there i was twisted up breathing into every sensation my straining limbs had to offer one hand rooted on the mat, the other flying high above when i spied it- a white crescent scar outlined on my foot. vaguely i could remember pain it must have bled, stopping me in my tracks but the story [...]
Excerpts from a well-loved journal on its final pages, from a well-lived year.
twenty three is... shapeless, lovely and lonely. we are together in our singularity; the paths ahead for each of us are different, but the tiniest bit clearer each day. we don't know how long we'll get to work together, or live together, but we try to forget about that at happy hour. the sharp intersection [...]
i supposethat if we hadn't met the way we didthanks to the chances& million tiny choices made along the waywe'd be strangers and perhaps we'd sitbeside each other on a busor reach for the same zucchini at the groceryand draw back, meet eyes,polite, withdrawn, sheepish with no way of knowinghow 999,999 snap judgments agowe missed [...]
After gigantic, joyful experiences in life - like a trip I’ve looked forward to all year, or a visit from someone I miss so much it feels like getting a phantom limb back - I’ll find myself sinking down fast into my own personal quicksand hole. It’s a familiar spiral, and it starts the minute [...]
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once. But don't ever underestimate the importance you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” Michelle Obama [...]
lauren the girl who sat with me in bare faces and freshly washed hair talking through late nights that slid into early mornings, no matter what we had to do come sunrise. the exhaustion was always worth the lingering glow of her undivided attention. she could adorn you with her words, her compliments lain glistening [...]
Winter in Ohio. A wash of dull green, steel gray, lifeless browns and whites. The sky hangs close and I struggle to remember the version of myself who ran before work and grabbed drinks at sunset. The sun isn’t that big of a deal, I think, until it comes back for a few hours here [...]
she is scarlet & grey and black & gold she is the keeper of treasured memories and getaway driver in countless adventures to come she is battered, full journals and crisp new pens she is love notes etched onto dive bar walls and the cornerstone of her communities she is rich red cabernet and conversations [...]
twenty two feels like messy cursive, ink to paper, the pen never coming off the page to breathe. breathing would mean stopping for a moment and missing a blurry, beautiful, unremarkable, magical, infuriating day. racing home to scribble down an idea before it slips away. dreams won’t move, can’t move unless you do. curled up crying [...]
Bridget Cook 