“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”
Category: Quote
“… but by God he can wrap a cat.”
“I think it was the beginning of Mrs. Bond’s unquestioning faith in me when she saw me quickly enveloping the cat till all you could see of him was a small black and white head protruding from an immovable cocoon of cloth. He and I were now facing each other, more or less eyeball to eyeball, and George couldn’t do a thing about it. As I say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise, and even today my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark, “Old Herriot may be limited in many respects, but by God he can wrap a cat.”
― James Herriot, James Herriot’s Cat Stories
***
“…but by God he can wrap a cat.”
“I hadn’t been out to the hives before …
“I hadn’t been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called ‘bee yard etiquette’. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
* Posted in parallel with Words for the Weekend: Daisys Up Your Butterfly (Vol. 23)
“Please don’t expect me to always be good …
“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”
– Sylvia Plath
“I am fifty four years old, the age my mother was when she died. …
“I am fifty four years old, the age my mother was when she died. This is what I remember: We were lying on her bed with a mohair blanket covering us. I was rubbing her back, feeling each vertebra with my fingers as a rung on a ladder. It was January, and the ruthless clamp of cold bore down on us outside. Yet inside, Mother’s tenderness and clarity of mind carried its own warmth. She was dying in the same way she was living, consciously.
“I am leaving you all my journals,” she said, facing the shuttered window as I continued rubbing her back. “But you must promise me that you will not look at them until after I am gone.”
I gave her my word. And then she told me where they were. I didn’t know my mother kept journals.
A week later she died. That night, there was a full moon encircled by ice crystals.
On the next full moon I found myself alone in the family home. I kept expecting Mother to appear. Her absence became her presence. It was the right time to read her journals. They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful clothbound books; some floral, some paisley, others in solid colors. The spines of each were perfectly aligned against the lip of the shelves. I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It, too, was empty, as was the fourth, the fifth, the sixth – shelf after shelf after shelf, all my mother’s journals were blank.”
– Terry Tempest Williams
When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
Words ... for the Time Being 