maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea. - E.E. Cummings

"We cant go back. We can only go forward."

"There are no safe choices, only more choices."

"Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things"

"There is a particular circle of hell not mentioned in Dante's famous book. It is called comportment and it exists in schools for young ladies across the empire. I do not know how it feels to be thrown into a lake of fire. I am sure it is not pleasant. But I can say with all certainty that walking the length of a ballroom with a book upon ones head and a backboard strapped to ones back while imprisoned in a tight corset and shoes that pinch is a form of torture even Mr. Alighieri would find too hideous to document in his Inferno.

"Hello Simon. Jaunty Hat. Did you take it from a bandstand?"

Lets See...you look lovely. Its lovely to see one another. And, of course, the weather is lovely. I do believe we have encompassed the loveliness of all things lovely."

I think of those ladies in their stiff gowns and forced smiles, drowning their hunger in weak tea, trying hard to make themselves fit into such a narrow world, desperately afraid the blinders will slip and show them what they've chosen to close out."

" We fall into the continuing circle of dancers. Some leave the floor, tired but giddy; other have only just arrived. They are eager to wear their new status as ladies, to be paraded about and lauded until they see themselves with new eyes. The fathers beam at their daughters, thinking them perfect flowers in need of their protection, while the mothers watch from the margins, certain this moment is their doing. We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth. But the girls! Their eyes glow with the fever dream of all they might become. They tell themselves this is the beginning of everything. And who am I to say it isn't?