like i've written several times before, the writings of rainer maria rilke have deeply affected me the past 6 months or so. i've shared words of his that felt like they were penned with me in mind. ever more so than rilke, my college experience was shaped, guided and mentored (if you will) by the diaries and letters of anne morrow lindbergh, the great mother and aviatrix, wife of charles lindbergh. during some of my darkest moments in college, i could turn to her writings and find comfort and guidance. lately i've been re-reading, for the umpteenth time, her diaries and letters from 1922-1928, compiled in "bring me a unicorn." i LOVE unicorns too so that's an added bonus. these letters and journals are collected from her undergraduate years at smith college and her budding relationship with charles. more than anything, reading this on my lunch break each day makes me think of my mother. here are some breathtaking quotes from my all-time favorite authoress.
* "I have not and will not break down. I am strong and well and see clearly." - tomorrow will be four months since the ending of my engagement. maybe one day i might fully write about it on here. BUT i am healing, i am getting stronger and i am learning to forget, which is all that i came here for. each morning i wake up and ache so much less. that heavy sack of hurts that just sits on my chest gets lighter each morning. and i will be like anne morrow lindbergh and "will not break down". i'm far too strong for that anymore.
* "'Live from day to day - just life from day to day,' that the important thing about doing that was not just that you worried less but that you lived more richly. If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments." - this is what i tried so hard to do before i moved from seattle. i intentionally neglected to bring my camera different places so that i would savor each memory and moment as it came. that i would experience each instant with all of my senses and i can still vividly recall each and every one.
* "I feel like taking my life, everything I ever loved...and throwing it all away for someone. Saying, 'Nothing I have ever been or done, nothing I stood for, nothing I am is worth the smallesst thing in your life. Let me work through you. If I can do anything for you, then at least there is a reason for me."
* "I suppose I must be content with my world - the things I love, the things I stand for...I must give up trying, I must believe somehow that my world is of some worth, that there is some essential in it worth working on. That I must find something in myself, peculiar to myself, that I can make and give."
* "Make your world count - you must find something there"
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