Nicole Papa

“I still think of Oregon Trail as a great leveler. If, for example, you were a twelve-year-old girl from Westchester with frizzy hair, a bite plate, and no control over your own life, suddenly you could drown whomever you pleased. Say you have shot four bison, eleven rabbits, and Bambi's mom. Say your wagon weighs 9,783 pounds and this arduous journey has been most arduous. The banker's sick. The carpenter's sick. The butcher, the baker, the algebra-maker. Your fellow pioneers are hanging on by a spool of flax. Your whole life is in flux and all you have is this moment. Are you sure you want to forge the river? Yes. Yes, you are.”
― Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
― Maya Angelou

“The moon changes each night but she does so in an understandable rhythm. And just as the tides ebb and flow and the moon waxes and wanes, our bodies’ hormones ebb and flow and our energies wax and wane. Our bodies are more like the rivers than like the rocks, more like the oceans than like machines. The more we can respect the cycles and changes and needs of our bodies, the more we can move with the flow of our lives.

In other words, swear by the moon. Or, trust your body.”
― Golda Poretsky

“And yet she could not forgive herself. Even as an adult, she wished only that she could go back and change things: the ungainly things she’d worn, the insecurity she’d felt, all the innocent mistakes she made.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth