Flavia ~

“…the only thing she feared was compromise, the soothing voice that licks down rage until it is nothing but a small smooth lump in your hand.”
― Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho

“The movement from loneliness to solitude should lead to a gradual conversion from an anxious reaction to a loving response. — Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life ( Doubleday, 1975)”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

“Even now, I like to look in the mirror. Over the years, I’ve followed the progress of the wrinkles furrowing my brow. My cheeks have grown thinner and my lips have become pale, but it’s all me and I feel a sort of fondness for the reflection in the mirror. [...] I was just over forty. That was twenty-two years ago. I suppose I am an old woman, but I still love looking at my face. I don’t know if it’s beautiful or ugly, but it is the only human face I ever see. I smile at it and receive a friendly smile back.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Suddenly it seems memory is impossible.
Who can say what fills the coffin of the moment?
Are we, then, like moths at a candle, glowing
longer than life is left in us? I don’t know
how much longer it is possible to stay in a poem
like this one, sifting through the ashes of the future.

—Richard Jackson, from “Possibility,” Heartwall (University of Massachuetts Press, 2000)”
― Richard Jackson, Heartwall