The Traces Quotes

“You could say I missed a place. You could say I missed a time, or a place and a time, or the person I was in that place and time--all of these things would be true. You could say I missed a particular season of a particular year when I lived in a city now thousands of miles away and many years ago. That distance widens by the hour, yet it amazes me that any time has passed at all.”
― Mairead Small Staid, The Traces: An Essay

“I know there lies futility in this longing--for elsewhere, for elsewhen. I know the transformation promised by travel and nostalgia--that word rooted in homesickness...can be as superficial as that hoped for in a haircut, a new pair of shoes, the ingredients bought aspirationally, the books piled high on the nightstand, unread. Our selves are many but inescapable; we can't change our faintest, inerasable contours. And yet, the inveigling possibility, however impossible, that we might--perhaps this sense of possibility itself, rather than any of the futures it builds like cities in our minds, is the place where we are happiest.”
― Mairead Small Staid, The Traces: An Essay