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97c4b65
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What I want to do and what I have to do are always fighting each other like alley cats.
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Susan Vreeland |
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24f59a6
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put herself back together again and again. She would drink the forest liquids and drench herself in possibility.
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Susan Vreeland |
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eca7848
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at age seventy-four, she was asked what had been the outstanding events of her life. She responded, "Work and more work! . . . loving everything terrifically. . . . The outstanding event to me is the doing--which I am still at."
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Susan Vreeland |
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bc4e141
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Should I explain to him Galileo's discovery that we are not what we thought--that our lives are made smaller by the unimportance of our dwelling place on the periphery, like a touch of color at the edge of a painting, contributing to the whole but unnoticed by most?
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Susan Vreeland |
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b3d6b13
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Before this I had always held back, had never lived freely, not with Pietro, not even with Palmira, but here, where nothing was known, I did not fear judgment, and because Father and I shared the same sensibilities, all the rigidness of my living melted and I felt myself coming into myself. If it was genuine, if it would last, it was a wonderful feeling.
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life
purpose
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Susan Vreeland |
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6318fc9
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How does one end a moment like this? It would kill her to feel him pull away. She had to be first. In a moment. One moment more. Yes. Now
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Susan Vreeland |
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13e9d0a
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Paint a self-portrait, for our parlor. I want to see that one eyebrow permanently arched, permanently skeptical--the look of someone who doesn't suffer prudes easily.
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Susan Vreeland |
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ccfd8aa
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I had brought something out of the earth, and it was used to make something beautiful.
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Susan Vreeland |
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8648c23
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When something changes your life, Lisette, you remember everything.
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Susan Vreeland |
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de10719
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It was strange: When you reduced even a fledgling love affair to its essentials - I loved her, she maybe loved me, I was foolish, I suffered - it became vacuous and trite, meaningless to anyone else. In the end, it's only the moments that we have, the kiss on the palm, the joint wonder at the furrowed texture of a fir trunk or at the infinitude of grains of sand in a dune. Only the moments.
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time
kiss
life
love
moment
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Susan Vreeland |
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5bc1728
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I came to see that knowing what love isn't might be just as valuable, though infinitely less satisfying, as knowing what it is.
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love
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Susan Vreeland |
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5bcd89c
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She was a desperate woman with frailties just like her, temptations just like her, a woman who had needs, a woman who loved almost to the point of there being no more her anymore, a woman who probably cried too much, just like her, a woman afraid, wanting to believe rather than believing [...]
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woman
temptation
faith
family
life
love
tears
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Susan Vreeland |
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42e7b69
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The only place Aletta and I could be together unseen was just under the rafters in the church tower, a circumstance that propelled us into an earlier intimacy than what we would have known had we been permitted to walk together Sunday afternoons under the wide sky.
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refuge
secrecy
young-love
secrets
intimacy
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Susan Vreeland |
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ba4a4d3
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No matter where life takes you,' she said, 'the place where you stand at any moment is holy ground. Love hard and love wide and love long, and you will find the goodness in it.
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Susan Vreeland |
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9609bc7
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The heaviness of forgiveness descended the moment after I wrote the words.
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Susan Vreeland |
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8e221ff
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The trouble with us is that we've been too polite with each other.
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Susan Vreeland |
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b1d273d
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Thank the Lord you have a man as hardworking as Stijn. Work is love made plain, whether man's or woman's work, and you're a fool if you don't recognize it.
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Susan Vreeland |
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f897633
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Her stony coldness was more convincing of the cataclysm than the dirt. Argument was as futile now as blame in Eden. I could not bear to look at her. She had cast away her soul.
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Susan Vreeland |
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a88abbf
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Never did she succumb to the cowardice of self-pity. I had fancied love a causal adjunct and not the central turning shaft making all the parts move. I had not stood astonished before the power of its turning.
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Susan Vreeland |
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1a85b31
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She remembered wishing, one particular morning... that she might someday have someone to write to, that she could write at the end of a letter full of love and news, "As ever, your loving Magdalena Elisabeth."
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Susan Vreeland |
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efb7bba
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Non esiste un ingresso che immetta nella fortezza dell'anima.
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Susan Vreeland |
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72aec33
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William uncorked the bottle and poured. 'Here's to the end of summer.' 'A beautiful summer,' Bernard added. 'I wish it would last forever,' Alice said. 'You wouldn't value it as much,' said Bernard. 'When joys are sparse, they sink into you more deeply.
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Susan Vreeland |