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1 " What we have waited for too long, or possessed only in secret, or had for too short a while: how hard it is to walk through our days with a loss not apparent. To have survived endings that had no ceremony and called forth no condolences. That were bereft even of a grave or death certificate. Sadness without sign or symbol. "
― Tanya Shadrick , The Cure for Sleep
2 " And what a thing a book is! How far it can travel, like a seed that carries on a wing or the wind to germinate in another time and place. "
3 " Yes, we do only have one life, so far as science and our registers of births and deaths go. Is it lived in places, to clock time or the sun and its seasons. And we live in bodies, with economic and political forces bearing down on us, always. No amount of self-sacrifice or selfishness lifts us completely clear. We are not, in this world, ever really free spirits.But to keep living in it? Sometimes we have to see our worst hurts as little deaths, and believe in our ability to be reborn by them. "
4 " Where does it begin, our turn away from risk and adventure? Why do so many of us hide in routine, shrink from opportunity?What I asked in that luxurious last minute of living, my fear disappearing into wonder even as I was laid awake on the operating table.Where does it begin? What I ask again, in this story of my life before then, and since.For if the events which wake us are sudden, what leads to a sleep of soul and possibility is harder to trace.We have to go back through all the tales told to us (or by us) about the world and its workings: that bramble thicket in which we lost our will and way. "
5 " It does not suffice for me simply to tell stories of extraordinary experience.Ever since the first tales I heard from my mother, my passion has always been the study of cause and effect: what happens afterwards, next. How we change in response to sudden illness, oddly timed encounters, unsought gifts. Why so often we don’t, refusing to let ourselves be shaken, or moved. Or we react, but in ways that serve neither us, nor others. "
6 " Oh it is appalling what the body can endure. Its will to live, despite such damage. Our hearts lacking the rabbit’s rare capacity to simply stop and spare us from suffering. "
7 " Whimsy. Fun. Instinct. Lightness. How some of the best – and worst – decisions of a life are made. Walking over a threshold and seeing a stranger, a set of rooms, and emptying one’s head, one’s pockets. Taking a hand, a key. Exchanging the milk cow for the magic beans. Thinking not of cost or profit. Refusing the call of future possibilities that will fall away when choosing this place, that person. The way it is done: from smell, sound, stomach; all the senses coming together to assay the moment. "
8 " And so I will try and write a book of my own, inch by inch, that might reach beyond my narrow self and add to the ration of courage that stories are for us all. To share this learning I have, which was only accidental at first: that more of us might find more and many little ways to step out from our circles of safe belonging, to show and share what we know, and surprise interest from others who encounter us. To be people who simply sit on park benches, open and noticing, so that a lonely person might feel able to risk a smile, then take a seat and speak. To spend even a few of our spare hours in this way, being calling cards and quiet invitations. "
9 " I was in love with myself, there by the water, but not like Narcissus, unheeding of others. Instead, feeling so at home in my body freed my attention to turn outwards, fully and forever. We are taught so often that love of self is shameful and should be curbed, but I believe now insecurity makes in us a distracting background noise that drowns out the precious here and now. "
