Jour.Joyeux

“I’m hungry for water and sky and days that aren’t divided by the tiny squares in an appointment book.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“As unappreciatingly as a duck might shake champagne from its back, the Traveling Salesman shrugged the compliment from his shoulders.”
― Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, The Indiscreet Letter - Eleanor Hallowell Abbott [ 75Th Anniversary & Collectors Edition - Penguin Deluxe ]

“I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
― Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August