Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.
Interpretation
This quote captures the innocence and beauty of childhood love, imagination, and connection.
The quote evokes a nostalgic and poetic portrayal of a youthful relationship between a boy and a girl, who share imaginative games and experiences that transcend the mundane. It speaks to the purity and simplicity of childhood love, where the boundaries of reality blur, and every moment is filled with magic and significance, even in their eventual separation. The imagery of autumn and natural elements adds a layer of warmth and bittersweetness, emphasizing the fleeting nature of such youthful connections.
In practice
This quote would be perfect to start a speech about childhood memories at a reunion.
To touch and feel each thing in the world, to know it by sight and by name, and then to know it with your eyes closed so that when something is gone, it can be recognized by the shape of its absence. So that you can continue to possess the lost, because absence is the only constant thing. Because you can get free of everything except the space where things have been.
For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love.
Only later did I come to understand that to be a mother is to be an illusion. No matter how vigilant, in the end a mother can't protect her child - not from pain, or horror, or the nightmare of violence, from sealed trains moving rapidly in the wrong direction, the depravity of strangers, trapdoors, abysses, fires, cars in the rain, from chance.
I’ve always liked the feeling of traveling light; there is something in me that wants to feel I could leave wherever I am, at any time, without any effort. The idea of being weighed down made me uneasy, as if I lived on the surface of a frozen lake and each new trapping of domestic life - a pot, a chair, a lamp - threatened to be the thing that sent me through the ice.
When we went into the ocean, I watched his body as he dove into the waves, and it gave me a feeling in my stomach that wasn't an ache but something different.
Herman slipped his hand into mine, and I thought, An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand, and the next thing that happened was we kissed each other, and I found I knew how, and I felt happy and sad in equal parts, because I knew that I was falling in love, but it wasn't with him.
Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.
Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said, "God, I love you" and looked to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other." To the children and the innocent it's all the same.
I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.
Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.
Take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.
My heart is on a budget._x000D_ It keeps me on the brink.
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