Marisa

“I learned from their subtle relations... that love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them, and no one else, like a secret treasure, like a private poem.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“Loss has nothing to do with what you do deserve and don’t deserve.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“I’ll go as a river,” said Wil. “My grandfather always told me that it’s the only way.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“. . .To go as a river . .had taken me a long while to understand. . . meant. . .flowing forward against obstacle . . .like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else, and doing this had delivered me here, with two fists of forest soil in my palms and a heart still learning to be unafraid of itself. I had been shaped by my kindred— my lost family and lost love; my found friendships, though few; my trees that kept on living and every tree that gave me shelter; every creature I met along the way, every raindrop and snowflake choosing my shoulder, and every breeze that shifted the air; every winding path beneath my feet, every place I laid my hands and head, and every creek like the one before me, rolling off the hillside, gaining strength in gravity, spinning through the next eddy, pushing around the next bend, taking and giving in quiet agreement with every living thing.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River