The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 8

by Beth Brower

“Gossip and meanness have a way of making one feel beaten down, but they themselves are of small origin. They have no character. So keep yours intact and carry on.”

Perhaps the tongue of angels is wrought when shouting into the wind.

Once in a while a pebble of words would be thrown into the stillness. Hawkes quoting this or I reading that. We would let the words ripple, and then return to our own pages.

At times I feel my body has betrayed the girl I was, growing past the lithe limbs hewn in independence. We are to be fit for the purposes of adulthood, I know this. Childhood anticipations are traded with the shouldering of heavier things. But these days, these stones-tossed-in-tall-grass days, have stretched my muscles, recalled past forms, and I am remembering how it is to feel, to follow the instincts of something young yet ancient. To step outside the province of maturity and marvel.

One should go away long enough to know the cotton-soft contentment of coming home.