Sundial

by Catriona Ward

These days I don’t understand why anyone bothers to watch soap operas or go to movies. I don’t even read or watch the news. Living is enough. It is so intense and painful.

The mess of adult life, where you’ve both dug in so deep, where blame is a tapestry so tightly woven that it cannot ever be unpicked.

When people say something is “unthinkable,” what they usually mean is that they don’t want to think it. They are resistant to an idea. But that is not what unthinkable means. I understand that, now. It means to be confronted with a thought so vast, dark, and monstrous that it will not fit into any known shapes in your mind. It is poison and madness flowering behind your eyes.

You can only do three things with danger: run away from it, fight it, or make friends with it. I don’t know which one to do.

It’s possible to feel the horror of something and to accept it all at the same time. How else could we cope with being alive?

Kids are mirrors, reflecting back everything that happens to them. You’ve got to make sure they’re surrounded by good things. Remember that,

“You can’t burn things out of existence just because you want to,”

I read up on things because knowledge is a weapon. You can use it to keep yourself safe.