Jane

“That night, I fall asleep knowing there is always a chance I will wake in the night certain I am an outcast, outside the common run of humanity, an imposter by light of day. . . . And I wonder.  Can it be that all of us upon waking sometimes feel malformed or broken, foolish, as we huddle in our nests all over the earth? Perhaps, I think this pit of shame without perspective is the true human connection.  Perhaps this sharing of soul dregs is what makes it possible to write a poem . .  The most I can probably aspire to is to be counted among the people who care for the small, the ordinary, the overlooked creatures of the earth.  Because I am one . . . ”
― Louise Erdrich, Python's Kiss

“Once the tack and harness was untangled, the son lifted himself away from his mother. He stood alone as he was being rubbed dry with hay. When half of you is gone, the half left behind begins its long descent into a cold strange barn. No matter how warm you get you are never warm and no matter how much you eat you are never full. You are out of harness but somehow pulling the entire weight. At least the authority came to him. Cradled his jaw, kept running the brush along his back, made the sounds they make when they must stand up to a loss. It wasn't enough, but the man stayed near and made noises why if only and why and if only and if only why -- all sorts of nonsense -- and gave shape to the suffering.”
― Louise Erdrich, Python's Kiss

“I used to talk to Nick and the kids when I was writing my etiquette column -- I'd read aloud the dilemmas and we'd discuss our thoughts. The questions were all over the place, What do I do about my neighbor's unbearable wind chimes, my mother-in-law's suffocating myrrh body wash . . .. But every individual question was really a version of the same existential one: People are different from me. How do I survive it?

"With as much grace as possible: was our answer, every time. What else is there? . . .

If you're not careful, you'll end up mistaking difference for loss -- which is how you lose everything.”
― catherine newman, Wreck

“never did know what kindness was in the world until I admitted my need for it.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Life: A Love Story