journey notes

:: Rachel Devenish Ford ::
Inspiration and scribbles in a writing life.

You are so young; you stand for beginnings. I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will, gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. Perhaps you are indeed carrying within yourself the potential to visualize, to design, and to create for yourself an utterly satisfying, joyful, and pure lifestyle. Discipline yourself to attain it, but accept that which comes to you with deep trust, and as long as it comes from your own will, from your own inner need.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (via ruefle)

(via bookmania)

Sharing Poetry: Sylvia Plath, "Mirror"

sharingpoetry:

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at…

Shows that you really can end a poem with “a terrible fish.” Amazing.

[Is it concentration of the mind,
our unresting counting
that leaves us standing
blind in our dust?]
In time we are present only
by forgetting time.

—Wendell Berry, from “2007: IV” found in Leavings: Poems (via the-final-sentence)

millionsmillions: michellelegro: The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring—and all of the acts carried out—on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vaccum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon. Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer.  “Do you have any friends?” The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?” The moon did not answer. Haruki Murakami, my favorite passage from 1Q84 thus far, page 213.  That’s a great one! It’s no wonder 1Q84 gave Kevin Hartnett a reason to pause: “Reading about Tengo and seeing the moon in my backyard, it occurred to me that wonder gives us height, makes us consider new possibilities, motivates us not to linger where we are.” The repetition! Wow.

millionsmillions:

michellelegro:

The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring—and all of the acts carried out—on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vaccum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon. Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?”

The moon did not answer. 

“Do you have any friends?”

The moon did not answer.

“Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?”

The moon did not answer.

Haruki Murakami, my favorite passage from 1Q84 thus far, page 213. 

That’s a great one! It’s no wonder 1Q84 gave Kevin Hartnett a reason to pause:

“Reading about Tengo and seeing the moon in my backyard, it occurred to me that wonder gives us height, makes us consider new possibilities, motivates us not to linger where we are.”

The repetition! Wow.