Beauty cannot disguise nor music melt A pain undiagnosable but felt.

I think best with a pencil in my hand.

there is no aristocracy of grief. Grief is a great leveler.

I am beginning to respect the apathetic days. Perhaps they're a necessary pause: better to give in to them than to fight them at your desk hopelessly; then you lose both the day and your self-respect. Treat them as physical phenomena -- casually -- and obey them.

For is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence? It is true that society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life.

For in our family an experience was not finished, not truly experienced, unless written down or shared with another.

I have been overcome by the beauty and richness of our life together, those early mornings setting out, those evenings gleaming with rivers and lakes below us, still holding the last light.