direction: south

[pauraque_bk]

The baby of someone I know was just admitted to the hospital for emergency brain surgery. It looks as though the nanny may have hurt her. If anybody has any good vibes to spare, please send them her way. The baby's name is Chloe.

The world has been a very discouraging place lately.

If you could, I would really appreciate it if you'd share something good that's happened in your life, or just something beautiful that exists. Here, if you like, or on your own LJ.

Something good. Anything.


EDIT: And PLEASE, nothing political! This is not the time or place to promote your own interests.

Comments

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

A few weeks ago, I went to school and found a crumbled paper. I had been on my lunchtime, and it was really cold -- sitting on a sidewalk, it lay there and I was so bored I picked it up and read.

It was not quite a diary entry, but it held something of a diary in it. It was written to and signed by a boy named Itaru, and it was dated to be almost three months old. It had a list of seemingly random things: I had to vaccinate my dog yesterday, she's really small. Grandfather is eighty-six years old. So on and so forth. And as random as it was, somehow it touched me, and I kept reading, feeling less like an intruder and more like this person's, well, friend. It had some really fucked up stuff in it, the more I read, and when I finished I couldn't help but slip it into my pocket and be sad.

I met him three days ago, Itaru. He was under a tree, and I said hello, and we talked because we both were, again, very bored. It turns out he wrote that and threw it out, and somehow, I think he wanted someone to read it, as silly as that sounds. So now we talk a lot, and I'm really glad I met him. He's a case, all right, but a nice guy.

I'm really glad I opened the paper.

Much love to Chloe, her family and yourself, Pauraque. I'll keep her in my thoughts.

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

Oh, baby. I will light a candle for her tonight when I say my prayers.

And the something good? It was a perfect spring day here, with a light warmth and sunshine, and the air smells really good and fresh. The roses are in bloom, and there is this one rosebush near my apartment that has the most wonderful scent.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

I can show you his Navajo mandala, used in healing ceremonies. *hug*

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

er, I meant this, not his.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

The sun is shining on the snowcapped La Plata mountains today. And the scent of the lilacs in the neighbor's yard is amazing.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Something good that's happened in my life: my boss said the cucumber salad I made was delicious.

Something beautiful: the pink and gold color of the sunrise as I go into work in the mornings.

The world has been a sad and upsetting place recently. It's why I've been retreating into romantic fluff. But I will think kind and hopeful thoughts for Chloe.

[chaos-rose.livejournal.com]

My thoughts are with Chloe and her family.

Something good: I made banana-chocolate ice cream and it tastes good!

[eponis.livejournal.com]

Something beautiful that exists: my hamster Remus. He rode in our van for three full days and nights of travelling, and he was good the whole way. He has a little house - like a wide wooden archway, tinted in deep green - that he curls up beneath when he sleeps. Whenever we would accidentally knock his cage, moving things in or out of the van, he would poke his head out, ears crumply with sleep and pressed against his head, and twitch his whiskers at us in irritable curiosity.

No matter what mood I'm in, I can watch Remus in his cage as he runs in his wheel, or nibbles on sunflower seeds held between his little paws, or sips at his water bottle. If I put my hand in, he climbs right on it, and he'll crawl all over me with his pitter-pattering little paws. His fur is unbelievably soft, varying from a snowy white to a rich, dusky gray. And sometimes, he'll just sit in my hand, completely still, and watch me. He's one of the most beautiful beings that I know.

::hugs:: I'll be praying for Chloe.

[gelliaclodiana]

I'm not sure that this is "something good in my life" but I taught a very small Greek class this semester (only two students) and it was a delight--I think we laughed more than we worked, though. But I just gave them both As, because they did work hard, and the class was an utter joy, even though the author was a complete loon. Complete. We're going to re-enact the stoic version of the end of the world next week by making wax ponies and melting them down. I think.

my thoughts are with you, Chloe and her family.

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

We are having hot, sunny days which seems to bring out the smiles in people and I have made lots of people laugh today - sometimes at my expense but I don't care,
a close friend has just had a new baby and all is well,

and somthing good that's happened in my life? - 'meeting' so many different, interesting and likeable people through LJ at a time when I was feeling particularly low. I feel the world has become smaller and more approachable and I want to learn more. People here make me laugh and cry and I have a circle of friends who have become very important to me. This makes me smile again

sending hugs, thoughts and prayers to Eo and Chloe
Serena
X

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

as lost and malfunctioning as i've felt recently, the people around me have been wonderful. lj has been massively supportive in every way - giving me glimpses into other people's lives, the whole creative community, sympathy for personal problems, entertainment, just a sense of the greater world... in real life, i recently made up with a good friend after a giant blow-out fight, the people all around me are pleasant to be with, my best best best friends continue to be so, i reminisce fondly about high school friends...

i see people helping each other. communicating. sharing.

i hope things turn out all right for chloe and her family.

[cschick.livejournal.com]

I had to run out for lunch today. Before I left the building, I glanced out the window and sighed at the gray skies. But when I got outside, it was one of those brief periods after a major downpour, when the clouds are still misting, and the world looks and feels like it's been cleansed of the dirt and grime left behind by winter, and hasn't yet been oppressed by the smog of summer.

[chasehunts.livejournal.com]

Something good: The magnolia trees blooming all at once, everywhere, after one good rain. The beautiful look on my oldest boy's face when he's in love, and the reflected joy I feel for his happiness.

I survived a closed-skull traumatic brain injury that required emergency surgery. My thoughts and prayers are with Chloe.

Chase

[sabinareborn.livejournal.com]

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<The beautiful look on my oldest boy's face when he's in love>

That is just lovely.

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

Az and I finished the Peter Paper for Ottawa, and you got a whole bibliography entry and a quote in the paper.

Gee, I have to say that that sounds trite given what you've posted. My heart goes out to little Chloe.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I've said a prayer for Chloe, all the people who love her, and the professionals caring for her. In my belief system, this means that vibes generated by my hopes/wishes/requests will go to those people. Or maybe that a higher power will direct them to those people. Anyway, it's my thing.

Here's a story for you: About 8-10 years ago I worked with Cardiothoracic Surgeons, and one specialized in children with congenital heart problems. As you probably know, some deformities require several staged surgeries to repair, and one of his patients (about 6-8 years old, if I remember correctly) was coming in for her third or fourth open-heart surgery.

The day after I went up to the floor and saw her sister in the hall, playing around with a wheelchair, and I asked the nurse how the girl was doing. Turns out the playing kid wasn't her sister. It was HER. One day after surgery, laughing and having fun, with no indication that she was anything other than fine.

I don't think I'll ever forget her - the image of her with her long blonde hair and blue nightgown, laughing and pushing that wheelchair in circles will be with me (I hope) as long as I live.

[arwencordelia.livejournal.com]

Something good that happened to me... Someone I don't know, and who doesn't know me, went to have a look at my LJ and took the time to read a story I posted there (being too exasperated to do anything else with it!) and shared some thoughtful and encouraging comments :-)

Something beautiful about this world can actually be found on a philosophy site! (http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/How%20One%20Man%20Celebrates%20Christmas.htm)

[(Anonymous)]

Glenn here (from the ZBB). I sympathize with your feelings, Eo, and I really hope (and will pray) that Chloe will be okay, and her mother too. It's terrible if the nanny might have hurt her--still more if the hurt might have been deliberate

I agree that the world has been a discouraging place lately; in addition to the news in the headlines (which has left me alternately sad, angry, and frustrated), no fewer than four of my colleagues at work have lost a family member in the last few months, and my mother's boss also passed away suddenly. However, even amid all of the losses, new life still springs up--my supervisor learned of the birth of a new grandchild a couple of days ago, and her daughter is getting married this weekend.

Good things in my own life: the coming of summer; the scent of the lilacs blooming beside our home; the opportunity to escape into a good book, or a tempting daydream. Candles. Sunsets.

And a circle of far-flung friends (many of whom I need to write, alas)--people who have known you and support you--and one in particular. We were a couple once, and are best friends now; perhaps someday we may become a couple again, if we ever sort out the tangle of relationships in our lives. We live far apart and rarely meet in person, but we talk often, sharing our joys and concerns with one another. Not long ago it was her birthday, and I managed to send her a surprise present--another ray of joy.

It's the human connections that we make--with each other, with our loved ones, with nature, and (perhaps) with God--that really matter; I was a long time learning this. It's for that reason that I'll pray for you, and for Chloe and her mother.

p@,
Glenn

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

((my thoughts with Chloe and her family))

No one in my neighborhood mows their lawn. We were talking out on our porch about how wonderful it is to live in a dandelion'd neighborhood with no pressure to look like a sterile monoculture. P was grabbing dandelions and shredding them into little tiny flecks of gold and no one cared.

[norah.livejournal.com]

I lost my camera months ago and two days ago I walked into the knitting store and the girl behind the counter said, "oh, I'm so glad you came back" and handed it to me - thus reviving my flagging faith in mankind.

fan_the_vote is kind of heartwarming, even if the wank surrounding it is not.

and I will pray for Chloe and family.

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

Sending good vibes to Chloe. I lit a candle a whispered her name.

Something good...

Well, if you'll just settle for something good that exists, there's the smell of lilacs, fresh leaves, flocks of ducks and geese, chipmunks chasing each other around up on the hill, a great shade of blue in the sky, trees, the ocean, rivers... many good things in the world. At lunch tomorrow, try going to someplace that you love a lot and just sit there and breathe it. It makes a difference.

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

Well, you are a good thing, according to one of your LJ friends!

I'm geoviki, and I was just chatting with isiscolo, bemoaning the dearth of LJs I read with real substance. I made her tell me a few LJs she liked best from her vast group of friends, and she recommended you (and a few others, too).

So I'm friending you, because she has good taste. Don't feel obliged to friend me back if my LJ ramblings aren't to your taste -- I'm not insecure about that at all.

Also you are an INFP and I'm an ESTJ. Obviously a great match!

I'm sorry to hear about this tragedy in your RL. Best thoughts to your friends.

[pauraque]

It's funny you turn up now, as I was just reading and thinking about ESTJs. I think some people get frustrated with your type for being... too judgmental, too set in your ways. But there's something I admire in that confidence and surety, even though it's foreign to me. Being absolutely sure is just not in an INFP's vocabulary, but I can imagine there could be comfort in it if it comes naturally to you.

They say ESTJs don't put any stock in fantasy, which makes me wonder what your fandom experience has been like. What is it about fandom, with all its speculation, that attracts you?

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

What an interesting question!

I've always enjoyed fantasy - starting with Narnia as a child. I think everyone needs escape, to tell you the truth. And fantasy is mine.

I think a few things that define my fandom experience: I very much like stories with a lot of plot. I like to tease out stories when I write that lead from point A to point Z with lots of intermediate steps, but I like a conclusive ending. It's been pointed out that I don't have a lot of nuance in my writing; it's pretty straightforward.

Oh, and I really don't like WIPs. Yeah, I read 'em - what can a fangirl do in HP-land, where 80% of the stories are WIPs? But I like to go from beginning to end without life coming in the middle.

As an E (although I'm pretty close to mid-point on the scale), I enjoy the communication and connectivity of fandom.

And even I get annoyed at myself for being too judgmental and set in my ways.

[keladryb.livejournal.com]

When I was a little girl, I used to live in Walnut Creek, in this big house with a beautiful revine just beyond the back yard. And when my father was yelling, or my mother was crying, or someone was going to get hit, I used to walk out the back gate and down into the revine, and in retrospect it's really quite lucky that I never fell. But I used to walk down into this revine. And the grass was always dry, because it was a Walnut Creek summer, and it crinkled beneath my feet, because even then, I was never soft-footed. And I would walk down into this revine. At the bottom of it, there were always blackberries, and they were dark and sweet, and they would stain my fingers, my teeth, my clothing. And I would sit at the bottom of this revine, a little scrap of a 6-year-old, plucking sweet blackberries from the thorns, and there, everything in the world was okay, and I could forget screams and fists and problems, because amongst the thorns, I found something sweet and good.

My thoughts and heart go out to Chloe tonight, and to you as well. Call me if you need anything-- I'll be up. I'm eMailing the house phone number to your aol account, because my cell is dead.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Walnut Creek.

Walnut Creek, Minnesota?

LAURA'S Walnut Creek?

or am I remembering all wrong?

if it's so, you've just become another Something Good, as I experience a moment of connection that links your six-year-old self, comforted by blackberries, to Laura with her brown braids and too-short calico dress flicking wasps away from plums, to my own six-year-old self who was comforted by pretending that our rock with irises was the same one Laura saw at sunrise.

[keladryb.livejournal.com]

Walnut Creek, California. Back then, it was a little dot of suburbia about twenty minutes from Berkeley and forty-five minutes from San Francisco. Now, it's a big dot of suburban retail hell, although I imagine the revine is still there. I did spend a summer in Bemidji, Minnesota when I was fourteen...

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Good stuff? Okay. The lilacs are just about to bloom here and the smell is already in the air. I get a little hit of it every time I walk out the front door. And in the back yard I squat in the dirt -- just about every other day, this time of year -- and plant herb seedlings, and think about how people everywhere have done what I'm doing, making our kitchen gardens, pulling flavors and nutrition and beauty out of the ground, for thousands of years, and it doesn't change much.

So that's the big good thing for me right now.

Also, today I met a young woman who is likely begin graduate study with me in the fall, and though I was a little dubious about her based on her written application, in person she turned out to be terrific, so I had the pleasure of that good surprise and the slightly more complicated pleasure of having been wrong.

All pretty trivial. But there you are.

Chloe and those who care for her will be in my thoughts. You too, of course.

[dragonessasmith.livejournal.com]

One good thing I can think of is that you have tons of people who care about you and will try their hardest to dispel any unhappiness in your life. My thoughts will be with you and Chloe tonight, and I hope everything works out for the best.

[bardsmaid.livejournal.com]

I can think of few things as inspiring as the simple fact that you can put out a LJ call for help and be flooded so quickly with the caring of so many people from around the world.

Something good: years ago, when I first started to design baby clothes, I had just one set of my patterns, which my sister-in-law kept at her house because she would cut clothes for me to sew after her own daughter had gone to sleep at night. She never cut the clothes anywhere except at home in the evening. One day the bag of patterns disappeared. She was positive she'd never taken them out of the house. She looked everywhere, including venturing into the dumpster twice with her brother in case she'd inadvertently thrown them out, but they found nothing. About a week later, still desperately in need of my patterns (my original designs--not ones I could buy replacements for at a store) I was tidying up on a Sunday morning when I happened to notice a bag I didn't recognize sitting on my couch. Inside it were the patterns. I called Susie immediately. Her first words were, "I was just praying about that." There was no logical explanation to how they got there, because she hadn't found or brought them over (and the front door was still locked), but in the end it didn't really matter: simply put, I had needed the patterns and they'd been given to me.

Something beautiful: most babies tend to hold onto you around the neck, clinging, but occasionally you'll come across one who hugs you by reaching around your shoulders, as if they're comforting you. N used to hug me this way, which seemed completely appropriate since she always seemed so wise and mature (much more so than I, though it seems strange to say that of a small child.) One day some years after she was gone, I had gone out into the backyard on her birthday to think when my youngest came up to me and hugged me in that same way, with his arms around my shoulders. It was just what I needed.

Another good thing:

I found all these flowers blooming on a single short plant that sprouted in a small hole in an otherwise asphalt-covered drainage ditch beside the road. I can't remember seeing so many flowers on one plant--certainly not on a plant of this size, not more than two feet tall.

My thoughts and prayers are with you, and with Chloe and her family, tonight.

[spican.livejournal.com]

{{{{{{{dear Eo}}}}}}}

My sister and her boyfriend are expecting their first baby this fall. I'm going to be an aunt! My kids are going to have a cousin! This is a huge event for us all since we're a small family -- my husband has no siblings and I have only my one beautiful sister. Tonight she comes home to stay with us over the weekend for the National Holiday. She tells me she looks like she accidentally swallowed a watermelon whole, and I can't wait to see her and hug her and her lovely belly. :)

I'll be keeping Chloe and those around her in my thoughts. And thank you for asking this of us -- I've been feeling very lost too, lately, and more scared/affected by events in the world than usual, and reading everyone's good moments did lift my spirits.

[desevera.livejournal.com]

I'm praying for Chloe.
Something beautiful; the wisteria is out on the honey-coloured walls of my college here and it smells heavenly. The flowers are like long bunches of grapes dripping down the masonry. If purple had a scent, it would smeall of wisteria.
Something good that's happened to me; I suddenly woke up and realised that my life is wonderful compared with that of many many other people and I was overwhelmingly thankful.

Hope you're feeling more at peace with the world.
love and hugs,

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm so sorry. I'll think good vibes.

As for good things in life - here. (http://www.livejournal.com/community/the_good_things/) A link to a community just about good things and happy things in life. Made mostly for times like these as it happens - so you can go and remmeber.

*more hugs* I hope everything works out okay.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

A baby story: My uncle and his wife are expecting twin boys. I am terrified.

Something good that happened to me today: I have been kind of hating school recently (not vehemently, but not enjoying myself) and today I was walking around and I couldn't stop looking at the buildings and the beautiful trees with unbelievably purple flowers, without a care in the world about all the rich kids I feel so marginalized by, and remembered why I wanted to come here in the first place.

Something beautiful... well, I can't think of anything for that right now, I'll have to think about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Eo, this is Glenn again; I don't know if you want to answer this...but I've been thinking about Chloe and her mother today. How is Chloe doing? Was the operation successful.

Something today that was small, but both good and beautiful: my father and I were out in the small meadow behind our house, checking to see whether it was dry enough to mow, when a little brown sparrow suddenly flew up from the grass, right at our feet. Looking closer, we found that she had built a nest right there on the ground, nestled amidst the blades of grass, with six small, speckled eggs inside. While I stayed by the nest, my dad fetched two pieces of wood and set them a few feet to each side, to mark it--and when I mowed the lawn, I left a wide swath of grass all around the nest, to protect it.

The mother did return to the nest--my mom and I saw her in the meadow later. I hope the baby birds hatch successfully. :-)

[pauraque]

Thanks, Glenn.

It's still unclear whether Chloe will be ok. I'll let everyone know about it when the situation is more stable.

[(Anonymous)]

Er...and that should have been a question: "Was the operation successful?" ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Addition: thanks for the update, Eo. :-) I hope that she comes out of it okay.

[deslea.livejournal.com]

I'm holding Chloe in my thoughts.

And as for beautiful things, I've been licking my wounds in private lately, and been an utter bore and pain to the ones I haven't been hiding from, and they're all still here. {{{{{hugs eo}}}}}

[pauraque]

::::hugs deslea very tight::::

You're never a pain to me. Just seeing your name in my inbox made me smile.

[timberwolfoz.livejournal.com]

I found this by a link from ficbymarks. I've sent a quick zap to baby Chloe and I'll do a more indepth one later.

Good thing in my life? The house we moved two about two-three years back is still more peaceful, despite being near a pub, next door to an assisted living facility and on a major highway, than the place we used to live. There are two beautiful cats who snuggle us when we're down and never fail to give us something to smile about. And there are good people in life who will reach out a hand to others in need, even when -- especially when -- their own lives are crap.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

You and baby Chloe will be in my thoughts.