What the Wind Knows

We turn memories into stories, and if we don’t, we lose them. If the stories are gone, then the people are gone too.

But the wind and water know all the earth’s secrets. They’ve seen and heard all that has ever been said or done. And if you listen, they will tell you all the stories and sing every song. The stories of everyone who has ever lived. Millions and millions of lives. Millions and millions of stories.

we keep the people we love in our hearts. We never lose them as long as we can remember how it felt to be loved by them.

Don't go near the water, love. Stay away from strand or sea. You cannot walk on water, love; The lough will take you far from me.

My grandfather told me once that happiness is an expression of gratitude. And it’s never wrong to be grateful.

I can’t imagine all men love their women the way I love Anne. If they did, the streets would be empty, and the fields would grow fallow. Industry would rumble to a halt and markets would tumble as men bowed at the feet of their wives, unable to need or notice anything but her. If all men loved their wives the way I love Anne, we would be a useless lot. Or maybe the world would know peace. Maybe the wars would end, and the strife would cease as we centred our lives on loving and being loved.

I fell so fast, so hard, and so completely. Not because love is blind, but because . . . it’s not. Love isn’t blind, it’s blinding. Glaring.

It is one thing to fight for freedom; it is another to condemn the innocent to die in your war.

I had a teacher who told me fiction is the future. Nonfiction is the past. One can be shaped and created. One cannot,” she said.

Idealism often rewrites history to suit her narrative.

It is as if we always were and always will be, as though our love and our lives sprang from the same source and will return to that source in the end, intertwined and indistinguishable. We are ancient. Prehistoric and predestined.

There are some paths that inevitably lead to heartache, some acts that steal men’s souls, leaving them wandering forever after without them, trying to find what they lost. There are too many lost souls in Ireland because of politics. I’m going to hold on to what’s left of mine.

love her with an intensity I didn’t think myself capable of. Yeats writes about being changed utterly. I am changed utterly. Irrevocably. And though love is indeed a terrible beauty, especially given the circumstances, I can only revel in all its gory gloriousness.

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, For I would ride with you upon the wind, Run on the top of the disheveled tide, And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

We were specks, bits of glass and dust. We were as numerous as the sands that lined the strand, one unrecognizable from the other. We were born; we lived; we died. And the cycle continued endlessly on. So many lives lived. And when we died, we simply vanished. A few generations would go by. And no one would know we even were. No one would remember the color of our eyes or the passion that raged inside us. Eventually, we all became stones in the grass, moss-covered monuments, and sometimes . . . not even that.

When I struggled to get the words out, my grandfather would hand me a pen and paper. “If you can’t say them, write them. They last longer that way. Write all your words, Annie. Write them and give them somewhere to go.

Time was the one thing I wanted and the one thing no one could give me.

So many opinions and so few solutions. And all the opinion in the world doesn’t change the past.

I loved churches the way I loved cemeteries and books. All three were markers of humanity, of time, of life.

Time was not flat and linear but layered and interconnected, a circle that retraced its path again and again, generation after generation, shearing the same space if not the same sphere.

I’d heard once that our view of God has everything to do with those who taught us about Him. Our image of Him often reflected our image of them. Eoin taught me about God, and because I loved and cherished Eoin, I loved and cherished God.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,” he repeated over the chuckling, “and nodding by the fire, take down this book, and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; how many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true, but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face.

I pulled you from the water And kept you in my bed. A lost, forsaken daughter Of a past that isn’t dead. Somehow love from sweet obsession Branched and broke a heart of stone. Distrust became confession, Solemn vows of blood and bone. But in the wind, I hear the strain, Pilgrim soul that time has found. It moans to whisk you back again. Bid me follow, sweetly drown. Don’t go near the water, love. Stay away from strand or sea. You cannot walk on water, love. The lough will take you far from me.

A man won't suffer or sacrifice for something he doesn't love.

None of us are the same, Anne. Some days I hardly recognise myself in the mirror. It's not my face that has changed; it's the way I see the world. I've seen things that have permanently altered me. I've done things that have distorted my vision. I've crossed lines and tried to find them again, only to discover that all my lines have disappeared. And without lines, everything blurs together [...] But when I look at you, I still see Anne [...] Your lines are sharp and clean. The faces around you are faded and dull - they've been faded and dull for years now - but you ... you are perfectly clear.

He told me everything would be okay because the wind already knows,” I whispered.

I was taught to love Ireland, but love should not be this hard. Duty, yes. But not love. Maybe that’s my answer. A man won’t suffer or sacrifice for something he doesn’t love. In the end, I suppose it all amounts to what we love the most.

Everyone who has ever lived. The wind and the water already know,” he said softly. “Know what?” “Everything. The wind you hear is the same wind that has always blown. The rain that falls is the same rain. Over and over, round and round, like a giant circle. The wind and the waves have been present since time began. The rocks and stars too. But the rocks don’t speak, and the stars are too far away to tell us what they know.

Someone very wise told me that we keep the people we love in our hearts. We never lose them as long as we can remember how it felt to be loved by them.