Chuck

“My disdain and jealousy brought me to change my life because I know that sometimes the darkest parts of us can be our teachers in ways that our sweeter qualities never could. What longing might your jealousy lead you to if you're brave enough to listen to it before you push it away?”
― Shauna Niequist, Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living

“We form these elaborate fantasies of romantic partnerships, Romeos and Majnus who we’ll spend our days and nights with in a passion of rose petals and fireworks, while discounting our non-romantic relationships (if such distinctions can even be made), often more enduring and authentic. We discard them as soon as some man comes along, flashing his teeth and brandishing his penis. But it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.”
― Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre

“I propose a new calendar: not one autumn but twelve, a hundred. The autumn when the birches are yellow but still have their leaves; when the beeches are green but the birch leaves have fallen; when the oaks tint to the color of ripe apricots and the beeches yellow; when the oaks turn a cigar brown and the beeches curl up into crispy copper rolls. And so on: I’ve missed a few. But to call it all just “autumn”!”
― Daniel Mason, North Woods

“although our bodies travel by plane, the soul still makes its way on foot.”
― Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre