Leighta

“We climbed up and up, higher and higher, not saying much, each of us busy with our own thoughts. Dad was thinking about his boyhood, and I was thinking about Dad. Do all kids have to worry about their parents' mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it's the other way around. Honestly, I haven't met very many adults in my life who I could call really grown up...”
― Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

“Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is—and if we join them—your wild to mine—what’s that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying. I’m saying: What if that is joy?”
― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

“The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist ? It feels like it exists, but where is it ? And if it did exists, but doesn’t now, then where did it go ?”
― Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

“I suppose I could spend time theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other, but that’s really not the point. The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. Holding open doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.”
― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays