The Wren, the Wren

We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can look at the world in a new way. We can meet.

What I wanted, more than anything, was some uninterrupted crying time. I had a screaming need to be alone. I did not say this to Lily, I told her I needed to write a book. Which, when you think about it, is probably code for the same thing.

The way they ignored each other was more alert and intricate than another couple kissing.

The headline says, "Three people dead in light air crash" and it is a big story because three people were up in the air until they weren't. People die on airplanes all the time, the stewards lay them out along the back row and give the other passengers a free drink. People also die in car crahses, which happen, boringly, on the ground. People die and die. Every day, in any square mile of city streets, someone dies from homelessness or poverty or stupid blind fate. Journalists are so lazy-tragedy all around and they spend their time waiting for a few rich people to literally fall out of the sky.

people aren’t listening to each other, they are just waiting their turn to speak.

The cut worm forgives the plough’,

Carmel couldn’t figure it out. How had she ended up with this job, for which she had never applied? Was it the sex – which got good for about two minutes and then wasn’t? Or staying over? Maybe that was where the spell got cast. Maybe, if you were a woman, the act of sleeping was enough. It could happen on a bus, you could do it on a plane. You could nod off, wake up beside some strange man who was now yours to mind for life. Carmel wanted to laugh, but actually there was an inner shrieking in her head going, I have a daughter. I have a daughter. I have a daughter, you bitch, she is only nine.

All the painted women in the Uffizi are whiter than any human flesh. Many of them look like Cate Blanchett, if Cate Blanchett could not act. This is especially the case in the early rooms. Here, groups of pale, serene people gaze off in different directions doing very bad acting indeed. Oh, I am being born from the waves. Oh, I am getting pregnant talking to an angel. Oh, I am dying in agony. Oh, I am sexually attractive. Further in, and historically later, the acting improves, then it goes madly over the top. Slaughter! Mayhem! What a nice party, let us all laugh!

The way to see the bird you want to see, is to stop looking for it, we all know this. You have to undo your gaze, let the bird happen without you.

my life, my daughter,

That’s not anxiety, that’s just stupid. Why is everyone so delighted about being stupid?

People are different and they think differently.

His dick is softened by alcohol and this makes him frightening, the idea that he will try to hurt me in some other way.

It's not that I think about him constantly, he is my way of thinking. His mind is my compass, his eyes my only mirror.

if you don’t think about yourself then you won’t have any problems.

We don’t walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can look at the world in a new way. We can meet.