It was calm and silent and dark in my shed. I had let go of the life I had planned and was probably out of my depth every day. It’s hard to write and be open and let things in when life is tough, but to keep everything out means there’s nothing to work with.
–The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy
The price for living the life I have – for any serious, devoted person, is that at times one must live alone, or feel alone. – Helen Frankenthaler
I love these words from Frankenthaler (one of my favorite artists), which I found on Glenda Burgess’s beautiful blog.
“Look,” she told me then. “A mother can fix a lot of things, but she cannot fix a broken heart. Not even I can do that. But I can tell you this, little one. You’ll never carry a weight too heavy to bear. You’re too strong for that. Okay? The rest of it takes time.”
-All Happy Families – Jeanne McCulloch
“So you thought you wanted to observe life? Motherhood shakes her head, clenches her fist, and demands, No, you must live it.
-Sarah Ruhl, 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write
It was one of those moments Rebecca could sense the very revolution of the earth beneath her feet, its endless, determined spinning. The sounds of conversation merged into a noise that she’d miss, hours from then, when it was gone, when they’d all gone home, when the boys were in bed, when she padded around the house in her wool socks, eating leftover cake because there was still so much cake to be eaten, missing the people who were no longer there, and remembering that she’d missed them even as they’d been together in one room, around one table, talking about the future.
-Rumaan Alam, That Kind of Mother