Monique

“It is self-indulgent to give into Despair--it's easy. Hope, now that takes strength--it takes practice and determination to believe in a better outcome. Don't you dare give into dread. Don't you dare give up!”
― Aminder Dhaliwal, A Witch's Guide to Burning

“It's a reminder that there's more to life than the things that need to be done. There's also things that want to be done.”
― Aminder Dhaliwal, A Witch's Guide to Burning

“My life only has two layers. On the top is thick joy, moving around like the sea, full of fish and slopping goofily at the edges: active and exuberant and amazed by everything. The bottom layer is the cold sea floor, where insects pick through dead things. I'm in the top layer, and then suddenly I'm tired and I'm back on the floor, my cheek against the whisper that says nothing matters.
There's no space in between.”
― Noreen Masud, A Flat Place: Moving Through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma

“It’s easy to look at the contours of a forest and feel a bone deep love for nature. It’s less easy to remember that the contours of your own body represent the exact same nature. The pathways of your mind. Your dreams, dark and strange as sprouts curling beneath a flat rock. Your regret, bitter as the citrus rot of old cut grass. It’s the same as the nature you make time to love. That you practice loving. The forest. The meadow. The sweeping arm of a galaxy. You are as natural as any postcard landscape and deserve the same love.”
― Jarod K. Anderson, Field Guide to the Haunted Forest