbacks.  While I don’t want to live in the past, there is always hindsight to unite intriguing data points in one’s personal history that might make sense to insert into a novel storyline.

* Poetry.  I devoured a book of poems over the weekend and it put me into one of those more decadent moods, as if to say:  “Look at me; I’m actually basking in the spare time I have to drink in and absorb poetry again.”  Admittedly, it felt awesome.

* Giving up trying to please everyone and just living my life for the moment whenever humanly possible.  Nothing is quite as empowering of recent note.

What do you do to stay motivated/inspired?  I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

[theadventuresofange]

Cracking the Postal Code

I walked into the post office on that cold winter’s afternoon just a week before VALENTINE’s Day and a smattering of red HEARTS greeted me immediately on the glass door.  

Once inside, the first thing I noticed was that the overhead music was playing our song.  Well, it’s the one that reminds me of you because of time and place.  It became our private subliminal Romantic anthem.  Out of all the possible songs in that satellite jukebox, it had to be ours.  

I walked up to the counter and requested FOREVER stamps, and the employee at the counter handed me over TWO books of stamps emblazoned with the word LOVE.

Just another memory of us I’ll file under “You Weren’t There.”

But you’re here.  

In my heart.  

[wordsnquotes]

The only time you truly become an adult is when you finally forgive your parents for being just as flawed as everyone else.

Douglas Kennedy, The Pursuit of Happiness   (via wordsnquotes)

So I'm an adult, then?

[theadventuresofange]

A cold winter's morning dawns near the waterfront with a bad cup of coffee and thoughts of you. Perhaps life is not about avoiding inconveniences and unpleasantries, but rather having the right partner to trudge through the inconveniences and unpleasantries with me. I could do early mornings and bad coffee with you and still smile in the morning. That's saying a lot.

[theadventuresofange]

I Saw You.

My mind began to vibrate, my senses sharpened with the visceral edge of caution.  There was a newness to all of it, a palpable wash of colors floating around us like gossamer drapes.  You were there in the moment with me, a part of the milieu, yet not the cause of those spirals of energy coiling up my spine.  Or were you?  

There was something feral about it, the way we sized one another up.  The prey and the hunted, with a glimmer of...what was it, exactly?  Recognition?  Derision?  Denial?  Acceptance?  Challenge?  I wasn’t ready to admit to any of it, but the tattling of my heart would testify if it could be heard over the chaos that continually surrounded us. 

Stolen glances.  Suspicious glittering of eyes.  The blush of being caught.  Potent sighs that could be mere ennui or sentient yearning.  A chemical imprinting coursed through me in unexpected waves.  Your vocalizations reverberated inside me as if within a crystal, storing their echoes within the concavity of my isolation. 

Then there was the day that took us both by surprise.  I was a ship stuck in the shallows at last ready to lift anchor, open to new destinations.  You were the breeze, ready to fill my sail.  That day I had felt you before I saw you and as we passed one another, there was a recognition completely unmistakeable and undeniable.  

“Captain me…drive me in that direction,” I begged without speaking. 

Your obvious elation was enough to send goosebumps down my flesh on that warm, golden day.  I cannot be responsible for the gaze that I returned to you, but we both know the eyes never lie.  In replaying the moment thousands of times since, I decided that you could not only read my thoughts, you had potentially been seeding them for a while through various tactics.  I was not ready to admit aloud that I had born witness to all of this, that I had seen you in all of these ways.

I wanted nothing more than to be able to trust you.  That sounds simple, but because of the scars on my soul that you may never comprehend, it was an impossibility for me.  If you could have read my heart and mind and known the trauma and paralysis I felt deep inside, you would have realized that the glow you were seeing was emanating from the sieve that remained of my heart.  

A long time has passed and you may have given up on the potential you saw in me.  But I haven’t forgotten the memory of us.  And it will keep me warm on the coldest winter nights, imagining that we had been able to cross that chasm to a place of mutual understanding.  You would call me in that special way of yours, so tenderly.  And at last I would fly to you, our past tears glittering like diamonds in the sky as that afore-mentioned ship finally accepts the gentle winds of darkest night and sails.

[theadventuresofange]

Before winter could destroy their beauty, there were eight roses blooming, perhaps each symbolizing the blossom of past lives' loves. Those that were still mere buds spoke to me of potential that was yet to be. But it was the end of November and how much longer did they truly have? All I knew right then was appreciation for the moment where I felt something once again.