Doctor Zhivago

I just saw the movie Doctor Zhivago for the first time. I was pretty young the first time it came out, if I was even born. Oh my gosh. Hand me the tissue.
I cannot believe what people have endured over the years, and I sit at home in my cozy slippers and watch the world go by. So many things are on my heart right now: Darfur, Iraq, the many senseless murders all over the world. The other day I cried as I read about each person lost in the tragic Virginia Tech shooting. All the while I kept thinking: every day, that many people are murdered in the Middle East, Africa and basically all over the world. Who will read the names of those people and cry for them?
There's a scene in one of my favorite books, The Secret Life of Bees. One of the characters is so sensitive, she reached a point she could no longer function in the world. Her sister had an idea that whenever something was too much for her, she should write it on a piece of paper and tuck it in a rock wall in their yard. There was something so hauntingly beautiful in that. There are so many things I would write on slips of paper and tuck in the rocks.
The term compassion fatigue has been bandied about lately. I'm not so sure how I feel about that. I have a feeling it sure beats grieving fatigue, or running for your life fatigue. I think I am compelled to appreciate what I have and where I am. Of course I want more. So much more. So I balance between this place of gratitude and a sense of urgency.
I'm on the precipice of a relationship, and observing the precariousness of life makes me want to scream to him "It's now, tomorrow may never come."
It is always now.

What's for dinner?

It's funny, after I made a comment about my dining room table serving as an office more than a place to entertain, I had the pleasure of dinner companions 2 out of the next 3 nights. I had to push away my still humming laptop, and stack a few books and papers. The first guest was a friend of mine of the male persuasion who had come over to fix a faucet. It was comedy to try and prepare dinner with him sprawled under my sink and no water. When he finished, he lounged on the couch, and I buzzed in the kitchen, kind of scattered. I looked over to see he'd dozed off. He woke with a certain male instinct when everything was ready, and I brought a plate of food to him. He looked at me wide-eyed and asked "can we sit at the table?"
The table. And had I not just lamented the unused table a blog back?
I feel like an unused table. There are things I am made for, but it seems other things have filled the void, and I have to push them aside hastily when my true purpose comes into being.
I like to entertain. I like to prepare meals and linger over the dinner table in conversation. I was so caught off guard by my friend's last minute decision to come over and eat together, that the scores of candles I have for just such an occasion languished in a drawer. The Parmesan cheese I have to top off pasta stayed hidden in the back of my refrigerator, though my hurried pasta sauce was in need of that one more thing.
Seems as if I'm going to have to do some evaluating and rearranging. I'm not sure what that's going to look like, but I want to be ready the next time someone comes to dine.