“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
“For the rest of my life, I will live with my hands outstretched for things that are no longer there.”
― Notes on Grief
― Notes on Grief
“And yet I know that in her death, she has found the freedom she could not find in life. She is no longer confined to a room, a bed, and a body that no longer works.”
― On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss
― On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss
“I never told you about the trip to Portugal 3 years ago when I read Fernando Pessoa at 1 a.m. outside a small family-run restaurant by the harbour. If I close my eyes I can still smell the salt water and the fish, some sort of cleaning powder scent from the kitchen, can still feel the heat, a soft wind and me sitting with wide open eyes on my own at 1 a.m. writing what I thought was profound and excellent. I felt like a writer then. I was not a girlfriend or a daughter or a songwriter who never got signed—I was a writer in the truest sense and I lived in my own flames.”
― He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss
― He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss
“When I try to picture for myself what a happy life might look like, the picture hasn't changed very much since I was a child - a house with flowers and trees around it, and a river nearby, and a room full of books, and someone there to love me, that's all. Just to make a home there, and to care for my parents when they grow older. Never to move, never to board a plane again, just to live quietly and then be buried in the earth.”
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
Haruki Murakami Cyber Book Club
— 71 members
— last activity Jul 29, 2014 05:21AM
I don't know about you, but I love Murakami's work. We will only read his work here. Please join! We will do a book every once in a while. ...more
Karolína’s 2025 Year in Books
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