astra inclinant sed non obligant

I’ve always been very independent. ‘Independent.’ It’s a very kind word for a very cruel feeling. Loneliness.

I have heard of day-dreams — is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it — her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not what is actually present. I wonder what sort of girl she is—

“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me?

– [desperately] don’t you see? I took mercy on myself. Nobody else would. So I saved myself from grief, I did what was needed. I took mercy on me. I took mercy on me.

“The impulse to know someone else before you reveal yourself. The impulse to know someone else because you have never been asked to reveal yourself. The impulse to know someone else because otherwise, you do not know yourself.”