Capture Each Moment Quotes

It's not one of the posed shots- it's one he didn't even realize had been taken, one he definitely didn't think would be released. He should have given the photographer more credit. He managed to capture the moment right when Henry cracked a joke, a candid, genuine photo, completely caught up in each other, Henry's arm around him and his own hand reaching up to grasp for Henry's on his shoulder. The way Henry's looking at him in the picture is so affectionate, so openly loving, that seeing it from a third person perspective almost makes Alex want to look away, like he's staring into the sun. He called Henry the North Star once. That wasn't bright enough.

We stood, holding each other's faces, memorising every last detail. I was deperate with my own need to capture this last, lingering moment, desperate to forget the horrible sink at the pit of my stomach telling me all this would be lost forever once they pulled the chip out. Please don't let me forget.

Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth. Great artists know that shadow, work always against the dying light, but always knowing that the day brings new light and that the ocean which washes away all traces on the sand leaves us a new canvas with each wave.

Moments with a girl like that? I knew they were one in a million and I was on a mission to capture them all. Each. And every. One.

There’ll be moments in life, sweet pea, that stand out in your memories like a photograph. Scenes captured perfectly in your mind, frozen in time with each detail as colorful as it was that first time you saw it. ‘Flashbulb memories,’ some people call them,” she’d told me, her eyes crinkling up and nearly disappearing in a face etched with too many laugh lines to count. “Most people don’t recognize those moments as they happen. They look back fifty years later, and realize that those were the most important parts of their entire life. But at the time, they’re so busy looking ahead to what’s coming down the line or worrying about their future, they don’t enjoy their present. Don’t be like them, sweet pea. Don’t get so caught up in chasing your dreams that you forget to live them.

I receive remarkable letters. They are opened for me, unfolded, and spread out before my eyes in a daily ritual that gives the arrival of the mail the character of a hushed and holy ceremony. I carefully read each letter myself. Some of them are serious in tone, discussing the meaning of life, invoking the supremacy of the soul, the mystery of every existence. And by a curious reversal, the people who focus most closely on these fundamental questions tend to be people I had known only superficially. Their small talk has masked hidden depths. Had I been blind and deaf, or does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person's true nature? Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark... I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship. It will keep the vultures at bay.

When you’re young, experiencing new relationships and first loves, nobody really knows what they’re doing. We chase the butterflies and try to capture the perfect moments. But the more you grow, the more you realize that’s not what it’s all about. Love becomes real when the ideal fades away. When that one person becomes more important than yourself. When you make the decision that no matter the cost, you’ll never stop fighting for them. When you can face each other, scarred and unashamed in this dark, lonely world, and feel like you’re finally home. Until we are ready to love with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls, we are nothing but lonesome people, just looking to use somebody.

Kuala Lumpur had a certain something… There was a sense of freedom perhaps, of anarchy even, that Singapore so sorely lacked. Perhaps it was the lack of deference to authority, the physical space, the ability to take a step back and enjoy a moment of quite that lent Kuala Lumpur its atmosphere. Singaporeans were always adding to the list of reasons each one kept to hand, in case they met a Malaysian, of why it was so much better on the island than the peninsula. They ranged from law and order to cleanliness, from clean government to good schools, and always ended on the strength of the Singaporean economy. But in the end, the Malaysian would nod as if to agree to the points made – and then shrug to indicate that they probably wouldn’t trade passports, not really. And if pressed for a reason they would fall back on that old chestnut which somehow seemed to capture everything that was wrong about Singapore – but your government bans chewing gum. The nanny state and the police state all rolled into one.

The pain we feel so deeply inside is the longing to capture moments in life. It is an illusion of the mind that this time can always be kept. We have to let the moments go and learn to accept the goodbyes. No matter the joy or sorrow, keep your heart open and your spirit willing. Embrace the highs and lows of life, cherishing each moment as it passes; that is the essence of living.

How much had been lost? Never made it into her memory, never been captured in a photograph? Hadia closes the hard cover of her book, a snap of sound that reaches her, and she leans back a little as if she has accomplished something great and is now tired. Let this moment make it, she prays, let each of them remember it too.

and love would be straightforward because there are so many different kinds of love in the world and art captures a moment in each of them.

Loki was now captured, and with no thought of mercy he was taken to a cave. They [the Æsir] took three flat stones and, setting them on their edges, broke a hole through each of them. Then they caught Loki’s sons, Vali and Nari or Narfi. The Æsir changed Vali into a wolf, and he ripped apart his brother Narfi. Next the Æsir took his guts, and with them they bound Loki on to the top of the three stones – one under his shoulders, a second under his loins and the third under his knees. The fetters became iron. ‘Then Skadi took a poisonous snake and fastened it above Loki so that its poison drips on to his face. But Sigyn, his wife, placed herself beside him from where she holds a bowl to catch the drops of venom. When the bowl becomes full, she leaves to pour out the poison, and at that moment the poison drips on to Loki’s face. He convulses so violently that the whole earth shakes – it is what is known as an earthquake. He will lie bound there until Ragnarok.

What makes community building so complex is that it occurs in an infinite number of small steps, sometimes in quiet moments that we notice out of the corner of our eye. It calls for us to treat as important many things that we thought we incidental. An afterthought becomes the point; a comment made in passing defines who we are more than all that came before. If the artist is one who captures the nuance of experience, then this is whom each of us must become.

Shadow turned, slowly, streaming images of himself as he moved, frozen moments, each him captured in a fraction of a second, every tiny movement lasting for an infinite period. The images that reached his mind made no sense: it was like seeing the world through the multifaceted jeweled eyes of a dragonfly, but each facet saw something completely different, and he was unable to combine the things he was seeing, or thought he was seeing, into a whole that made any sense.

Shadow turned, slowly, streaming images of himself as he moved, frozen moments, each him captured in a fraction of a second, every tiny movement lasting for an infinite period. The images that reached his mind made no sense: it was like seeing the world through the multifaceted jewelled eyes of a dragonfly, but each facet saw something completely different, and he was unable to combine the things he was seeing, or thought he was seeing, into a whole that made any sense.

He did atrocious things, but it was him I wanted. Always, only him. Troy stopped when we were nose to nose. Toe to toe. I loved watching those eyes from up-close. They were so ocean blue, no wonder they made my head swim. “I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose. I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips. “I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with ever kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.” My eyes fluttered shut, a lone tear hanging from the tip of my eyelash. “We don’t have ordinary words between us. You always set my fucking brain on fire when you talk to me. We don’t even have ordinary moments of silence. I always feel like I’m playing with you or being played by you when you’re around. And I refuse to let you walk out on this, on us.” He cupped my cheeks and I locked his palms in place, tightening my grip. I never wanted him to let go. He dipped his head down, tilting his forehead against mine. I knew he was right. Knew that I’d already forgiven him. Probably before I even knew what he did, when we were still living together. Hell, probably on that dance floor, when I was nine. My capturer. My monster. My savior. “I’m an asshole, was an asshole, and have every intention of staying an asshole. It’s the makeup of my fucking DNA. But I want to be your asshole. To you, I can be good. Maybe even great. For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And yes, I sure as hell knew you’d come back. You came straight back into my arms, flew back to your nest, lovebird. Now why would you do that if you didn’t love the shit out of me?” My eyes roamed his face. His hands felt delicious on my skin. It was like he was pumping life into me with his fingertips. Like he made me whole before I even knew parts of me were missing.

Mindfulness & Meditation help focus on the moment while at the same time knowing we cannot capture that moment, we are in a flow of moments we let flow. We can watch moments in detail without being attached to them. Non-attachment to past & future stems from this practice. Worry about past or future is wasted energy, however we can observe the past & learn from it without agonising over it & trust ourselves to handle the future better. We can celebrate the opportunity to grow as we gain understanding from observation & experience. We can watch ourselves & avoid being caught up in over-reactions. "I am loved, right now, in this moment, I love, and am part of love itself. I am aware of myself at every level - the mental slowing gracefully to sense the spiritual within & all around, and the physical being still, or moving. I tune in to the flow of life in my body & the flow of life everywhere. I circulate love with each breath - from without to within & from within to all around.

This new concept of the "finest, highest achievement of art" had no sooner entered my mind than it located the imperfect enjoyment I had had at the theater, and added to it a little of what it lacked; this made such a heady mixture that I exclaimed, "What a great artiste she is!" It may be thought I was not altogether sincere. Think, however, of so many writers who, in a moment of dissatisfaction with a piece they have just written, may read a eulogy of the genius of Chateaubriand, or who may think of some other great artist whom they have dreamed of equaling, who hum to themselves a phrase of Beethoven for instance, comparing the sadness of it to the mood they have tried to capture in their prose, and are then so carried away by the perception of genius that they let it affect the way they read their own piece, no longer seeing it as they first saw it, but going so far as to hazard an act of faith in the value of it, by telling themselves "It's not bad you know!" without realizing that the sum total which determines their ultimate satisfaction includes the memory of Chateaubriand's brilliant pages, which they have assimilated to their own, but which, of course, they did not write. Think of all the men who go on believing in the love of a mistress in whom nothing is more flagrant than her infidelities; of all those torn between the hope of something beyond this life (such as the bereft widower who remembers a beloved wife, or the artist who indulges in dreams of posthumous fame, each of them looking forward to an afterlife which he knows is inconceivable) and the desire for a reassuring oblivion, when their better judgement reminds them of the faults they might otherwise have to expiate after death; or think of the travelers who are uplifted by the general beauty of a journey they have just completed, although during it their main impression, day after day, was that it was a chore--think of them before deciding whether, given the promiscuity of the ideas that lurk within us, a single one of those that affords us our greatest happiness has not begun life by parasitically attaching itself to a foreign idea with which it happened to come into contact, and by drawing from it much of the power of pleasing which it once lacked.

Wasplike with their long slender hulls, these were ships not seen in these waters before. They approached in a line, each flying a large American flag. To the hundreds of onlookers by now gathered on shore, many also carrying American flags, it would be a sight they would never forget and into which they read great meaning. These were the descendants of the colonials returning now at Britain’s hour of need, the moment captured in an immediately famous painting by Bernard Gribble, The Return of the Mayflower.

When she slipped outside, she paused for a moment, captured by the magic of snow gliding gently down, the lights from the house shining off each crystal. It painted the world in shades of blues and silvers in a way that never failed to take her breath away.

I rushed off to Whitehall and assumed Aidan would head back to Astor. But when I turned around briefly, I saw Aidan uncoiling her black scarf from around her neck. She held each end of the scarf above her head, the silk capturing the wind, arching above her like a parachute. Aidan released one end, kiting the scarf. The wind swirled around her for a moment before Aidan let go completely. She was an excellent student. The light silk caught a thermal and rose, sailing above the water. A dark black bird against the blue sky.

When I first met you, I knew, somehow, that you were going to change my life. I just didn’t know in what way. I didn’t know that you’d make me love you. And most importantly, I didn’t know that you’d make me love me. Baby, you make me see the good in myself and the good in everything on this damn earth. You chase my ghosts away, and…” He cleared his throat, and to my surprise, I saw his eyes were watering. Oh fuck. Please don’t cry, Dex, cuz I will fucking lose it. He swallowed hard, blinking tears back. “And you bring me peace. I can’t thank you enough for being in my life. And I want you there for the whole journey. Through everything—the good and the bad, the batshit crazy and the sane, the scary and the sexy. Especially the sexy. Just you and me, baby, until death do us part.” Somehow I found my voice. “Even though we’ve only known each other for eight months?” I asked quietly, afraid of his answer. But he just smiled up at me. “Time has no bearing on the truth. And what we have, that’s true as fucking anything.” He gave my hand a squeeze and reached into his pocket. I sucked in my breath, feeling all my emotions flood me at once, and watched as he took out a beautiful, sparkling ring, and held it poised at my finger. He gazed at me, and it was like I saw every moment we had with each other captured in his eyes. “Perry Palomino, kiddo, baby—will you be my wife?” I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes!” I blurted out in a sob as the tears started

9. Your Photo Album Many people have a photo album. In it they keep memories of the happiest of times. There may be a photo of them playing by the beach when they were very young. There may be the picture with their proud parents at their graduation ceremony. There will be many shots of their wedding that captures their love at one of its highest points. And there will be holiday snapshots too. But you will never find in your album any photographs of miserable moments of your life. Absent is the photo of you outside the principal’s office at school. Missing is any photo of you studying hard late into the night for your exams. No one that I know has a picture of their divorce in their album, nor one of them in a hospital bed terribly sick, nor stuck in busy traffic on the way to work on a Monday morning! Such depressing shots never find their way into anyone’s photo album. Yet there is another photo album that we keep in our heads called our memory. In that album, we include so many negative photographs. There you find so many snapshots of insulting arguments, many pictures of the times when you were so badly let down, and several montages of the occasions where you were treated cruelly. There are surprisingly few photos in that album of happy moments. This is crazy! So let’s do a purge of the photo album in our head. Delete the uninspiring memories. Trash them. They do not belong in this album. In their place, put the same sort of memories that you have in a real photo album. Paste in the happiness of when you made up with your partner, when there was that unexpected moment of real kindness, or whenever the clouds parted and the sun shone with extraordinary beauty. Keep those photos in your memory. Then when you have a few spare moments, you will find yourself turning its pages with a smile, or even with laughter.

Are we not, all of us, in some way, damaged mirrors? Are we not constantly engaged in focusing the light of thought—memories out of the depths of human experience—onto the photographic plate of each moment? The image captured in this instant is a snapshot of all eternity, subtly altered by our own brokenness. And who’s to say that the image formed by a damaged mirror is not a truer picture of the universe?

How comforting to know that all answers are as close as our quiet moments. God never chooses to keep the answers from us. We simply fail to quiet our thoughts long enough to heed them. Our minds race, obsessively, all too often. We jump from one scenario to another, one fear to another, one emotion to another. And each time our thoughts capture a new focus, we push the answer we seek further into the background.

If time stood still, each moment would be stopped; frozen. Each moment, individually, can be captured as though the world was a giant painting. Each breath, each blink, each glance will be recorded forever. The silence growing with more strength, more will and more enthusiasm. Not even the wind will more, nor the seasons change. The sun will not sleep and the stars forever hidden. Time is a precious element that must not be lost but embraced.

The dissolving, uniting forces combine what to us have been incompatible: attraction with repulsion, darkness with light, the erotic with the destructive.  If we can allow these opposites to meet they move our inner resonance to a higher vibratory plane, expanding consciousness into new realms.  It was exciting, through my explorations some of which I share in later chapters, to learn firsthand that the sacred marriage or coniunctio, the impulse to unite seeming opposites, does indeed seem to lie at the heart of the subtle body’s imaginal world. One important characteristic of the coniunctio is its paradoxical dual action.  The creative process of each sacred marriage, or conjoining of opposites, involves not only the unitive moment of joining together in a new creation or ‘third,’ but also, as I have mentioned, a separating or darkening moment.5 The idea that “darkness comes before dawn” captures this essential aspect of creativity.  To state an obvious truth we as a culture are just beginning to appreciate.  In alchemical language, when darkness falls, it is said to be the beginning of the inner work or the opus of transformation. The old king (ego) must die before the new reign dawns. The early alchemists called the dark, destructive side of these psychic unions the blackness or the nigredo.  Chaos, uncertainty, disillusionment, depression, despair, or madness prevails during these liminal times of  “making death.” The experiences surrounding these inner experiences of darkness and dying (the most difficult aspects were called mortificatio) may constitute our culture’s ruling taboo. This taboo interferes with our moving naturally to Stage Two in the individuating process, a process that requires that we pass through a descent into the underworld of the Dark Feminine realities of birthing an erotic intensity that leads to dying. Entranced by our happily-ever-after prejudiced culture, we often do not see that in any relationship, project or creative endeavor or idea some form of death follows naturally after periods of intense involvement.  When dark experiences befall, we tend to turn away, to move as quickly as possible to something positive or at least distracting, away from the negative affects of grieving, rage, terror, rotting and loss we associate with darkness and dying. As

Everywhere I looked, I saw how seeds were holding the world together. They planted forests, covered meadows with wildflowers, sprouted in the cracks of sidewalks, or lay dormant until the long-awaited moment came, signaled by fire or rain or warmth. They filled the produce aisle in grocery stores. Seeds breathed and spoke in a language all their own. Each one was a miniature time capsule, capturing years of stories in its tender flesh. How ignorant I felt compared to the brilliance contained in a single seed.

Hecate turned to Persephone and hugged her tight; then the goddess left, and they were alone. It was the moment he had waited for, yet he did not close the distance between them. All he could do was stare at his wife, his goddess, his queen. She was so beautiful, his heart ached when he looked at her. He had spent most of his time in the labyrinth thinking only of her, conjuring her likeness from memory, and still he had not done her justice. He could never capture her truth—the unbearable beauty of her soul, the thing that called to him loudest, the thing that said they were made for each other.

I should know; perfectionism has always been a weakness of mine. Brene' Bown captures the motive in the mindset of the perfectionist in her book Daring Greatly: "If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame." This is the game, and I'm the player. Perfectionism for me comes from the feelings that I don't know enough. I'm not smart enough. Not hardworking enough. Perfectionism spikes for me if I'm going into a meeting with people who disagree with me, or if I'm giving a talk to experts to know more about the topic I do … when I start to feel inadequate and my perfectionism hits, one of the things I do is start gathering facts. I'm not talking about basic prep; I'm talking about obsessive fact-gathering driven by the vision that there shouldn't be anything I don't know. If I tell myself I shouldn't overprepare, then another voice tells me I'm being lazy. Boom. Ultimately, for me, perfectionism means hiding who I am. It's dressing myself up so the people I want to impress don't come away thinking I'm not as smart or interesting as I thought. It comes from a desperate need to not disappoint others. So I over-prepare. And one of the curious things I've discovered is that what I'm over-prepared, I don't listen as well; I go ahead and say whatever I prepared, whether it responds to the moment or not. I miss the opportunity to improvise or respond well to a surprise. I'm not really there. I'm not my authentic self… If you know how much I am not perfect. I am messy and sloppy in so many places in my life. But I try to clean myself up and bring my best self to work so I can help others bring their best selves to work. I guess what I need to role model a little more is the ability to be open about the mess. Maybe I should just show that to other people. That's what I said in the moment. When I reflected later I realized that my best self is not my polished self. Maybe my best self is when I'm open enough to say more about my doubts or anxieties, admit my mistakes, confess when I'm feeling down. The people can feel more comfortable with their own mess and that's needs your culture to live in that. That was certainly the employees' point. I want to create a workplace where everyone can bring the most human, most authentic selves where we all expect and respect each other's quirks and flaws and all the energy wasted in the pursuit of perfection is saved and channeled into the creativity we need for the work that is a cultural release impossible burdens and lift everyone up.

It’s a long story,” he said, taking a sip of Mr. Braeburn’s whiskey, “so I will tell only a very condensed version of it. “Mrs. Marsden and I grew up on adjacent properties in the Cotswold. But the Cotswold, as fair as it is, plays almost no part in this tale. Because it was not in the green, unpolluted countryside that we fell in love, but in gray, sooty London. Love at first sight, of course, a hunger of the soul that could not be denied.” Bryony trembled somewhere inside. This was not their story, but her story, the determined spinster felled by the magnificence and charm of the gorgeous young thing. He glanced at her. “You were the moon of my existence; your moods dictated the tides of my heart.” The tides of her own heart surged at his words, even though his words were nothing but lies. “I don’t believe I had moods,” she said severely. “No, of course not. ‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate’—and the tides of my heart only rose ever higher to crash against the levee of my self-possession. For I loved you most intemperately, my dear Mrs. Marsden.” Beside her Mrs. Braeburn blushed, her eyes bright. Bryony was furious at Leo, for his facile words, and even more so at herself, for the painful pleasure that trickled into her drop by drop. “Our wedding was the happiest hour of my life, that we would belong to each other always. The church was filled with hyacinths and camellias, and the crowd overflowed to the steps, for the whole world wanted to see who had at last captured your lofty heart. “But alas, I had not truly captured your lofty heart, had I? I but held it for a moment. And soon there was trouble in Paradise. One day, you said to me, ‘My hair has turned white. It is a sign I must wander far and away. Find me then, if you can. Then and only then will I be yours again.’” Her heart pounded again. How did he know that she had indeed taken her hair turning white as a sign that the time had come for her to leave? No, he did not know. He’d made it up out of whole cloth. But even Mr. Braeburn was spellbound by this ridiculous tale. She had forgotten how hypnotic Leo could be, when he wished to beguile a crowd. “And so I have searched. From the poles to the tropics, from the shores of China to the shores of Nova Scotia. Our wedding photograph in hand, I have asked crowds pale, red, brown, and black, ‘I seek an English lady doctor, my lost beloved. Have you seen her?’” He looked into her eyes, and she could not look away, as mesmerized as the hapless Braeburns. “And now I have found you at last.” He raised his glass. “To the beginning of the rest of our lives.

ohnny Heart loved Francesca Valentine the way no one had ever loved anyone, and his love for her was so deep, that it consumed him. There's nothing left in that attic now, but a statue of them entwined with each other—that's all that's left to say that they were together once. But if you were to pull open the secret door in the attic, the door that no one knew about, you would find Johnny's hidden gallery—paintings and sketchings—all of Francesca Valentine. He loved her so much, he spent nearly every waking moment drawing or painting her. It was an obsession and he just couldn't quit. Johnny never wanted to be away from her. He never showed these painting or portraits to Francesca, in fear they weren't good enough. He kept trying to capture her just right. She'd never really know how beautiful she was to him. But if you were to look at the portraits you could see the love he had for this one girl, how deeply he romanticized her. And you'll know—because you'll be able to feel it—how hard it was for him to let her go. It was an impossibility. One that Frankie agreed with, too. She couldn't let go either. But holding on so tightly to each other, and feeling what they could never have, never keep, it destroyed them both, and she became one with her monster. It's Frankie and Johnny. For always.   And never.

Each and every day, as we navigate the real world, we leave a billion little fingerprints in our wake. The door handles we touch, the screens we press, and the people we interact with all capture a trace of our being there. The same is true on the Internet. We share pictures and videos on social networks, leave comments on news articles. We e-mail, text, and chat with hundreds of people throughout the day. If there is anyone who left more of those digital fingerprints lying around the Internet than most people, it was Ross Ulbricht. He spent years living on his computer and interacting with people, good and bad, through that machine. Over the course of my research for this book, I was able to gain access to more than two million words of chat logs and messages between the Dread Pirate Roberts and dozens of his employees. These logs were excruciatingly in-depth conversations about every moment and every decision that went into creating and managing the Silk Road.

When she finally reached it, she bent forward and looked through the peephole. Jay was grinning back at her from outside. Her heart leaped for a completely different reason. She set aside her crutches and quickly unbolted the door to open it. "What took you so long?" Her knee was bent and her ankle pulled up off the ground. She balanced against the doorjamb. "What d'you think, dumbass?" she retorted smartly, keeping her voice down so she wouldn't alert her parents. "You scared the crap out of me, by the way. My parents are already in bed, and I was all alone down here." "Good!" he exclaimed as he reached in and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her up against him and wrapping his arms around her. She giggled while he held her there, enjoying everything about the feel of him against her. "What are you doing here? I thought I wouldn't see you till tomorrow." "I wanted to show you something!" He beamed at her, and his enthusiasm reached out to capture her in its grip. She couldn't help smiling back excitedly. "What is it?" she asked breathlessly. He didn't release her; he just turned, still holding her gently in his arms, so that she could see out into the driveway. The first thing she noticed was the officer in his car, alert now as he kept a watchful eye on the two of them. Violet realized that it was late, already past eleven, and from the look on his face, she thought he must have been hoping for a quiet, uneventful evening out there. And then she saw the car. It was beautiful and sleek, painted a glossy black that, even in the dark, reflected the light like a polished mirror. Violet recognized the Acura insignia on the front of the hood, and even though she could tell it wasn't brand-new, it looked like it had been well taken care of. "Whose is it?" she asked admiringly. It was way better than her crappy little Honda. Jay grinned again, his face glowing with enthusiasm. "It's mine. I got it tonight. That's why I had to go. My mom had the night off, and I wanted to get it before..." He smiled down at her. "I didn't want to borrow your car to take you to the dance." "Really?" she breathed. "How...? I didn't even know you were..." She couldn't seem to find the right words; she was envious and excited for him all at the same time. "I know right?" he answered, as if she'd actually asked coherent questions. "I've been saving for...for forever, really. What do you think?" Violet smiled at him, thinking that he was entirely too perfect for her. "I think it's beautiful," she said with more meaning than he understood. And then she glanced back at the car. "I had no idea that you were getting a car. I love it, Jay," she insisted, wrapping her arms around his neck as he hoisted her up, cradling her like a small child." "I'd offer to take you for a test-drive, but I'm afraid that Supercop over there would probably Taser me with his stun gun. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow," he said, and without waiting for an invitation he carried her inside, dead bolting the door behind him. He settled down on the couch, where she'd been sitting by herself just moments before, without letting her go. There was a movie on the television, but neither of them paid any attention to it as Jay reclined, stretching out and drawing her down into the circle of his arms. They spent the rest of the night like that, cradled together, their bodies fitting each other perfectly, as they kissed and whispered and laughed quietly in the darkness. At some point Violet was aware that she was drifting into sleep, as her thoughts turned dreamlike, becoming disjointed and fuzzy and hard to hold on to. She didn't fight it; she enjoyed the lazy, drifting feeling, along with the warmth created by the cocoon of Jay's body wrapped protectively around her. It was the safest she'd felt in days...maybe weeks... And for the first time since she'd been chased by the man in the woods, her dreams were free from monsters.

In the past, people were vaguely fearful of photographs, believing the camera's exact reproduction of their own image would steal their souls. Not only did these images survive for much longer than their subjects, they were also endowed with an aura of magic the subjects lacked. A superstition, but one whose traces can still be felt today. People sense that the photograph captures an uncanny moment in the interstices of reality, enhancing reality's eeriness, the root of which is unknown, and fixing that moment in place like a death mask. Photography differs from the art of painting in that capturing or exposing such a moment happens neither at the will of the photographer nor the one who is photographed. What is photographed is a ghost moment, clothed in matter. Photography is the dream of comprehensive meaning. Each object has parts of itself that are invisible. This territory, which neither the photographer nor the subject can govern, constitutes the secret kept by the object. Unrelated to the intention of either photographer or subject, within the magic of photography dwells a still, quiet shock. Try to imagine our house one day when we ourselves are no more. Somewhere in that house is the ghost of us, which will pass alone in front of a blind mirror, revealing our own blurred image.

I had been walking through the Chakara Forest. Fat moths the size of palms wreathed my hair like pearls and moonstones. And then, as I had done since before language burgeoned in the velvet clefts of the mind--I danced. Not a slow dance, but sharp, punctual movements. My dance organized the shadows of trees, canceled the cloying plumes of wind-fallen fruit, aligned the moonbeams themselves. My back arced gracefully as I moved, neck extended like an oryx, fingers conjuring sharp kathas of rhythm, when a sound crunched not far from me. I spun around. “Who’s there?” From beneath the heart-shaped leaves of a peepal tree, something rustled. And a voice, so lush it made ambrosia acrid, answered me. “Only the lowly painter who tries each night, in vain, to capture evening herself.” “What do you want? Show yourself.” The stranger stepped out of the peepal tree. He was broad-shouldered, his features as severely beautiful as a strike of lightning. He wore a crown of blackbuck horns that arced in graceful whorls of onyx, catching the light. But it was his gaze that robbed the clamoring rhythm in my chest. His stare slipped beneath my skin. And when he saw my eyes widen, he smiled. And in that moment, his smile banished my loneliness and limned the hollows of my anima with starlight, pure and bright. He moved toward me, grasping my hand, and his touch hummed in my bones like an aria. A song to my dance. The beginning of a promise.

With global advances in technology, our society is becoming more engrossed in personal gadgets than in the world around them. We hold our phones more than we hold real conversations, and each other. We’re so busy looking down at screens and engaging in digital interactions that we forget about the environment around us. It seems people would rather experience an event through a camera than use their eyes to enjoy what’s in front of them. Concert audiences are lit up by the shimmering of phone screens. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t capture mementos of these precious times. But living through a screen prevents us from being present in the moment. As we continue to distract ourselves from the present moment, we become more anxious, fearful and stressed. Worries overwhelm us in our everyday lives because we’re now conditioned to live elsewhere, rather than right here. What’s more, we ignore the people around us and our personal relationships pay the price. This is often why we feel distressed, disconnected and lost. Our vibration is lowered because we feel like we’re in some imagined situation that doesn’t match up with our lived reality. We relive moments of the past, fear the future and create obstacles in our minds. We devote creative energy to destructive ideas – and this invites turmoil into our lives. Now is the only time you have. Once your past is gone, it doesn’t exist, no matter how many times you recreate it mentally. The future hasn’t even arrived; but again, you keep taking yourself there mentally. Tomorrow comes disguised as today and some of us don’t even notice. Nothing is more valuable than the present moment because you can never get it back.

It is the story of God.” God’s real name is Charlie, he told us. He was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1776, in the summer of the signing, when temperatures were high as rockets and humid as seas. Charlie was the son of a poor miller, a mean man with a gammy leg and a spray of powder burns over his right temple from the war. When Charlie was just becoming something more than a boy, he went out into the creaking, old-growth forest to collect firewood. He came upon a stream that fell away, suddenly, into the earth. Charlie wanted to see where the water went. He leaned down and peered in. A spark. An alien pulse of light. He stared, transfixed, as every star, every galaxy in the universe flicked across his vision. The rings of Jupiter. The broken, sunburned back of Mars. Sights no human had ever captured with their eyes. And, just as suddenly, the feeling of every cell of every living organism hovering just beneath his fingertips, like piano keys. He could touch each one, if he wanted. He could control them. There are some who insist Charlie was simply lucky. That anyone who happened to walk by that stream on that morning, curious enough to lean over the odd water gushing into the ground, would be made God. They are wrong. Charlie was God before he was even born. It was only a matter of him finding out. Charlie lives in every generation. When he dies, he is reborn nine months later, a baby God. At any moment, you might meet him. He has been a Confederate soldier. He has been a bank teller. He has sat behind an oak desk in wire-rimmed glasses and a day’s growth of beard graying his cheeks. He has cooked dinner for his mother. He has driven to the ocean. He has fallen in love.

He walked me to the door, and we stood on the top step. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he kissed me on the nose and said, “I’m glad I came back.” God, he was sweet. “I’m glad you did, too,” I replied. “But…” I paused for a moment, gathering courage. “Did you have something you wanted to say?” It was forward, yes--gutsy. But I wasn’t going to let this moment pass. I didn’t have many more moments with him, after all; soon I’d be gone to Chicago. Sitting in coffee shops at eleven at night, if I wanted. Working. Eventually going back to school. I’d be danged if I was going to miss what he’d started to say a few minutes earlier, before my mom and her cashmere robe showed up and spoiled everything. Marlboro Man looked up at me and smiled, apparently pleased that I’d shown such assertiveness. An outgoing middle child all my life, with him I’d become quiet, shy--an unrecognizable version of myself. He’d captured my heart so unexpectedly, so completely, I’d been rendered utterly incapable of speaking. He had this uncanny way of sucking the words right out of me and leaving nothing but pure, unadulterated passion in their place. He grabbed me even more tightly. “Well, first of all,” he began, “I really…I really like you.” He looked into my eyes in a seeming effort to transmit the true meaning of each word straight into my psyche. All muscle tone disappeared from my body. Marlboro Man was so willing to put himself out there, so unafraid to put forth his true feelings. I simply wasn’t used to this. I was used to head games, tactics, apathy, aloofness. When it came to love and romance, I’d developed a rock-solid tolerance for mediocrity. And here, in two short weeks, Marlboro Man had blown it all to kingdom come. There was nothing mediocre about Marlboro Man.

So it’s not the sight of stromatolites that makes them exciting. It’s the idea of them – and in this respect they are peerless. Well, imagine it. You are looking at living rocks – quietly functioning replicas of the very first organic structures ever to appear on earth. You are experiencing the world as it was 3.5 billion years ago – more than three-quarters of the way back to the moment of terrestrial creation. Now if that is not an exciting thought, I don’t know what is. As the aforementioned palaeontologist Richard Fortey has put it: ‘This is truly time travelling, and if the world were attuned to its real wonders this sight would be as well-known as the pyramids of Giza.’ Quite right. Stromatolites are rather like corals in that all of their life is on the surface, and that most of what you are looking at is the dead mass of earlier generations. If you peer, you can sometimes see tiny bubbles of oxygen rising in streams from the formations. This is the stromatolite’s only trick and it isn’t much, but it is what made life as we know it possible. The bubbles are produced by primitive algae-like micro-organisms called cyanobacteria, which live on the surface of the rocks – about three billion of them to the square yard, to save you counting – each of them capturing a molecule of carbon dioxide and a tiny beat of energy from the sun and combining them to fuel its unimaginably modest ambitions to exist, to live. The byproduct of this very simple process is the faintest puff of oxygen. But get enough stromatolites respiring away over a long enough period and you can change the world. For two billion years this is all the life there was on earth, but in that time the stromatolites raised the oxygen level in the atmosphere to 20 per cent – enough to allow the development of other, more complex life forms: me, for instance. My gratitude was real. The

Besides the fact that you’re a scoundrel at the gaming tables,” she responded tartly, “I’m beginning to suspect that you’re a womanizing rake.” Christopher grinned leisurely as his perusal swept her. “I’ve been a long time at sea. However, I doubt that in your case my reaction would vary had I just left the London Court.” Erienne’s eyes flared with poorly suppressed ire. The insufferable egotist! Did he dare think he could find a willing wench at the back door of the mayor’s cottage? “I’m sure that Claudia Talbot would welcome your company, sir. Why don’t you ride on over to see her? I hear his lordship traveled off to London this morning.” He laughed softly at her sneering tones. “I’d rather be courting you.” “Why?” she scoffed. “Because you want to thwart my father?” His smiling eyes captured hers and held them prisoner until she felt a warmth suffuse her cheeks. He answered with slow deliberation. “Because you are the prettiest maid I’ve ever seen, and I’d like to get to know you better. And of course, we should delve into this matter of your accidents more thoroughly, too.” Twin spots of color grew in her cheeks, but the deepening dusk did much to hide her blush. Lifting her nose primly in the air, Erienne turned aside, tossing him a cool glance askance. “How many women have you told that to, Mr. Seton?” A crooked smile accompanied his reply. “Several, I suppose, but I’ve never lied. Each had their place in time, and to this date, you are the best I’ve seen.” He reached out and taking a handful of the cracklings, he chewed the crisp morsels as he awaited her reaction. A flush of anger spread to the delicate tips of her ears, and icy fire smoldered in the deep blue-violet pools. “You conceited, unmitigated boor!” Her voice was as cold and as flat as the Russian steppes. “Do you think to add me to your long string of conquests?” Her chilled contempt met him face to face until he rose and towered above her. His eyes grew distant, and he reached out a finger to flip a curl that had strayed from beneath the kerchief. “Conquest?” His voice was soft and deeply resonant. “You mistake me, Erienne. In the rush of a moment’s lust, there are purchased favors, and these are for the greater part forgotten. The times that are cherished and remembered are not taken, are not given, but shared, and are thus treasured as a most blissful event.” He lifted his coat on his fingertips and slung it over his shoulder. “I do not ask that you yield to me, nor do I desire to conquer you. All I plead is that you grant me moments now and then that I might present my case, to the end that we could share a tender moment at some distant time.” -Erienne & Christopher

So you’ve been capturing mice and releasing them here?” “Yes, anything wrong with that?” “The thing is, if they’re house mice, they’ll just go on back home. You’ve probably been catching the same ones each day.” She considered for a moment and he tried very hard not to laugh. “I doubt it. The place is overrun with them. It’s really not up to standard. I suspect the landlord’s name is Rackman.

The peace and the eventual victory-beyond-hopelessness that I gained were through no achievement of my great faith. When you’re down on your back, when everything of your circumstance is surrounded by darkness, and when the voice seeking to capture your attention sneers against God and seeks to smash your soul with despair—it’s at those moments we’re called to remember another Voice. It’s the voice of Jesus, calling us from the other side of His Cross, where He experienced everything that pain, suffering, hopelessness, hate, death and hell could deal Him. And He’s saying, “Call on Me—I know the way through Fridays like yours, and I will bring you through!” There is hope—for any and every hopeless day. We each need not only to listen to His call but also to understand the pathway He has carved beyond hopelessness and unto hope. So I invite you to join me in listening to His voice as Jesus lives through a bad day—indeed, not only through the worst day in His life, but also the ultimate worst day that humans or demons could ever conspire to work.

No living creature lives without mistakes, Leo.” As it spoke, the flightsuit played videos in the visor, showing diapered babies sitting down hard as they learned to walk, tiger cubs rolling with each other and a blur of dozens of different moments captured from Earth. Everything man and Explorer creates is designed from mistakes, learned and corrected, to improve subsequent designs. I am the product of millions of mistakes, adjustments made to original concepts and plans.” The images in the visor displayed bridges swaying wildly, buildings crumbling to the ground, the blackened interior of a space capsule through a charred open door. “Every device you've ever used-so familiar you may have never considered their creation. Every device is the product of mistakes, hundreds or thousands of previous mistakes. You see the results, but you do not see the mistakes.” The flightsuit paused. “You see yourself in the mirror and see the results, and you do not see the millions of shaping events that made you. You survived these challenges. There are millions more shaping events ahead of you. You have not yet survived these, and so they feel dangerous and uncertain. If you were able to precisely recall, at will, the feelings of fear and uncertainty you experienced in the past or the moments you long ago overcame and survived would you discourage your past self from trying?

Shadow turned, slowly, streaming images of himself as he moved, frozen moments, each him captured in a fraction of a second, every tiny movement lasting for an infinite period. The images that reached his mind made no sense: it was like seeing the world through the multifaceted jeweled eyes of a dragonfly, but each facet saw something completely different, and he was unable to combine the things he was seeing,

This was like when you went tubing on the river and you drifted along, eyes closed, face turned up toward the sun, relaxed, warm and cold at the same time, aware of every sensation, fingers trailing behind in the murky water. Like each moment mattered, time caught in a mental camera roll, captured in sparkling perfection, time slow and easy, yet disappearing faster than you could have ever imagined.

Because therapists know that at first, each patient is simply a snapshot, a person captured in a particular moment. It’s like a photo of you taken from an unfortunate angle and with a sour expression on your face. There might also be a photo in which you’re glowing, caught opening a present or mid-laugh with a lover. Both are you in that fraction of time, and neither is you in your entirety.

That hunting by fire was still practiced by the natives on a large scale, and it had been his lot to stumble on six baby elephants, victims of a fire from which only fully grown animals had managed to escape thanks to their size and speed? That whole herds of elephants sometimes escaped from the blazing savanna with bums up to their bellies, and that they suffered for weeks? Many a night he had lain awake in the bush listening to their cries of agony. That the contraband traffic in ivory was still practiced on a large scale by Arab and Asiatic merchants, who drove the tribes to poaching? Thirty thousand elephants a year— was it possible to think for a moment of what that meant, without shame? Did she know that a man like Haas, who was the favorite supplier of the big zc^s, saw half the young elephants he captured die under his eyes? The natives, at least, had an excuse: they needed proteins. For them, elephants were only meat. To stop them, they only had to raise the standard of living in Africa: this was the first step in any serious campaign for the protection of nature. But the whites? The so-called “civilized” people? They had no excuse. They hunted for what they called “trophies,” for the excitement of it, for pleasure, in fact. The flame that attracted him so irresistibly burned him in the end. He was the first to recognize the enemy and to cry tally-ho, and he had gone on the attack with all the passion of a man who feels himself challenged by everything that makes too-noble demands upon human nature, as if humanity began somewhere around. thirty thousand feet above the surface of the earth, thirty thousand feet above Orsini. He was determined to defend his own height, his own scale, his own smallness. "Listen to me,” he said. "All right, you're a priest A missionary. As such, you've always had your nose right in it I mean, you have all the sores, all the ugliness before your eyes all day long. All right. All sorts of open wounds— naked human wretchedness. And then, when you’ve well and truly wiped the bottom of mankind, don’t you long to climb a hill and take a good look at something different, and big, and strong, and free?”“When I feel like taking a good look at something different and big and strong and free,” roared Father Fargue, giving the table a tremendous bang with his fist, “it isn't elephants I turn to, it's God I” The man smiled. He licked his cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. “Well, it isn't a pact with the Devil I'm asking you to sign. It's only a petition to stop people from killing elephants. Thirty thousand of them are killed each year. Thirty thousand, and that's a .small e.stimate. You can’t deny it . . . And remember—'* there was a spark of gaiety in his eyes— “and remember. Father, remember: they haven’t sinned.” He was stabbing me in the back, aiming straight at my faith. Original sin, and the whole thing— you know all that better than I do. You know me. I’m a man of action: give me a good case of galloping syphilis and I'm all right. But theory . . . this is between ourselves. Faith, God— I've got all that in my heart, in my guts, but not in my brain. I’m not one of the brainy ones. So I tried offering him a drink, but he refused.” The Jesuit’s face lit up for a moment, and its wrinkles seemed to disappear in the youthfulness of a smile. Fargue suddenly remembered that he was rather frowned upon in his Order; he had several times been forbidden to publish his scientific papers; it was even whispered that his stay in Africa was not entirely voluntary He had heard tell that Father Tassin, in his writings, represented salvation as a mere biological mutation, and humanity, in the form in which we still know it, as an archaic species doomed to join other vanished species in the obscurity of a prehistoric past. His face clouded over: that smacked of heresy.

I just wished I’d been able to see the timer running down back then so I could have made more out of each moment, tasted the sea salt on my lips a little longer, laughed fuller and harder, taken more photos, captured more of the sweetness to help counter the bitterness that had been coming. I knew regrets were pointless, but I had them all the same. I guess you never realise how bright the day is until the rain comes.

Why would we choose a profession that requires us to meet unhappy, distressed, abrasive, or unaware people and sit with them, one after the other, alone in a room? The answer is this: Because therapists know that at first, each patient is simply a snapshot, a person captured in a particular moment. It’s like a photo of you taken from an unfortunate angle and with a sour expression on your face. There might also be a photo in which you’re glowing, caught opening a present or mid-laugh with a lover. Both are you in that fraction of time, and neither is you in your entirety.

Numbers from Heaven" by Kurtis C. R. Palmer & Ramona Palmer is the first picture book in the Womb to BLOOM to Classroom series. It has vividly beautiful 3D illustrations that almost leap out of the book's pages, quickly capturing the interest of young ones. From the very first pages, they'd want to follow Zoey, the Zebra and P.B., the Panda Bear, learning and even enhancing the power of their imagination. This book opens to children a whole new world that's not only educational but also fun and worth their time. Parents and their kids can spend precious bonding moments while learning to count and even recognize some colors. The story itself takes the child to simple exercises in counting, allowing the young one to master the number being taught. Zoey's story also contains some mystery that kids can look forward to. As she discovers the treasure chest left by her Grandpa, who knows what wonders await her and her friend as they try to unlock the secret behind each key that they possess! Being the first book in a whole series that promises to teach various subjects, parents and children can definitely look forward to new adventures with Zoey and her friends. I was so happy when the book even presented a bonus animated reading of the story for those who subscribe to their Newsletter. I watched it right away and I couldn't wait to watch for more. I'm certain my nephews would enjoy both the book and the animation as they get to know Zoey and her set of friends. Two thumbs up and five stars for this educational and fun-filled book!

To Brendon, every moment was a meet-cute waiting to happen, each first date he went on captured in his memory in case he found the one and needed to tell his future children about the night their mom and dad met.

Daniel Mas Masumoto: The blade slices into the soil. My muscles tense and push the shovel into the moist ground. Dark and damp, the sweet warm smell of wet earth…I can’t count the thousands of shovelfuls of earth I have moved in my life. But I like to think of the thousands that lie in my future, if I am fortunate. Spring irrigation brings life to the orchards and vineyards. Peaches ripen and the scent of bloom lingers in the air…I guide the water into my fields in an act of renewal, I think of Paul, a farmer and oil painter friend. He enjoys experimenting with green, capturing the subtle nuances of a fresh leaf or the thriving growth of mid-spring or the weak yellow green of a cover crop on bad soil… Paul knows his paintings work when the farmers gravitate toward a few, attracted by the colors, and begin talking about his greens. The true green of a field has depth, like the mysterious colors of a clear by deep lake. Each shade has meaning we interpret differently. Paul says farmers are his best art critics, we know more of greens than anyone else. I’ve lost raisin crops, peach harvests, whole trees and vines. I’ve lost money, my time, and my labor. I’ve lost my temper, my patience, and, at time, hope. Most of the time, it’s due to things beyond my control, like the weather, market prices, or insects or disease. Ironically, the moment I step off my farm I enter a world where it seems that everything, life and nature, is regulated and managed. Homes are built to insulate families from the outside weather. People work in climate controlled environments designed to minimize the impact of weather. In America, a lack of control means failure…I’ve abandoned my attempts to control and compete with nature, but letting go has been a challenge. I’m trying to listen to my farm. Before I had not reason to hear the sounds of nature. The sole strategy of conventional farming seems to be dominance. Now, with each passing week, I venture into fields full of life and change, clinging to a belief in my work and a hope that it’s working.

Let’s say I have cancer.” He opens his eyes to glare at me. “I don’t like this.” “Just hear me out. I have cancer, and there’s nothing more they can do for me.” He goes still, and for a moment I don’t even feel his heartbeat through his chest, like the thought of my heart stopping stopped his. “I don’t have much time left,” I whisper, letting him feel the possibility of me being gone. “But then someone discovers the cure for cancer.” He tips his mouth to the left and he traces the curves of my knees. “There’s just one catch.” I dip my head to capture his eyes. “The man who discovered the cure—he’s a white supremacist.” He looks back at me unblinkingly for a second before allowing himself one blink—just one. “Do you accept the cure for cancer?” “What good is this when—” “Answer the question. Do you accept the cure for cancer from a white supremacist to save my life?” “I’d accept the cure from the devil himself to save you. You know that.” He sighs. “It’s not the same.” “What’s the title of Dr. Hammond’s book?” He rolls his eyes. “You know the title, Bris.” “Humor me.” “Virus. The title of his book is Virus.” “And the point is that racism is a virus that’s constantly changing, constantly adapting, right?” I ask. “That it adapted when slavery was outlawed and when Jim Crow was eradicated and when segregation was legally struck down. It works its way into our systems, like our penal system, right? It’s a nasty bastard that just keeps morphing and surviving like a cockroach.” Now I have his attention. He’s stopped countering my every word, stopped protesting and thinking this is a useless exercise. He’s finally listening. “The person who finally cures cancer won’t be perfect,” I tell him. “They’ll just be the person who figured out the cure for cancer, and the people who live because of that won’t care that he cheated on his taxes or stepped out on his wife. They’ll care that he cured cancer. Dr. Hammond has a cure, at least for part of the problem. With his ideas and your resources and influence, imagine how much good you can do.” “He doesn’t think we should be together, thinks I’ve been societally conditioned to ‘acquire’ you.” Grip’s flinty look doesn’t dissuade me, even though that is some bullshit. “I bet there are more things you agree on than disagree.” I prop my elbows on his shoulders, leaning into him and persisting. “I bet when he gets to know me, I’ll go from being a ‘they’ to being Bristol. Isn’t that what you said months ago when you performed ‘Bruise’ for the Black and Blue Ball? That sometimes it takes us being around each other and getting to know each other, at least giving us the chance to go from being a category to who we really are? As individuals, who we really are?” He shakes his head, genuine humor apparent for the first time since his steps stuttered through our front door. “So, what?” A grin tilts his mouth. “You remember every word I say?” He really has no idea. “If I only get one life with you,” I mutter into his neck, “then, yes, I’m holding on to every moment and every word you say.” He pulls me away from the crook of his neck, studying my face. His eyes darken, emotion redolent in the air between us. “You’re so precious to me, Bristol,” he says, his voice the perfect blend of raw and reverent.

After selecting a brush, she moistened the cakes of watercolor in her traveling palette with some of the water from her cup and, with careful strokes, began to record the almond flowers in painstaking detail. Her father had successfully cultivated them at Trebithick, but she had never seen them growing in the wild before. More often than not, Elizabeth would collect plant samples to study carefully indoors, and would sketch them out before taking up her brush, spending hours ensuring she captured each detail precisely. But recently she had begun to experiment with a more free-form style of painting. It wasn't strictly the style of illustration she had learned, nor did she think her father would approve, but she loved the immediacy of it. The trick was to get the lighting just right--- a strong source helped to create shade and give the work a three-dimensional effect. The afternoon light was perfect, and she also used a dry brush, rubbed over the paint cakes, to add detail and depth to the watercolors. Daisy wandered off to the shade of a wide-spreading tree a few yards away. 'It's a canela tree, I think," Elizabeth called out, pausing for a moment from her work. 'False cinnamon,' she explained. 'I can smell it,' replied Daisy, sniffing appreciatively. 'Like Cook's apple pie.

And don’t begin to try and drive a wedge between me and Milo. You seem to excel at pitting people against each other. Makes sense. Men in power hold onto power by denying others the support structure to challenge them.” Confidence flooded every single word she said. If I could capture the moment our broken bird became a blazing fiery bird, this would be it.

It seemed to her in that precise moment, the moment the man and woman's eyes met in some understanding, two separate people suddenly transformed into one person with one shape and all their ends and trailing edges joined to form a single perfect outline. The woman was the man and the man was the woman and there were no halves, only wholes with no beginnings or endings. To see two human beings merge seamlessly into one distinct shape left her breathless. From then on, she has tried to discover how love affects the shape of things. She watched how the faces of the workers on the farm changed when they talked about their loved ones; how a divorced uncle of hers talked about his ex-wife; listens to how her father whistles when he remembers her mother. She sees that the signs of love exist in small and quiet ways, from how people look at each other (or don't), from the way they speak to each other (or don't), how they touch each other in a crowded room. She scribbles notes, trying to capture it all. In history class she learns about the Grecian myth of half humans, how human beings originally had four arms, four legs and a single head made of two faces. With such great strength, her teacher had told them, these beings threatened to conquer the gods, To punish humanity for their pride, Zeus split them in half into separate beings. These halves are said to be in constant search for each other in the world, Sana writes. And that when the two find each other, there is an unspoken understanding between them, they will feel unified and lie with each other in unity for eternity.

Pre Birthday Photography has emerged as a cherished practice among families, capturing the anticipation and joy leading up to a child's birthday. This type of photography session offers a unique opportunity to celebrate a child's growth and personality as they transition from one year to the next. Unlike the day-of birthday photos, pre-birthday sessions allow for a more relaxed and creative approach, free from the pressures and distractions of the actual celebration. The resulting images serve as a beautiful reminder of the excitement and preparation that accompany the special day, providing families with timeless keepsakes that capture the essence of childhood. The appeal of pre-birthday photography lies in its ability to freeze a moment in time, preserving the fleeting stages of childhood. Each year, a child undergoes significant changes in appearance, behavior, and interests.

In another life, I'm an art historian. A professor of art history or maybe a conservator of artworks, but this is where I'd be. Surrounded by beautiful things, things that inspire you and move the world forward and speak to what it means to be human, and there would be nothing bad . . . and love would be straightforward because there are so many different kinds of love in the world and art captures a moment in each of them. And it's just a moment, not a whole picture–I know that–but there's something lovely about that. isn't there . . . ? About a snapshot moment for all the world to look upon, frozen the way the person who painted it saw it and felt it, like that forever for us to try and see it and feel it the same way.

Daddy's Little Girl [Verse] I remember when you took your first steps, Tiny shoes dancing in the soft spring grass, I was chasing dreams, didn't see the moments pass, Now all I have are these memories to confess. [Verse 2] Birthday candles lighting up your eyes, I was on the road while you cried your childish cries, Missed your laughter, your hugs, and all your highs, Each mile I traveled was another goodbye. [Chorus] I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me the most, I'm sorry I wasn't the father you needed me to be, But you'll always be daddy's little girl, No matter where life leads you, in my heart, you're free. [Verse 3] Years have flown by like a runaway train, Photographs can't capture all the joy and pain, I missed your proms, your fears, your growing pains, But you shined a light that helped me see again. [Verse 4] I see your face in every sunset's hue, Wishing I could turn back and stand beside you, Your forgiveness is a gift that pulls me through, You're the song I sing when the day is anew. [Chorus] I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me the most, I'm sorry I wasn't the father you needed me to be, But you'll always be daddy's little girl, No matter where life leads you, in my heart, you're free.

1/4/1/1 Why the 1/4/1/1 structure works so well is because now your single-sentence conclusion packs two punches instead of one. Here’s how it works: This first sentence is your opener. This second sentence clarifies your opener. This third sentence reinforces the point you’re making with some sort of credibility or amplified description. This fourth sentence rounds out your argument. And this fifth sentence speaks to the emotional benefit of the reader. This sixth sentence is your conclusion. And this seventh sentence is why that conclusion matters so much. If you notice, the only difference between the 1/3/1 structure and 1/4/1/1 is rhythm. One more sentence doesn’t really change the content of the introduction. But the way the sentences are separated elicits a different response in the reader. The 1/3/1 structure feels strong, but 1/4/1/1 feels stronger, and even more opinionated—there are two punchlines instead of one. In fact, just by moving a single sentence up or down in any of these paragraphs can dramatically change the rhythm of your introduction. Here’s an example of the 1/4/1/1 structure from my article, “6 Important Life Lessons You Can Only Learn Through Failure.” Nobody learns the hard lessons in life without some element of failure. When we let someone down, we learn why. When we fall short of our own expectations, we become aware of our growth edge. When we crumble under pressure, we become attuned to our weaknesses. There is a “lesson” inside each and every defeat — and those who ultimately reach their goals see these moments as valuable opportunities, not punishments. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make the learning process any less painful. There are some lessons in life you just can’t learn without falling down, scraping both knees, and getting back up again. Like the other structures above, you can elongate your introduction by adding a bit more text in the first major paragraph. 1/5/1/1 works, and so does 1/6/1/1. But once you start getting up into 1/7/1/1, you’re asking a bit much of your reader—meaning they’re less likely to make it through your introduction.

As soon as the train pulled away I felt the first pangs of regret - already the experience was trailing behind and I hadn't savoured it, hadn't captured it as I should have, as I'd promised myself I would the night before. [...] As we stepped reluctantly back onto the departing early-evening train, I was possessed by an unbearably bittersweet awareness of the preciousness of each moment passing, each moment that would never be retrieved. Even at the peak of it, the two of us quietly eating our sandwiches on the lawn on a plaid blanket, I couldn't lose the sense that this was ending, that the more the experience developed, the more I lost it. The closer it got, the quicker it fled.

In her later e-mails to me, Nancy struggled to capture the existential reality of trauma. “I want to tell you what a flashback is like. It is as if time is folded or warped, so that the past and present merge, as if I were physically transported into the past. Symbols related to the original trauma, however benign in reality, are thoroughly contaminated and so become objects to be hated, feared, destroyed if possible, avoided if not. For example, an iron in any form—a toy, a clothes iron, a curling iron, came to be seen as an instrument of torture. Each encounter with a scrub suit left me disassociated, confused, physically ill and at times consciously angry. “My marriage is slowly falling apart—my husband came to represent the heartless laughing people [the surgical team] who hurt me. I exist in a dual state. A pervasive numbness covers me with a blanket; and yet the touch of a small child pulls me back to the world. For a moment, I am present and a part of life, not just an observer. “Interestingly, I function very well at work, and I am constantly given positive feedback. Life proceeds with its own sense of falsity. “There is a strangeness, bizarreness to this dual existence. I tire of it. Yet I cannot give up on life, and I cannot delude myself into believing that if I ignore the beast it will go away. I’ve thought many times that I had recalled all the events around the surgery, only to find a new one. “There are so many pieces of that 45 minutes of my life that remain unknown. My memories are still incomplete and fragmented, but I no longer think that I need to know everything in order to understand what happened. “When the fear subsides I realize I can handle it, but a part of me doubts that I can. The pull to the past is strong; it is the dark side of my life; and I must dwell there from time to time. The struggle may also be a way to know that I survive—a re-playing of the fight to survive—which apparently I won, but cannot own.

Do you think I understand any of this, Poppy? None of this was supposed to happen. I had plans. Capture you and use you. Free my brother and, maybe, if the gods were good, prevent a war- or at least lessen the bloodshed.' Casteel turned sideways, shoving a hand through his hair. 'That was the plan. And fuck if it didn't go off the rails the moment you walked into the godsdamn Red Pearl.' His eyes closed. 'And each time- every damn time- I spoke to you, each time I saw your smile or heard you laugh, and the more I got to know you, the less those plans made sense. And trust me, Poppy, those plans made way more fucking sense than this- than all of this.' The breath I took got stuck as I grew incredibly still. 'I'm a Prince. A kingdom of people is counting on me to solve their problems- even the ones they're unaware of, but I... I couldn't do it. I couldn't give you to them, not even for my brother.' He turned to me, his eyes nearly luminous. 'All because when I'm with you, I don't think about the kingdom full of people counting on me. I don't find myself in the middle of the day, when it's too quiet, back in those fucking cages. I don't sit and think of everything I know they're doing to my brother. Beating him. Starving him. Raping him. Turning him into a monster worse than even they can imagine. When I'm with you, I don't think about that.' I curled my hands against my chest- against my thundering heart as his features blurred. And finally, I felt him. HIs pain. His confusion. His wonder. 'I forget.' He quieted as he shook his head in confusion. 'I forget about him- about my people, and I don't even understand how that's possible. But I did. I do...' ... 'And truthfully, I have no idea how you can even bear my touch after my lies, after what I did and caused. All I do know is that I didn't plan any of this in the beginning, Poppy. I didn't plan on being drawn to you. I didn't plan to want you. I didn't plan on risking everything to keep you.

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What do you think would have happened to me if I had been captured by your men?’ ‘You would have been killed, of course.’ ‘Yes. At last we are being honest with each other. I would have been shot in the back without a trial, then left to rot where I fell. Compare that to your situation at the moment, Joshua. You were captured at a terrorist camp in possession of illegal weapons, in the very act of training terrorists to attack this country. You’ve committed treason by the laws of this land, and yet here you are talking to me. Why are you not dead?

INSIDE OF MY KISS   Drawing my fingers and hands down from the lower portion of her neck passed her stomach I kiss her once more. Gradually guiding her hands down my chest with our fingers partly intertwined I drag them all the way down in an oily residue that slides like warm agave. I watch as her eyes soften, her mouth becoming the place for my lips to escape to. Little spatters of paint graze our legs and feet as she desperately tries to find refuge inside of my kiss, our bodies soon becoming one. Naked and partially covered in paint we move across the floor over a large piece of canvas that captures every stir and motion. As paint and sweat smear across this surface giving memory to our intense romance an organic and spontaneous masterpiece is made. Again I surrender myself inside of her breathtaking kiss that warms me. Smudged into this colorful muck our love is made once again and to a tune that never grows tired. Here in this place where time stands still there is nothing that can take the place of this bond and this passion that continues to become more with each kiss. Taken by the instinctive beauty of solicitude we now lead each other in poetic faith. Inside the splendor of each breath and each kiss do we make all that there is to make, our love only intensifying within each passing moment.

I watched him play every perfect chord as if it were an entire song, every song as if it were a grand sonata. The old man was lost in the captivating music and I was lost too—in his commanding presence, in his seamless movement, in his unmatched talent. His fingers floated effortlessly over the worn strings of the acoustic guitar, each one crossing over the other with calming ease. I found it hard to distinguish where one part ended and another began, inspiring and stirring my soul like a miracle. Elsie watched him with great intent, with great wonder, as did I. Then she got up from her leather armchair in the corner, walked over to the parlor grand piano, and joined in just as the song began to swell to its airy peak. They played together flawlessly, a man and a woman, for what could have been the thousandth time. Yet as I watched them, as the music filled me like the warmth of coming home, I could see it was new to them too, though ancestral and old. I was swept away, amazed at how each part was so distinct, so solitary in and of itself, and how yet it could only capture its full potential, its full beauty, as a part of something greater. I thought of how we are all pieces of music, of how one person would cease to swell without the other, of how the part that moves us the most freely in ourselves might not exist at all. I watched Johnny as he continued to strum, then Elsie as her fingers darted from place to place on the keys of the piano. The music swept over me like a memory of summertime, and I closed my eyes, letting it take me where it would, to a place so strikingly beautiful that everything else was silently perfect, letting the melody lead the moment. The hopeful sound filled my expectant ears and my emotions felt new again, as if I were a child, the moment peacefully pure, like rocking a newborn back to sleep. Wet streams of tears escaped my soft, emotional eyes as I let the notes take their full effect. To Johnny and Elsie, music was a language that didn't require words. In fact, it exceeded them. For what was flowing from the withered hands of the couple before me now was in itself perfection. Words could only ruin a moment this pure. As I watched them, I realized I wanted to care about anything as much as they did about music. A tear ran down my cheek as the last note hung softly, like a butterfly might hang on air. I decided right then that some things in life were much too beautiful not to cry about. This, I now knew, was one of them.

Speaking of other guys, how does Lock feel about all this?” Olivia asked. “It seems to me that he’s always in the middle of you two—that can’t be easy for him.” “I don’t know.” Kat shook her head. “We didn’t talk on the trip back home at all. None of us. But…I’m pretty sure the two of them were fighting after our argument on Twin Moons.” “Really? How could you tell?” Liv looked interested. “I’d say Deep’s face was a pretty good indication. He looks like he slammed head-first into a concrete wall. And the knuckles on Lock’s right hand are all cut and bruised.” “A fist fight?” Liv shook her head. “Really? Because I was under the impression that Twin Kindred never strike each other—under any circumstances. I think it hurts them just as much to hit their twin as it does to be hit…like they share the pain they inflict or something like that. That’s what Baird told me, anyway.” “Well, I’d say they made an exception to the no-knuckle-sandwich-between-brothers rule,” Kat said dryly but she couldn’t help being troubled. “I guess…I guess they were fighting over me.” “Lock loves you, doesn’t he?” Sophie said sympathetically. Kat nodded. “And I could love him too if—” “If Deep wasn’t in the way,” Olivia finished for her. But Kat shook her head. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. I could love Lock—hell, I could love both of them if there was any chance of my love being returned.” “But what about having their emotions in your head all the time?” Sophie asked. “I thought you hated that.” Kat thought of the warm, happy feelings she’d gotten from both brothers just moments before they were captured by the natives. “It’s not so bad when they’re in a good mood. But Deep…” “Is never in a good mood,” both Liv and Sophie said. Kat nodded sadly.

Idling the dinghy, bringing it quietly in closer and closer to the croc, Steve would finally make his move. He’d creep to the front of the boat and hold the spotlight until the last moment. Then he would leap into the water. Grabbing the crocodile around the scruff of the neck, he would secure its tail between his legs and wrap his body around the thrashing creature. Crocodiles are amazingly strong in the water. Even a six-foot-long subadult would easily take Steve to the bottom of the river, rolling and fighting, trying to dislodge him by scraping against the rocks and snags at the bottom of the river. But Steve would hang on. He knew he could push off the bottom, reach the surface for air, flip the crocodile into his dinghy, and pin the snapping animal down. “Piece of cake,” he said. That was the most incredible story I had ever heard. And Steve was the most incredible man I had ever seen--catching crocodiles by hand to save their lives? This was just unreal. I had an overwhelming sensation. I wanted to build a big campfire, sit down with Steve next to it, and hear his stories all night long. I didn’t want them to ever end. But eventually the tour was over, and I felt I just had to talk to this man. Steve had a broad, easy smile and the biggest hands I had ever seen. I could tell by his stature and stride that he was accustomed to hard work. I saw a series of small scars on the sides of his face and down his arms. He came up and, with a broad Australian accent, said, “G’day, mate.” Uh-oh, I thought. I’m in trouble. I’d never, ever believed in love at first sight. But I had the strangest, most overwhelming feeling that it was destiny that took me into that little wildlife park that day. Steve started talking to me as if we’d known each other all our lives. I interrupted only to have my friend Lori take a picture of us, and the moment I first met Steve was forever captured. I told him about my wildlife rescue work with cougars in Oregon. He told me about his work with crocodiles. The tour was long over, and the zoo was about to close, but we kept talking. Finally I could hear Lori honking her horn in the car park. “I have to go,” I said to Steve, managing a grim smile. I felt a connection as I never had before, and I was about to leave, never to see him again. “Why do you love cougars so much?” he asked, walking me toward the park’s front gate. I had to think for a beat. There were many reasons. “I think it’s how they can actually kill with their mouths,” I finally said. “They can conquer an animal several times their size, grab it in their jaws, and kill it instantly by snapping its neck.” Steve grinned. I hadn’t realized how similar we really were. “That’s what I love about crocodiles,” he said. “They are the most powerful apex predators.” Apex predators. Meaning both cougars and crocs were at the top of the food chain. On opposite sides of the world, this man and I had somehow formed the same interest, the same passion. At the zoo entrance I could see Lori and her friends in the car, anxious to get going back to Brisbane. “Call the zoo if you’re ever here again,” Steve said. “I’d really like to see you again.” Could it be that he felt the same way I did? As we drove back to Brisbane, I was quiet, contemplative. I had no idea how I would accomplish it, but I was determined to figure out a way to see him. The next weekend, Lori was going diving with a friend, and I took a chance and called Steve. “What do you reckon, could I come back for the weekend?” I asked. “Absolutely. I’ll take care of everything,” came Steve’s reply.

Dear Christopher, You’ve made me realize that words are the most important things in the world. And never so much as now. The moment Audrey gave me your last letter, my heart started beating faster, and I had to run to my secret house to read it in private. I haven’t yet told you…last spring on one of my rambles, I found the oddest structure in the forest, a lone tower of brick and stonework, all covered with ivy and moss. It was on a distant portion of the Stony Cross estate that belongs to Lord Westcliff. Later when I asked Lady Westcliff about it, she said that keeping a secret house was a local custom in medieval times. The lord of the manor might have used it as a place to keep his mistress. Once a Westcliff ancestor actually hid there from his own bloodthirsty retainers. Lady Westcliff said I could visit the secret house whenever I wanted, since it has long been abandoned. I go there often. It’s my hiding place, my sanctuary…and now that you know about it, it’s yours as well. I’ve just lit a candle and set it in a window. A very tiny lodestar, for you to follow home. Dearest Prudence, Amid all the noise and men and madness, I try to think of you in your secret house…my princess in a tower. And my lodestar in the window. The things one has to do in war…I thought it would all become easier as time went on. And I’m sorry to say I was right. I fear for my soul. The things I have done, Pru. The things I have yet to do. If I don’t expect God to forgive me, how can I ask you to? Dear Christopher, Love forgives all things. You don’t even need to ask. Ever since you wrote to me about the Argos, I’ve been reading about stars. We’ve loads of books about them, as the subject was of particular interest to my father. Aristotle taught that stars are made of a different matter than the four earthly elements--a quintessence--that also happens to be what the human psyche is made of. Which is why man’s spirit corresponds to the stars. Perhaps that’s not a very scientific view, but I do like the idea that there’s a little starlight in each of us. I carry thoughts of you like my own personal constellation. How far away you are, dearest friend, but no farther than those fixed stars in my soul. Dear Pru, We’re settling in for a long siege. It’s uncertain as to when I’ll have the chance to write again. This is not my last letter, only the last for a while. Do not doubt that I am coming back to you someday. Until I can hold you in my arms, these worn and ramshackle words are the only way to reach you. What a poor translation of love they are. Words could never do justice to you, or capture what you mean to me. Still…I love you. I swear by the starlight…I will not leave this earth until you hear those words from me.

My leg is sore," he told her, clasping her thighs to settle astride his hips. "I thought you could ride me tonight." Her eyes widened, her lips parting on a stunned breath as his wide palms raised her up, then angled her so he could thrust himself inside. "That's right," he urged, showing her how to accept him in this new position. "Take me in. Take me deep." And she did, obeying him implicitly, following his every demand and direction as he taught her each delicious, sinuous move. Her hair fell forward in a pale circle, framing her face and his as he leaned up to take her lips in a series of wild, rapacious kisses. Surrendering completely, she clung as he surged up into her, driving himself completely deep. She moaned, her body burning like white hot ash, need enslaving her as she fell into a dazed, relentless rhythm. When she tired, he took command, pushing her farther and faster than she imagined she could go until finally she broke on a long, tormented cry. Bliss roared through her, everything she was, given over to the ecstasy of the man and the moment. Collapsing over him, she lay drained and dreamy as he thrust into her with relentless intensity. He took his own release seconds later, his rough shout captured against a pillow.

On March 26, 1979, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was formalized in a signing ceremony at the White House. In the interim, the Knesset had overwhelmingly approved of the treaty, including the dismantling of the Sinai settlements. Hundreds of journalists were at the scene, capturing every moment of what was truly a historic event, as Begin, Sadat, and Carter shook hands and congratulated each other.

His album that year was Sign O’ the Times. I took the fact that the gang in the title track was named the Disciples as a personal tribute. The tour behind that record was the best Rock show I’ve ever seen. I went three times, and it blew my mind every time. The production was the highest evolution of the live, physical part of our Artform I have ever seen. It was Prince’s vision, but his production designer, LeRoy Bennett, deserves much of the credit for pulling it off. It was Rock, it was Theater, it was Soul, it was Cinema, it was Jazz, it was Broadway. The stage metamorphized into different scenes and configurations right before your eyes, transforming itself into whatever emotional setting was appropriate for each song. On top of that, the music never stopped, for three solid hours. Prince wrote various pieces, or covered Jazz, as interstitial transitions for those moments when the stage was shifting or the musicians were changing clothes. At one point, he even had a craps game break out, which made me laugh—it brought me back to Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom and our onstage Monopoly games. They captured it pretty well on film, but it can’t compare. When you’re watching a movie, your mind is used to scene changes, different sets and lighting. Live, it’s something else. That kind of legerdemain before your eyes is mind-boggling.

You will lie on your back? No harm, eh? I will watch.” “Must you?” “Hein?” Hein? Loretta had no inkling what that meant. “Must you watch? It makes me nervous. I can’t run away.” “Nuhr-vus?” “Nervous.” She shrugged one shoulder and then tried to pry his leathery fingers from around her ankle. “Nervous…uneasy.” She gave her leg a shake. His hand moved with her foot, his grip unbreakable. “Would you let go? It’s indecent, you touching me like this.” “In-dee-sent?” “Indecent. Shameful. Would you please let go? It is my foot, you know.” “And you are my woman.” She threw her head back and sighed. He had a grip like an iron vise and outweighed her by a good ninety pounds, every ounce muscle. His woman. For a moment she had lost sight of that and let him lull her into a false sense of security. He pulled on her leg and slid her toward him until she lay on her back. Then he released her ankle to loom over her, planting a hand on each side of her. Loretta stared up at his dark face, her heart pounding, her mouth dry. After struggling with him so many times, she knew how easily he could pin her beneath his weight, how quickly he could capture her hands and render her helpless. The gleam of lust in his eyes terrified her. What was to stop him from taking her? If she screamed, no one would intervene. Where were his mother and her spoon when she needed them? “You will sleep.” The low timbre of his voice vibrated through her. “I will watch.” With that, he left her and sat on his pallet. She heard a rapping sound and glanced over to find that he was chipping flint with a bone punch. On closer inspection she saw two flint arrowheads lying next to him--arrowheads that he would one day use to kill white people, no doubt. She huddled on her side and stared at him. Even from across the lodge he intimidated her. Yet she was completely dependent upon him. She would never relax enough to sleep with him sitting there.

Would you please let go? It is my foot, you know.” “And you are my woman.” She threw her head back and sighed. He had a grip like an iron vise and outweighed her by a good ninety pounds, every ounce muscle. His woman. For a moment she had lost sight of that and let him lull her into a false sense of security. He pulled on her leg and slid her toward him until she lay on her back. Then he released her ankle to loom over her, planting a hand on each side of her. Loretta stared up at his dark face, her heart pounding, her mouth dry. After struggling with him so many times, she knew how easily he could pin her beneath his weight, how quickly he could capture her hands and render her helpless. The gleam of lust in his eyes terrified her. What was to stop him from taking her? If she screamed, no one would intervene. Where were his mother and her spoon when she needed them? “You will sleep.” The low timbre of his voice vibrated through her. “I will watch.

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As I close my chemistry book, out of the corner of my eye I see Alex run his hand through his hair. “Listen, I didn’t mean to be rude to you before.” “That’s okay. I got too nosy.” “You’re right.” I stand, feeling uncomfortable. He grabs my arm and urges me back down. “No,” he says, “I mean you’re right about me. I don’t place anything permanent here.” “Why?” “My dad,” Alex says, staring at the picture on the opposite wall. He squeezes his eyes shut. “God, there was so much blood.” He opens his eyes and captures my gaze. “If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that nobody is here forever. You have to live for the moment, each and every day…the here, the now.” “And what do you want right now?” Right now I itch to heal his wounds and forget my own. He touches my cheek with the tips of his fingers. My breath hitches. “Do you want to kiss me, Alex?” I whisper. “Dios mio, I want to kiss you…to taste your lips, your tongue.” He gently traces my lips with the tips of his fingers. “Do you want me to kiss you? Nobody else would know but the two of us.

Your mind captures each moment of your life with detail. You are capable of recalling each one of them. BING - Brain is Nature’s Google

Eventually, she held up the page, satisfied. It depicted Yalb and the porter in detail, with hints of the busy city behind. She’d gotten their eyes right. That was the most important. Each of the Ten Essences had an analogous part of the human body—blood for liquid, hair for wood, and so forth. The eyes were associated with crystal and glass. The windows into a person’s mind and spirit. She set the page aside. Some men collected trophies. Others collected weapons or shields. Many collected spheres. Shallan collected people. People, and interesting creatures. Perhaps it was because she’d spent so much of her youth in a virtual prison. She’d developed the habit of memorizing faces, then drawing them later, after her father had discovered her sketching the gardeners. His daughter? Drawing pictures of darkeyes? He’d been furious with her—one of the infrequent times he’d directed his infamous temper at his daughter. After that, she’d done drawings of people only when in private, instead using her open drawing times to sketch the insects, crustaceans, and plants of the manor gardens. Her father hadn’t minded this—zoology and botany were proper feminine pursuits—and had encouraged her to choose natural history as her Calling. She took out a third blank sheet. It seemed to beg her to fill it. A blank page was nothing but potential, pointless until it was used. Like a fully infused sphere cloistered inside a pouch, prevented from making its light useful. Fill me. The creationspren gathered around the page. They were still, as if curious, anticipatory. Shallan closed her eyes and imagined Jasnah Kholin, standing before the blocked door, the Soulcaster glowing on her hand. The hallway hushed, save for a child’s sniffles. Attendants holding their breath. An anxious king. A still reverence. Shallan opened her eyes and began to draw with vigor, intentionally losing herself. The less she was in the now and the more she was in the then, the better the sketch would be. The other two pictures had been warm-ups; this was the day’s masterpiece. With the paper bound onto the board—safehand holding that—her freehand flew across the page, occasionally switching to other pencils. Soft charcoal for deep, thick blackness, like Jasnah’s beautiful hair. Hard charcoal for light greys, like the powerful waves of light coming from the Soulcaster’s gems. For a few extended moments, Shallan was back in that hallway again, watching something that should not be: a heretic wielding one of the most sacred powers in all the world. The power of change itself, the power by which the Almighty had created Roshar. He had another name, allowed to pass only the lips of ardents. Elithanathile. He Who Transforms. Shallan could smell the musty hallway. She could hear the child whimpering. She could feel her own heart beating in anticipation. The boulder would soon change. Sucking away the Stormlight in Jasnah’s gemstone, it would give up its essence, becoming something new. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat. And then the memory faded, returning her to the quiet, dim alcove. The page now held a perfect rendition of the scene, worked in blacks and greys. The princess’s proud figure regarded the fallen stone, demanding that it give way before her will. It was her. Shallan knew, with the intuitive certainty of an artist, that this was one of the finest pieces she had ever done. In a very small way, she had captured Jasnah Kholin, something the devotaries had never managed. That gave her a euphoric thrill. Even if this woman rejected Shallan again, one fact would not change. Jasnah Kholin had joined Shallan’s collection.

I was going to say, let alone that I might find a mate.” Vic’s heart swelled, and in that moment, he knew his feelings weren’t simply a case of misplaced lust, that Kellan meant something to him, that he had been led to Vale Valley for more than sanctuary. They might not be able to have a family since they couldn’t possibly be fated mates, but that was all right. They’d still have each other. “Kellan, have you ever been kissed?” Kellan blinked up at him as he shook his head. Vic framed Kellan’s face with his hands. “Then I think we should do something about that.” He held Kellan’s gaze for a moment before descending on him, capturing Kellan’s lips with his own, moving them over Kellan’s mouth. He kept his touch slow and gentle, imprinting the memory of their first kiss to hold dear in his heart forever. Kellan melted against his frame and kissed him back, his technique clumsy, but earnest. As their exchange heated, Vic wrapped one hand around Kellan’s nape and grasped his waist with the other. Kellan opened up to him and Vic dipped his tongue into Kellan’s willing mouth, tasting and exploring as much of the sweet man as he could. Vic slowed the kiss before they got too carried away, still mindful of not overwhelming him. When he broke the connection, he framed Kellan’s face again and pressed his lips to Kellan’s forehead to seal his intent. They stared into each other’s eyes in silence as they caught their breath again. Kellan curled his fingers in the fabric of Vic’s flannel shirt, clutching it as if he were scared Vic might run away. “That was… I don’t know how to describe it. Why do you taste so good?” He shivered. “I feel strange, like I’m about to burst out of my skin.” Vic rubbed Kellan’s back, trying to soothe him. “You’ve been through so much in the past twenty-four hours and you’ve just been kissed for the first time.” Vic smiled. “You’re bound to feel on edge.

Being was understood as a place of action, not a place of things.31 It was understood as something more akin to story or drama. That story or drama was lived, subjective experience, as it manifested itself moment to moment in the consciousness of every living person. It was something similar to the stories we tell each other about our lives and their personal significance; something similar to the happenings that novelists describe when they capture existence in the pages of their books. Subjective experience—that includes familiar objects such as trees and clouds, primarily objective in their existence, but also (and more importantly) such things as emotions and dreams as well as hunger, thirst and pain. It is such things, experienced personally, that are the most fundamental elements of human life, from the archaic, dramatic perspective, and they are not easily reducible to the detached and objective—even by the modern reductionist, materialist mind.

Take your time to live each day Capture moments that come your way Life has lesson's to be learned Make it your business to be concerned

She looked again at Falco’s painting of her--for her. Even though her expression was full of joy, he’d somehow managed to catch a hint of sadness in her form. The hesitance in how she lay there, as though expecting that happiness to vanish at any moment. This must be what Falco meant when he said he had done it for the art. For the first time, Cass understood. This, this truth, was exactly what she wanted to capture in her writing. She felt like weeping, but she wasn’t sure why. She and Falco understood each other, finally. It was the best possible outcome--the only possible outcome. But as she refolded a single corner of muslin over the canvas, an overwhelming sense of loss gripped her. This painting, this letter, it was Falco’s good-bye. Even if he remained in Venice, he would be gone to her. They would exist side by side, but in parallel worlds that never crossed over. Cass couldn’t believe she had ever thought Falco might be a murderer. What he had done went against the Church, but he did have reasons. Maybe de Montaigne was right. Perhaps Cass had no right to judge what Falco was doing--what he must do--to survive. She had never known, would never know, what it was like to want for money. For anything, really, except for love. Maybe love was to be the one thing that would remain forever out of reach. The thought was unbearable. Cass sat down at the servants’ table and laid her head down against the rough canvas. She tried to feel each individual brushstroke through her cheek. Each stroke was a part of Falco, a tiny piece of the man she loved.

We (1) capture what has our attention; (2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it; (3) organize the results, which presents the options we (4) reflect on, which we then choose to (5) engage with. This constitutes the management of the horizontal aspect of our lives, incorporating everything that we need to consider at any time, as we move forward moment to moment.

Nijinsky, Lawrence, Van Gogh, each had his own form of discipline towards this end. Each one had, as it were, discovered in some moment of insight a source from which these supplies of ‘more abundant life’ flowed, and each concentrated on a discipline that would make the source accessible. Lawrence was a thinker who had found imaginative relief in his study of the past. Van Gogh’s religious temperament needed to accumulate sense impressions; his striving towards a sense of ‘otherness’ took the form of a sort of pictorial memory of other times and other places: a memory that was, after all, incomplete, since he could not capture the scent of the almond tree or the hot July wind, or the tension in the air of a rising storm on his canvas. But Nijinsky’s kingdom was the body. People who saw him dance have testified to his amazing ability to become the part he was acting, whether the Negro in Scheherezade, the puppet in Petrouchka, or the Prince in Giselle. His discipline gave him the power to dismiss his identity at will, or to expand some parts and contract others to give an illusion of a completely new personality. It was this power that, at times, became a mystical intensity of abnegation in his dancing, that occasionally gave him glimpses into the ecstasy of the saint.