Stacinator

“There were days so clear and skies so brilliant blue, with white clouds scudding across them like ships under full sail, and she felt she could lift right off the ground. One moment she was ambling down a path, and the next thing she knew, the wind would take hold of her, like a hand pushing against her back. Her feet would start running without her even willing it, even knowing it. And she would run faster and faster across the prairie, until her heart jumped like a rabbit and her breath came in deep gasps and her feet barely skimmed the ground.
It felt good to spend herself this way. The air tasted fresh and delicious; it smelled like damp earth, grass, and flowers. And her body felt strong, supple, and hungry for more of everything life could serve up.
She ran and felt like one of the animals, as though her feet were growing up out of the earth. And she knew what they knew, that sometimes you ran just because you could, because of the way the rush of air felt on your face and how your legs reached out, eating up longer and longer patches of ground.
She ran until the blood pounded in her ears, so loud that she couldn't hear the voices that said, You're not good enough, You're not old enough, You're not beautiful or smart or loveable, and you will always be alone.
She ran because there were ghosts chasing her, shadows that pursued her, heartaches she was leaving behind. She was running for her life, and those phantoms couldn't catch her, not here, not anywhere. She would outrun fear and sadness and worry and shame and all those losses that had lined up against her like a column of soldiers with their guns shouldered and ready to fire. If she had to, she would outrun death itself.
She would keep on running until she dropped, exhausted. Then she would roll over onto her back and breathe in the endless sky above her, sun glinting off her face.
To be an animal, to have a body like this that could taste, see hear, and fly through space, to lie down and smell the earth and feel the heat of the sun on your face was enough for her. She did not need anything else but this: just to be alive, cool air caressing her skin, dreaming of Ivy and what might be ahead.”
― Pamela Todd, The Blind Faith Hotel

“If we learn to listen to the others and try to capture the soul of their language, and can scent the fragrance of the words we hear, we can be transported to a nirvana of deep understanding, without being overwhelmed by the reality of the clock. ("Watching the flight of time")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“And, I think, this greening does thaw at the edges, at least, of my own cold season. Joy sneaks in: listening to music, riding my bicycle, I catch myself feeling, in a way that’s as old as I am but suddenly seems unfamiliar, light. I have felt so heavy for so long. At first I felt odd- as if I shouldn’t be feeling this lightness, that familiar little catch of pleasure in the heart which is inexplicable, though a lovely passage of notes or the splendidly turned petal of a tulip has triggered it. It’s my buoyancy, part of what keeps me alive: happy, suddenly with the concomitant experience of a sonata and the motion of the shadows of leaves. I have the desire to be filled with sunlight, to soak my skin in as much of it as I can drink up, after the long interior darkness of this past season, the indoor vigil, in this harshest and darkest of winters, outside and in.”
― Mark Doty, Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

“MOTHER IS WATER

I wish I could
Shower your head with flowers
And anoint your feet with my tears,
For I know I have caused you
So much heartache, frustration and despair –
Throughout my youthful years.
I wish I could give you
The remainder of my life
To add to yours,
Or simply erase
The lines on your face,
And mend all that has been torn.
For next to God,
You are the fire
That has given light
To the flame in each of my eyes.
You are the fountain
That nourished my growth,
And from your chalice –
Gave me life.
Without the wetness of your love,
The fragrance of your water,
Or the trickling sounds of
Your voice,
I shall always feel
thirsty.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem