Kelli > Recent Status Updates

My relief at her touch verges on indescribable. I don’t think our language contains a word with sufficient largesse or capacity to express the euphoria I feel as I bury my face in her hair, as I dive inside her coat and press her form to mine. What redemption there is in being loved: we are always our best selves when loved by another. Nothing can replace this.

As a linguist, it’s a revelation to me the number of ways two adults can find to discuss sex without small children having the faintest idea what is being said. It is a testament to, a celebration of, semantic adaptability.

This is great:

She has the baby on her back, and she is holding a shotgun. She is also my wife. The latter fact I still have trouble adjusting to, not only because the idea of this creature ever agreeing to marry me is highly improbable, but also because she pulls unexpected shit like this all the time. “Jesus, honey,” I gasp, momentarily distracted by how shrill my voice is.

The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever.

He hooked a finger under my chin, pulling me in for a chaste kiss. “Be careful.” “I’m always careful.” “The most terrifying part of that statement is you actually believe it.”

I sighed and leaned my head against [his] shoulder. “They want me to be the woman I was, and I don’t know how to go back.” [He] bent and kissed my hair. “You were always this woman. I knew it the day I watched you jump off this cliff. You were always my queen. It’s not your fault they weren’t paying attention.”

[Reader critique: Sooooo I’m surprised by the uses of “slave labor” and “anal”/precise. I don’t remember that from the first two books at all.]

I loved the cinderella story, but spoiler: I haaaaated how easily he disappeared/reappeared. She still let him off too easily. It was, like the other arc’s texts, unsatisfying. :(

We’re quiet for a bit and I try to picture her somewhere in Virginia not seeing the maple come to life in front of our house every spring. It’s been so long since she’s heard Christopher’s laugh that she probably doesn’t remember it. She’s never even met Gus. She lost out.

I let out a sob. Something about how desperately I want to know Gus is okay every day for the rest of my life and the fact that she just up and left us releases the deepest, ugliest rage in my heart. It’s the rage that sits at the bottom with the bile. I have always felt sad and dismayed by the choice she made, but sitting here inside the full force of a mother’s love, I cannot fathom her leaving.

One thing about caretakers is they are never carefree. Without our cares, we’d just be takers like everyone else.

Grief was love with nowhere to go.

“She’s less and always will be for turning her back on you, for walking away not just from her responsibilities but from the potential of you. She’ll never have a daughter who loves her absolutely, without reservation and with real joy. The way you love others. She’s less, not you.”

It’s a funny thing. The person we fall in love with, we hardly ever call by their name. Because it’s somehow just so obvious that it’s you I’m talking to, that it’s you I’m always thinking of. Who else?

(2/2) Become whatever you want, but don’t become one of them. Art is a fragile enough light as it is. It can be blown out by a single sigh. Art needs friends, with our bodies against the wind and our hands cupped around the flame, until it’s strong enough to burn brightly with its own power. Until it’s an inferno. Unstoppable.”

“You’re an artist if you create something! You’re an artist if you don’t see the world the way it is, if you hate white walls! No one else decides what art is, no one can stop you loving whatever you like, the cynics and critics can have control of all the other crap on the planet… but they can’t decide how hard your heart beats! (1/2)

“Do not worry, Mr. Wallace. I am not being facetious with you. I do truly believe I am fortunate. I am fortunate because I have been able to spend my life in study of the world. As such, I have never felt insignificant. This life is a mystery, yes, and it is often a trial, but if one can find some facts within it, one should always do so—for knowledge is the most precious of all commodities.”

“I believe that we are all transient.” She thought for a while and added, “I believe that we are half-blind and full of errors. I believe that we understand very little, and what we do understand is mostly wrong. I believe that life cannot be survived—that is evident!—but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed.”

“What a grim view! I wish you did not consider our lives so bleakly. On the whole of things, I still see more wonder in the world than suffering.” “I know you do,” said Alma, “and that is why I worry for you. You are an idealist, which means that you are destined to be disappointed, and perhaps even wounded. You seek a gospel of benevolence and miracle, which leaves no room for the sorrows of existence.

“But why should our Lord not be a botanist?” Ambrose asked. “What occupation would you prefer your deity to have?” Alma considered the question seriously. “Perhaps a mathematician,” she decided. “Scratching and erasing at things, you know. Adding and subtracting. Multiplying and dividing. Toying with theories and new calculations. Discarding earlier mistakes. It appears a more sensible idea to me.”

His only request had been this: once the coffin was in the hole, he’d asked that they cover the lid with straw. He wanted to make sure that, when the first shovelfuls of dirt hit his wife’s casket, the awful sound would be muffled.

When the first wave arrived, barely touching her toes, it was so light and translucent a ripple that you might be forgiven for thinking it insignificant, that it would vanish soon, leaving no trace. But then followed another wave, and the next one, rising as far as her ankles, and the one after that covering her knees, and before you knew it she was immersed in liquid pain, up to her neck, drowning.

What I am trying to say is, you are young and the young are impatient. They can’t wait for school to be over and life to begin. But let me tell you a secret: it already has! This is what life is. Boredom, frustration, trying to get out of things, longing for something better.

A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference. Cartography is another name for stories told by winners. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.

“You’re saying you don’t believe in a God who would hate, right? And if that God does exist, you’ll remain defiant.” “Yes, that’s…yes.” “Yeah, that’s incredibly daring! And it’s beautiful.”

Being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

And it did not excuse his attitude. But she understood, finally. Jimmy had been told from a young age that fear and failing and trying and wanting and openness and kindness and sincerity made him weak. And because he had believed it, he’d learned to suppress all of those things. And when he saw those traits in others, he hated them because he hated himself.

“Well, we are the stars,” Joan said. “And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at parts of who you once were, who you may one day be.” As she said it, Joan could tell how lonely it must sound. To find companionship with the stars. But what she meant was bigger than that.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.

Then one day, this boy joins our class and he’s really good at math. Not as good as me, but almost. And he asks me for help. And I told him I’d think about it. But…I didn’t want to. I was so scared that he’d take the top score from me. I told my mom I wasn’t going to help him, and my mom said if I was going to be proud of myself for being generous, I had to do it even when it meant I might lose something.