8
" Life is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as time goes by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow will all come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be. "
9
" If you have no arms
To hold your crying child but your own arms
And no legs but your own to run the stairs one more time
To fetch what was forgotten
I bow to you
If you have no vehicle
To tote your wee one but the wheels that you drive
And no one else to worry, “Is my baby okay?”
When you have to say goodbye on the doorsteps of daycare
or on that cursed first day of school
I bow to you
If you have no skill but your own skill
To replenish an ever-emptying bank account
And no answers but your own to
Satisfy the endless whys, hows, and whens your child asks and asks again
I bow to you
If you have no tongue to tell the truth
To keep your beloved on the path without a precipice
And no wisdom to impart
Except the wisdom that you’ve acquired
I bow to you
If the second chair is empty
Across the desk from a scornful, judging authority waiting
For your child’s father to appear
And you straighten your spine where you sit
And manage to smile and say, “No one else is coming—I’m it.”
Oh, I bow to you
If your head aches when the spotlight finally shines
on your child because your hands are the only hands there to applaud
I bow to you
If your heart aches because you’ve given until everything in you is gone
And your kid declares, “It’s not enough.”
And you feel the crack of your own soul as you whisper,
“I know, baby. But it’s all mama’s got.”
Oh, how I bow to you
If they are your life while you are their nurse, tutor, maid
Bread winner and bread baker,
Coach, cheerleader and teammate…
If you bleed when your child falls down
I bow, I bow, I bow
If you’re both punisher and hugger
And your own tears are drowned out by the running of the bathroom faucet
because children can’t know that mamas hurt too
Oh, mother of mothers, I bow to you.
—Toni Sorenson "
― Toni Sorenson
10
" This tub is for washing your courage...When you are born your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of a spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.
...
This tub is for washing your wishes...For the wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to catch the world in its changing and change with it.
...
Lastly, we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money, and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be pumped up again--after all, it is only a bit thirsty for something to do. "
― Catherynne M. Valente , The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)
16
" Wake up, wake up!' He said to me'No, I'm still sleepy,do not disturb me'Wake up me child, see the beautyDon't cry, wipe your tears, He said to me'No, I'm so lonely, Nobody understands me'Don't cry my child, embrace the beautyDon't panic, be calm, He said to me'No, you don't understand,I need to earn money'Don't struggle my child, connect to the beautyDon't blame or attach, He said to me'How can I be loving,When they hurt me?'Don't retaliate my child, show them the beautyDon't withhold your love, He said to me'How can I give FatherWhen they only take from me?'Don't fear my child, I replenish the beauty "
18
" All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one’s own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one’s place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone must evacuate their bowels or fall victim to a fecal impaction. And who, if they could help it, would suffer a building, painful fecal impaction? So we make bowel movements to relieve this pressure. Quite a few people make gardens because they cannot stand the pressure of not making a garden. Others commit murder because they cannot stand the pressure building up to kill someone, either a person known to them or a total stranger. Everything is like that. Our whole lives consist of metaphorical as well as actual bowel movements, one after the other. Releasing these pressures can have greater or lesser consequences in the scheme of our lives. But they are all pressures, all bowel movements of some kind. At a certain age, children are praised for making a bowel movement in the approved manner. Later on, the praise of others dies down for this achievement and our bowel movements become our own business, although we may continue to praise ourselves for them. But overpowering pressures go on governing our lives, and the release of these essentially bowel-movement pressures may once again come up for praise, congratulations, and huzzahs of all kinds. "
― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
