Hera’s Reviews > A Horse at Night: On Writing > Status Update

"Now writers brand themselves online, as corporations do. I am afraid that this damages the self, or at the very least, that if we engage in it we are trading in some part of the self for something false, and that the more we trade in, the more of the self we lose."

"Of course none of this means we should relax above all else. [...] I'm thinking more about who gets to relax, and when, for it is a luxury. If you are someone who relaxes much of the time, maybe you should give some of it away."

“We might burrow into our comfortable blankets and pillows only to head into a nightmare. Even in sleep, some part of us remains active.”

“Once again, I arrive at what I love most about art. […] How things appear, and the richness of appearances. We ourselves come into view, everywhere we go, with other people, with objects, in landscapes.”

“While I enjoyed myself, talking and eating with my friends, and swimming, there was a part of me that was imagining we were at some other beach in some other place. I was projecting one ocean on top of another. I should have stayed present[…]”

“The ocean is many things, of course, one of them a screen, something we watch from the beach while absentmindedly protecting our own thoughts upon it. […] We project onto something, not in. When Leda is in front of the sea it is her own life, her flawed, complicated self, rather than her absent family, that is placed on top of it.”