Thispromisehold

“We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves”
― John O'Donohue

“When she put the glass in her hand, and she looked at herself with the dress on, finished, an extraordinary bliss shot through her heart. Suffused with light, she sprang into existence. Rid of cares and wrinkles, what she dreamed of herself was here — a beautiful woman. Just for a second (she had dared not look longer), there looked at her, framed in the scrolloping mahogany, a grey-white, mysteriously smiling, charming girl, the core of herself, the soul of herself . . .”
― Virginia Woolf, The New Dress

“You see, for me, memories are difficult. Very often, they hurt. A curious thing about grief is the way it takes your entire life, all those foundational years that made you who you are, and makes them so painful to look back upon because of the absence there, that suddenly they’re inaccessible. You must invent an entirely new system.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“We’re drawn to live in the world until the fire within meets the fire without. We’re drawn to move through all the invisible barriers to find what we love, to love what we love, and to save what we love.

The inevitable journey of being spirit on Earth is to love things dearly enough that in time we become a nameless part of what we love. Until we’re left with the noble effort to voice and affirm what we touch and know when closest to life, for as long as we can.”
― Mark Nepo, The One Life We're Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your Heart