southand1998

[southand1998]

pretty green book covers

[southand1998]

Carolyn Marie Rodgers, from "Something Inside"

[southand1998]

The Real Work

by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

[southand1998]

Margarita Karapanou, tr. by Karen Emmerich, Rien ne va plus

[southand1998]

Marla Miniamo, from “Sea Salt”

[southand1998]

If it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me.

ig credit: greykins.

[southand1998]

  ― Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body

[text ID: To love someone is firstly to confess: I’m prepared to be devastated by you.]

[southand1998]

㋡🥀

Thank you life for the fact that the day has come again...

[southand1998]

i love it when you read multiple works from a writer and you start being able to pick out the things that stick with them. like the themes they keep thinking about, that can’t be satisfied with just one poem or novel or story. or the motifs they like to reuse and recycle throughout their works like an extradiagetic thread. it’s like drawing a map through a writer’s collection of all the things that keep them up at night

[southand1998]

“‘It hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think.’ The second part of that sentence […] struck me as unnecessarily masochistic. Now I know that it contains truth. And if the pain is not exactly relished, it no longer seems futile. Pain shows that you have not forgotten; pain enhances the flavour of memory; pain is a proof of love. ‘If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter.’”

— Julian Barnes, from Levels of Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)

[southand1998]

Studying from home.

[southand1998]

Everything That Happens Can Be Called Aging

by Carl Adamshick

I have more love than ever. Our kids have kids soon to have kids. I need them. I need everyone to come over to the house, sleep on the floor, on the couches in the front room. I need noise, too many people in too small a space, I need dancing, the spilling of drinks, the loud pronouncements over music, the verbal sparring, the broken dishes, the wealth. I need it all flying apart. My friends to slam against me, to hold me, to say they love me. I need mornings to ask for favors and forgiveness. I need to give, have all my emotions rattled, my family to be greedy, to keep coming, to keep asking and taking. I need no resolution, just the constant turmoil of living. Give me the bottom of the river, all the unadorned, unfinished, unpraised moments, one good turn on the luxuriant wheel.

[southand1998]

I wasn’t actually in love

but I felt a sort of tender curiosity

[southand1998]

actually i love growing older and learning how i work as a person like realizing what kinds of fabrics feel best on my skin or what brand of yogurt i like best or how I want to be touched. watching myself change, enjoying brussel sprouts when I used to hate them as a child, understanding why I got angry in that one conversation 10 years ago… there are so many mysteries inside me that i have yet to unravel and there will always be more and sometimes i think maybe its all worth it

[southand1998]

actually i love growing older and learning how i work as a person like realizing what kinds of fabrics feel best on my skin or what brand of yogurt i like best or how I want to be touched. watching myself change, enjoying brussel sprouts when I used to hate them as a child, understanding why I got angry in that one conversation 10 years ago… there are so many mysteries inside me that i have yet to unravel and there will always be more and sometimes i think maybe its all worth it

[southand1998]

i like the concept of soulmates—not a “you’re destined to meet me, and love me” kind of soulmate, but a “i’d pick you, every time.” kind of soulmate. a “no matter what happens, and what has happened, i want to go through it with you.” kind of soulmate. a “i love you by choice, and you’re a blessing, and i’m going to continue thinking about you this way not because i have to but because i want to.” kind of soulmate. a “you help me rest easy when everything is difficult” kind of soulmate. a “in every possible outcome, i want you there, to share it with me.” kind of soulmate.

[southand1998]

Inscribed on the Wall of the Hut by the Lake

by Chiao Jan

If you want to be a mountain dweller… no need to trek to India to find a mountain… I’ve got a thousand peaks to pick from, right here in this lake. Fragrant grasses, white clouds, to hold me here. What holds you there, world-dweller?