Each year is like putting a new coat over all the old ones.
Sometimes I reach into the pockets of my childhood and pull things out.
—Simon Van Booy, “Little Birds”
Happy birthday (to me, from me).
Category: nuts
40 Days and 40 Nights
I was taught if we’re born with love then life is about choosing the right place to put it.
People talk about that a lot, feeling right, when it feels right it’s easy. But I’m not sure that’s true. It takes strength to know what’s right. And love isn’t something that weak people do. Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope.
I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.
—The Priest, Fleabag
Single Seed
تل دھرنے کو جگہ نہ ہونا / Tall Dharnay Ko Jagah Nah Hona / a place so crowded that no room remains even for a single seed of sesame
— Urdu phrase
Spritzen
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have, and kissed
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and there,
And, sweet sprites, bear
The burden. Hark, hark!
Ariel, The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Happy Little
The Tiger and the Persimmon
“Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.”
—Shakespeare
Quarter Century
What they don’t understand about birthdays and what
they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten,
and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and
three, and two, and one…
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion
or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden
dolls that fit one inside the other,
each year inside the next
one.
—Sandra Cisneros
Build Union
“You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time.
People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time.
Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.”
—John Lewis
One That I Adore
I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you,
and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you,
and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else,
and never will love anyone else.
Jonathan Safran Foer
