Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment
when, nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today-list
maybe half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.
~ Marie Howe, “The Moment” (via Poets.org)
Photo: Eylül Aslan
We’re so driven to make ourselves “better” all the time…
We are mercilessly hard on ourselves for our losses, our defeats, our wounds, our failures, the parts of us that don’t measure up.
This is a weekend in non-self-improvement….
~ Francis Weller, in an interview with Tim McKee titled The Geography Of Sorrow. Francis Weller On Navigating Our Losses
Photo: Nap time by Aku*S
She likes it best when everything is very, very quiet.
~ Linn Ullmann, ”Unquiet: A Novel” (W. W. Norton & Company, January 15, 2019)
It is time to just go into a cocoon
and spin your soul.
~ Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be?: A Novel
Photo: Chelsea
I went to the kitchen to start making lunch, but no sooner had I picked up a knife than I realized I was no longer ravenously hungry. Instead, I was very sleepy. I got a blanket, stretched out on the living room sofa, and promptly drifted off. I had a dream, a short one. It was clear and very vivid. But I couldn’t remember anything about it. Just that it was clear and vivid. It felt as though a fragment of real life had slipped into my sleeping mind by mistake. Then the moment I awoke, it fled like a quick-footed animal, leaving no trace behind.
~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel. (October 9, 2018)
Photo: Yourtango
the hour of twelve noon
And so you feel
your hair caught up in the sun’s fingers
holding you free in the light and the wind.
~ Yiannis Ritsos, from “Summer,” in Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses
Notes: Poem via the distance between two doors. Photo: Alexander Kozhevnikov (via see more)
Polar bear Wolodja takes a nap in its enclosure at the Berlin Tierpark zoo in Germany.
Rest Wolodja, rest.
Source: The Washington Post, (Maurizio Gambarini/dpa via AP; Jan. 8, 2017)
Without the interruptions,
nourishing and maddening,
this life would become arid.
Yet I taste it fully only
when I am alone here and
“the house and I resume old conversations.”
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude: The Journals of Mary Sarton
Source: Photograph – exercice de style
