2024

It’s weird to grow up in a family where you know you’re loved but you don’t feel loved. And then later in adulthood you understand how almost impossible it seems to cross that distance and let yourself experience closeness, how otherworldly love feels now and how love feels unbearable at times. You flinch when someone tries to wholeheartedly love you. And over and over you see so clearly how you cannot be loved unless it's from afar and love is mixed with that familiar sensation of distance and coldness.

DECEMBER 2023 (What I was given I shall never now forget / But my heart knows I'll never live this again)

May Sarton / Saisho / David Levithan / Emily St. John Mandel + Syllabillin / Hanif Abdurraqib / Svend Svendsen / Nia Vardalos / Naomi Shihab Nye [8,15] / Laura Makabresku / Mary Oliver [10,20] / Andrei Dobrynin / Hélène Cixous / Clifton Rooney / Walk the Moon / Rainer Maria Rilke / Heikala / Gracie Abrams / quinnie / Iris Scott / Mark Oliver Everett / Sally Rooney / Sara Roberts / Ask Polly

youve died a thousand times before who caaares just climb out of this grave again & again &agaian & agaian & again & again & aga

[sitting completely still in my own bed] this world is gutting me like a fish

Something about me is that I love the world. I love people. I love humanity. We, as a species, are so, so beautiful. We created music, just to dance! There is no real need for music other than to fulfill our urge to create! We are creators! We created music with our voices, and then we created instruments to create new kinds of music. And we told stories passed down for generations. And then we created written languages because we didn't want to forget them. And now we write and we create stories and take stories already written and alter them to be our own because we, as humans, have this insatiable yearning in the back of our mind saying, "What if this existed?" And then it does! And we draw and we paint and we have been doing it all for as long as we have existed. Some of the earliest signs of human civilization is stone tools. We painted in caves and left handprints just to create something and say "I was here, I was here!"

Many christians say we are "made in God's image" and I think they have it almost right. I don't think God is a literal bipedal being with creased eyebrows on a face like ours. He could be, but that isn't what the verse is talking about. We are made in His image because we create! God is The Creator; He created us, so that we could create! That is our purpose! God made humanity, and He said it was good. Actually, once humanity was created, God said it was not just good, but very good. Humans are good. We are good!

Did you know that your temple on your forehead is one of the weakest parts of your skull? Did you notice that it's also called a temple? Do you remember that we kiss foreheads as a gesture of love? Did you know that some people refer to it as "kissing another's thoughts"? To love is an act of worship. To kiss and be kissed on the forehead is to say I trust you. Worship me and I will worship you. I am devoted to you, not exclusively or necessarily as a lover, but as a human. When Mary Oliver wrote, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine."

And we are so kind and good and I have hope. Why do you think "have some humanity" means to have compassion and concern and care for others? Yes, there are wars, and corruption, and evil, and hate, and greed. But I believe in humanity. We've made it this far only because we have loved and been loved.

Something about me is that I love people and I have hope for the world and I think humanity is so, so incredibly amazing, and that is something they can't take away from me.

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.”

— #Madeline Miller (Circe)

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

journal of my other self, rainer maria rilke / zarina situmorang / my brother my wound, natalie diaz / beekeeping, sara eliza johnson / the lights v, truls espedal / bluets, maggie nelson / the apparition, james tissot / crush, richard siken / the song of achilles, madeline miller