princesss1ckness

[princesss1ckness]

On of the less intuitive things about love, I've found, of any kind, is the importance of needing things.

I didn't realize it until recently, but I've always seen love as something requiring sacrifice, selflessness, patience, and generosity- to ask for nothing is to be the best person I can be, small and quiet and never in the way, always happy and helpful, self-sufficient and present when desired.

It's only as an adult, now, that I'm beginning to see the selfishness of wanting nothing.

I cut my friend's hair in my kitchen the other day. They wanted a trim and I had the skills, so I offered, and was genuinely excited when they stopped hesitating over "bothering me" and took me up on it. It was a peaceful afternoon, and we had tea and chatted for an hour or more.

My brother and I shared popcorn at the movies a while ago. When I came time to pay, I pulled my card out like a wild western sheriff and slapped it on the machine before he could fight me for it first. The satisfaction was delightful.

Someone called me crying on the phone the other day. Kept apologizing for disturbing me at work, talking about how they were bothering me on my lunch break. I was telling the truth when I told them that really, I was flattered and honored and relieved, knowing that if they were hurting I would know, that I didn't have to worry in silence. It felt good to hear them slowly come down, and to know that they knew it would be better soon, and to hear them laugh wetly on the other end. We're getting together for a visit next week.

It's hard to need things, if you've trained yourself not to. It's hard to want things, when you don't know how to want anymore. Trusting people is difficult, and so is relying on them, but I don't know where I'd be without the people who rely on me.

I've heard a lot of people say, "Nobody will love you unless you love yourself". I've had a lot of thoughts about it. It's not right, but it's not wrong, either, I think.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... I've always taken that to mean, "You will not be lovable until you develop a positive view of yourself as a person".

Now, I think it's sort of inside-out.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... because nobody can show their love to you in a way that you can accept until you treat yourself kindly, and learn what you need, and what you want, and how to ask for it, and then give that vulnerability away.

Love, for me, is someone I ask for a ride to the airport. Whether they end up doing this or not is irrelevant.

It's not needy, or selfish, or taking up energy. It's giving the gift of being wanted, and needed, and thought of. It's giving someone the security of being part of someone's life.

[princesss1ckness]

Joy Sullivan, from “Culpable”, Instructions for Traveling West

[princesss1ckness]

...благоденствие нашего мира зависит не только от исторических, но и от житейских деяний; и если ваши и мои дела обстоят не так скверно, как могли бы, мы во многом обязаны этим людям, которые жили рядом с нами, незаметно и честно, и покоятся в безвестных могилах. Джордж Элиот

[princesss1ckness]

[princesss1ckness]

“The architecture of the Minotaur’s heart is ancient. Rough hewn and many chambered, his heart is a plodding laborious thing, built for churning through the millennia. But the blood it pumps—the blood it has pumped for five thousand years, the blood it will pump for the rest of his life—is nearly human blood. It carries with it, through his monster’s veins, the weighty, necessary, terrible stuff of human existence: fear, wonder, hope, wickedness, love. But in the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”

— Steven Sherrill, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

[princesss1ckness]

Rick Hobson

"Sea Matryoshka (A whale eats a seal that eats a penguin that eats a fish that eats a calamari that eats a sea cucumber, and finally, there's aplankton)" Nesting dolls created in Semenov, Russia for the Helsinki-based studio COMPANY.

[princesss1ckness]

[princesss1ckness]

David Whyte in conversation with Krista Tippett, On Being [transcript in ALT]

[princesss1ckness]

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

[princesss1ckness]

It’s cool. Take a shower. Open the windows to let in fresh air even if it’s cold out. Listen to the wind rustling the leaves & the people walking and chatting. Clean something random to see that you can make a difference through action. This too shall pass

[princesss1ckness]

mundane tasks like wiping down surfaces & folding the laundry can be spiritual practices and even blessings if we allow them to be

[princesss1ckness]

[princesss1ckness]

April

by Linda Pastan

A whole new freshman class of leaves has arrived

on the dark twisted branches we call our woods, turning

green now — color of anticipation. In my 76th year,

I know what time and weather will do to every leaf.

But the camellia swells to ivory at the window,

and the bleeding heart bleeds only beauty.

[princesss1ckness]

[princesss1ckness]

blumarine wrap dress ss24