Brook > Recent Status Updates

“Men theorize about love, but women are more often love’s practitioners.”

“Lines you couldn’t imagine crossing disappear when someone you love is at risk.”

“But the past can’t be unwritten. It can only be reckoned with, learned from, one brutal day at a time.”

“Sometimes, family isn’t just what you’re born into—it’s also what you build in the aftermath of loss.”

“This time of year, the story most [animal] tracks tell goes something like this: Someone is hungry so they braved the cold in search of food. Sometimes they aren’t so lucky, and another hungry creature gets them first!”

“Bringing the words that are inside you out into the world is a powerful ritual of healing and creation.”

“Good things take time. When we try to rush things, they’ll often fall apart. Sometimes, it’s better to sit with the situation, even if it’s uncomfortable, to allow the truth to reveal itself to you in its own time.

Taking our time is not the same as doing nothing at all. It means listening deeply and allowing things to unfold naturally, as they’re meant to.”

“The most problematic element in our family dynamic—Ruby’s relentless ambition, fueled by a potent mixture of unresolved pain and narcissism—had become the driving force of our existence. It was as if we had taken the most poisonous plant in our garden and, instead of uprooting it, made it the centerpiece of our lives.”

“Just because something can be explained by science doesn’t mean it’s not also magical.”

“There is nothing to fear in the untamed chaos of nature. The rabbit eats the clover. The fox eats the rabbit. There is no inequity in it. Nothing but nature doing as it will. And you…must not deny the shadowed portions of yourself…

We can hold all parts of ourselves without denial or shame or bitterness. The light and the dark. Refusal is ruin. Disease. Death.”

“‘I do not like the look of it.’…Florence pointed at the tree. The bark with its strange markings. ‘It is the mark of the devil.’

I shook my head. ‘No. The natural world could not be so befouled. The devil resides only in the hearts of men.’”

“I had no use for the confinement of a house. For the tug of a babe at my skirts with its always hungry, screaming mouth.”

“Polyamorous or monogamous, your love should be a thing that brings something to you.

It’s true that giving can be a part of love. But contrary to popular belief, love should never take from you, Freddy.”

“The truth is, breakups are usually messy, the way people are messy, the way life is often messy. It’s okay for a breakup to feel like a disaster. It doesn’t feel okay, but I assure you it is okay.

It’s also true that you can break up with someone you still love. Because those two things are not distinct territories: love and not love anymore.”

“From displaying the sacred evergreen, to lighting holiday lights, to making an effort to treat each other as equals during this dangerous time; we party, feast, and exchange gifts because I know if my roof collapses, my family might be seeking shelter with yours. And if your roof collapses under all of that snowy I must do the same for you.”

“Mama had kept most of her childhood stories locked in her eyes. Mama’s stories were unsuited for the ears of children—stories of evil without consequence and pain without cease—the unholy things that happen when God blinks. Or maybe sleeps.”

“This is the voice you hear right before you’re born, Sam thought. The voice that says, ‘Fight the good fight,’ before you are thrust into the unforgiving world.”

“I changed my prayer, and I said, ‘Lord, if you ain’t never going to change that man’s heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of the way, so he won’t do no more mischief.’”

“You can leave the reservation, but your income level will still land you in a reservation house, won’t it? I’d heard my mom say this on the phone once, and it had stuck to the inside of my head in a way I knew I was going to be looking over at that part of the inside of my skull for the rest of my life, probably.”

“To sleepwalk is to be inhabited, yes, but not by something else, so much. What you’re inhabited by, what’s kicking one foot in front of the other, it’s yourself…what it tells you is that there’s a real you squirming down inside you, trying all through the day to pull up to the surface, look out. But it can only get that done when your defenses are down. When you’re sleeping.”

“This stupid world.

This world is such a riot of catastrophic events and chaotic upheavals—why would anyone ever choose to be here?

And why—
having found love at last within this lawless, barren tundra—
why would anyone ever leave?

“To toil within a household was to always be on duty, never free from reprisals. Life under the constant and watchful eye of a foul-tempered owner meant never-ending misery. The fields and the woods, alternatively, offered protection from constant monitoring, if nothing else. The outdoors, which she grew to love, became her sanctuary.”

“Born with three strikes against her—Minty [Harriet Tubman] was black, enslaved, and a girl—one day, her people would call her Moses.”

“In his heart he knew they were all connected, but this part of the journey, he would have to go alone.”

“Painting was [Beauford’s] defense against the voices in his head, an escape and a transformation of the social and psychological forces that dogged him, through light and shape and texture. But Baldwin, by contrast, as a budding writer, needed to confront and question these forces. There would be no escape, only attempts at interrogation, illumination, and even reconciliation.”

“…yet again a teacher had recognized his talent and stepped in to help guide him at a crucial juncture.”

“Before long, he became ‘Brother Baldwin,’ a revered child preacher at a number of Black Pentecostal churches in the neighborhood.”

Aw 🥹

“I believe that justice depends on people knowing the truth.”

DNF @ 40 pages in. Hate to say it, but reading this felt like I personally was doing the boring detective work of interviewing every member of the building, it was that tedious.

“She thought of all the things she and Harold had put off while waiting—what had they been waiting for?…They put money away for rainy days, but money couldn’t really do anything to save you from the rainiest day of all.”