Gravity Is the Thing

Just spend five minutes a day learning a language, doing crosswords, doing sudoku! Just spend thirty minutes a day walking, meditating, praying, swimming laps, learning a musical instrument, volunteering, having quality time with your children! Just the price of a cup of coffee. Line-dry in shade. Pop it in the freezer. Jump in a cab. Wash in warm, soapy water. Eat this, consider this, you MUST. READ. THIS.

Introductions. They seem like a fascinating idea at first, and then, what are they? Just a bunch of names and résumés.

Eventually, you will find the kindness to forgive your former self for hope, and for mistakes, and the courage to angle the anger in the right direction

You will fear that love, the possibility of love, will dissipate, that you will become a quiet, smiling person, smiling wryly, disappearing, forming part of nobody’s dreams

Meanwhile, whatever you do, here comes the future, thundering towards you

until the time is right to gently take them from you. They will dispel your fears and help you see or carry truth.

The right sort of people will let you hold on to false hope and impossible dreams (Of course he’s into you! Of course he’s coming back!) until the time is right to gently take them from

Trying to force Seneca’s approach: believe the worst and you will be prepared when it takes place; by believing the worst, he actually thought he was earning a happy surprise.

The other adults in the room, their closely guarded terror, cheerful voices, the closeness of loss, its impossibility, and the sweet intensity of gratitude for these people taking care of our children, the people speaking in measured tones, moving around the hospital explaining things, studying charts, gazing at little faces, thoughts running back and forth behind their eyes as they smiled at the children

Strange! It’s so strange, the fine film of life. You move around inside it then the horror burns a hole in the film.