Sharon

“Love Sorrow

Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,

what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so

utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment

by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,

as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.”
― Mary Oliver, Red Bird

“What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves

“I’m an alcoholic who doesn’t (and doesn’t want to) drink anymore so I exist in a state of never-ending micro-addictions that reveal themselves in the form of obsessions.”
― Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Surviving What You Think You Can't

“To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour.”
― Anthony Doerr, Memory Wall