If I'm not going forward, I'm not going anywhere.

I saw a moth fall from the sky. It fell, in smooth, tight spirals, the way seed pods from sycamore trees do. We called them helicopters and they littered the streets of our childhood, on our way home from school in the dusky glow of autumn evenings. I only saw the moth when it reached my eye level. It could have been falling for years.

1. It's late at night.

2. You're driving home.

3. Call your husband and tell him you see a strange light in the sky.

4. Hang up in the middle of the call.

5. Leave the car on the side of the road.

6. Hitch a ride somewhere.

7. Anywhere.

And what if that was the last time I'll ever see him, standing at my door in a kilt at nine o'clock this morning with a sad smile on his face and a battered old bag by his feet? I said I hope you have a good flight, but really I meant to say I love you and I'll miss you. I think he understood. I had cried half a years worth of tears the night before but I wanted to cry again. He walked down the corridor and I went back to sleep. "Dust in the wind," he said.

It happened on a Friday in early August. No, no, it was a Saturday. Back then, days of the week lost all meaning, they all just merged together into one sprawling moment in time that lasted the whole summer. Each day was a chapter within the greater story of one life. Some days two lives shared the same chapter, and those were the days that mattered most. One of those days was a Thursday, when they looked each other in the eye and admitted this was happening. Another was a Monday when they held hands because they didn't know what else to do, and several Mondays later they held hands because it was all they knew. Once, it started on a Saturday and she stroked his arm with her delicate thumb until it was a Sunday and he slept while she could smile and be exhausted and impatient all at once. I miss this.

And when you're sitting on the side of the road crying over what feels like the best goddamn thing you ever had--well, at least you had it.

I knew that no matter how bad you feel, or what horrible thing happens to you, that the world just keeps on going. That the rest of the world doesn’t even realize that the monsters are eating your heart. A long time ago it used to bother me that I could be in such confusion, such pain, and the world just didn’t give a shit. The world, the creation as a whole, is designed to move forward, to keep on keeping on without any one individual person. It feels damned impersonal, and it is. But, then, if the world stopped rotating just because one of us was having a bad day, we’d all be floating out in space.

"The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face."

--Jodi Picoult, 'The Tenth Circle'

I need to do something. Tonight I remembered that it feels good to lay in the middle of the street with your friends and look at the sky. Today I remembered riding bikes around the city and sitting by the river. I remembered feeling frustrated and unsure--but inspired and satisfied. I'm always missing something and I just know that I need to make some changes. If I'm not going forward, I'm not going anywhere.

We all grow into the beautiful person that we're supposed to be--some earlier. Some later.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than to live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.

The paper cuts

The cheating lovers

The coffees never strong enough

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

--Wayne Dyer

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. These are a few of my favorite things.

Rules only work when everyone plays by them.

Envy comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.

Being brave doesn’t save you from the monsters. It just ups your chances.

“Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.”

--Ben Hecht

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the

greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

--Roald Dahl

"Have you really read all those books in your room?" I asked. She laughed. "Oh God no. I've maybe read a third of 'em. But I'm going to read them all. I call it my Life's Library. Every summer since I was little, I've gone to garage sales and bought all the books that look interesting. So I always have something to read. But there is so much to do: cigarettes to smoke, sex to have, swings to swing on. I'll have more time for reading them when I'm old and boring."

At twenty we worry about what others think of us; at forty we don't care about what others think of us; at sixty we discover they haven't been thinking about us at all.

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain "Move from here to there", and it will move. Nothing will be impossible to you.

"You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself."

--Ethel Barrymore

"The odds are very good that worrying is a waste of time. And besides, worrying won't change what happens anyway, will it?"

-Judie Angell, 'A Whisper in the Night'

Light up the darkness.

"Within ourselves lies a drive, a force that only makes sense to us. It is that force, that drive that can make a person crazy. Crazy is only what you make of it, in the past, most people have been trained to think that crazy is a negative thing... but I repeat, crazy is only what you make of it. Crazy is a state of mind comprised of desire, anger, knowledge, courage, fear, and devotion. Crazy makes a man and woman fall in love, crazy makes musicians and artists talented. Crazy makes a dying man take his own life. Make what you will of this but I cannot believe I would be any better off 'sane'. Therefore I am, and will remain, crazy."

--Marilyn Monroe

"He knew better than anyone that you could not trust a woman who said she was telling the truth. But what if you knew, from the start, that she was lying?"

--Jodi Picoult, 'Salem Falls'

"If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today."

--E. Joseph Cossman

The best way to discover who you are is to be someone you are not.

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

--Eleanor Roosevelt

“The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”

--Abraham Lincoln

Do not give up; the beginning is always the hardest.

"His heart is breaking right now and I come in here, and I sit in silence and hear the echoes of who we used to be. So I wish for patience and grace and strength to just let him be happy. And mostly I pray for the strength to not make his life worse 'cause of what I want. That’s the toughest part… letting go, you know, that’s the part of grace that really sucks."

--'One Tree Hill'

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.

Bob Marley had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate - literally cure it by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang, and when they asked him why, he said, "The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”

“They are the proof of something was there and no longer is. Like a stain. And the stillness of them is boggling. You can turn away but when you come back they'll still be there looking at you.”

--Diane Arbus, talking about photographs

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.

"But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way to find that what I really sought was something I left behind."

--Thomas West

Stable as long as nothing else in the whole world shifts (so don't get your hopes up).

Counted up all the things she was afraid of one night & it took so long she fell asleep from exhaustion.

I always imagine the worst possible thing that can happen, she told me. It gives me a great excuse to stay home & have tea.

This is a secret potion that makes you see the world differently & she's found it safest to use only on the weekends.

Just do it.

"No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it."

--Oliver Goldsmith

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

--Frederick Douglass

"I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home... I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby."

--Nancie J. Carmody

"You can have all the faith you want in spirits, the afterlife, and heaven and hell... but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. 'Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to get through the day, but when it comes time to cross the street, I know you look both ways."

--'House'

"I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything."

--Reese Witherspoon

I feel like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece, and I'm not even sure what the picture should be.

"Yesterday you said tomorrow. Just do it."

--Nike

May your organs fail before your dreams do.

"Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph."

--Diane Arbus

“Maybe that’s what you got when you stood over your grief, facing it finally. A sense of it’s depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over around it, whichever you choose in the end.”

--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

"It is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops."

--Nikki Giovanni

"The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that, we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

--Maya Angelou

"Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward."

--Amy Tan, 'The Kitchen God's Wife'

"Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"Too many good things all seem the same after a while."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

It seemed that the oven heated up all of her goodness and it came shining back in every scrumptious bite.

"I just don't like to see you waste your time on silly things," he said. "Well then," she said "Close your eyes."

“‘But if everything was always smooth and perfect,’ she continued, ‘you’d get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and there. Otherwise, you’ll never really enjoy it when things go right.”

--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

"Okay, I thought. Here you are. You Are Here. And you move forward because that's the way it works; thats the only place you can go. You keep going until it stops hurting, or until you find new things to hurt you worse, I guess. And that is the human condition, all of us lurching along in our own private miseries, because that's the way it is. Because, I guess, God didn't give us any choice. You grow up. You learn."

--Jennifer Weiner, 'Good in Bed'

"Opening yourself up, even if it means your heart and soul are crushed. That's what makes you stronger. That's what gives you the power to move on, put the past behind you. To get out there, and get your heart stomped on all over again."

--'The Bedford Diaries'

"There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them."

--André Gide

"Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not."

--Virgil Thomson

Grief is like a moving river.

“I guess it’s always changing,” she says. There’s another pause. “What else can I say?” Her voice is breathy and fragile, and she takes a few gulps of air. “I just wake up each day in a slightly different place—grief is like a moving river, so that’s what I mean by ‘it’s always changing’.” She stops again. “It’s a strange thing to say”—her words unravel slowly, her eyes tear up—”because I’m at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It’s just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone. In some ways it gets worse. That’s what I would say.”

- Michelle Williams, on Heath Ledger’s death, Newsweek