Worth Every Mile Quotes

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It was worth it, Lia,” He said. “Every mile, every day. I’d do it all again. I’d chase you across three continents if that’s what it took to be with you.
Mary E. Pearson (The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles, #2))
I’ll be there someday, I can go the distance. I will find my way, if I can be strong. I know every mile, will be worth my while, When I go the distance, I’ll be right where I belong. - Hercules
Walt Disney Company (Hercules)
believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without ever realizing it. I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting. The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it. I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage an parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look. Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull of the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted. Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your friends and your house and your dinner table and your garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is. You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural. You are more than dust and bones. You are spirit and power and image of God. And you have been given Today.
Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. Some people say that a sunrise is a miracle, because it is somewhat mysterious and often very beautiful, but other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. Some people say that a telephone is a miracle, because it sometimes seems wondrous that you can talk with somebody who is thousands of miles away, and other people say it is merely a manufactured device fashioned out of metal parts, electronic circuitry, and wires that are very easily cut. And some people say that sneaking out of a hotel is a miracle, particularly if the lobby is swarming with policemen, and other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. So you might think that there are so many miracles in the world that you can scarcely count them, or that there are so few that they are scarcely worth mentioning, depending on whether you spend your mornings gazing at a beautiful sunset or lowering yourself into a back alley with a rope made of matching towels.
Lemony Snicket (The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #9))
For the admission price of $543.90, they were inducted into the exclusive Mile High Club, and it was worth every last penny.
Ella Frank (Try (Temptation, #1))
My body molded to his, and the seconds ticked by. All I wanted was more time with him. His lips traveled to my neck. "It was worth it, Lia," he said. "Every mile, every day. I'd do it all again. I'd chase you across three continents if that's what it took to be with you.
Mary E. Pearson (The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles, #2))
On a shrunken planet where nearly every mountain bears bootprints and every mile of river has been run, being 'first' tends to require creative task definition" (111).
Jo Deurbrouck (Anything Worth Doing: A true story of adventure, friendship and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers)
I will find my way I can go the distance I'll be there someday If I can be strong I know every mile will be worth my while I would go most anywhere to feel like I belong
Alan Menken (35. Hercules)
Where she had suffered so much.’ Alas! And that was the way in which the eighteen months in Milton – to him so unspeakably precious, down to its very bitterness, which was worth all the rest of life’s sweetness – would be remembered. Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr. Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence – every step of which….he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day – when he had her within his grasp, as it were – as a time of suffering.
Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South)
Having seen several hundred lease agreements entered into by people I have counseled, my financial calculator confirms that the average interest rate is 14 percent. Shouldn’t you lease or rent things that go down in value? Not necessarily, and the math doesn’t work on a car, for sure. Follow me through this example: If you rent (lease) a car with a value of $22,000 for three years, and when you turn it in at the end of that three-year lease the car is worth $10,000, someone has to cover the $12,000 loss. You’re not stupid, so you know that General Motors, Ford, or any of the other auto giants aren’t going to put together a plan to lose money. Your fleece/lease payment is designed to cover the loss in value ($12,000 spread over 36 months is equal to $333 per month), plus provide profit (the interest you pay). Where did you get a deal in that? You didn’t! On top of that, there is the charge of 10 to 17 cents per mile for going over the allotted miles and the penalties everyone turning in a lease has experienced for “excessive wear and tear,” which takes into account every little nick, dent, carpet tear, smudge, or smell. You end up writing a large check just to walk away after renting your car. The whole idea of the back-end penalties is twofold: to get you to fleece/lease another one so you can painlessly roll the gotchas into the new lease, and to make sure the car company makes money.
Dave Ramsey (The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness)
Well, it ain’t hardly worth ma trouble for such a piddly sum, but c’mon, give it here.” He reached for the bent-up, square container. She thanked Mr. Lane, who grunted again. The groceries and gas weighed more with every mile, and it took some time to get home. Finally in the shade of the lagoon, she emptied the can into the gas tank and scrubbed the boat with rags and wet sand for grist until the metal sides showed through the grime. •
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
A war always comes to someone else. In Salinas we were aware that the United States was the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. Every American was a rifleman by birth, and one American was worth ten or twenty foreigners in a fight. Pershing’s expedition into Mexico after Villa had exploded one of our myths for a little while. We had truly believed that Mexicans can’t shoot straight and besides were lazy and stupid. When our own Troop C came wearily back from the border they said that none of this was true […] Somehow we didn’t connect Germans with Mexicans. We went right back to our own myths. One American was as good as twenty Germans. This being true, we had only to act in a stern manner to bring the Kaiser to heel. He wouldn’t dare interfere with our trade--but he did. He wouldn’t stick out his neck and and sink our ships--and he did. It was stupid, but he did, and so there was nothing for it but to fight him. The war, at first anyway, was for other people. We, I, my family and friends, had kind of bleacher seats, and it was pretty exciting. And just as war is always for somebody else, so it is also that somebody else always gets killed. And Mother of God! that wasn’t true either. The dreadful telegrams began to sneak sorrowfully in, and it was everybody’s brother. Here we were, over six thousand miles from the anger and the noise, and that didn’t save us […] The draftees wouldn’t look at their mothers. They didn’t dare. We’d never thought the war could happen to us. There were some in Salinas who began to talk softly in the poolrooms and the bars. These had private information from a soldier--we weren’t getting the truth. Our men were being sent in without guns. Troopships were sunk and the government wouldn’t tell us. The German army was so far superior to ours that we didn’t have a chance. That Kaiser was a smart fellow. He was getting ready to invade America. But would Wilson tell us this? He would not. And usually these carrion talkers were the same ones who had said one American was worth twenty Germans in a scrap--the same ones.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
Trip Advisor: Travel America with Haiku [Texas] Grackles roosting, sentinels on miles of phone line. Don't Mess with Texas. Austin rush hour, "Go down Mopac. You don't wanna mess with I-35." Athens, Texas, Blackeyed Pea Capital of the World. Yup, just another shithole. Killeen, Texas, Kill City, Boyz from Fort Hood. Spending every paycheck. Texas A&M;, Aggies football, the wired 12th man. Too lazy to plant in the Spring. Fredericksburg, Texas. Polka Capital of Texas but I could swear I saw Hitler there. Ft. Worth, Texas, Where the West Begins and a great place to leave. San Antonio, Texas, Fiesta! Alamo City! Northstar Mall! I've been to better tourist traps. Dallas, Texas, D-Town, City of Hate. Don't miss the Galleria. Lubbock, Texas, Oil wells, Hub of the Plains. Stinks like an armpit. Waco, Texas, The Buckle of the Bible Belt. Lossen it up a notch. Neck dragon tattoo, piercings, purple haired kindergarten teacher. Keep Austin weird.
Beryl Dov
It was a wise policy in that false prophet, Alexander, who though now forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the first scene of his impostures in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion. People at a distance, who are weak enough to think the matter at all worth enquiry, have no opportunity of receiving better information. The stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. Fools are industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing themselves of the particular facts, by which it may be distinctly refuted. And thus the impostor above mentioned was enabled to proceed, from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries, even among the Grecian philosophers, and men of the most eminent rank and distinction in Rome; nay, could engage the attention of that sage emperor Marcus Aurelius; so far as to make him trust the success of a military expedition to his delusive prophecies. 23 The advantages are so great, of starting an imposture among an ignorant people, that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on the generality of them (which, though seldom, is sometimes the case) it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries, than if the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correspondence, or sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the delusion. Men’s inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the place where it was first started, shall pass for certain at a thousand miles distance. But had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the philosophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread, throughout the whole Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which, being supported by so great authority, and displayed by all the force of reason and eloquence, had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is true; Lucian, passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. But, though much to be wished, it does not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to expose and detect his impostures.
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
Go on, ask me another question. I’m rather enjoying this game.” He cocked an eyebrow at her and, although he was certain it was pointless, he said, “Cheep cheep?” The herbalist brayed with laughter, and some of the werecats opened their mouths in what appeared to be toothy smiles. However, Shadowhunter seemed displeased, for she dug her claws into Eragon’s legs, making him wince. “Well,” said Angela, still laughing, “if you must have answers, that’s as good a story as any. Let’s see…Several years ago, when I was traveling along the edge of Du Weldenvarden, way out to the west, miles and miles from any city, town, or village, I happened upon Grimrr. At the time, he was only the leader of a small tribe of werecats, and he still had full use of both his paws. Anyway, I found him toying with a fledgling robin that had fallen out of its nest in a nearby tree. I wouldn’t have minded if he had just killed the bird and eaten it--that’s what cats are supposed to do, after all--but he was torturing the poor thing: pulling on its wings; nibbling its tail; letting it hop away, then knocking it over.” Angela wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I told him that he ought to stop, but he only growled and ignored me.” She fixed Eragon with a stern gaze. “I don’t like it when people ignore me. So, I took the bird away from him, and I wiggled my fingers and cast a spell, and for the next week, whenever he opened his mouth, he chirped like a songbird.” “He chirped?” Angela nodded, beaming with suppressed mirth. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. None of the other werecats would go anywhere near him for the whole week.” “No wonder he hates you.” “What of it? If you don’t make a few enemies every now and then, you’re a coward--or worse. Besides, it was worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!” Shadowhunter uttered a soft warning growl and tightened her claws again. Grimacing, Eragon said, “Maybe it would be best to change the subject?” “Mmm.” Before he could suggest a new topic, a loud scream rang out from somewhere in the middle of the camp. The cry echoed three times over the rows of tents before fading into silence. Eragon looked at Angela, and she at him, and then they both began to laugh.
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
What was once a segregated oasis, a black Levittown where flowers grew and families thrived, now seems hardly worth the gas money for young black professionals, not for a daily commute ten miles past downtown, not when they can buy property anywhere these days. No matter the best efforts of the old-timers to keep the neighborhood as it’s always been, to secure its borders, keep the money in and the newcomers out, there are, every year, new families who are buying their way in, working-class blacks from places like Fifth Ward and South Park, and Latino families from the north side, who see in its quaint, tree-lined streets their chance at the American dream. You can’t put up fences on change.
Attica Locke (Pleasantville (Jay Porter, #2))
5.5 Specific Signs You Should Avoid A Van Rental Supplier! Here are 5.5 specific sign that you should avoid a van rental supplier: 1. Automated answering services: If you cannot get access to a human on the phone when you call to make a van reservation, where are they going to be when you have a mechanical breakdown? If the company cannot afford to provide a live person to receive your call, how will they afford to take care of your group when you have broken down on the side of the road or have been in an accident! 2. Rude or incompetent rental agents: If the rental company’s agents do not answer the phone cheerfully and sound like they are less than ecstatic to hear from you, they have set a negative tone for the entire van rental experience. If they place you on hold until you grow old, or refuse to acknowledge you immediately when you walk through the door of their office, get out of there! 3. Charging for mileage: Any van rental firm worth doing business with will offer you unlimited miles going anywhere in the USA. Anything else does not allow you the peace of mind needed when you are required to maximize your budget and do not need any unaccounted variables. 4. Encouraging drop-offs after business hours: This practice gives the rental company an unwritten power of attorney to charge you for any damages they find until the next business day! This leaves you or your organization wide open to paying for damages you did not cause or create! 5. Yield management systems: When a van rental firm employs this system, it skyrockets the van rental rates through the roof as demand gets tight and supply gets low. This system has been designed to squeeze every last dollar out of the client’s pocket and takes serious advantage of those groups that are forced to reserve later due to budget constraints or lack of commitments! 5.5 Accidents handled by a third party vendor: If you have an accident in a van, and the rental firm outsources this function to an outside agency, you will lose all power of negotiation and pay much more on the damage claim because the rental firm has to give that agency a substantial percentage. In addition, the agency employees have nothing to lose by treating you horribly.
Craig Speck (The Ultimate Common Sense Ground Transportation Guide For Churches and Schools: How To Learn Not To Crash and Burn)
It was worth it, Lia,” He said. “Every mile, every day. I’d do it all again. I’d chase you across three continents if that’s what it took to be with you.
Mary Pearson
Have you considered that there is no one I’ve found to be worth my time?' 'I have. I just thought it would be hard to turn down proposals from every man you meet. A girl as beautiful as you? I’m surprised you make it home every day.
Shanna Miles (For All Time)
Through poorly managed drag or friction, we waste two-thirds of the energy we produce and, by so doing; we're destroying our environment and atmosphere three times the rate than if we didn't waste energy. The United States burns two billion dollars' worth of oil every day. The world burns four cubic miles of nonrenewable fossil fuels every year. That's a mound four miles long, four miles wide, and four miles high, equivalent to 21,120 feet-the highest mountain in the Andes or three-quarters the height of Mount Everest. We're very clever and resourceful extracting and processing more and more fossil fuels but we're pouring that energy into a bucket full of holes. We're wasting a large part of this energy by trying to force flow into straight lines.
Jay Harman (The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation)
I'm not sure that anything has happened this week. I got out to London for an evening to have dinner with an old writer friend. I stared into space for a couple of days because An Idea was happening to me, and also because the temperature drop out here on the Delta has gotten into my gammy leg and I was mostly a beached manatee until everything in the knee stopped bending and changing shape. This is, of course, why it's just as well that the few friends I have live thousands of miles away: I can totally lose a couple of days to gazing into the middle distance and meditating on the most ridiculous of things. Naturally, this is also why I'm poor. "What did you do Monday and Tuesday?" "Replied to an interview, wrote some script, and spent seven thousand hours doing a psychological autopsy on Hercule Poirot." The Idea isn't cooked. It's bugging me. It's fuzzy and indistinct. I want to be able to hold the kernel of it in my hand (not every idea should be a logline, by any means, but this one should), and I can't yet. Also, it's clearly Long. It hasn't got an end yet, and what I have in my head is already at least a year, maybe eighteen months' worth of basic material. My particular writing process means that The Idea may have to cook down in my head for a year or two before it becomes something worth committing to manuscript. As I've said before, it's an absurd way to live. But it's all I've got. My head is a vast haunted house. I never run out of rooms to discover, and I hope I never will.
Warren Ellis
Imagine if you met someone sitting at a train station who told everyone how great it is to go West. ‘West is the way of the future,’ he says, ‘we should all keep moving in that direction.’ A year later you pass the same station and the same guy is there, in the exact same spot, still telling everyone they should go West. ‘You need to move West to achieve a meaningful life,’ he proclaims, ‘it is the path to happiness and satisfaction.’ A year later you pass the same station and the guy is still there. Right there. He hasn’t moved one inch in a westerly direction. This time you stop and ask him why he is such a big fan of going West, and he tells you about all the things he has read about the direction West, recommends some useful websites, and even shows you some pictures he has cut out of pamphlets, depicting things you will see if you go West. You ask him what is the best thing he has ever seen while travelling West, and he shakes his head. ‘I’ve never been any more West than here, too many bumps along the way. I’m waiting for them to fix up the track so it will be a smoother journey,’ he tells you. ‘But,’ he adds proudly, ‘I haven’t moved even one inch East in the past few years.’ How seriously would you take that man’s advice to go West? If West is the way to go, maybe it’s worth travelling over some bumps to make progress in that direction? Values are like compass directions. They’re meaningless unless you move. Saying that you really like going West doesn’t mean a whole lot if you don’t take at least a small step in that direction. That doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy to move West or that you can move miles in that direction every day. Some days it feels like there are things pulling you in every direction or stopping you from moving at all. The blocks might be thoughts, feelings, memories, physiological sensations or other people and their rules. But it’s still worthwhile to move in the directions you care about even if sometimes you are only able to take tiny steps. (Stuff that Sucks, p 50)
Ben Sedley (Stuff That Sucks: A Teen's Guide to Accepting What You Can't Change and Committing to What You Can (The Instant Help Solutions Series))
His hands were the first thing she saw. Callused and blunt, they grasped the sides of the ladder as he raised himself the final few rungs. He was grinning by the time he cleared the base of the roof. “Hello, Liberty Sawyer,” he said casually. She nodded in his direction, mimicking his nonchalant air. “Michael.” He was about to step onto the roof when he paused to sniff the air. The expression on his face was sheer masculine satisfaction. “You are wearing my perfume.” “Every day.” His grin deepened. “Good.” For a big man, he was surprisingly graceful as he stepped onto the roof. With an agile twist he turned and sat beside her. “I have traveled nine hundred miles to see that smile again. It was worth every step.
Elizabeth Camden (The Rose of Winslow Street)
This internal exploration is well worth while. For there is something within the mind of man and beast, something that is neither intellect nor feeling, but deeper than both, to which the name of intuition, may fitly be given. When science can truly explain why a horse will take its drunken rider or driver for miles through the dark and find its own way home; why field-mice seal up their holes before the cold weather comes; why sheep move away to the lee side of a mountain before severe storms; when it can tell us what warns the tortoise to retire to rest and refuge before every shower of rain; and when it can really explain who guides a vulture many miles distant to the dead body of an animal, we may then learn that intuition is sometimes a better guide than intellect.
Paul Brunton (The Secret Path: Meditation Teachings from One of the Greatest Spiritual Explorers of the Twentieth Century)
It was worth it, Lia,” he said. “Every mile, every day. I’d do it all again. I’d chase you across three continents if that’s what it took to be with you.
Mary E. Pearson (The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles, #2))
We also had a brief glimpse of the main switch room, though I’m afraid it didn’t mean a great deal to us. There were acres of dials and colored lights, with men sitting here and there looking at screens and turning knobs. Soft voices, in every language, came through the loudspeakers. As we went from one operator to another we saw football games, string quartets, air races, ice hockey, art displays, puppet shows, grand opera—a cross section of the world’s entertainment, all depending on these three tiny metal rafts, twenty-two thousand miles up in the sky. As I looked at some of the programs that were going out, I wondered if it was really worth it.
Arthur C. Clarke (Islands in the Sky)
2020 Quarantine Killings And they ask, 'How do black boys write about their city? How do we know street if we don't know uncracked sidewalk?' They ask, 'How do these Black boys know anything about their city? How the buildings are sitting on corners where brothers' bodies are still learning how to rot?' There are small crosses placed in the grass where families cannot afford to bury their loved ones, reminds my brothers and I that we are early graves before we are anything else. We call those corners playgrounds. We call those corners the killing fields. We call our bodies bullets, even if we were never aimed in the right direction. We call the remnants of our mothers' family the disaspora tree. We make a catalog of prayers out of broken hands. We pray for our family tree to make its way back home to this soil. We use our hands to dig the graves we cannot afford. We are farmers of broken Black bodies. We have never know city, never known comfort, never know safe street in any city. We use our feet to walk streets paved by sunlight and ask our shadows if they meant to choose this skin. We make a catalyst of bodies our dinner menu and we eat with our eyes closed. We are fed lies so easily it tastes like medicine. Always conflicted between being Black and being people. I wish God could've given us a choice. For years, we have been told that there is something we need to scrub off this body, as if this dirt could go away. Working in the field make you realize how easily Black can cook in the sun, how easily we turn on each other for a little slice of the pie. We don't know this city, how it was built with our grandmothers' arthritic hands. How we couldn't have gotten a house or a bed when it was first built, when it was first settled, when it was first taken from the Indians, when our gods believed in the same beginning. We don't know home. We know how generations of our people could use these legs, could run miles on into the night, our faces bedazzled with the remnants of the stars. We will forever search for our forefathers' footsteps. We don't know home. We know run. We know this land has never been ours. We know how to fold ourselves into nothing. We know our sweat and tears tenderized this soil. Somehow we make fertilizer for the soil. We know how to make these hands be useful. We are the farmers of every revolution. No country was built without the piling up of dead bodies. This country just happens to be where our dead were dragged and hung up. America, the land of the free and home of the brave. We fought and died for that slogan, right beside our white brothers. And doesn't that make us worth something? Tonight, a riot is the language of the unheard. Playon Patrick
Playon Patrick
2020 Quarantine Killings by Playon Patrick And they ask: how do black boys write about their city? How do we know street if we don't know un-cracked sidewalk? They ask: how do these black boys know anything about their city? How the buildings are sitting on corners where brothers' bodies are still learning how to rot. There are small crosses placed in the grass where families cannot afford to bury their loved ones Reminds my brothers and I that we are early graves before we are anything else. We call those corners playgrounds, We call those corners the killing fields. We call our bodies bullets even if we were never aimed in the right direction We called the remnants of our mother's family the Diaspora tree. We make a catalog of prayers out of broken hands We pray for our family tree to make its way back home to this soil. We use our hands to dig the graves we cannot afford. We are farmers - our broken black bodies - We have never know city, never known comfort, Never known safe street in any city. We use our feet to walk streets paved by sunlight, And asked our shadows if they meant to choose this skin. We make a catalyst of bodies our dinner menu And we eat with our eyes closed. We are fed lies so easily it tastes like medicine. Always conflicted between being black and being people. I wish God could have given us a choice. For years we have been told that there is something we need to scrub off this body As if this dirt could go away Working in the field make you realize how easily black can cook in the sun. How easily we turn on each other for a little slice of the pie. We don't know this city - how it was built with our grandmother's arthritic hands. how we wouldn't have gotten a house or a bed when it was first built When it was first settled - when it was first taken from the Indians When our God believed in the same beginning. We don't know home. We don't know how generations of our people could use these legs Could run miles on end into the night Our faces bedazzled with the remnants of the stars We will forever search for our forefathers' footsteps We don't know home - we know run We know this land has never been ours We know how to fold ourselves into nothing We know our sweat and tears tenderize this soil Somehow we make fertilizer for the soil We know how to make these hands be useful We are the farmers of every revolution No country was built without the piling up of dead bodies This country just happens to be where our dead were dragged and hung up. America: the land of the free and home of the brave We fought and died for that slogan right beside our white brothers Doesn't that make us worth something? Tonight a riot is the language of the unheard
Playon Patrick
In relationships, secrets are termites that feast on intimacy, self-value, and trust until the raw material of love loses its structure and disintegrates. Whatever Liv and I shared was eroded by dishonesty until it collapsed on itself. That I’d known it would never last was the biggest lie and perhaps even a subconscious motivation to destroy it. It wasn’t calculated, but all the secrets I carried made it impossible for me to love and be loved. I made many mistakes and now I’m looking across the delta at the landscape destruction built. If we get honest, the wreckage of secrets can guide us toward safe harbor if we’re brave enough to stare into ourselves and understand what we hide and why. The secrets we keep are the pieces of ourselves we deem unlovable. But when we embrace them, they lose their potency and no longer hold power over us, releasing us downstream, and I think I know why Steve is always looking that way. Downstream is the future, and if we choose honesty, the future is always hopeful. We’re never outside the reach of rebuilding and forgiving the mistakes we’ve made upstream. It’s frightening work but worth every mile we travel. With enough time and courage, the mistakes of our past become the unshakable bedrock of a better future.
Cory Richards (The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within)