#riocords

“Why do mortals never learn from loss?

Finished in a frenzy that reminded me of our last night in Cambridge. Watched my final sunrise. Enjoyed a last cigarette. Didn’t think the view could be any more perfect until I saw that beat-up trilby. Honestly, Sixsmith, as ridiculous as that thing makes you look, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. Watched you for as long as I dared. I don’t believe it was a fluke that I saw you first. I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world, and I’ll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars, where we first kissed.

It happens all the time in heaven,

Their bodies cast out messages, their sighs are bottles thrown into the sea, and sometimes a man picks up one of those bottles and there’s just time for a cup of coffee, a whispered promise, disillusionment—men have so little imagination.

The first time I fell on my hands and knees and scraped my skin, I was astonished by how easily I focused on this injury, how quickly the rest of the world fell away, and how effortlessly I forgot life’s kindness just to focus on this single, tiny misfortune and pain. Same way I focused on a person’s loud voice or slowness, and hating him for it, instead of appreciating—loving—the totality of his being.

The resolve rising in her soul to die with me drew me I cannot tell you how powerfully, irresistibly to her bosom. Do you remember that I often asked you would you die with me? — But you always said no — A whirlpool of never before experienced happiness has seized hold of me and I cannot deny that her grave is dearer to me than the beds of all the empresses in the world. — Oh, my dear friend, may God soon call you to that better world where we shall all with the love of the angels embrace one another again.

Who was strong enough to continue loving even when that love was not returned?

"Are they gods?" Regina once asked her grandmother months before she died of old age. Her grandmother said they were nature personified; entities we could commune with and understand until we were worthy enough—or strong enough—to grasp the complexity and magnitude of Bathala.