Perilous Beauty

(via thelasthomerecording)

(via thesecretpostcards)

“ No partner in a love relationship…should feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.

— May Sarton

consistency of character

“ Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.

— Paul Strand (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)

(via icanread)

jenna2step:

The trees in the courtyard are still green, so I sit under them and try to will the last few heartbeats of summer into my pores. It’s not that the fall is treating me badly- it changes things, of course and inevitably- but the summer has always stood for something irrevocably infinite, no matter what the year. I am trying not to forget summer as a whole, but as an individual entity as well.

“ I wish the whole day were like breakfast, when people are still connected to their dreams, focused inward, and not yet ready to engage with the world around them. I realized this is how I am all day; for me, unlike other people, there doesn’t come a moment after a cup of coffee or a shower or whatever when I suddenly feel alive and awake and connected to the world. If it were always breakfast, I would be fine.

— Peter Cameron (Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You) (via bemyjelly)

insituthoughts:

kari-shma:

candles (via maapu)

icanread:

(by sweetxblasphemy)

(via papertissue)

“ People, in other words, need people: We are the glue holding ourselves together.

— Jonah Lehrer, The Buddy System (via psychotherapy)

“ Summer always feels endless until it suddenly ends…September is the Monday of months.

— Jeff Scher, in “Summer Retreat” for New York Times’ The Animated Life blog (via britticisms) (via beautifulordinaire) (via verbadjectivenoun) (via quote-book)

“ The need to find meaning … is as real as the need for trust and for love, for relations with other human beings.

— Margaret Mead (via psychotherapy)

the next great revelation.

jenna2step:

I’m sorry if I sound distant sometimes, like I’m slowly drifting into my own mind- folding in on myself like a black hole swallows everything in it’s path and then in a final transcendent moment, disappears. The truth is, I’m just trying to get a handle on my moods and the way they flicker on and off like that lamppost that sits outside the front of my house.

I wish I could pound my fists down on the keyboard and you would understand what I was trying to say, like you could decipher the silences between my deep sighs and breaths and read the furrow in my brow. I know it’s not as simple as that, but Edison found one hundred ways not to make a light bulb before he figured out how to, and that’s the way I see this. I’m no Edison, no Washington-Carver, and I’m certainly no Einstein, but I’ve got it in mind that if I do this enough times, after years of confusion, in one glorious moment, you’ll get it- you’ll get me. And if you finally got me, maybe you’d love me. Maybe you’d discover that you love me.

I want to be your next great revelation, like getting let down for the first time in your life or learning you had something all wrong or even all right. The first spring rain, or the first signs of fall, or finally getting it- really understanding the inner workings of your heart’s relationship with despair or your brain’s fascination with depression, or your voice’s obsession with losing itself in whispers and screams alike.

I’m not sure what I mean anymore. I don’t fully expect you to either, I guess. I’m used to it. And that’s not self-pity you’re hearing, that’s just the way things are. Maybe not having a point is exactly the point I need to make.

I guess it’s like this: I want you to run your fingers all over the Braille of my written word. I want you to analyze the slight hesitations in the way I speak, and the pauses before I smile, and the way I’m only ever comfortable if it’s 4:00 in the morning and I’m drunk on sleeplessness and laugher. The way my eyes frequently shift to the left. The way my hands shake. The way I lean in close and intent when you’re speaking because I desperately want to feel like I’ve got a handle on what you are. That’s what I want. And maybe it’s selfish, but I’m not the first person who’s ever been that way and I sure as hell won’t be the last, so I don’t know, I feel alright about it. I feel alright.

I dream about the way you walk, and try to interpret your choice of words, and I wonder why you are the way you are, and how it’s going to change during your lifetime. I think about your family and your future plans and your future, period.

I just want to meet someone who does the same to me.
I just wonder how many people have the same craving for understanding.