Emily

“To wash your hair, apply your makeup and put on clothes that are well-scented with incense. Even if you’re somewhere where no one special will see you, you still feel a heady sense of pleasure inside.”
― Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book

“Sassafras had never wanted to weave, she just couldn't help it. There was something about the feel of raw fleece and finished threads and dainty patterned pieces that was as essential to her as dancing to Carmen De Lavallade, or singing to Aretha Franklin. Her mama had done it, and her mama before that; and making cloth was the only tradition Sassafras inherited that gave her a sense of womanhood that was rich and sensuous, not tired and stingy.”
― Ntozake Shange, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo

“let her be born / let her be born / & handled warmly.”
― Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf

“185. It Is Getting So Dark
I am the sort of person who approves of what others abhor and detests the things they like.”
― Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book