And for moments, nothing more.
Some people understand the privilege of stillness and can sit and breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning and let what’s next wait the while.
~ Niall Williams, “This Is Happiness” (Bloomsbury Publishing; December 3, 2019)
Photo: Levas Žiriakovas with Spring Sun
The way a deer emerges from a thicket is the opposite of a wound.
Like the moon in the morning — all firmament, beautiful, about to vanish.
Each morning I walk out my apartment & wonder what is going to become of me.
— Devin Kelly, “Deer on the Side of an American Highway,” published in drDOCTOR
Photo: Fredrik Stige with “White Tailed Deer, Montana“
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Photo: Mennyfox55
“On Sundays she got up early in order to have more time to do nothing.”
~ Clarice Lispector, from The Hour of the Star
Notes: Quote: via qui nasce una ruina. Art: Laura Lacambra Shubert with “Reading”
It’s so delicate, the light.
And there’s so little of it. The dark
is huge.
Just delicate needles, the light,
in an endless night.
And it has such a long way to go
through such desolate space.
So let’s be gentle with it.
Cherish it.
So it will come again in the morning.
We hope.
~ Rolph Jacobsen, “A Few Delicate Needles” from The Roads Have Come to an End Now
Notes:
Back in my room I located some tubes of Nescafé and a small electric pot. I made my own coffee, wrapped myself in a blanket, opened the sliding doors and sat on the little patio facing the sea. There was a low wall partially obstructing the view, but I had my coffee, could hear the waves and was reasonably content.
~ Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey (Alfred A. Knopf, September 24, 2019)
Photo: heytess
I sat on my patio, wrapped in a blanket…when I noticed that my room was not on the ground floor but on the subfloor beneath, making it closer to the edge where the beach began…I turned on the radio and Nina Simone was singing I Put a Spell on You. The seals were silent, and I could hear the waves in the distance, winter on the West Coast. I sank into bed and slept heavily.
~ Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey (Alfred A. Knopf, September 24, 2019)
Photo: Dream Inn Santa Cruz, CA by Angelo DeSantis
lift of water,
bracing
smooth—
a lubricant
to be part of
this synchrony,
able to lean
on others, ride
the breastbone
of a bird,
without wings or
even a feather.
~ Diane DeCillis, from “To Lean”
Notes: Poem – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels). Photo: via Mennyfox55.
Here is how I spend my days now.
I live in a beautiful place.
I sleep in a beautiful bed.
I eat beautiful food.
I go for walks through beautiful places.
I care for people deeply…
I cry easily, from pain and pleasure, and I don’t apologize for that.
In the mornings I step outside and I’m thankful for another day.
It took me many years to arrive at such a life.
~ Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen: A Novel
Notes:
