I am your quiet place,
you are my wild.

I am your water wings,
you are my deep.
I am your open arms,
you are my running leap.


from You Are My I Love You, by Maryann Cusimano Love

we learn nothing

We think of color blindness as a defect, but it enables those afflicted with it to see through camouflage.

Tim Kreider

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Wow. Can't wait to get my hands on this book!
Also I am now obsessed with SJ Tucker's voice and songs.

fierce medicine

This is the only book I read all month. It took me that long to get through it... and it was worth every minute. This woman is amazing; her writing is powerful and challenging and inspiring and I highly recommend this book to survivors of every age and shape and kind.

something that's like you

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

very faint, and far away

Late at night on Christmas Eve, she carried us to our high bedroom, and darkened the room, and opened the window, and held us awed in the freezing stillness, saying--and we could hear the edge of tears in her voice--"Do you hear them? Do you hear the bells, the little bells, on Santa's sleigh?" We marveled and drowsed, smelling the piercingly cold night and the sweetness of Mother's warm neck, hearing in her voice so much pent emotion, feeling the familiar strength in the crook of her arms, and looking out over the silent streetlights and the chilled stars over the rooftops of the town. "Very faint, and far away--can you hear them coming?" And we could hear them coming, very faint and far away, the bells on the flying sleigh.

--Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

These are the kind of memories I want to give my own children, someday.
Merry Christmas, everyone.

take it back

Undo it, take it back, make every day the previous one until I am returned to the day before the one that made you gone. Or set me on an airplane travelling west, crossing the dateline again and again, losing this day, then that, until the day of loss is still ahead, and you are here, instead of sorrow.

Nessa Rapaport, A Woman's Book of Grieving

walking away from the wreckage

She wanted to cry, but Emma knew that if she started crying now for everyone and everything she had lost, she would never be able to stop crying. So she dusted herself off instead, and started walking away down the beach to explore. I have no place of my own anymore, she thought, but maybe I can make one.

The storm hadn't taken everything she had, after all. It could never take away her brave heart, or her cleverness.


Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand

fourteen

Day 14 - a non-fiction book that is meaningful to you since your loss

About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope edited by Jessica Berger Gross

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

There was a dearth of reading material available on the subject when I went looking for it, let alone good material. But I found these two books eventually, and both were of great comfort to me. They made me laugh and cry by turns, especially Elizabeth McCracken. Her bewilderment and grief are so gently and exquisitely expressed. It was exactly the voice I needed to hear, at exactly the right time.

thirteen

Day 13 - a fiction book that is meaningful to you since your loss

The Hound Saga by Mette Ivie Harrison

"True" and "Deeply human" are the strongest best compliments I know how to give to a piece of writing, and I would give Mette Ivie Harrison's stories both of them. They made me want to never stop reading, made me want to wake up in her version of the world; even though it is no less dangerous than my own. These books got me through the roughest parts of my summer, and I'll never forget them.

I think I would have loved these stories, even years ago; but the underlying themes resonate with me now in a way that wouldn't have been possible before I came to grips with the harsh realities of my past.

I always seem to forget / How fragile are the very strong

Well, thanks to the awesome blog challenge I am participating in, I had a handy list of things I could do for self-care.  And today I really needed me some self-care.  Good timing, universe!  Thank you very much.

Today I : Had hot tea and toast for breakfast.  Asked A not to turn on the TV till I was done eating.  Wrote some posts for my blog.  Took extra care with my outfit and makeup (and received several compliments in return).  Hummed my Lissie's sweet little song all day.  Said "No" to an extra hour at work.  Tried on clothes after my shift.  Sat in Barnes & Noble with a soy Chai latte and read the first five chapters of Inkheart (which is also a pretty great movie, by the way).  Had a nice bath, with sparkly bubbles, when I got home. 

I wish the sea was not so far away; it would have been nice to lay on the sand and listen to the crashing waves for awhile.  Though I would trade even that beloved experience gladly for a hug.  A real life hug -- from anyone really, so long as they meant it.  (Nobody touches me, here; have I told you that before?  My skin is starving.  The most human contact I get these days is if my hand accidentally brushes a customer's while I'm giving them back their change.) 

I wish I had my Sophie and my Cissa.  I miss them so much; and they give the best snuggles.  I hope hope hope I will get to see them soon.

four

Day 4 - your favorite book

Oh dear. In case you haven't noticed, I read a lot. I have probably forgotten about more books than many people have ever read in their lifetime. I started memorizing when I was two or three years old and learned to read, by osmosis, before kindgerten. My teacher used to set me up on a high stool in the afternoons and have me read aloud to the class while she checked our schoolwork.

Reading was the best escape I had from the nightmare that was my waking life. The library was my sanctuary, my safety; I knew that nothing bad could ever happen to me there. The library that my mother took me to was old and dim, the air dusty and stale. I would lay on the ancient carpet, alone for an hour or more, surrounded by stories and giddy with possibility. The smell of books still calms me instantly.

I really don't think I could ever choose one favorite book. So here are a few of my enduring faves. (You have no idea how long I agonized over this list! Ugh.) This is me, showing restraint...

Books I Have Loved for Over a Decade:
1. The Tale of Desperaux, by Kate DiCamillo
2. Zel, by Donna Jo Napoli
3. Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood, by Meredith Ann Pierce
4. Spindle's End, by Robin McKinley
5. Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card

the vast soft interior of the universe

As I lay there, listening to the soft slap of the sea, and thinking these sad and strange thoughts, more and more and more stars had gathered, obliterating the separateness of the Milky Way and filling
up the whole sky. And far far away in the ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among those billions and billions of merging golden lights. And curtain after
curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeon of my youth. And I saw into
the vast soft interior of the universe which was slowly and gently turning itself inside out. I went to sleep, and in my sleep I seemed to hear a sound of singing.

Irish Murdoch, The sea, the sea

tiny good things

One can live quietly and try to do tiny good things and harm no one. I cannot think of any tiny good thing to do at the moment, but perhaps I shall think of one tomorrow.

Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea

helix aspersa

Awhile ago I got a book from the library called "Snail, where are you?" It is a really sweet, really simple picture book in which you are supposed to find the spiral snail shape within the illustrations on each page. A few days later, I was sitting on my front porch, eating yogurt, like I do every morning, when I happened to look down and see... a little brown snail! It was crawling up a stem of grass near the sidewalk, and my first thought, literally, was: Snail, where are you?

Which made me laugh and laugh, and still does. I thought to myself: Look, Noah! Do you see him? There he is, right there. There's the snail, just like in our book.


It was such a sweet and funny moment, and I am so glad that I have that memory now. I am putting it here so that I don't forget.

Elizabeth McCracken is my hero

Just finished reading this book.
It was stunning and heartbreaking and beautiful, and I loved it.

waking

Children ten years old wake up and find themselves here, discover themselves to have been here all along; is this sad? They wake like sleepwalkers, in full stride; they wake like people brought back from cardiac arrest or from drowning: in media res, surrounded by familiar people and objects, equipped with a hundred skills. They know the neighborhood, they can read and write English, they are old hands at the commonplace mysteries, and yet they feel themselves to have just stepped off the boat, just converged with their bodies, just flown down from a trance, to lodge in an eerily familiar life already well under way.

Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

Oh, Annie Dillard! You inspire and intimidate me at the same time.

just a little summer reading

E: "Vera! You have too many books!"
Vera: "Oh, I think it's just the right number of books."
E (considers for a moment): "No. You have too many."

how it is to be grown up

"I think I know how it is to be grown up," said Frances, thoughtfully. "It's when you can feel... how someone else feels... who isn't you."

Monica Kullig, Fairytale, A True Story

The sad thing is the continuous realization that the person who "raised" me (allegedly) was not, in fact, grown up. And now that I am grown up, I see it more and more clearly.

a conscious silence

The past buries the past and must end in silence, but it can be a conscious silence that rests open-eyed. Perhaps this is the final forgiveness.

Iris Murdoch, The sea, the sea