M.J. > M.J.'s Quotes

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  • #1
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    “Write it on your heart
    that every day is the best day in the year.
    He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
    who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

    Finish every day and be done with it.
    You have done what you could.
    Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
    Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
    begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
    to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

    This new day is too dear,
    with its hopes and invitations,
    to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
    Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

  • #2
    L.M. Montgomery
    “Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
    L.M. Montgomery

  • #3
    Daphne Gottlieb
    MY MOTHER GETS DRESSED

    It is impossible for my mother to do even
    the simplest things for herself anymore
    so we do it together,
    get her dressed.

    I choose the clothes without
    zippers or buckles or straps,
    clothes that are simple
    but elegant, and easy to get into.

    Otherwise, it's just like every other day.
    After bathing, getting dressed.
    The stockings go on first.
    This time, it's the new ones,

    the special ones with opaque black triangles
    that she's never worn before,
    bought just two weeks ago
    at her favorite department store.

    We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toes
    into the stocking tip
    then a smooth yank past the knob of her ankle
    and over her cool, smooth calf

    then the other toe
    cool ankle, smooth calf
    up the legs
    and the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist.

    You're doing great, Mom,
    I tell her
    as we ease her body
    against mine, rest her whole weight against me

    to slide her black dress
    with the black empire collar
    over her head
    struggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve.

    I reach from the outside
    deep into the dark for her hand,
    grasp where I can't see for her touch.
    You've got to help me a little here, Mom

    I tell her
    then her fingertips touch mine
    and we work her fingers through the sleeve's mouth
    together, then we rest, her weight against me

    before threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep
    and now over the head.
    I gentle the black dress over her breasts,
    thighs, bring her makeup to her,

    put some color on her skin.
    Green for her eyes.
    Coral for her lips.
    I get her black hat.

    She's ready for her company.
    I tell the two women in simple, elegant suits
    waiting outside the bedroom, come in.
    They tell me, She's beautiful.

    Yes, she is, I tell them.
    I leave as they carefully
    zip her into
    the black body bag.

    Three days later,
    I dream a large, green
    suitcase arrives.
    When I unzip it,

    my mother is inside.
    Her dress matches
    her eyeshadow, which matches
    the suitcase

    perfectly. She's wearing
    coral lipstick.
    "I'm here," she says, smiling delightedly, waving
    and I wake up.

    Four days later, she comes home
    in a plastic black box
    that is heavier than it looks.
    In the middle of a meadow,

    I learn a naked
    more than naked.
    I learn a new way to hug
    as I tighten my fist

    around her body,
    my hand filled with her ashes
    and the small stones of bones.
    I squeeze her tight

    then open my hand
    and release her
    into the smallest, hottest sun,
    a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.”
    Daphne Gottlieb, Final Girl

  • #4
    “You are blood. You are sisters. No man can break that bond.”
    Kim Boykin, A Peach of a Pair

  • #5
    “I will not hate you, of course i will not say : goodbye.
    But I will not forgive you, so i forget better.”
    Nabil TOUSSI

  • #6
    Jenn Granneman
    “Introverts live in two worlds: We visit the world of people, but solitude and the inner world will always be our home.”
    Jenn Granneman, The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World

  • #7
    Robert Hughes
    “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."

    [Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]”
    Robert Hughes



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