Under the Hazel Tree

For lonely people, rain is a chance to be touched.

I am severely, intensely attracted to you To your thoughtfulness, to your sincerity, to your pleasantness To the idea of having you

It starts with a feeling. Not one that you can rationalise to yourself, it is more subtle and yet much broader than anything you’ve recognised before and if it weren’t for long commutes and sleepless nights you may never have noticed it at all. Only people with their minds turned in on themselves will find the feeling but once you do it is impossible to ignore. You aren’t sure how this feeling feels but you feel it all the same, it fills the spaces in your body that you never realised were empty and extends a fraction of an inch from your skin, making whatever you touch feel it too. It is in every part of you but it does not use the power you can feel lie dormant. It is not rage, you cannot shout it out of you. It is not joy, you cannot laugh it away. It is not misery, you cannot cry until it is gone. It is not a fleeting mood to be used up and discarded. It shapes everything that you do and everything that you are, it is in your eyes and in your ears and in your mind and no part of your world, internal or external, is untouched by it. The feeling is a part of who you are and as long as you can take a breath, turn your mind in on itself, and feel it radiate from your skin then you are alive.

Dear, you are detaching yourself again. Don’t.

That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

Loving’s pretty easy. It’s letting someone love you that’s hard.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

Words can lie. See beyond them.

There is nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning.

Am I a bad person for wishing you the best but still hoping that you would be sad without me?

I will not live without love.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

You’ve got to show the world who you are before it tells you. Otherwise you become victim to someone you’re not.

Longing for something that you once had is a mistake because the pictures in your mind are never the same as whatever it is you are longing for.

Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.

And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.

Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running - that’s the way to live.