Euphoria

by Lily King

I will lay me down for to bleed awhile, the ballad went on in my head. Then I’ll rise and fight with you again.

I took solace in the not knowing.

‘Everyone becomes a genius when they die young.

I asked her if she believed you could ever truly understand another culture. I told her the longer I stayed, the more asinine the attempt seemed, and that what I’d become more interested in is how we believed we could be objective in any way at all, we who each came in with our own personal definitions of kindness, strength, masculinity, femininity, God, civilization, right and wrong.

We’re always, in everything we do in this world, she said, limited by subjectivity. But our perspective can have an enormous wingspan, if we give it the freedom to unfurl.

After a certain number of sentences, my letters to my mother now became letters to Nell. My mind was stuck in conversation with her and the feeling of talking to her rang through me, disturbed me, woke me up as one wakes from sudden illness in the middle of the night.

But I love without needing to own.

When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?

We kept at it. The sun came up and went down again. We believed we were in the throes of a big theory.

Gosh i admire Lily king's research - there must've been TONS.

‘Was she bread to you?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘People are always wine to me, never bread.’ ‘Maybe that’s why you don’t want to possess them.’