Italicized Minds

"My arrogance knows no bounds and I will make no peace today, and you should be so lucky to find a woman like me." Expert breather, blinker, and heart beater. Boston, MA

[heemwonen]

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

Humpback whales singing off the leeward coast of O’ahu

(sound on 🔉)

[guulabii]

i think love is revolutionary because when done right, it allows for accountability, for growth, for healing, for laughter, for joy, for connection, for touch, for coming home. maybe it is foolish of me, even a little stupid to think of it as such but when done right, when honoured, when fulfilled, when prepared and boiled and served well, it truly does magic, it truly changes lives, it nourishes, it feeds, it gives hope, hope, so much of it.

[sandovers]

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.

Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia

[petaltexturedskies]

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers. It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy. I walked slowly, and listened to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

Mary Oliver, from “Sometimes” in Red Bird (originally published in 2008)

[snailychan]

Reflecting

[mindsitalicized]

Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? You are an adult. The old one, the wise one. Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon's hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly - once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1993

[wetheurban]

Read more. Cook more. Listen more. Laugh more. Create more. Hydrate more. Call loved ones more. Get out in nature more. Forgive yourself more. Challenge yourself more. Work on your craft more. Invest in yourself more. Compliment others more. Celebrate small wins more. Dance and sing more. Make memories more. Live your life more.

[litandlifequotes]

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

[strawberryjayne]

[lonestarflight]

NASA ID: art002e000191, art002e000192

A view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman from one of the Orion spacecraft's window after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026. The image features two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible as the Earth eclipses the Sun.

Credit: NASA

Date: April 3, 2026

[zagrebinaa]

[remanence-of-love]

[javarisx-fightingthosedemons]

[04k96]

[aaaangel444]

agridulceart

[theimpossiblecool]

“Be a fool. For love. For yourself. What you think might possibly make you happy - even for a little while - whatever the cost or good sense might dictate.”

Anthony Bourdain.