musings-on-readings

[musings-on-readings]

And in time we come to see that not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s of a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre, just a giddy mass of waltzing things, and that perhaps the entirety of our understanding consists of an elaborate and ever-evolving knowledge of our own extraneousness, a bashing away of man-kind’s ego by the instruments of scientific enquiry until it is, that ego, a shattered edifice that lets light through.

- Orbital, Samantha Harvey

[musings-on-readings]

Vita Sackville-West // Unknown

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Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

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Duke took my hand and started swinging it so as not to appear tender. I could feel the current of his life flow into my fingers and up my arm and travel into the muscle of my heart.

Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

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The Face of Another (1996) Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara

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The Farewell (2019)

[musings-on-readings]

Chen Chen, from "weep ode #99"

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Manhattan is a Lenape Word, Natalie Diaz

[musings-on-readings]

I don’t want to tell the story of my life, I just want to live it.

Why are my twenties so confusing? And ruled by men?

When can I return home to break bread?

Why is that which I want always in opposition to that which he wants?

[musings-on-readings]

Anis Mojgani, from “Here I Am”, Songs from Under the River: A Collection of Poetry

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A Conversation with Richard Siken by Thomas Hobohm

[musings-on-readings]

This is my personal diary, it’s how I remember where I was at different stages of growing up, and it’s how I remember that although we constantly change, we are still ourselves.

I want to be kissed by the sun and caressed by the moon, I want to feel held by the earth and carried by her waves. I want a whole heart.

I want the peace of the earth’s spirit and the chaos of the world, I want to feel them both and love them, I want them to love me. And I want a whole heart.

I want the freedom of the soul, breaking the shackles of convention, I want a brilliant life, I want an epic one, I want a daring one, I want a gut-wrenching one. And I want a whole heart.

But mostly, but mostly, I want to feel the sky and everything in it, I want everything in it in everything in me, and I want it to seep into the holes of my body, of my existence, of me. If the sky can do that, I can do anything. My heart can be whole.

<i> My personal diary, October 21 in my 23rd year. </i>

[musings-on-readings]

Janelle Tan, from “Second Aubade for Singapore"

[musings-on-readings]

自言自语

一 序

水村的夏夜，摇着大芭蕉扇，在大树下乘凉，是一件极舒服的事。

男女都谈些闲天，说些故事。孩子是唱歌的唱歌，猜谜的猜谜。

只有陶老头子，天天独自坐着。因为他一世没有进过城，见识有限，无天可谈。而且眼花耳聋，问七答八，说三话四，很有点讨厌，所有没人理他。

他却时常闭着眼，自己说些什么。仔细听去，虽然昏话多，偶然之间，却也有几句略有意思的段落的。

夜深了，乘凉的都散了。我回家点上灯，还不想睡，便将听得的话写了下来，再看一回，却又毫无意思了。

其实陶老头子这等人，那里真会有好话呢，不过既然写出，姑且留下罢了。

留下又怎样呢？这是连我也答复不了。

中华民国八年八月八日记。

— 鲁迅

Soliloquies

One Preface

Summer nights in the water village, fanning a palm leaf while cooling off in the shade of a big tree, oh what a comfortable joy.

Men and women make conversation, tell stories. Children sing song after song, tell riddle after riddle.

It is only the old man Tao who sits alone day after day. Going his whole life without ever having entered the city, he has little knowledge and experience, and nothing to talk about. And, being hard of hearing with poor eyesight, he mumbles and jumbles asking and answering questions, fumbles in conversation, it really is a bit annoying, and so no one pays attention to him.

But often, with eyes closed, he speaks. If you listen carefully, even though there is a lot of nonsense, occasionally interspersed are a few parts of slight note.

It was the dead of night, those cooling off in the shade had all dispersed. I went home and lit a lantern, still not wanting to sleep, I wrote down what I had heard, read over it a while, and yet, it had become completely uninteresting again.

In all honesty, people like old man Tao, they really can say something of note, but only when it is written down can it be kept.

And what’s the point of keeping it? This is something even I cannot answer.

The eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the Republic of China.

— Lu Xun

[musings-on-readings]

The tears, theyre hot and fresh

Like rain through sun rays

The tears, their heat

Like the fires alight in my eyes and chest

And I thought I could understand heart ache like this before

But that was a hiccough compared to this emotional catastrophe

I carry it, and carry it, no where to put it down.

[musings-on-readings]

Mary Oliver, from “Dogfish”, Dream Work

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“There’s really only one question that can be answered, and we already know the answer. . . . The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, the Left Hand of Darkness