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Sun, 19 May 2013 03:34:38 -0400

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Sat, 18 May 2013 15:46:39 -0400

nuwanda13: irefusetobedefined: ddowney: i’m just gonna leave...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:42:37 -0400

irefusetobedefined:

ddowney:

i’m just gonna leave this here as a reminder that “hitting bottom” doesn’t mean “staying on bottom for the rest of your life and dying as a piece of crap”

I will never, ever, not reblog this.

*huggles RDJ* Anyone on here who loves him, someone posted an amazing story about him when he was younger. I wish knew where the link was so I could share it. Instead, it’s just cut and pasted below. If I find the link, I’ll replace it with that.

I will also say that I have read this several times now and it still makes me cry.

“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt

I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.

    Mine does.

    His name is Robert Downey Jr.

    You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.

    It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.

    I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.

    I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?

    The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.

    I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.

    We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.

    We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.

    The volume of blood was staggering.

    I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?

    Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.

    He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.

    He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.

    She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”

    He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”

    He was a movie star, after all.

    Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.

    We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.

    I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.

    But I didn’t.

    Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.

    I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.

    I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.

    He remembered.

    “I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”

    He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”

Illustrations Made by Folding And Unfolding Pieces of Paper...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:57:15 -0400

Illustrations Made by Folding And Unfolding Pieces of Paper bySimon Schubert

my-teen-quote: Are you a teen? This blog is just for you!

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:51:07 -0400

my-teen-quote:

Are you a teen? This blog is just for you!

eatcleanmakechanges: my dream bedroom.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:45:37 -0400

eatcleanmakechanges:

my dream bedroom.

The Meditation Resolution: The Four Agreements (by Miguel Ruiz)

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:09:53 -0400

The Meditation Resolution: The Four Agreements (by Miguel Ruiz):

themeditationresolution:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What…

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Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:53:24 -0400

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Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:28:55 -0400

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to..."

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:55:29 -0400

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

- Ernest Hemingway (via sorakeem)

learning-to-run: Seeing stuff like this makes me realize what a...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:28:30 -0400

learning-to-run:

Seeing stuff like this makes me realize what a baby i am hahaha

My future room

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:17:16 -0400

My future room

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Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:53:38 -0400

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Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:53:23 -0400

"Those who think they have no time for exercise and healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find..."

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 06:49:49 -0400

“Those who think they have no time for exercise and healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

- Edward Stanley (via themeditationresolution)

Power WIthin

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nuwanda13: irefusetobedefined: ddowney: i’m just gonna leave...

“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt

Illustrations Made by Folding And Unfolding Pieces of Paper...

my-teen-quote: Are you a teen? This blog is just for you!

eatcleanmakechanges: my dream bedroom.

The Meditation Resolution: The Four Agreements (by Miguel Ruiz)

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"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to..."

learning-to-run: Seeing stuff like this makes me realize what a...

My future room

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"Those who think they have no time for exercise and healthy eating, will sooner or later have to find..."