“I’m awake; I am in the world-
I expect
no further assurance.
No protection, no promise.
Solace of the night sky,
the hardly moving
face of the clock.
I’m alone- all
my riches surround me.
I have a bed, a room.
I have a bed, a vase
of flowers beside it.
And a nightlight, a book.
I’m awake; I am safe.
The darkness like a shield, the dreams
put off, maybe
vanished forever.
And the day-
the unsatisfying morning that says
I am your future,
here is your cargo of sorrow:
Do you reject me? Do you mean
To send me away because I am not
full, in your word,
because you see
the black shape already implicit?
I will never be banished. I am the light,
your personal anguish and humiliation.
Do you dare
send me away as though
you were waiting for something better?
There is no better.
Only (for a short space)
the night sky like
a quarantine that sets you
apart from your task.
Only (softly, fiercely)
the stars shining. Here,
in the room, the bedroom.
Saying I was brave, I resisted,
I set myself on fire.
– Louise Glück, Stars
Quotes
On feeling everything
I’m fairly certain I mean it when I say that I would rather feel everything than nothing at all. Even though feeling everything, the full magnitude and strength of every event and scenario, is incredibly scary and tough sometimes.
These days I’m learning how to reevaluate what matters and what holds meaning. I’m also learning a lot about uncertainty and the unknown.
“The unknown carries with it a mirror of all our deepest, most inexpressible wishes. The unknown is the fatal proposition that a face seen across the room will always hold out to the known.” – Alain de Botton, On Love.
On truth
In the morning there is always a little more clarity.
These days I have found there is a certain hope and feeling that only comes with the rising sun.
“The truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.” – Nadine Gordimer
Kelly + Trey | Chapel Hill, NC
Kelly and Trey are getting married in April and I am so excited for it!
These two are incredibly fun to take pictures of and their wedding sounds like it is going to be unlike any other I’ve ever photographed before. Thanks Kelly and Trey for being so fun and for braving the cold with me.
“I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you
first come ’round the corner.Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more”
– Rumi
Landscape
“We are a landscape of all we have seen.” – Isamu Naguchi
Sleep
Sleep
Best of all things are the lights in the sky
but what I am seeking is sleep.
Or not sleep exactly,
because of the dreams and the damage they do,
but places to sleep, on the ground,
in the middles of cities that are strange to me:
cots that cost nothing, whatever the slant,
spots that are mine at nightfall,
favorable places the size of my body,
where grass grows out of the brickwork,
under the stars or the lights of the tunnels.
– Thomas Frick
Tenderly
“Before I went to work we were under the olive tree and
you were doing what you called psych patient smoking
and you said, I don’t want to be Satan but will you join
me and we pulled up our shirts to rub bellies and yours
was so much flatter but filled with garden bread anyway
anyway up went our shirts, solar to solar plexus, and it
was a comforting ritual we daily did and I said, Let’s do
this for the rest of our lives. You said, You look lovely.
It’s hard to remember tender things tenderly.”
– Bough Down, Karen Green
GRACE FARSON 