Human life is a kind of myopia, everyone walking around, seeing only what’s in front of them, or not even that—passing each other by, embroiled in our little dramas to such an extent that we miss out on everything; making big what is small.
~ Sheila Heti, Motherhood: A Novel (Henry Holt and Co., May 1, 2018)
Notes: Illustration: Owen Gent. Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Sometimes
everything
seems
so
oh, I don’t know.
–Joe Brainard, “Poem” from The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard
Notes: Poem – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo by damian hovhannisyan (via see more)
On some nights it’s best to stop thinking about the past, and all that’s been won and lost.
On nights like this, just getting into bed, crawling between the clean white sheets, is a great relief.
— Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
Notes: Photo – windworkss. Quote – shitiunderline
Some days are like this:
you can’t move.
Can’t be moved.
What growth there is, is imperceptible.
A slow efflorescence.
— Thomas Centolella, from “Setsubun”, in Terra Firma
Notes:
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.
~ Mary Oliver, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches” in West Wind: Poems & Prose
Notes: Poem via The Hammock Papers. Photo: Laurence Demaison. Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Everyone wants you to be Atlas,
to shoulder it all. Even the voice in your
head insists you are behind. But I’ve seen
the light in you, the one the gods finger
while we sleep. I’ve seen the blossom open
in your heart, no matter what remains to
be done. There are never enough hours
to satisfy the minions of want. So close
your eyes and lean into the Oneness that
asks nothing of you. When the calls stack,
answer to no one, though you receive them
all. Just open your beautiful hands, born with
nothing in them. You have never been more
complete than in this incomplete moment.
~ Mark Nepo, The Myth of Urgency in The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting
Notes: Quote via mindfulbalance.org. Photo: Laurence Demaison (via see more). Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Daily life, work you chose and profess to love, domestic detail, the call and reply of other people’s lives, the beloveds mixed in there with everybody else who has a claim on you, the sheer wants and requests, always heard as demands, the gnats of need buzzing. Deadlines. Delivering. Always. Not to mention the weights of the past, hanging like bells gonging from your wrists.
~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day
Notes. Photo: Thainá Reinert (via Your Eyes Blaze Out). Related Posts: It’s been a long day
the hour sinking into the emptiness of my
closed eyes
— Alejandra Pizarnik, from “the hour sinking,” The Galloping Hour: French Poems
Notes:
It’s like watching a zoo animal circle its cage.
For the first time, she realizes that being alone is a contradiction in terms.
Even in a body’s most private moments, something else joins in.
~ Richard Powers, from “Trunk” in The Overstory: A Novel
Notes:
The mind is a hotel with a thousand rooms. When I tilt my head a certain way, I think about certain things. When I tilt my head another way, I think about other things. If I sleep on the right side of my face, for example, I’d dream of a pale rose, the future, or a continental diner in Passaic, New Jersey. When I sleep on the left side of my face, I’d dream that a hand is squeezing my heart, that I’m in prison, or that I’m watching hockey at an airport bar, about to miss a flight.
~ Linh Dinh, “The Mind” from All Around What Empties Out
Notes:
