Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.
Helen HumphreysRead
Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I can just exist, easily and simply, entire, for as long as I have left.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the importance of memory and existence amidst life's challenges.
In this quote, Helen Humphreys explores the role of memory and light as protective forces against the inevitable hardships of life and death. She articulates a desire to create a space in her life that is free from anxiety and worry, allowing her to simply exist and appreciate the moments she has left. It emphasizes the struggle against the burdens of life and the quest for peace and clarity in the midst of chaos.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of mental health, one could quote this to highlight the need for clarity and peace of mind.
Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.
Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.
They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.
I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?
But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.
I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a few moments as evolutionary time is measured, a juvenile species, a child of a species. We are only tentatively set in place, error prone, at risk of fumbling, in real danger at the moment of leaving behind only a thin layer of of our fossils, radioactive at that.
Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.
But we had with us, to keep and to care for, more than five hundred bruised bodies of men- men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order- do we call it? - fraught with such ruin. Was it God's command we heard or His forgiveness we must forever implore?
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