"Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself." -Madeleine L'Engle

love this, bek

My friend Teddy gave me this:

I will not play tug o' war.

I'd rather play hug o' war.

Where everyone hugs instead of tugs;

Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug;

Where everyone kisses, everyone grins, and everyone cuddles, and everyone wins.

-shel silverstein

:)

its beautiful in nashville.

this song is perfect for today: The Decemberists, Don't Carry It All

have you forgotten?

Animals

Have you forgotten what we were like then

when we were still first rate

and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time

but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves

and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal

we didn't need speedometers

we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster

or greener than now if you were with me O you

were the best of all my days

-frank o'hara, thank you kquindlen, I effing miss you.

"How deeply I regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful I am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed. That is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth."

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

borrowed these from em's blog, cause she's da best witch.

"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try."

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

"I passed that row of big oaks by the war memorial--if you remember them-- and I thought of another morning, fall a year or two ago, when they were dropping their acorns thick as hail almost. There was all sorts of thrashing in the leaves and there were acorns hitting the pavement so hard they'd fly past my head. All this in the dark, of course. I remember a slice of moon, no more than that. It was a very clear night, or morning, very still, and then there was such energy in the things transpiring among those trees, like a storm, like travail. I stood there a little out of range, and I thought, it is all still new to me. I have lived my life on the prairie and a line of oak trees can still astonish me. "

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

i like this place.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily.

"'I'm youth, I'm joy,' Peter answered at a venture, 'I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.'"

peter pan

blind pilot, I buried a bone.

I buried a bone

and darling you don't know him

darling you don't know him

darling you don't know

and just where you are

might be the right place

might be that sweet space

but you don't know

well look me in the head

I've got nothing on my mind

I've been waiting for you

all this time

and I'd seen a path turn to an old road

but the secret's too slow

and we're too fast

look me in the mouth

I've got nothing in my smile

I've been waiting for you

you're just my style

look me in the gut

I've got fear from my own name

I'd dig it up for you

if you'd do the same

I buried a bone

and darling you don't know him

darling you don't know him

darling you don't know

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful

about what we pretend to be.

vonnegut, mother night

Nowadays I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own

zadie smith, occasional essays

They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can

lose your shadow.

white teeth, zadie smith

valentines

"It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time."

white teeth, zadie smith

via wawtse

Who knows how to make love stay?

Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

In an email from Madeleine,

a letter from emily dickinson:

To Mrs. J.G. Holland
Life is the finest secret.
So long as that remains, we must all whisper.
With that sublime exception I had no clandestineness.
It was lovely to see you and I hope it may happen again. These beloved accidents must become more frequent.
We are by September and yet my flowers are bold as June. Amherst has gone to Eden.
To shut our eyes is Travel.