Quotes

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Others   

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

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 “We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
 

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tseliot109032.html#hYQuCLyZEakZgiU6.99

Accent

I expected more noise
From the stark, white walls of the new apartment
Perhaps a muffled clink of Chardonnay glass
Or a rattle from the pictures of us on holiday
That one time we took the time
(Before you engaged yourself to video games)

Now labeled and packed away.
I had hoped the silence wouldn’t follow me
Into this new place without you
Where even the conversations in my head are exhausted,
Throbbing with the hum of your guitar strings
Recently cleaned after years of disuse.

The movers are gone now, and I stand here
A blank slate soaking in the faint sounds
Of life outside my door
And for a moment, the woods can wait
While my white walls demand a paint brush
And a bucket of black tulips

Expressed Complexities

What if you could see the truth of my heart?
What if it showed you unwavering love but fragile trust?
And doubt from past hurt?
What if it stretched toward you, an indomitable dusty miller
Because it felt no other choice, illuminated by your warmth?
What if its roots were anchored to keep it from falling?
What if knowing you kept it growing, hopeful, in a feckless world?

And what if love or circumstance changed?  Or she returned?
Or I did?  What if the cosmos is wrong?
But what if it isn’t?
What if there are other joys – people, cats, and rain?  What if they couldn’t fill the emptiness?
What if we are trapped by choice and fear?
What would happen if we weren’t?
What if I could support us? Over there, over here?
But what if I couldn’t?   What if you couldn’t either?
What if I came to you?  What if we both knew it was better if I didn’t?
What if we didn’t know that?

What if we touched?  Kissed?
What if I extinguish your fire?  What if we found a place for our steam?
What if holding you as a friend is more important than as a lover?
What if I over-think everything?  And what if you are secretly laughing
Because I don’t know the truth after all?
What if I wanted to tell you in person, to feel you respond?
What if you could see the truth of my heart?

Growth

The goslings are growing up. Their fluffy yellow has grown into the awkward teenage coloration of wet sand. Soon they will look like their parents and fly away.

I found my old passport yesterday while cleaning. The picture didn't look anything like me. There were no lines carved into her face. She looked fresh and ready to go. She was going to London and the year was 2000. She's heavier now and it shows, in her thoughts, her feelings, and in her thighs. That girl almost twelve years ago doesn't know what's coming. The work, the school, the marriage and divorce peppered with video games and alcohol. How could twelve years disappear without a fight? Why isn't there a face cream to restore hope?

Mango Margaritas in D.C.

I’m in the hotel lounge, waiting on my Congolese participants and listening to the rain outside. I wonder what the french word is for rain. It’s 5:30 pm and I could go to sleep or write in a stupor if my keyboard would allow me. I’ve met with a good delegation of Africans this week and I’m starting to wonder at my own place and purpose. On one hand, I want to support them in their endeavors to rectify human rights abuses and support them in their struggle to meet 1st country standards, but on the other hand it’s like meeting a child for the first time. Hesitant and awkward, wanting to make a good first impression, realizing that our country and many others have spent decades undermining their ability to function and be self-sufficient. I’ve realized that in the end, it comes down to money, and it sickens me. and now i’m back to work… I wish I could exist again.