"Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other—even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see."

Henry James

 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/sorrow-passes-and-we-remain.html

“I went downstairs to Dad’s encyclopedia and looked up HOMOSEXUALITY, but that didn’t tell me much about any of the things I felt. What struck me most, though, was that, in the whole long article, the word “love” wasn’t used even once. That made me mad; it was as if whoever wrote the article didn’t know that gay people actually love each other. The encyclopedia writers ought to talk to me, I thought as I went back to bed; I could tell them something about love.”
― Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind

"She would take a break from herself, too, but she doesn't have that option."

from the New Yorker

...amazing and haunting and sadly beautiful story


FICTION

“FLOWER HUNTERS”

“What is it about me that people need breaks from? she asks the dog.”

By Lauren Groff

NOVEMBER 21, 2016 ISSUE

read here:

http://www.newyorker.co
m/magazine/2016/11/21/flower-hunters

"It makes a hole in your heart. But you can't fall into it. You have to fill it. You have to fight. Do not throw away who you are."--Supergirl

A well-meaning friend called me up to tell me about this 'documentary' on Reelz not too long ago. She knows how much I love the Carpenters and wanted to let me know it was on, which, at first, I thought was good as it was new to me and I had not heard about it at all and have always just absolutely loved Karen's amazing voice and been charmed by how sweet and kind she seemed as a person.

Not too far into watching 'Goodbye to Love,' though, I realized it was going the way of tabloid tv rather than PBS (which has also shown a documentary on Karen, and her brother, and actually is a documentary).

I am sure they had good intentions being involved with the production of 'Goodbye to Love,' but Karen's friends and acquaintances showing up in interview clips stuck in between very tacky actor reenactments...well, it all just struck me as very sad and very wrong and very disrespectful and I had to stop watching mid-way through.

What happened to Karen was something full of sorrow and full of a personal horror that only Karen herself could truly know and that she suffered in silence and to have people speculating about what caused her anorexia and what was in her heart and to have tv producers spinning her story like it is something sensational for ratings...well, that just adds a whole other kind of sadness to something that still feels as heartbreaking as if it just happened yesterday.