Nancy

“And she will be. Because it is an art—to be black and dogged and inoffensive. She is all these things and she is embarrassed that I am not.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“A belief that it’s possible to let one’s guard down and enjoy the emotional knowledge that orbits a home and the memories, while not all good, that confirm her.”
― Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays

“That the future’s unspecified terms provide a few recognizable basics, and that I might find, somewhere in me, a tension—the good kind—for tapping into what springs me forward, is, I reason, the hope. The discord, the din, what stays the same, what reappears, what’s underneath, the misremembered and all there is to fathom. Growing up, for a long period that’s not worth mentioning here, I thought the expression was “Play it by year.” As in, take your time. A whole year. More. Whatever you need. There’s no rush.”
― Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays

“I leaned my head back against the brick. “I think I’d be a gardener in a woods just for children, and when they came by I’d sit and listen to their wonderings. And the ocean would be nearby. I’d live in a little house on the shore. At dawn I’d strip off all my clothes and swim. At night I’d sing a song about the way life used to be. It would be such a sad song it would make the grownups nod and the children cry. But I’d sing it every night so that no one would ever confuse nostalgia with wanting to return.”
― Leslie Feinberg