pictures from new england, on the 1870's farm in maine where we spent 3 days
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"they say that people who live next to waterfalls don't hear the water.

...it was terrible at first. We couldn't stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were filled with nights of intermittent sleep and quarreling for the sake of being heard over the water.

We fought so much just to remind ourselves that we were in love, and not in hate.

But the next weeks were a little better. It was possible to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild discomfort. [We] still cursed the water, but less frequently, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quieted. It's your fault, she would say. You wanted to live here.

Life continued, as life continues, and time passed, as time passes,

and after a little more than two months:

Do you hear that? I asked her one of the rare mornings we sat at the table together. Hear it? I put down my coffee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing?

What thing? she asked.

Exactly! I said, running outside to pump my fist at the waterfall. Exactly!

We danced, throwing handfuls of water in the air, hearing nothing at all. We alternated hugs of forgiveness and shouts of human triumph at the water. Who wins the day? Who wins the day, waterfall?

We do! We do!

And this is what living next to a waterfall is like.

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time.

Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness.

Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again.

The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens.

Every love is carved from loss.

Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be.

But we learn to live in that love."

-everything is illuminated, jonathan safran foer
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Every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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these quotes were found on una bella vista. i have not seen the movie yet, but i plan to soon. i don't think viewing is necessary to feel the meaning of the words. in a way, being back on campus is like slowly waiting for the dull roar of the waterfall to subside. i know eventually i will not miss certain people as sharply as i do now. i knwo i will become busy with new tasks and obligations. but a part of me wants to hold on to a measure of that pain, so i remember how good it was while it lasted, and to remember that with effort i can maintain contact with many of those whom i am missing. i do not wish for people to judge me as cold simply because often i am sad.

today i have slept in, bandaged my angry feet (angry from dancing last night), caught up with a friend, and been to salvation army