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Grief And Gratitude
And I’ll dance with you in Vienna,
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
— Federico García Lorca
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Tantra is not love.
May we not just have lovers but create partners that will laugh with us as our bodies fall apart. Who will take care of us when we are sick. Who we are damn proud to declare loudly that we love and are loved by. Let that be what fuels us. That is really the only thing that makes us alive anyway.
— Maria Palumbo
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The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them.
How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering.
