dry with longing

"You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less."

“Each of us is given only so many mornings to do it— to look around and love,”

“the need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth”

“[You], eater of moonlight, drinker Of brightness, feet of jewels On the mountain, velvet feet In the meadow grass, darkness Braided with wild roses—”

“There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love.”