Scents bring memories, and many memories bring nostalgic pleasure. We would be wise to plan for this when we plant a garden.
A struggle, to the person experiencing it, is a struggle.
Hope is a terrible thing, she said. Is it? Yes, it keep you living in another place, a place which doesn't exist. For some people it's better than where they are. For many it's a relief. From life, she said. A relief from life? Is that living? Some people don't have a choice. No and that's awful for them. Hope is better than misery, he said. Or despair. Hope belongs in the same box as despair. Hope is not so bad, he said. At least despair has truth to it.
She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.
Did people ever stop changing? They surprised you with fresh pain. Sometimes they surprised you with happiness, but the pain was the sharper surprise. There was no way to protect yourself from it. People could always change and always hurt you. Of course it went in the other direction too, you could hurt them when you didn't intend it and that too was out of your control.
Desire suppressed finds its way into other more surreal settings, into dreams.
There are aspects of love that I once undervalued. Kindness. Having a sort of honor when love is on the table.
I did a story for the Geographic on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and Stephen Ambrose was the writer. He said, "I've got the easiest job in the world. I just have to re-tell the story of the greatest fishing, camping, hunting, canoeing trip of all time. You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.
. . . most of the press were vultures descending on the scene for curious America aplomb. Cameras inside the coffin interviewing worms.
to comfort any mortal against loneliness, one other is enough.
Between the sun and poverty there was us for a little while.