Found in one of my journals from my first year out of college...
"There are all kinds of stories. Some are born with the telling; their substance is language, and before someone puts them into words they are but a hint of an emotion, a caprice of mind, an image, or an intangible recollection. Others are manifest whole, like an apple, and can be repeated infinitely without risk of altering their meaning. Some are taken from reality and process through inspiration, while others rise up from an instant of inspiration and become real after being told. And then there are secret stories that remain hidden in the shadows of the mind; they are like living organisms, they grow roots and tentacles, they become covered with excrescences and parasites, and with time are transformed into the matter of nightmares. To exorcise the demons of memory, it is sometimes necessary to tell them as a story."
-From The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende
"Often people try to live life backwards: I try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what I want so that I will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."
-Margaret Young (I don't know what this is from or who she is.)
"...all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
-Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
"It seems risky, this pretense to adulthood." - Kathleen Norris from Cloister Walk
(She's talking about her first year after college.)
"Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. It means knowing where we come from." -I think this is Kathleen Norris in Dakota, but I'm not sure.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A space for reflection, insight, and musing on life.
3 comments:
I have a confession. Sometimes I pretend that I like to travel. I do see the value in it -- of expanding your worldview and experiencing new things. But mostly, it makes me incredibly tired. My need for predictable social rules about who I should be, keeps me from being so tired.
Regardless of what we do with the set of rules we're given - from family and society - there does seem to be something essential about having some ground to stand on. A place to work from. Literally.
Journals are fascinating in seeing the different layers of the same issue.
Loba, do you realize that quote from Gandalf is an excerpt from the passage I was telling you about on the phone yesterday?
Yes. :)
Post a Comment