today i remember her for her resilient strength and for how she taught me how to let myself exist as a solitary individual with complete feelings and emotions.
here are some of my favourite lines from her works -
1. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.
2. The initial gesture of taking responsibility for our well-being, wherein we confess to our brokenness, our woundedness, and open ourselves to salvation, must be made by the individual. This act of opening the heart enables us to receive the healing offered us by those who care. (All About Love)
3. Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion. (All About Love)
4. I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.
5. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim 'You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself' made clear sense. And I add, 'Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.
6. The source of all wakefulness, the source of all kindness and compassion, the source of all wisdom, is in each second of time. Anything that has us looking ahead is missing the point. - from x
7. Young people are cynical about love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart.
8. Power feminism is just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us.
9. If Black women stand strong and our commitment is to ending domination I know that I’m supporting Black males, Black children male and female Black elderly because the bottom line is the struggle to end domination in all its forms.
10. Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.
I ask of you all to read her books, she has been a great teacher through and through. You will gain enough insight to learn how and when to forgive yourself, and how to keep on living. It's all about love, and beauty is and will be political.
