Gowithme

“I remembered the red paper strip pasted across the lintel of my granny's bedroom door. It read: "Happiness, long life, good health, and peace." In old age, that's all people want, and have always wanted.”
― Rao Pingru, Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China

“Studies have shown that writing about one’s deepest thoughts and feelings significantly reduces doctor visits and improves overall health. The ability to put feelings into words transforms mute suffering into a process that can be understood and appreciated.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“. . . Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.
Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.”
― Kurt Vonnegut