With Confident Step

Semi-random notes. Got the camera. Yay! It's awesome. I've already taken some pictures with it, and they've turned out well. I do need to try a video, though. That's next. Well, I took a few videos on the same outing, but I haven't processed them yet. But I still want to try a video post.

Friend gets here Wednesday. Pretty much everything is in place, so no worries there. Going to be a long weekend, but should be a lot of fun.

Unrelated, and the reason I popped in: a friend posted on FB that her kitty (which has been on the long, slow decline) finally died this morning. Because I'm a total freak when it comes to many things, this made me think of Leaves of Grass, and Whitman's "So Long!" section at the end. I read it when I was probably 10; we found an old (turned out to be 2nd edition) printing of it at a library book sale and bought it for like 10 cents.

Specifically

I have press’d through in my own right,
I have sung the Body and the Soul — War and Peace have I sung,
And the songs of Life and of Birth — and shown that there are many births:
I have offer’d my style to everyone — I have journey’d with confident step;
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!

and

Dear friend, whoever you are, take this kiss,
I give it especially to you — Do not forget me;
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to retire awhile;
I receive now again of my many translations — from my avataras ascending — while
    others
        doubtless await me;
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts awakening rays about
        me — So long!
Remember my words — I may again return,
I love you — I depart from materials;
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

That's as close to a eulogy as I think I'd ever like.

(Yay for happy thoughs!)