“Life will break you.
Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearnings.
You have to love.
You have to feel.
It is the reason you are here on earth.
You are here to risk your heart.
You are here to be swallowed up.
And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt,
or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree
and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”
- Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
I want to tell you how beautifully Louise Erdrich writes, but I've made the decision not to try and follow Louise Erdrich.
Just go read Louise Erdrich. The Painted Drum or Love Medicine are where I recommend beginning.
That quote reminds me so much of a conversation I've been having lately...
ReplyDelete