Quote of the Day

The blues had a baby and they named the baby rock and roll.

-- Muddy Waters

Bookin' It in 2024

Sadly, the challenges that plagued me last year continued in my 2024 reading year.  However, I was able to finish the following five books.  The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. Menopause: A Comic Treatment edited by MK Czerwiec
2. Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
3. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
4. Emerging from the Cracks: My Journey to Authentic Living by C. H. Danton
5. Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed by Laurie Halse Anderson

Quote of the Day

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing.  Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.  All we can do is learn to swim.

-- Vicki Harrison

Quote of the Day

The work of a mature human being is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other, and to be stretched large by these two things.

-- Francis Weller

Quote of the Day

In order to get over [the pain], I had to eat it and digest it.  I had to be in that zone.  I poured all my heart, all my emotions, all my mental torture into the music.  And maybe I'm moving on.  I selfishly compose for myself, but I don't think it's selfish because we are just human beings.  We do have a lot of differences, but we are much more similar than different.  I really truly believe that my very personal story can reach out to and appeal to a lot of people.

-- Jihye Lee

Quote of the Day

I think sorrow is natural.  And I had a friend once in the age when a psychiatrist thought it was a good idea to give you a lot of drugs if you were going through grieving and sorrow, and then you just wouldn't feel it.  What that means is you never get over it, because you haven't had that experience, which is a very human one, and everyone has it sooner or later.  It's grief.  And since I'm now in the land of windows, I'm the person that they phone and they say, "Will this ever be over?  How do I get through this?"  So one day at a time, but don't expect there to be no sorrow.

-- Margaret Atwood

Quote of the Day

There is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require.

-- Edward Elgar

Quote of the Day

Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness.  It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love.  The only cure for grief is to grieve.

-- Earl Grollman

Quote of the Day

Grief is not a sign of weakness; it's a sign of love.  It's the price we pay for having deeply connected to someone or something.

-- Dr. Thema Bryant

Quote of the Day

My songs are like my journals.  And when other people relate to the music, I'm like, "Oh, thank God I'm not alone."

-- Laufey

Quote of the Day

I see your life as already artful, waiting,

just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

-- Toni Morrison

Quote of the Day

I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.  I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.  Let them become the photograph on the table.  Let them become the name on the trust accounts.  Let go of them in the water.  Knowing this does not make it any easier to let go of him in the water.  In fact the apprehension that our life together will decreasingly be the center of my every day seemed today on Lexington Avenue so distinct a betrayal that I lost all sense of oncoming traffic.

-- Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, p. 225-226