In the face of the beautiful-awful-tragic-absurd-mundane-heartbreaking-impossible-wonderful,
all I can think to say is:
and even this...
“I record my life, sifting and trying to separate what is real from what I’ve dreamed. I have decided not to tell you what is fact versus what is unfact primarily because (a) I am giving you a portrait of the essence of me, and (b) because, living where I do, living in the chasm that cuts through thought, it is lonely… come with me, reader. I am toying with you, yes, but for a real reason. I am asking you to enter the confusion with me, to give up the ground with me, because sometimes that frightening floaty place is really the truest of all. Kierkegaard says, 'The greatest lie of all is the feeling of firmness beneath our feet. We are most honest when we are lost.' Enter that lostness with me. Live in the place I am, where the view is murky, where the connecting bridges and orienting maps have been surgically stripped away.”
— Lauren Slater
“I want to be remembered as the girl who always smiles even when her heart is broken, and the one that could always brighten up your day even if she couldn’t brighten her own.”
AIM: andeventhis
Email: andeventhis[at]aim[dot]com
This letter, posted on Letters of Note, almost made me stand and cheer at my desk. Explanation below:
“In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated). Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I’ll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.”
Oh my god this is the best.