The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and they manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death.
When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut
Wheat fields are more mystical than fields of other crops. You are 7,000 times more likely to meet an old god or see a portent of doom in a wheat field than in a field of like… soybeans.
which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?
This small corner of the world
Giving me a chance to step into an another
That's all I've ever wanted
And yet this melancholy ache I feel
All these friends have moved on
And I'm still behind trying to reach the cliff
Will the cliff be my flight or fall?
The questions keep me awake and fragile
And the expectations pull me into a slumber
Didn't see it coming, loved where it was going
Those doors I never had the key for were unlocked
How do I close them back now that you took away the key when you left?
I am a rock in most weathers, for me and everyone else
But there comes once in a season shift and I fall apart albeit for a moment
In that vulnerability lies what I wish to conquer
A chance to step into another world, for better or for worse
I want to find out
Alright girls, you know what we need to do
He was an activist who inspired millions to fight for their rights. He knew what was wrong with our country and risked his life to help his people achieve equality. In the society where black were treated like animal he did everything possible to change this. His brave soul, his will and courage changed the history of America , changed the people. He made us believe we can win this war. He payed for it with his life. He will always be remembered.
A co-worker of mine was standing outside with me during a break from customers to share a cigarette with me, and told me about how he had lost his brother that he was close with some years ago. He told me about how they used to be in a band together with some friends, and how ever since he'd died, he hadn't played any music because he'd been too scared and anxious. I told him about how I'd lost my brother to suicide some years ago.
I went home and pulled out an old tiny wooden box my brother had given me before he'd died. I'd been using it to store guitar picks I'd collected over the years, including one guitar pick that used to be his. I haven't played the guitar since he'd died, my hands are too small to play some of the chords, so I play bass and piano instead.
I went to work the next day and gifted my brothers old guitar pick to my co-worker. I told him that it'd been sitting in a box for ten years unused, and would probably sit there for longer if I kept it there. Told him that I thought he deserved to have it, because I bet he could put it to better use than I ever would. Told him I didn't feel like it was coincidence that me and him would cross paths with each other in our lives, and that it seemed suiting that we had these similar experiences but split in two halves. That somehow, I felt like he was meant to have the guitar pick. I told him that I knew he'd not played guitar since his brother died, but that if he ever decided to play again one of these days, maybe he'd be able to honor both of our brothers by using that guitar pick.
He almost cried. He thanked me. Then he went home that night and for the first time in years he played the guitar.
I don't know what the meaning of life is or what my purpose is, but I do believe that love and human connection is one of the most important things in life. It's finding ways to tell strangers you love them and share experiences with others. I think it's all just about love.
them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT
biologist:
ana mendieta “people looking at blood, moffit, iowa” 1973
My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:
Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.
I don’t get how in fantasy fiction, the women who actually enjoy sewing/embroidering are always painted as the weak, boring, and anti-feminist characters
Sewing and embroidery take skill, patience, and artistic talent and it was also the ultimate way to ignore the annoying men in your life in past centuries
If you didn’t feel like talking to a man, you just “took up your sewing” and he’d have to leave you alone, especially if he needed that shirt mended
Women also got together all the time to sew, weave, embroider but also talk, gossip, assist each other’s work, and enjoy each other’s company in peace
The skill the female character has doesn’t have to be sword-fighting for her to be strong, because there’s strength and power in any skill she has