Window

Window

I know what you are looking for

it's the same story I am looking for

for everybody wants a story

Perhaps we don't see

through the same window...

Do you see sunshine or heavy clouds?

Maybe we are not looking...

at the same time

in the same way and place.

But we know what we want to see

maybe it's not what everybody

says it should be,

but it's our real story

and now it seems to be there

outside...

(I look through the window

and know that my story is there,

...maybe with you...

however

are you there?)

------------------------------------------

Expect the unexpected

How Realistic Are Your Expectations of Marriage?

You scored 86% correct!


Below are your complete results, but did any of the answers in this quiz catch you by surprise? Do you disagree with any of them? If you're not already following it, check out the Repair Your Relationship workshop for a five-step program full of proven marriage-saving strategies. Whether you're on the brink of divorce or simply interested in improving your relationship, this workshop will help you create a new set of expectations for a happier marriage.


You scored correct answers to questions: #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #7
You scored incorrect answers to questions: #3

Question #: 1 Conflict and anger are signs that your relationship is failing.
Your Answer: False
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: All marriages, even the best marriages, have their ups and downs. It's impossible to live under the same roof with another human being for any length of time and not disagree now and then. People in loving marriages understand that conflict goes with the marital territory. It's more than unavoidable, it's necessary. People need to let off steam and air their differences. When they don't, they're in for trouble. In fact, the single best predictor of divorce is the constant avoidance of conflict!

Question #: 2 You're more likely to divorce if you have different likes and dislikes and interests, and come from different backgrounds.
Your Answer: False
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: Research shows that people who stay together and are happily married are no more similar than those who divorce! They come from decidedly different backgrounds, hold different beliefs and have sharply different interests. But what separates those who have successful relationships from those who don't is that they learn effective ways to deal with their differences and handle conflict. They nurture the interests they do share and try to develop new ones from time to time. Successful couples believe that life would be incredibly boring if their spouses were mirror images of themselves. Instead, happily married people learn to appreciate their differences, find ways to grow from them or simply make peace with them.

Question #: 3 In healthy relationships, major disagreements always get resolved over time.
Your Answer: True
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: Research shows that approximately 60 percent of what couples argue about is unresolvable! If you eavesdrop on couples' arguments as newlyweds and then again after they've been married for 25 years or more, you might be surprised to find that much of the content is the same. However, the way in which people discuss these heated issues does change over time. People tend to mellow a bit, which makes a huge difference in how their partners react to them and vice versa.

Too many people think that their marriages are in trouble because they continue to argue about the same things for years. But the truth is that this is very common. If you have been thinking that in good marriages people eventually find mutually satisfying solutions to all major problems, you've been fooling yourself. This just isn't the case.


Question #: 4 In healthy marriages, both spouses have the same definition of what it means to be loving.
Your Answer: False
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: No two people define love in exactly the same way. What it takes for you to feel loved is probably fairly different from what it takes for your partner to feel loved. Why? Your definition of love springs from a number of factors: your upbringing, your culture, your gender, and your life experiences in general. Since you and your spouse have had different life experiences, you will undoubtedly view love differently as well. Although this, in and of itself, is not problematic, it will become a problem if you fail to honor and accommodate your partner's point of view.

If you and your spouse have spent years debating about love definitions ("If you loved me, you would want to spend more time with my family" versus "If you loved me, you would want to spend more time alone with me on weekends," and so on), stop wasting time. You're both right. To have a loving marriage, you have to put yourself out and love your partner the way he wants to be loved.


Question #: 5 People just fall out of love.
Your Answer: False
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: Some people believe that they need to divorce their spouses because they've fallen out of love. First of all, people don't just fall out of love. If love dwindles, it's because the marriage wasn't a priority. The number-one cause for the breakdown in marriages in our country is that people don't spend enough time together. They take their spouse and their marriage for granted. Work, kids and other obligations become more important than spending time together. When this happens, during the little time people do spend together, they end up fighting. This distance and alienation sometimes fool people into thinking they've fallen out of love.

Second, love isn't just a feeling. It's a decision. Happily married people understand that if they engage in activities that bring love into the marriage, they will feel loving. There is no major mystery here. You both decide on a daily basis whether you're going to spend time together regularly or do your own thing, forgive each other or hold grudges, accept each other's weaknesses or point fingers of blame, apologize when in error or smugly stand your ground, be generous and giving or put your own needs first.

Of course, we're all human and our ability to be loving and kind to each other ebbs and flows, as do our feelings for our partners. However, wise people don't allow negative feelings or the absence of loving feelings to make them question their commitment to their spouses. They just understand that they're going through a rough time and that soon, they will decide to do what it takes to evoke feelings of love again, in themselves and in their spouses.


Question #: 6 An affair doesn't have to ruin a marriage.
Your Answer: True
The correct answer: True
Answer explanation: There is little that is more devastating than to discover your spouse has been unfaithful. Most people take to heart the promise they make to forsake all others. The connection, closeness and intimacy and trust you feel with your mate is very personal, something that is meant just for the two of you. This is why infidelity feels like such a violation.

But affairs happen, and when they do, the repair of the marriage is no easy task. Sometimes those who have been hurt swear they will never recover. They're convinced that they will not be able to forgive and move forward in the marriage. And although it's completely understandable why people feel this way, it's also true that the future doesn't have to be as bleak as they are anticipating. Most people survive infidelity and can, in fact, make their marriage stronger once they work through the issues infidelity has brought into their lives.


Question #: 7 Most people are much happier in their second marriages because they've learned from their mistakes.
Your Answer: False
The correct answer: False
Answer explanation: Although it's true that some people learn from their mistakes in their first marriages and are able to develop happier second marriages, this is by no means the rule. In fact, 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce.

One of the reasons that there are more divorces in second marriages is that people enter their second marriages with the bad relationship habits they learned the first time around. They simply find new partners with whom they can do that old familiar dance. In addition, step-parenting issues make second and subsequent marriages challenging. But there is another reason why second marriages aren't necessarily better than first ones. Unless you understand that marriage doesn't make people happy, you will spend the rest of your life trading in marital partners for new ones. Happiness is a do-it-yourself job you can't rely on another person to fulfill you. Unless you feel satisfied with your own life, you will not be able to determine whether your unhappiness stems from personal or relationship issues.


www.ivillage.com

Go toora loora toora loo rye aye (Cold mountain)

Just some more notes about Cold mountain the movie. This morning I was having a look in the bonus material of the DVD. It includes a concert night with the music of the movie where people involved (including actors) sang, played, recited and read.
And that's the point I wanted to stress. I am impress by the movie on its artistic side. I don't know about definitions of spectacular movies my dear seagoddess but Anthony Minghella (same director of The English Patient) and his staff put their heart on the movie.

Well, I have to confess that at the beginning I didn't appreaciate the movie as much as after looking at the bonus material. But let's say that's a risk of our times where we are used to millions invested in spectacular movies. It was listening the director, the actors, following the process of making (in the documentary) and finally the special selection of music, what gain me in favour of the movie.

So the movie is worth to see and the music is part of it. Southern music of USA, a song composed by Sting, T bone burnet as executive producer... Directors I like have always paid attention in the music:

David Lynch-Angelo Badalamenti

Peter Greenaway-Michael Nyman

Win Wenders-U2, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, David Byrne, etc.

Emir Kusturica-Balkans music of the No Smoking Orchestra

Kristof Kieslovsky-Zbigniew Preisner and the music of Blue, White and Red

And there's more...last night I came back from a show of traditional Irish music where everybody had opportunity to shake the body and try dancing in groups. I like and practice salsa but this was different and I think that it's the social part of it. Dancing in groups is good to reaffirm your sense of society. Then just think in the Civil War, a nation torn and the music there to try to keep people together.

Gosh!

Time passes at the speed of light! I am glad I am not a physicist otherwise I would have some regrets about being methaporical. In any case, Monday is gone and still have load of things to do.

A second (again in methapor) to relax and comment about Cold mountain, the movie of the book with the same title by the same director of The English patient.

I couldn't stop watching it from the beggining to the end yesterday night...including the commentaries section. As they said it's kind of a USA Odyssey. This guy Inman had a destiny to fulfill, let's say give a child to Ada. In his journey he conects his life with other's lives and necessarily changes them for good and for bad.

To be in tune with the Civil war, a quote by Lincoln I friend sent me: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

5/05/05

"The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

"To summarize: it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

"And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not.

"And somewhere in the shadows behind them - who?

"Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?"

Chapter 28 The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Spiderman

?Por que tengo esta doble vida? ?Por que no me limito a ser Peter y ya? Yo tenia suenyos y planes. Pero la culpa es mas fuerte que todo.

Cada vez que trato de llevar una vida normal y hacer lo que todo mundo hace la culpa no me deja. Quiero cumplir con mis citas y mis tareas, tener una vida donde pueda distinguir cuando es tiempo para trabjar y cuando es tiempo para disfrutar. Pero la culpa no me deja!

Cada vez que oigo una sirena o veo un crimen la culpa me recuerda que en el pasado yo no hice lo apropiado. Cada sirena cada crimen que evito es una oportunidad para borrar el pasado. !Pero no se borra! !No se borra! Por mas esfuerzos que haga.

Y esta obsesion se esta comiendo mi vida, la vida de Peter, por la obsesion de este bicho en el que me he convertido.

Books and beds

I am not the best person to ask about books these days...close your eyes and try to think what is besides my bed...ok now that you have thought something check below...

In one side I have tens of postcards of the places I have been and paper and envelopes...from time to time I write to friends and family as the inspiration comes to me.
On the other side I have:
A book-guide to make the best paper airplanes in the world. (Including sheets to tear out and fold)
A book-essay about the film director Wim Wenders
The 5 books of the Trilogy that started with the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
Have you seen the movie?

What is besides your bed?

We only come out at night.

Algo me duele dentro de la boca, en la piel, junto a un diente, un dolor se ha albergado. Y me cuesta levantarme e irme. Salir a la noche fria no es invitante. Me duele tambien el alma, me da un ataque a la consciencia este estado de inatencion a lo que importa y a lo que no. Dividido entre el dolor y la busqueda se que solo hay una manera de hacer esto. Levantarme e irme.

We only come out at night, the days are much too bright
We only come out at night
And once again, you'll pretend to know me well, my friends
And once again, I'll pretend to know the way
Thru the empty space
Thru the secret places of the heart
We only come out at night, the days are mush too bright
We only come out at night
I walk alone, I walk alone to find the way home
I'm on my own, I'm on my own to see the ways
That I can't help the days, you will make it home o.k.
I know you can, and you can
We only come out at night, the days are much too bright
We only come out at night
And once again, you'll pretend to know that
There's an end, that there's an end to this begin
It will help you sleep at night
It will make it seem that right is always right
Alright?
We only come out at night

Cuesta

De vez en cuando se antoja escribir sinsentidos, no siempre es facil hacerlo.

El proposito inicial de esta bitacora es registrar todos esos momentos e ideas que por un momento parecieran trabadas en mi cabeza queriendo escapar. Y aunque esto parece muy facil de hacer, no lo es tanto cuando lo que se deja escapar es...un sinsentido. Que no lo es tanto finalmente. Porque "algun sentido" tendra el hecho de que sienta o piense algo