Wedding Essentials Quotes

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I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin. I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies. John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat. The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.
Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
Above all, we pray that they will make the journey from selfishness to true love. Whether together or single, this is a journey we all have to make. In a sense it is the real journey of life.
Jane Ross-MacDonald (Alternative Weddings: An Essential Guide for Creating Your Own Ceremony)
Making a lot of noise was considered essential for a good wedding, as keeping quiet would have been seen as suggesting that there was something shameful about the event.
Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
Happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.
Kristin Neff
WEAN YOURSELF Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game. Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding." You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer. There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Essential Rumi)
I used to think that those essentially happy and romantic novels that ended with a wedding were all wrong, that they had left out the most interesting part of the story.
Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs)
But the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. Although photography generates works that can be called art --it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure-- photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made. Out of language, one can make scientific discourse, bureaucratic memoranda, love letters, grocery lists, and Balzac's Paris. Out of photography, one can make passport pictures, weather photographs, pornographic pictures, X-rays, wedding pictures, and Atget's Paris. Photography is not an art like, say, painting and poetry. Although the activities of some photographers conform to the traditional notion of a fine art, the activity of exceptionally talented individuals producing discrete objects that have value in themselves, form the beginning photography has also lent itself to that notion of art which says that art is obsolete. The power of photography --and its centrality in present aesthetic concerns-- is that it confirms both ideas of art. But the way in which photography renders art obsolete is, in the long run, stronger.
Susan Sontag (On Photography)
The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential - X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We'd pass out every time we saw - actually saw- a flower.
Anthony Doerr (Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World)
For too long, we’d been told there were only two options: to be either tough on crime or soft on crime—an oversimplification that ignored the realities of public safety. You can want the police to stop crime in your neighborhood and also want them to stop using excessive force. You can want them to hunt down a killer on your streets and also want them to stop using racial profiling. You can believe in the need for consequence and accountability, especially for serious criminals, and also oppose unjust incarceration. I believed it was essential to weave all these varied strands together.
Kamala Harris (The Truths We Hold: An American Journey)
It was during that journey to Via Orazio that I began to be made unhappy by my own alienness. I had grown up with those boys, I considered their behavior normal, their violent language was mine. But for six years now I had also been following daily a path that they were completely ignorant of and in the end I had confronted it brilliantly. With them I couldn’t use any of what I learned every day, I had to suppress myself, in some way diminish myself. What I was in school I was there obliged to put aside or use treacherously, to intimidate them. I asked myself what I was doing in that car. They were my friends, of course, my boyfriend was there, we were going to Lila’s wedding celebration. But that very celebration confirmed that Lila, the only person I still felt was essential even though our lives had diverged, no longer belonged to us and, without her, every intermediary between me and those youths, that car racing through the streets, was gone. Why then wasn’t I with Alfonso, with whom I shared both origin and flight? Why, above all, hadn’t I stopped to say to Nino, Stay, come to the reception, tell me when the magazine with my article’s coming out, let’s talk, let’s dig ourselves a cave that can protect us from Pasquale’s driving, from his vulgarity, from the violent tones of Carmela and Enzo, and also—yes, also—of Antonio?
Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend (My Brilliant Friend, #1))
I asked myself what I was doing in that car. They were my friends, of course, my boyfriend was there, we were going to Lila’s wedding celebration. But that very celebration confirmed that Lila, the only person I still felt was essential even though our lives had diverged, no longer belonged to us and, without her, every intermediary between me and those youths, that car racing through the streets, was gone.
Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1))
You’re embarrassed.” Her brow cleared in surprise and amusement. “You’re never embarrassed. By anything. This is weird. And kind of sweet.” “I’m not embarrassed.” Mortified, he decided, but not embarrassed. “I’m simply…not entirely comfortable explaining myself. I love you,” he said and stilled her muffled chuckle. “You risk your life, a life that’s essential to me, just by being who you are. This…” He brushed his thumb over her wedding band. “Is a small and very personal shield.” “That’s lovely, Roarke. Really. But you don’t really believe all that magic nonsense.
J.D. Robb (Ceremony In Death (In Death, #5))
I'm often asked by my colleagues, of certain funny or strange words, "Is this a real word?" Of course it is - you just used it. It was crafted using characters that create a sound we both recognize and a meaning we both understand. It is not a hologram; we can write it on a piece of paper and hold it close to us for as long as we'd like. It will not dissolve into thin air. We are simply never going to live in a world in which new words aren't regularly emerging and shifting in use.
Emmy J. Favilla (A World Without "Whom": The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeed Age)
I don’t need all the fuss, all the details, all the trimmings. All, essentially, that we do here. Emma does, and Parker will, and God knows Mac’s gotten into it.” “She has, and I think it’s been a surprise to her.” “But I don’t. I don’t need a ring or a license, or a spectacular white dress. It’s not marriage so much, or at all really, that matters. It’s the promise. It’s the knowing someone wants me to be part of his life. Someone loves me, that I’m the one for him. That’s not just enough, it’s everything.
Nora Roberts (Savor the Moment (Bride Quartet, #3))
When we make our relationship a priority by showing that it’s a priority, we build trust and demonstrate our loyalty far beyond any words we say in our wedding vows.
John M. Gottman (Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love)
Love starts when peace begins.
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
Adam and I left the party, and we got into bed and tried to get through another episode of the drug cartel show we were watching that everyone said got really good at the end of the third season, but we were only up to the second, and we had existential angst about whether we should be watching something that only promised to be good but wasn’t yet. We agreed the answer was yes, that hope was good, and in those moments—the ones when we endured, the ones where we agreed, the ones where we disagreed and found the other person’s point dumb enough to laugh out loud, the ones where he still agreed to do our fully choreographed wedding dance in the kitchen for no reason at all and to no music, the ones where he showed me a window into how much smarter he was than I was and how even though he was that smart he never needed to flaunt it, the ones where we rolled our eyes at how dumb everyone else was, the ones where he evacuated me from my misery and made me a cheese omelet because I was stoned and wanted something warm and milky, that was when I remembered the most essential thing about Adam and me, which was that I never once doubted if I should be with him.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Fleishman Is in Trouble)
So I might say to her: look, the thing you have to appreciate is that we’d just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes—and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat.
Zadie Smith (Feel Free: Essays)
We were not married; she was not a dark and brooding man. It was hardly a crumbling ancestral manor; just a single-family home, built at the beginning of the Great Depression. No moors, just a golf course. But it was "woman plus habitation," and she was a stranger. That is probably the truest and most gothic part; not because of war or because we'd only met with chaperones before marriage; rather because I didn't know her, not really, until I did. She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood-a flood of what I realized I did not know. Afterward, I would mourn her as if she'd died, because something had: someone we had created together.
Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House)
Imagine if we taught baseball the way that we teach science,” says UC Berkeley psychologist Alison Gopnik. “We would tell kids about baseball in the first couple of years. By the time they got to be in junior high, maybe we’d give them a drill where they could throw the ball to second base, over and over and over again. In college, they’d get to reproduce great, famous baseball plays, and then they’d never actually get to play the game until they were in graduate school.” High-quality project-based learning is, essentially, playing ball. There
Vicki Abeles (Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation)
We are emotional beings. We feel nostalgic about people and places, sentimental about childhood. We cry at weddings and revel in surprise. We love passionately and mourn deeply. Beyond eloquent and invisible construction of the story, emotion is the glue that connects storytellers and listeners.
The Moth (How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth)
We’d die quite quickly without amino acids, the organic compounds that serve as the building blocks for every protein in the human body. Without them—and in particular the nine essential amino acids that our bodies cannot make on their own—our cells can’t assemble the life-giving enzymes needed for life.
David A. Sinclair (Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To)
Well then. Let us begin with essentials. Are you free to marry me?” He exhaled slowly, in a pointed effort not to hold his breath. “Of course. When I come of age, that is.” “Tell me your birthday.” She smiled. “The first of February.” “It will be our wedding day.” He traced the shape of the birthmark on her hip. “Very convenient for me, for your birthday and our anniversary to coincide. I’ll be more likely to remember both.” “I wish you would stop touching me there.” “Do you? Why?” “Because it is ugly. I hate it.” He tilted his head, surprised. “I quite adore it. It reminds me that you are imperfectly perfect and entirely mine.” He slid down her body and bent to kiss the mark to prove the point. “There’s a little thrill in knowing no one else has seen it.” “No other man, you mean.” He kissed her there again, this time tracing the shape with his tongue. She squirmed and laughed. “When I was a child, I would scrub at it in the bath. My nursemaid used to tell me, God gives children birthmarks so they won’t get lost.” Her mouth curled in a bittersweet smile. “Yet here I am, adrift on the ocean on the other side of the world. Don’t they call that irony?” “I believe they call it Providence.” He tightened his hands over her waist. “You’re here, and I’ve found you. And I take pains not to lose what’s mine.” He kissed her hip again, then slid his mouth toward her center as he settled between her thighs. “Gray,” she protested through a sigh of pleasure. “It’s late. We must rise.” “I assure you, I’ve risen.” “I’ve work to do.” She writhed in his grip. “The men will be wanting their breakfast.” “They’ll wait until the captain has finished his.” “Gray!” She gave a gasp of shock, then one of pleasure. “What a scoundrel you are.” He came to his knees and lifted her hips, sinking into her with a low groan. “Sweet,” he breathed as she began to move with him, “you would not have me any other way.
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
Over the years I have written many a letter for the wedding of one of the brothers and preached many a wedding sermon. The chief characteristic of such occasions essentially rested in the fact that, in the face of the "last" times (I do not mean this to sound quite so apocalyptic), someone dares to take a step of such affirmation of the earth and its future. It was then always very clear to me that a person could take this step as a Christian truly only from within a very strong faith and on the basis of grace. For here in the midst of the final destruction of all things, one desires to build; in the midst of a life lived from hour to hour and from day to day, one desires a future; in the midst of being driven out from the earth, one desires a bit of space; in the midst of the widespread misery, one desires some happiness. And the overwhelming thing is that God says yes to this strange longing, that here God consents to our will, whereas it usually meant to be just the opposite.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
But it was "woman plus habitation," and she was a stranger. That is probably the truest and most gothic part; not because of war or because we'd only net with chaperones before marriage; rather because I didn't know her, not really, until I did. She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood-a flooded of what I realized I did not know. Afterward, I would mourn her as if she'd died, because something had: someone we had created together
Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House)
According to feedback, we’d “failed to meet the relevance threshold.” It was a high bar, they explained. Many important projects had competed for the funding. Therefore, we were invited to resubmit in one year with revisions. They encouraged us to shift our focus to “issues affecting larger populations.” Essentially, they were reluctant to fund the research benefiting our small group of Natives who were clinging to the remnants of their homeland, as if they had a future. As if we’ve ever had a future.
Shane Hawk (Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology)
Quiet apart from the neurotic fear that invisible mothers or fathers may be lurking behind the marriage Veil, even the normal young man has good reason to feel apprehensive about the wedding ritual. It is essentially a woman's initiation right, in which a man is bound to feel like anything but a conquering hero. No wonder we find, in tribal societies, such counterphobic rituals as the abduction or rape of the bride. These enable the man to cling to the remnants of his heroic role at the very moment that he must submit to his bride and assume the responsibilities of marriage.
Joseph L. Henderson (Man and His Symbols)
The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential - X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We'd pass out every time we saw - actually saw- a flower...'Habitualization,' a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, 'devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war.
Anthony Doerr (Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World)
Women who feel unattractive generally don’t believe it when someone tries to assure them that they are beautiful. If beauty sickness were that easy to cure, I wouldn’t be writing this book. Instead of messages that reinforce the idea that physical beauty is an essential part of womanhood, we’d be better served by changing the conversation altogether. If we want to improve women’s physical and mental health, we need to spend less time talking about beauty and more time talking about issues that matter more. We don’t need to talk about beauty in a different way. We need to talk about it less.
Renee Engeln (Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women)
Christ must be born from every soul, formed in every life. If we had a picture of Our Lady's personality we might be dazzled into thinking that only one sort of person could form Christ in himself, and we should miss the meaning of our own being. Nothing but things essential for us are revealed to us about the Mother of God: the fact that she was wed to the Holy Spirit and bore Christ into the world. Our crowning joy is that she did this as a lay person and through the ordinary daily life that we all live; through natural love made supernatural, as the water at Cana was, at her request, turned into wine.
Caryll Houselander (The Reed of God)
The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential - X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We'd pass out every time we saw - actually saw - a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there'd be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs.
Anthony Doerr (Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World)
In middle school, embarrassment triggers our brains as though it’s actual danger. As adults, most of us can shake off being embarrassed because we have a pretty strong sense of self. When we were twelve, though, any little scratch to our delicate egos could become a scar we’d carry into adulthood. If the bad news is that people tend to carry adolescent pain forward, the good news is that the coping skills and strategies your kid learns in adolescence also stick with them. This is why learning about self-care at a young age is important. If your tween practices new coping skills now, they will be firmly cemented for recall later in life, potentially when your older teen or young adult needs them even more
Michelle Icard (Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School)
My daughter would soon be the age of the ghosts of our girlhood. I found it inconceivable that in a relatively small amount of time, my daughter could wear a wedding dress, as Lila had, end up brutalized in a man's bed, lock herself in the role of Signora Carracci; I found it equally inconceivable that, as had happened to me, she could lie under the heavy body of a grown man, at night, on the Maronti, smeared with dark sand, damp air, and bodily fluids, just for revenge. I remembered the thousands of odious things we had gone through and I let the solidarity regain force. What a waste it would be, I said to myself, to ruin our story by leaving too much space for ill feelings: ill feelings are inevitable, but the essential thing is to keep them in check.
Elena Ferrante
In 1976, a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham in England demonstrated that randomizing letters in the middle of words had no effect on the ability of readers to understand sentences. In tihs setncene, for emalxpe, ervey scarbelmd wrod rmenias bcilasaly leibgle. Why? Because we are deeply accustomed to seeing letters arranged in certain patterns. Because the eye is in a rush, and the brain, eager to locate meaning, makes assumptions. This is true of phrases, too. An author writes “crack of dawn” or “sidelong glance” or “crystal clear” and the reader’s eye continues on, at ease with combinations of words it has encountered innumerable times before. But does the reader, or the writer, actually expend the energy to see what is cracking at dawn or what is clear about a crystal? The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential—X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw—actually saw—a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs. We need habit to get through a day, to get to work, to feed our children. But habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic. The eye sees something—gray-brown bark, say, fissured into broad, vertical plates—and the brain spits out tree trunk and the eye moves on. But did I really take the time to see the tree? I glimpse hazel hair, high cheekbones, a field of freckles, and I think Shauna. But did I take the time to see my wife? “Habitualization,” a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, “devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.” What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things—words, friends, apartments—as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.
Anthony Doerr (Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World)
And I'm sure we'd all agree that it would be an excellent thing if a ruler were to have all the good qualities mentioned above and none of the bad; but since it's in the nature of life that you can't have or practice all those qualities all the time, a ruler must take care to avoid the disgrace that goes with the king of failings that could lose him his position. As for failings that wouldn't lead to his losing power, he should avoid them if he can; but if he can't, he needn't worry too much. In the same way, he mustn't be concerned about the bad reputation that comes with those negative qualities that are almost essential if he is to hold power. If you think about it, there'll always be something that looks morally right but would actually lead a ruler to disaster, and something else that looks wrong but will bring security and success.
Niccolò Machiavelli ("The Prince (classics illustrated) ")
And I'm sure we'd all agree that it would be an excellent thing if a ruler were to have all the good qualities mentioned above and none of the bad; but since it's in the nature of life that you can't have or practice all those qualities all the time, a ruler must take care to avoid the disgrace that goes with the kind of failings that could lose him his position. As for failings that wouldn't lead to his losing power, he should avoid them if he can; but if he can't, he needn't worry too much. In the same way, he mustn't be concerned about the bad reputation that comes with those negative qualities that are almost essential if he is to hold power. If you think about it, there'll always be something that looks morally right but would actually lead a ruler to disaster, and something else that looks wrong but will bring security and success.
Niccolò Machiavelli ("The Prince (classics illustrated) ")
In all cultures, ceremonies are designed to communicate the experience of one group of people to the wider community. When people bury loved ones, when they wed, when they graduate from college, the respective ceremonies communicate something essential to the people who are watching... if contemporary America doesn’t develop ways to publicly confront the emotional consequences of war those consequences will continue to burn a hole through the vets themselves... ...Offer veterans all over the country the use of their town hall every Veteran’s Day to speak freely about their experience at war... A community ceremony like that would finally return the experience of war to our entire nation, rather than just leaving it to the people who fought. The bland phrase “I support the troops” would then mean showing up at the town hall once a year to hear these people out.
Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
I’ve always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for. When I was little, my mother would come home from a party, her hair cool from the wind, her perfume almost gone, and her lips a faded red, and she would coo at me: “You’re still awake! Hiiii.” And I’d think how beautiful she was and how I always wanted to remember her stepping out of the elevator in her pea-green wool coat, thirty-nine years old, just like that. Sixteen, lying on the dock at night with my camp boyfriend, taking tiny sips from a bottle of vodka. But school was so essentially repulsive to me, so characterized by a desire to be done. That’s part of why it hurts so bad to see it again. I didn’t drink in the essence of the classroom. I didn’t take legible notes or dance all night. I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we’d make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened. Then why am I so sad?
Lena Dunham (Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned")
Anyone who’s spent time below the Mason-Dixon line knows this truth: Southern women are anything but ordinary. Our unique, often unspoken code of conduct has allowed us to survive good times and bad, and never lose the sense of who we are. Margaret Mitchell, the belle of Southern female writers, got it right when she had Scarlett O’Hara come down the stairs in a dress made out of curtains: a Southern girl knows that pride and endurance always come before vanity. Our character is both created by, and essential to, the fabric of our society. Without the strength of the Southern girl, the South couldn’t have survived its rich and rocky history; without history, on the other hand, the Southern girl wouldn’t be who she is today. It’s sometimes suggested (by Yankees, we’d wager) that Grits are one-dimensional. This is not surprising: those who don’t understand us see only our outward devotion to femininity and charm. What they are missing is the fact that, like the magnolia tree, our beautiful blossoms are the outward expression of the strength that lies beneath.
Deborah Ford (Grits (Girls Raised in the South) Guide to Life)
I’m grateful for all the things I have that remind me of Chris--photos, videos, notes and emails he wrote, tangible pieces of him. We’re blessed to have them, just as we are blessed to have his memory. But I also know that sometimes those reminders can hurt, and not just me. When we were preparing to move into the new house, Angel mentioned to me that she wouldn’t mind having fewer pictures of Daddy in the hall. “I love seeing him,” she confessed, “but sometimes they hurt.” I know exactly what she meant. I love looking at them too, but sometimes I can’t take the emotions they provoke. And I know, too, that there’s a difference between building on the past and getting stuck in it. I love that wedding photo of us because we’re both looking off into the future. And that was Chris. That was the essential part of him: fearless, and hopeful, always moving forward. That’s the part of him that I hold most dear, and that’s the part of him that I struggle to bring with me every day: fearless and courageous, ready for anything, striding toward tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow.
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential - X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We'd pass out every time we saw - actually saw - a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there'd be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs. We need habit to get through a day, to get to work, to feed our children. But habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic. The eye sees something - gray-brown bark, say, fissured into broad, vertical plates - and the brain spits out tree trunk and the eye moves on. But did I really take the time to see the tree? I glimpse hazel hair, high cheekbones, a field of freckles, and I think Shauna. But did I take the time to see my wife?
Anthony Doerr (Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World)
Alex Honnold, free solo climbing phenom: The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding and others: ambitones like The Zen Effect in the key of C for 30 minutes, made by Rolfe Kent, the composer of music for movies like Sideways, Wedding Crashers, and Legally Blonde Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of WordPress, CEO of Automattic: “Everyday” by A$AP Rocky and “One Dance” by Drake Amelia Boone, the world’s most successful female obstacle course racer: “Tonight Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins and “Keep Your Eyes Open” by NEEDTOBREATHE Chris Young, mathematician and experimental chef: Paul Oakenfold’s “Live at the Rojan in Shanghai,” Pete Tong’s Essential Mix Jason Silva, TV and YouTube philosopher: “Time” from the Inception soundtrack by Hans Zimmer Chris Sacca: “Harlem Shake” by Baauer and “Lift Off” by Jay Z and Kanye West, featuring Beyoncé. “I can bang through an amazing amount of email with the Harlem Shake going on in the background.” Tim Ferriss: Currently I’m listening to “Circulation” by Beats Antique and “Black Out the Sun” by Sevendust, depending on whether I need flow or a jumpstart.
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
claque, aka canned laughter It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history—the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada—but it’s the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it became fashionable to hold parties where guests would inhale nitrous oxide out of bladders. In other words, Whip-it parties! We held the exact same kind of parties in high school. We’d buy fourteen cans of Reddi-Wip and suck on them till we had successfully obliterated a couple of million neurons and face-planted on my friend Andy’s couch. And we thought we were so cutting edge. And now, I learn about claque, which is essentially a highbrow French word for canned laughter. Canned laughter was invented long before Lucille Ball stuffed chocolates in her face or Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with extreme violence. It goes back to the 4th century B.C., when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges. The Romans also stacked the audience, but they were apparently more interested in applause than chuckles: Nero—emperor and wannabe musician—employed a group of five thousand knights and soldiers to accompany him on his concert tours. But the golden age of canned laughter came in 19th-century France. Almost every theater in France was forced to hire a band called a claque—from claquer, “to clap.” The influential claque leaders, called the chefs de claque, got a monthly payment from the actors. And the brilliant innovation they came up with was specialization. Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform: There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbors and say, “This is the good part.” And my favorite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies. I love this idea. I’m not sure why the networks never thought of canned crying. You’d be watching an ER episode, and a softball player would come in with a bat splinter through his forehead, and you’d hear a little whimper in the background, turning into a wave of sobs. Julie already has trouble keeping her cheeks dry, seeing as she cried during the Joe Millionaire finale. If they added canned crying, she’d be a mess.
A.J. Jacobs (The Know-it-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World)
I breathed in a deep dose of night air, trying to calm my schoolgirl nervousness. “I, umm…” I began. “I decided to stick around here a little while.” There. I’d said it. This was all officially real. Without a moment of hesitation, Marlboro Man wrapped his ample arms around my waist. Then, in what seemed to be less than a second, he hoisted me from my horizontal position on the bed of his pickup until we were both standing in front of each other. Scooping me off my feet, he raised me up to his height so his icy blue eyes were level with mine. “Wait…are you serious?” he asked, taking my face in his hands. Squaring it in front of his. Looking me in the eye. “You’re not going?” “Nope,” I answered. “Whoa,” he said, smiling and moving in for a long, impassioned kiss on the back of his Ford F250. “I can’t believe it,” he continued, squeezing me tightly. Our knees buckled under the heat, and before I knew it we were back where we’d been before, rolling around and kissing manically in the bed of his diesel pickup. Occasionally my arm would hit a crowbar and my head would slam against a spare tire or a cattle prod or a jack; I didn’t care, of course. I’d said what I wanted to say that night. Everything else--even minor head injuries--was a piece of cake. We stayed there a long, long time, the balmy night air giving us no good reason to leave. Under the innumerable stars, amidst all the embraces and kisses and sounds from the surrounding livestock, I suddenly felt more at peace in my decision than I had since my phone call with Rhonda the Realtor that morning. I felt at home, comfortable, nestled in, wonderful. My life had changed that day, changed in a way I never, ever, could have predicted. My big-city plans--plans many months in the making--had all at once been smashed to smithereens by a six-foot cowboy with manure on his boots. A cowboy I’d known, essentially, for less than three weeks. It was the craziest thing I’d ever done, deciding to take an impulsive walk down this new and unexpected path. And while I secretly wondered how long it would take for me to regret my decision, I rested easily, at least for that night, in the knowledge that I’d had the courage to step out on such an enormous limb. It was late. Time to go. “Want me to drive you home now?” Marlboro Man asked, lacing our fingers together, kissing the back of my hand. “Or, do you…” He paused, considering his words. “Do you want to come stay at my place?
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
In life,” he said, “there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography, are a lie. Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. Hamlet could be told from Polonius’s point of view and called The Tragedy of Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. He didn’t think he was a minor character in anything, I daresay. Or suppose you’re an usher in a wedding. From the groom’s viewpoint he’s the major character; the others play supporting parts, even the bride. From your viewpoint, though, the wedding is a minor episode in the very interesting history of your life, and the bridge and groom both are minor figures. What you’ve done is choose to play the part of a minor character: it can be pleasant for you to pretend to be less important you know you are, as Odysseus does when he disguises as a swineherd. And every member of the congregation at the wedding sees himself as the major character, condescending to witness the spectacle. So in this sense fiction isn’t a lie at all, but a true representation of the distortion that everyone makes of life. “Now, not only are we the heroes of our own life stories–we’re the ones who conceive the story, and give other people the essences of minor characters. But since no man’s life story as a rule is ever one story with a coherent plot, we’re always reconceiving just the sort of hero we are, and consequently just the sort of minor roles that other people are supposed to play. This is generally true. If any man displays almost the same character day in and day out, all day long, it’s either because he has no imagination, like an actor who can play only one role, or because he has an imagination so comprehensive that he sees each particular situation of his life as an episode in some grand over-all plot, and can so distort the situations that the same type of hero can deal with them all. But this is most unusual. “This kind of role-assigning is myth-making, and when it’s done consciously or unconsciously for the purpose of aggrandizing or protecting your ego–and it’s probably done for this purpose all the time–it becomes Mythotherapy. Here’s the point: an immobility such as you experienced that time in Penn Station is possible only to a person who for some reason or other has ceased to participate in Mythotherapy. At that time on the bench you were neither a major nor a minor character: you were no character at all. It’s because this has happened once that it’s necessary for me to explain to you something that comes quite naturally to everyone else. It’s like teaching a paralytic how to walk again.
John Barth
Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole. What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house? I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want. Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process. These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can make a thing) or subscription services (which is more like pay me some money every month so that I can make things) or Patreon, which is like pay per piece of content pledge service (that basically means pay me some money every time I make a thing). It doesn't matter, the fundamental building block of all of these relationships boils down to the same simple thing: trust. If you're asking your fans to support you, the artist, it shouldn't matter what your choices are, as long as you're delivering your side of the bargain. You may be spending the money on guitar picks, Mai Tais, baby formula, college loans, gas for the car or coffee to fuel your all-night writing sessions. As long as art is coming out the other side, and you're making your patrons happy, the money you need to live (and need to live is hard to define) is almost indistinguishable from the money you need to make art. ... (6:06:57) ... When she posts a photo of herself in a vintage dress that she just bought, no one scolds her for spending money on something other than effects pedals. It's not like her fan's money is an allowance with nosy and critical strings attached, it's a gift in the form of money in exchange for her gift, in the form of music. The relative values are... messy. But if we accept the messiness we're all okay. If Beck needs to moisturize his cuticles with truffle oil in order to play guitar tracks on his crowdfunded record, I don't care that the money I fronted him isn't going towards two turntables or a microphone; just as long as the art gets made, I get the album and Beck doesn't die in the process.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
Professor of Comparative Literature, B.A. Harvard. Ph.D. Sorbonne, Oxford. Somewhere certificates pasted in full-of-truth blue book. At points we diverge, essential points in fact. Always a clean white page to begin on. Où sont les neiges. The boy had been strangely unreluctant. Although detached, even cold in a numb, childish fashion, the boy had willingly submitted. First his shoes, then his socks and trousers pulled off by the Doctor’s trembling white hands, his priest hands moving of themselves, mechanical but infused with timeless primordial mystery that guided his fingers with a logic more powerful and comprehending than his own being. The flesh presented to his lips, staleness of his own groin floating up to meet him as he knelt. Breath of a dying wino. With this kiss I thee wed, the lean black bridegroom puff of veiled white beside him arm curled into his as they stood rigid with grotesque, confectionary smiles atop the pyramid of cake. Stale cake toppling then as knife keenly enters collapsing with a wheeze the creamy icing. He gave of himself in grudged thin spasms. The hierophant rose on stiff knees.
John Edgar Wideman (A Glance Away)
On our first night looking at the new book, we marveled over the photo and description of Argiope aurantia, the Black and Yellow Argiope spider, common throughout the United States. And the very next day, for the first time ever, we found a wriggling cluster of freshly emerged argiope spiderlings under the lowest wooden step of our back deck. While Claire hovered over the spiderlings and sketched them in her notebook, I wondered over the fact that if we'd found these spiders just the day before, we would have known nothing about them. And I was sure, on some level, that it was learning about them that allowed us to find them, Whenever I renew a commitment to studying raptors or gulls or crows or the birds in my backyard, more are given, more show themselves. Our efforts are rewarded, our studies are enhanced in experience. I cannot explain this, and I am reluctant to sound too woo-woo but we can take this as confidently as if it came from the Oracle at Delphi: the more we prepare, the more we are "allowed" somehow to see. This is a guarantee: select a subject, obtain a proper field guide, study it well, and you will see more than you ever have of your chosen subject — and more than that besides.
Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness)
Now, we can’t switch off our automatic system’s filtering function—by definition, it’s automatic. But we can adjust the settings, by being more proactive in defining what our brain sees as “important” each day. If we do that, we can affect what our conscious brain gets to see and hear. It’s one of the most powerful ways to steer our day toward the reality we’d most like to experience.
Caroline Webb (How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond)
It was true. Sugar did treat her bees like next of kin but then again, they were. Along with her manners, the accent she tried so hard to soften, a single china cup covered in blue daisies and a weathered box of essential oils, they were all she carried with her from her past. Her bees relied on her for shelter and food but she relied on them too. She made her living from their honey, not just the healthful liquid itself but from the salves and gels and tinctures and remedies she created and sold at farm stands or farmers' markets wherever she lived. It was the most symbiotic of relationships.
Sarah-Kate Lynch (The Wedding Bees)
Nine Strategies for Walking More • Walk while you talk. Use personal phone calls and even work meeting calls as opportunity to walk, whether it’s outside or just around your home or office space. • Communicate in person. At work, walk to talk to a colleague before you call or click. • Walk your dog! If you don’t have one, maybe this will inspire you to get one: A U.K. study found that dog-owners walk twenty-two minutes more per day than non-dog-owners. At the very least, borrow your neighbor’s dog—it’s the rare canine that won’t enjoy an extra outing. • Walk your kid to school. If it’s safe, there is no better way to get steps in while also doing something healthy for your child (see Steps, Community, and Less Loneliness, this page). • Take the stairs. Okay, you’ve heard this one before, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that taking the stairs is another way to get steps in without having to go for a formal walk. Every flight counts. • Shop in person. During the pandemic, a lot of us got used to ordering groceries and just about everything else online.
Kelly Starrett (Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully)
We’d wager that there is not a physician in the country who advises their patients to squat for good health. And yet there’s evidence that squatting really can make a difference in your well-being. Researchers at Chinese and U.S. universities collaborated in 2002 to publish the results of a study comparing the prevalence of arthritis of the hip in elderly people in China and the United States. The study found that the occurrence of arthritic hip pain in Chinese men and women was 80 to 90 percent lower than for their American counterparts.
Kelly Starrett (Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully)
So we decided to take a different tack. We made a plan to get up twenty minutes earlier and start walking our girls to school. Our older daughter was in third grade and our youngest was in kindergarten. Both were able to do the mile-and-a-half distance, and it turned into a lovely family time. We’d walk and talk, nobody on a phone, and saunter through a field where we’d look at bugs and leaves. Despite the fact that the girls attended a community school—most everyone attending lived within a two-mile range—we rarely saw any other kids walking or biking on our route.
Kelly Starrett (Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully)
The people who worked there were young, too. In my early thirties, I was one of the oldest members of staff. Perhaps because of this, I made an extra show of my enthusiasm for the role. My white-hot passion for multimedia marketing. My fanatical fervour for company-client relations. I stayed later than anyone else. Talked louder. Worked harder. Or at least, more overtly. I’d buzz about the building like a Benzedrine-addled bumblebee, spewing worn-out idioms to anyone in earshot. Shooting from the hip. Thinking outside the box. I was such a fucking idiot. We all were. And the inflated sense of self-importance. My God. Because you see, we weren’t just there to make a salary. Or to pimp advertising space. Or to make our shareholders richer. Oh no. We were out there making a real difference to the world. We were shaping relationships. We were curating memories. We were facilitating meaningful connections in a noisy world. Jesus. It was like a cult. And I hadn’t just drunk the Kool-Aid. I’d filled a paddling pool and was doing backstroke in the stuff. To think we actually thought what we were doing mattered. In the way that food matters. Or shelter. Or water. Or clean air. What a terrible joke we were. Of course, once the outbreak happened, it quickly transpired we weren’t as essential as we’d assumed. The company folded. Too many dead. Or not enough people alive to make it worthwhile. Whatever
Liam Brown (Skin)
Now, though, as we assembled the crew to work on our second film, A Bug’s Life, drawing on people who’d been key to Toy Story’s evolution, I discovered we’d completely missed a serious, ongoing rift between our creative and production departments. In short, production managers told me that working on Toy Story had been a nightmare. They felt disrespected and marginalized—like second-class citizens. And while they were gratified by Toy Story’s success, they were very reluctant to sign on to work on another film at Pixar. I was floored. How had we missed this? The answer, at least in part, was rooted in the role production managers play in making our films. Production managers are the people who keep track of the endless details that ensure that a movie is delivered on time and on budget. They monitor the overall progress of the crew; they keep track of the thousands of shots; they evaluate how resources are being used; they persuade and cajole and nudge and say no when necessary. In other words, they do something essential for a company whose success relies on hitting deadlines and staying on-budget: They manage people and safeguard the process. If there was one thing we prided ourselves on at Pixar, it was making sure that Pixar’s artists and technical people treated each other as equals, and I had assumed that that same mutual respect would be afforded to those who managed the productions. I had assumed wrong. Sure enough, when I checked with the artists and technical staff, they did believe that production managers were second-class and that they impeded—not facilitated—good filmmaking by overcontrolling the process, by micromanaging. Production managers, the folks I consulted told me, were just sand in the gears.
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
there is no real difference between earthly experience and divine experience. Those who are wedded to forms, that is, appearances, set up such a difference and posit spirit and matter, nirvana and samsara, Brahman and Maya, and so forth, as antithetic opposites, but those who have developed insight perceive the essential stuff of everything even while they perceive its forms; hence they see all as One.
Paul Brunton (The Short Path to Enlightenment: Instructions for Immediate Awakening)
hearing aids were optional. We’d wear them if we felt they helped with communication. American Sign Language, on the other hand, was essential. Our communication began and ended with ASL. Unfortunately, the school’s views were flipped the other way around. Hearing aids were required; ASL was an afterthought.
Nyle DiMarco (Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—and a Love Letter to a Way of Life)
Migraine, like my patient Sarah had, also correlates closely to poor metabolic health. In the ENT otology clinic, we often saw this condition and had limited success in treating it. Sufferers of this debilitating neurological disease—about 12 percent of people in the United States—tend to have higher insulin levels and insulin resistance. A comprehensive review of fifty-six research articles identified links between migraine and poor metabolic health, pointing out that “migraine sufferers tend to have impaired insulin sensitivity.” The review supports the “neuro-energetic” theory of migraine. Additionally, evidence suggests that micronutrient deficiencies in key mitochondrial cofactors may also be a contributing factor of migraine. Research has suggested that migraines could be treated by restoring levels of vitamins B and D, magnesium, CoQ10, alpha lipoic acid, and L-carnitine. Vitamin B12, for instance, is involved in the electron transport chain responsible for the final steps of ATP generation in the mitochondria, and studies have indicated that high doses of B12 can help prevent migraine. These micronutrients usually have fewer side effects than other drugs used to treat migraines, making them a promising option for relief, which can be obtained through a diet rich in these micronutrients, or supplementation. Having high markers of oxidative stress, a key Bad Energy feature, is associated with a significantly higher risk of migraine in women, with some studies suggesting that migraine attacks are a symptomatic response to increased levels of oxidative stress. Less painful and more common tension-type headaches are also linked to high variability (excess peaks and crashes) in blood sugar. Hearing Loss The same story of metabolic ignorance in the ENT department unfolded for auditory problems and hearing loss, one of the most common issues presented to our ENT clinic. We’d typically tell our patients that their auditory decline was inevitable, due to aging and loud concerts in their youth, and we would suggest interventions like hearing aids. Yet insulin resistance is a little-known link to hearing problems. If you have insulin resistance, you are more likely to lose hearing as you age because of poor energy production in the delicate hearing cells and blockage of the small blood vessels that supply the inner ear. One study showed that insulin resistance is associated with age-related hearing loss, even when controlling for weight and age. The likely mechanism for this is that the auditory system requires high energy utilization for its complex signal processing. In the case of insulin resistance, glucose metabolism is disturbed, leading to decreased energy generation. The impact of Bad Energy on hearing is not subtle: A study showed that the prevalence of high-frequency hearing impairment among subjects with elevated fasting glucose levels was 42 percent compared to 24 percent in those with normal fasting glucose. Moreover, insulin resistance is associated with high-frequency mild hearing impairment in the male population under seventy years of age, even before the onset of diabetes. These papers suggest that assessing early metabolic function and levels of insulin resistance is essential in the ENT clinic and counseling individuals on the potential warning signs is paramount.
Casey Means (Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health)
Whether or not one believes in the accelerating dangers of the climate crisis, the end of fossil fuels, or the permanent annihilation of species of plants, insects and animals that essentially cover our ass by maintaining an inconceivably complex environment in which we have the freedom and responsibility to do pretty much whatever we’d like, it’s not too difficult to at least perceive the dangers of heightened tensions between cultures that now, for the first time, have the power to annihilate each other or the entire planet.
Darrell Calkins
The hybrid hunter-farmer sales role is the model that dominates small and mid-size companies. I understand that there’s no easy solution. If there was, we’d all be implementing it. But I want to be very clear here: This single issue is hurting new business development sales more than any other issue today.
Mike Weinberg (New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development)
What if we viewed a bride walking down an aisle toward a tuxedoed groom standing anxiously at an altar as the first step on a lifelong march toward justice and the common good? What if we understood that white dress and tux as work clothes, and the wedding rings as essential equipment for building a strong social foundation? What if a pledge of permanence meant more for economic security than just the fulfillment of sexual ecstasy?
Andrew T. Walker (Marriage Is: How Marriage Transforms Society and Cultivates Human Flourishing)
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying motherhood lacks meaning. There's great dignity in the smallness of motherhood; we're essential in our contingency. And though we may not follow the Western model of the epic hero, we mothers can find a metaphor for our lives. The metaphor is in the kuroko, the Kabuki theater stage assistant. You've heard of Kabuki—with its wildly theatrical actors, its gorgeous costumes, and spectacular scale. The kuroko are assistants who help the actors move through their elaborate dramas. Meant to provide unobtrusive assistance with props and costumes, kuroko try to remain in the wings. They huddle in half-kneeling posture, wearing black bags over their heads and bodies—the better to recede into both actors' and audience's preconscious mind. Scurrying to arrange the trailing hems of heavy brocade kimonos, like an American mother repeatedly straightening her daughter's wedding train, the kuroko's role is to suport the real players of life's dramas.
Lydia Minatoya (The Strangeness of Beauty (Norton Paperback Fiction))
Marriage is not essential to the contentment, the dignity, or the happiness of woman.
Catharine Maria Sedgwick (Hope Leslie: or, Early Times in the Massachusetts)
Q: What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? A: One less drunk.
Scott McNeely (Ultimate Book of Jokes: The Essential Collection of More Than 1,500 Jokes)
A widely quoted study from the Oxford Martin School predicts that technology threatens to replace 47 percent of all US jobs within 20 years. One of Pew experts even foresees the advent of “robotic sex partners.’’ The world’s oldest profession may be no more. When all this happens, what, exactly, will people do? Half of those in the Pew report are relatively unconcerned, believing — as has happened in the past — that even as technology destroys jobs, it creates more new ones. But half are deeply worried, fearing burgeoning unemployment, a growing schism between the highly educated and everyone else, and potentially massive social dislocation. (The fact that Pew’s experts are evenly split also exposes one of the truths of prognostication: A coin flip might work just as well.) Much of this debate over more or fewer jobs misses a key element, one brought up by some of those surveyed by Pew: These are primarily political issues; what happens is up to us. If lower-skilled jobs are no more, the solution, quite obviously, is training and education. Moreover, the coming world of increasingly ubiquitous robotics has the potential for significant increases in productivity. Picture, for instance, an entirely automated farm, with self-replicating and self-repairing machines planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and delivering. Food wouldn’t be free, but it could become so cheap that, like water (Detroit excepted), it’s essentially available to everyone for an almost nominal cost. It’s a welfare state, of course, but at some point, with machines able to produce the basic necessities of life, why not? We’d have a world of less drudgery and more leisure. People would spend more time doing what they want to do rather than what they have to do. It might even cause us to rethink what it means to be human. Robots will allow us to use our “intelligence in new ways, freeing us up from menial tasks,’’ says Tiffany Shlain, host of AOL’s “The Future Starts Here.’’ Just as Lennon hoped and Star Trek predicted.
Anonymous
So we can’t make marriage anything but the permanent sexual union of a man and a woman without undermining its central purpose of pointing us to the passionate consummation of God’s love for his people. Knowing all of this is why my favorite moment of any wedding is when the groom looks down the aisle to see his bride walking toward him. That moment reminds me of Jesus looking down the aisle of history to his church with the same look of love on his face. That look being exchanged between two men or two women would imply that Jesus’ role could be taken by any of us—that there is no essential difference between God and his people. That is not the case—and so that is not possible. Sexual difference matters that much. C.
Ed Shaw (Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life)
In Berridge and Robinson’s view, pleasure is divided into “wanting” (hunt) and “liking” (feast). As we’ll see, the distinction is especially important in addiction because each type has a different influence on learning. Like many discoveries in science, this one was made when the researchers were trying to understand why an experiment didn’t work out as they’d predicted. They’d used a chemical that selectively destroys dopamine cells in the nucleus accumbens of rats to eliminate their “pleasure centers.” Not surprisingly, after these key dopamine cells were eliminated, the rodents became so amotivated that if the researchers hadn’t manually fed them, they would have starved to death. “They wouldn’t want to eat. They wouldn’t want to drink,” Berridge says. “We’d have to artificially nurse them and artificially feed them, the way you would in a hospital intensive care ward.” The rats behaved as though they had extremely severe Parkinson’s, which they essentially did. Destroying their dopamine cells had taken away their motivation, leaving them with no desire or will to do anything at all, even what was necessary for survival.
Maia Szalavitz (Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction)
I didn’t feel old enough to be anyone’s wife, or that I knew enough or had lived enough, or understood the essential things. I didn’t know how to say any of this to Jock, either. That I was afraid of the promises we’d made. That late at night as I lay beside him in bed I felt lonely and numb, as if some part of me had died.
Paula McLain (Circling the Sun)
I’ll see that Hap gets his apprenticeship. You simply could have asked me to do that when I visited you. Or years ago, you could have brought the lad to Buckkeep and we’d have seen him decently educated.” “He can read and write and figure,” I said defensively. “I saw to that.” “Good.” His reply was chill. “I’m glad to hear you retained that much common sense.” There seemed no rejoinder to that. Both pain and weariness were overcoming me. I knew I had hurt him but I didn’t feel it was my fault. How could I have known he’d be so willing to help me? Nevertheless, I apologized. “Chade, I’m sorry. I should have known you would help me.” “Yes,” he agreed mercilessly. “You should have. And you’re sorry. I don’t doubt you’re sincere. Yet I seem to recall warning you, years ago, that those words will only work so often, and then they ring hollow. Fitz, it hurts me to see you this way.” “It’s starting to ease,” I lied. “Not your head, you stupid ass. It hurts me to see that you are still…as you’ve always been since…damn. Since you were taken from your mother. Wary and isolated and mistrustful. Despite all I’ve…After all these years, have you given your trust to no one?” I was silent for a time, pondering his words. I had love Molly, but I had never trusted her with my secrets. My bond with Chade was as essential as my bones, but no, I had not believed he would do all he could for Hap,simply for the sake of what we shared. Burrich. Verity. Kettricken. Lady Patience. Starling. In every instance, I had held back. “I trust the Fool,” I said, and wondered if I truly did. I did, I assured myself. There was almost nothing about mr that he didn’t know. That was trust, wasn’t it? After a moment, Chade said heavily, “Well, that’s good. That you trust someone.” He turned away from me spoke to the fire. “You should force yourself to eat something. Your body may rebel, but you know that you need the food. Recall how we had to press food on Verity when he skilled.” The neutrality in his voice was almost painful. I realized then that he had hoped I would insist that I did trust him. It would not have been true, and I would not lie to him. I rummaged about in my mind for something else to give him. I spoke the words without thinking. “Chade, I do love you. It’s just that—” He turned to me almost abruptly. “Stop. Say no more.” His voice was almost pleading as he said, “That’s enough for me.” He set his hand to my shoulder and squeezed nearly painfully. “I won’t ask of you that which you can’t give. You are what life has made you. And what I made you, Eda be merciful.
Robin Hobb (Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1))
AM: You know [my mother] could read a novel in an afternoon. She was the fastest reader I’ve ever met in my life. Not only that she’d remember it for the rest of her life. JM: She was a very complicated woman. Very complex… AM: She had the energy of a dynamo. KM: she could sing, she could play the piano… JC: She could be quite flamboyant. AM: She used to dance on the table on New Year’s Eve. KM: … she could draw, she could… she was a helluva bridge player. JC: She was funny. JM: … very bitchy. KM: She had an attitude about most things. AM: Oh well, yeah [we kept kosher]… until she started making bacon. Loved bacon. JM: I think she tried to rule and divide the kids. JC: Yeah, you see I always consider myself the favourite. AM: Yeah, I think I was [the favourite]. … AM: See I would, for example if I didn’t want to go to school, I would start limping around. My mother immediately caught on and she said ‘You don’t want to have to go to school today, you’re limping.’ And we’d both go to some place and have oysters. RM: You said that she saw portents in a lot of things, she saw signs. AM: She saw… mysterious things in the air from time to time. She’d have feelings from people. She once sat up in bed in the middle of the night, she suddenly said ‘My mother died’. And indeed at that moment her mother had died. RM: How d’you think that translated into you though? AM: Well, I used to think that the way… that a play was not about what was spoken but what was between the spoken lines. That the world is essentially is not what we call real. And these arts are attempting to approach that world. And it all comes from my mother. Y’know, its always coming from somewhere. She was that way. She idiolised artists, pianists, writers and so on. My father had no knowledge of any of that.
Rebecca Miller
He realized the human genome, which is essentially the entirety of our heredity information, which programs cell growth, was changing, becoming corrupted.” “By what?” “By what?” Jenkins laughed. “By everything. By what we’d already done to the earth, and by all that we would do in the coming centuries. Mammal extinction. Deforestation. Loss of polar sea ice. Ozone. Increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Acid rain. Ocean dead zones. Overfishing. Offshore oil drilling. Wars. The creation of a billion gasoline-burning automobiles. The nuclear disasters—Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl. The two-thousand-plus intentional nuclear bomb detonations in the name of weapons testing. Toxic waste dumping. Exxon Valdez. BP’s Gulf oil spill. All the poisons we put into our food and water every day. “Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars. But we aren’t rock stars. In the scheme of evolutionary forces, we are a weak, fragile species. Our genome is corruptible, and we so abused this planet that we ultimately corrupted that precious DNA blueprint that makes us human.
Blake Crouch (Pines: Wayward Pines: 1 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy))
But we were essentially both going through the same thing, and as long as we stayed strong, it would happen eventually, right? For some reason, life had just thrown everything at us, one thing after another. We needed to remain positive; we were going to get the house of our dreams and start building a family, just like we'd wanted.
Philip Anthony Smith (The Woman He Left Behind)
Flirting for Theo is like breathing. Perhaps even more essential. If the tabloids are anything to go by, orgasms are more important to him than oxygen.
Sophia Travers (One Wealthy Wedding (Kings Lane Billionaires, #3))
He’ll make me forget why I’m angry at him. It’s essential that I remember. I refuse to be sucked in again.
Sophia Travers (One Wealthy Wedding (Kings Lane Billionaires, #3))
Listening with your body, participating in the context, is so powerful precisely because it removes one of the greatest tools of listening and the greatest potential for bias: the question. Often, as we’re articulating the questions we ask in field research, the patterns we think we’ll see or the patterns we’d like to see start to get embedded in the question. In these cases, the question can become the enemy of the truth.
Fred Dust (Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Communication)
Sir,’ I commented, ‘I have been thinking of the scientific men of the West, greater by far in intelligence than most people congregated here, living in distant Europe and America, professing different creeds, and ignorant of the real values of such melas as the present one. They are the men who could benefit greatly by meetings with India’s masters. But, although high in intellectual attainments, many Westerners are wedded to rank materialism. Others, famous in science and philosophy, do not recognize the essential unity in religion. Their creeds serve as insurmountable barriers that threaten to separate them from us forever.’ ‘I saw that you are interested in the West, as well as the East.’ Babaji’s face beamed with approval. ‘I felt the pangs of your heart, broad enough for all men, whether Oriental or Occidental. That is why I summoned you here. ‘East and West must establish a golden middle path of activity and spirituality combined,’ he continued. ‘India has much to learn from the West in material development; in return, India can teach the universal methods by which the West will be able to base its religious beliefs on the unshakable foundations of yogic science.
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi)
And we're cheerful, too. You can count on that.' Obligingly she smiled in a neighbourly way at him. 'It will be a relief to leave Earth with its repressive legislation. We were listening OH the FM to the news about the McPhearson Act.' 'We consider it dreadful,' the adult male said. 'I have to agree with you,' Chic said. 'But what can one do?' He looked around for the mail; as always it was lost somewhere in the mass of clutter. 'One can emigrate,' the adult male simulacrum pointed out. 'Um,' Chic said absently. He had found an unexpected heap of recent-looking bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to sort through them. Had Maury seen these? Probably. Seen them and then pushed them away immediately, out of sight. Frauenzimmer Associates functioned better if it was not reminded of such facts of life. Like a regressed neurotic, it had to hide several aspects of reality from its percept system in order to function at all. This was hardly ideal, but what really was the alternative? To be realistic would be to give up, to die. Illusion, of an infantile nature was essential for the tiny firm's survival, or at least so it seemed to him and Maury. In any case both of them had adopted this attitude. Their simulacra -- the adult ones -- disapproved of this; their cold, logical appraisal of reality stood in sharp contrast, and Chic always felt a little naked, a little embarrassed, before the simulacra; he knew he should set a better example for them. 'If you bought a jalopy and emigrated to Mars,' the adult male said, 'We could be the famnexdo for you.' 'I wouldn't need any family next-door,' Chic said, 'if I emigrated to Mars. I'd go to get away from people. 'We'd make a very good family next-door to you,' the female said. 'Look,' Chic said, 'you don't have to lecture me about your virtues. I know more than you do yourselves.' And for good reason. Their presumption, their earnest sincerity, amused but also irked him. As next-door neighbours this group of sims would be something of a nuisance, he reflected. Still, that was what emigrants wanted, in fact needed, out in the sparsely-populated colonial regions. He could appreciate that; after all, it was Frauenzimmer Associates' business to understand. A man, when he emigrated, could buy neighbours, buy the simulated presence of life, the sound and motion of human activity -- or at least its ​mechanical nearsubstitute to bolster his morale in the new environment of unfamiliar stimuli and perhaps, god forbid, no stimuli at all. And in addition to this primary psychological gain there was a practical secondary advantage as well. The famnexdo group of simulacra developed the parcel of land, tilled it and planted it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the human settler because the famnexdo group, legally speaking, occupied the peripheral portions of his land. The famnexdo were actually not next-door at all; they were part of their owner's entourage. Communication with them was in essence a circular dialogue with oneself; the famnexdo, it they were functioning properly, picked up the covert hopes and dreams of the settler and detailed them back in an articulated fashion. Therapeutically, this was helpful, although from a cultural standpoint it was a trifle sterile.
Philip K. Dick (The Simulacra)
Whereas in the Old Testament the primary community was the immediate family, which was based on a sexual bond, in the New Testament the essential community becomes not the genetic family but the spiritual one—the household of God.44 Indeed, the church (rather than marriage) is actually the New Testament’s highest form of community in this age, as well as a foretaste of our future life together—the eschatological wedding feast.
Jonathan Grant (Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age)
Oxford and Cambridge had offered degrees with music since the mid-fifteenth century which mostly focused on musical theory. Music was perceived as a gentlemanly pastime rather than as a serious part of a student’s studies. The best secular opportunity for employment for a musician other than court was as a city wait. Waits were essentially watchmen who patrolled cities and played instruments to assure people all was well. By the mid-sixteenth century they were officially municipal musicians who played at civic occasions and were available for private hire. London owned six waits who, from 1548, were allowed two apprentices each. Waits possessed summer and winter livery of blue gowns and red caps. They wore silver chains and a silver badge displaying the arms of the city. The musicians were in great demand for weddings and an important citizen might employ them when impressing
Carol McGrath (Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England)
He was tall and leanly muscled with broad shoulders and a solid chest that was built for cuddling. Naked cuddling. After a full, long night of no-promises sex. He opened her door. "Let me help. It's a big step down." "Is that a jab at my size?" she said with no heat. "No, it's an excuse to get my hands on you." As promised, his big, manly hands spanned her waist and he lifted her from the seat and let her slide, oh so slowly, down his body until she was safely on the ground. Only he didn't let go right away, holding her snug against him, so all their good parts lined up. "And I think your size is pretty fucking perfect." Man, was she ever in trouble. Tingles sizzled, starting in her belly and moving to all the essential parts so quickly she could scarcely breathe. Stupid tingles, they were at the center of this mess. This problematic, complicated, and incredibly sexy mess that, as far as she could conclude, would only be solved one way. "Buttercup," he whispered. "You keep looking at me like that and we're both going to be in trouble." "I've never gotten in trouble," she said, sliding her hands up up his chest. "I'm beginning to think I've been missing out." Hudson groaned and rested his forehead on hers. "If we go there now, I won't be able to show you the best part."' "Funny, I was thinking by going there, we'd get to the best part faster." "When we go there, it will be slow, and long, and will take all night and into the next day.
Marina Adair (The Café Between Pumpkin and Pie (Moonbright, Maine #3))
Our consciousness being a kind of mirror, it follows that we appear to ourselves only symmetrically altered, like the image in a mirror. Everything which passes through consciousness must therefore be corrected and inverted for the true effigy (the essential, paradisiac form) to appear. This is part of illusion of the world, whose trajectory can be corrected only by a supplementary artifice. We have to undo this with a mental turnabout, with the simulation of an inverted image – showing us as we shall never actually appear to ourselves. Hence, the betrothed at a Pakistani wedding together enter a room which there is a mirror. They look at each other only in the mirror. In this way, each sees the other as they are in paradise - that is to say, as they are really, the transformed, essential image eternity provides of them, and not as they ordinarily appear.
Jean Baudrillard (Fragments)
Ian held the serving dish while Helen carefully placed on each white plate five squares of ravioli no thicker than paper, their edges crinkled, their surfaces kissed with melted butter, scattered with bits of shallots and hazelnuts, like rice thrown at a wedding. They each took their places at the table. "Happy Thanksgiving, everyone," Lillian said, raising her glass. They sat for a moment, simply looking. The smell from their plates rose with the last bits of steam, butter releasing whispers of shallots and hazelnuts. Antonia raised a bite to her mouth. A quick crunch of hazelnut, and then the pasta gave way easily to her teeth, the pumpkin melting across her tongue, warm and dense, with soft, spicy undercurrents of nutmeg.
Erica Bauermeister (The School of Essential Ingredients)
JONES IS BOTH symptom and cause of how knee-jerk, florid conspiracism has become rampant and normalized in America, a fixture of the way people now think and talk, eclipsing simpler Occam’s razor understandings. Let me repeat once again: I’m not saying that large secret plots haven’t existed in the past and don’t exist now. For decades, people in the U.S. government, especially those whose work involves high-stakes secrecy, did a lot to make Americans start imagining conspiracies everywhere. The Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy assassination was full of bungles and became a growth medium in the conspiracists’ petri dishes for an infinity of bacterial theories—even though its essential conclusion was almost certainly correct. The government did lie about UFO sightings over the years—in order to cover up air force surveillance aircraft experiments. The Watergate burglary and cover-up were conspiracies—and promptly exposed, investigated, and punished. Among the most significant recent conspiracies, the cover-up by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and elite of its sexually predatory clergy was finally exposed—after we’d wasted vast resources and ruined hundreds of lives exposing and prosecuting a satanic sexual abuse conspiracy that didn’t exist.
Kurt Andersen (Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History)
I asked our business leaders in the depths of the recession to begin working with their suppliers to prepare for the recovery. This seemed impossible to leaders at the time, since many economists and some of my staff were predicting that we’d see an L-shaped recovery—one that was essentially nonexistent. Our sales, according to this view, would never rebound to their prerecession levels. I insisted that recovery would come, just as it always had in the past. And when it did, our short-cycle businesses had to make sure they were first in line for supplies. Our leaders began these conversations, working with suppliers up front to lock in first priority over our competitors when the recovery came. This represented independent thinking on our part—our competitors weren’t doing this. We also took the opportunity to negotiate better payment terms, price reductions, and long-term deals, which were all easier to obtain during a recession. As a result of this effort, we got a big lift as the economy improved, outpacing our competitors in our sales growth, to the delight of our investors.
David Cote (Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term)
size, setting, style, vibe, and timeline.
Jessica Bishop (The Budget-Savvy Wedding Planner & Organizer: Checklists, Worksheets, and Essential Tools to Plan the Perfect Wedding on a Small Budget)
you’ve worked out the numbers. To do that we’d essentially have to re-create the sun. Do you have any idea of the energy involved? I remember what it took to support our diggers after Dark during the War. We used more fuel in
Vernor Vinge (Zones of Thought: A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky (Vernor Vinge Omnibus))
My dears,” I said, “it matters not which gown Lizzy wears. If she wore nothing but her night shift to the wedding, Mr Darcy would find her bewitching, and all the ladies of Meryton would still squawk with envy. The latter outcome being, of course, the essential purpose of the occasion, no?
Mark Brownlow (A Third Proposal: A Short Story)
The epic, apocalyptically good lovemaking that had rocked Zane to the foundations of his being, altered his worldview—hell, his view of this and any other universe that might be out there—had turned him, essentially, from one man into another.
Linda Lael Miller (Big Sky Wedding (Parable, Montana, #5))
SPECULATION In the coolness here I care Not for the down-pressed noises overhead, I hear in my pearly bone the wear Of marble under the rain; nothing is truly dead, There is only the wearing away, The changing of means. Nor eyes I have To tell how in the summer the mourning dove Rocks on the hemlock’s arm, nor ears to rend The sad regretful mind With the call of the horned lark. I lie so still that the earth around me Shakes with the weight of day; I do not mind if the vase Holds decomposed cut flowers, or if they send One of their kind to tidy up. Such play I have no memories of, Nor of the fire-bush flowers, or the bark Of the rough pine where the crows With their great haw and flap Circle in kinned excitement when a wind blows. I am kin with none of these, Nor even wed to the yellowing silk that splits; My sensitive bones, which dreaded, As all the living do, the dead, Wait for some unappointed pattern. The wits Of countless centuries dry in my skull and overhead I do not heed the first rain out of winter, Nor do I care what they have planted. At my center The bone glistens; of wondrous bones I am made; And alone shine in a phosphorous glow, So, in this little plot where I am laid.
Ruth Stone (Essential Ruth Stone)
BEFORE COMMITTING TO ANOTHER There was a couple who were about to get married in Plum Village, the practice center where I live. They wanted to see me before the wedding ceremony and I received them in my hut. They said, “Thay, there are only twenty-four hours left before our wedding. What do you think that we can do to prepare for our married life to be successful?” I said, “The most important thing for you to do is to look deeply into yourself, to see if there is something that is still an obstacle for you. Is there anyone with whom you haven’t reconciled? Is there anything within you that you haven’t reconciled with?” Reconciliation can also be with your own self. If you don’t reconcile with yourself, happiness with another person is impossible.
Thich Nhat Hanh (How to Love (Mindfulness Essentials, #3))
It's evident which drawing came from which mind," Johnny said with a small grin, and certainly, the pâte de verre flowers and spiraling tiers of Sylvie's cake said "Sugar Fair" as distinctly as the clean lines and elegant piping pointed to De Vere's. "But..." But at the essential level, the cakes were remarkably similar. They had both chosen a stained-glass effect, constructed entirely from blown sugar, each tier designed to catch the light and cast a shimmering cascade of color. Peony poppies, primroses, and petunias glittered within the sugar glass. And on the highest tier, the Midnight Elixir cake, they had both incorporated a trinity knot.
Lucy Parker (Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1))
I’m missing that essential part that makes people fall in love. I’m the only girl I’ve ever heard of who rolls her eyes at love songs and hates it when guys get attached and would rather attend a funeral than a wedding.
J.T. Geissinger (Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1))
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With the oysters, I'm at the shore, swimming in the heat of the day. She serves us baby cream biscuits and smoked peach butter that taste exactly like those we'd eat around her mother's table during a Sunday dinner, only better, tweaked in a way that makes me want to taste it again and again. Buttermilk panna cotta with spot prawns and spring vegetables pulls me right into lazy picnics in Delilah's backyard, when we'd gorge on plump peas, sweet tomatoes, crisp cucumbers. The tender shrimp and tart buttermilk--- all of this is our childhood on a plate. I never wanted to look too closely at that time, but it's slapping me tight in the face. Oddly, it doesn't hurt. Not this version. It feels fragile and rare, like I should be protecting it, like I should be proud of where we come from and who we are. And then the menu changes on me. The servers bring out what Delilah says is butter-poached cod with potato galette and shellfish emulsion dotted with petals of mango and peach. It is the clean taste of the sea; it is buttery velvet along my tongue, bright bursts of juicy fruit. Underneath it all is a crisp, airy version of what is essentially a gourmet tater tot. The taste is erotic. Heat and lust wash over me in a wave that has my balls clenching and my cock stiffening. I can't figure out why. Then it hits me like a kick to the chest. This dish is us. Frantic kissing on the beach, eating juicy mangos at the market, peaches and tater tots. She's created us. A compilation of all she holds dear.
Kristen Callihan (Dear Enemy)
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