I am feeling fine. I remember these words and recite them. These are the things you say when asked how you are. After all, it would be odd to say: I'm not feeling. Or, more to the point: I'm not, I have ceased to be. Where am I? Marya Hornbacher More Quotes by Marya Hornbacher More Quotes From Marya Hornbacher In our absence, the violet early evening light pours in the bay window, filling the still room like water poured into a glass. The glass is delicate. The thin, tight surface of the liquid light trembles. But it does not break. Time does not pass. Not yet. Marya Hornbacher evening-light glasses water ...painfully curious...about how it feels to fall. Marya Hornbacher curious feels fall Hatred is so much closer to love than indifference. Marya Hornbacher indifference hatred For me, the first sign of oncoming madness is that I'm unable to write. Marya Hornbacher madness writing firsts That’s the nice thing about dreams, the way you wake up before you fall. Marya Hornbacher nice dream fall The idea began to sink in, more than it ever had, that I might be crazy, in the traditional sense of the word. That I might be, forever and ever amen, a Crazy Person. That's what we'd suspected all along, what I'd been working so hard to disprove, what might be true. I preferred, by far, being dead. Marya Hornbacher crazy forever ideas The joy is an absurd yellow tulip, popping up in my life, contradicting all the evidence that shows it should not be there. Marya Hornbacher contradicting yellow joy For a long time I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame. Marya Hornbacher passion lying past There are women in my closet, hanging on the hangers. a different woman for each suit, each dress, each pair of shoes. I hoard clothes. My makeup spills from the bathroom drawers, and there are different women for different lipsticks. Marya Hornbacher makeup clothes shoes You wake up one morning and there it is, sitting in an old plaid bathrobe in your kitchen, unpleasant and unshaved. You look at it, heart sinking. Madness is a rotten guest. Marya Hornbacher kitchen heart morning ...Someone speaks in soft tones to me and says I am psychotic, but it's going to be all right. I put on my hat, unperturbed, and ask for some crayons. Marya Hornbacher hats tone speak At times it may seem worse - harder, at least - to live through the despair of this loss without the temporary comfort of our addictive behaviour. We cannot drown our sorrows. We must face the fact that we don’t know, really, where we are, how we got here, how long the pain will last, or how to move past it. That uncertainty may be the most painful part of not knowing a God: no one is there to reassure us that a God will take the pain and confusion away. We simply don’t know. And we have no way to numb ourselves or to forget the condition we’re in. Marya Hornbacher pain loss moving I have a remarkable ability to delete all better judgement from my brain when I get my head set on something. I have no sense of moderation, no sense of caution. I have no sense pretty much. Marya Hornbacher moderation judgement brain That nothing - not booze, not love, not sex, not work, not moving from state to state - will make the past disappear. Marya Hornbacher sex past moving I had a love affair with books, with characters and their words. Books kept me company. When the voices of the book faded, as with the last long chord of a record, the back cover crinkling closed, I could swear I heard a door click shut. Marya Hornbacher voice character book And it's California, where everything is powerfully strange. Everyone wants it to be home. Everyone left where he or she was from with dreams of transformation. Everyone runs away to California at least once, or at least all the lonely, hungry people do. Marya Hornbacher lonely dream running I either want to be completely recovered or completely emaciated. It's the in between that I can't stand, the limbo of failure where you know that you haven't done your best at one or the other: dying or living. Marya Hornbacher dying done want My relationships with both my mother and father are good. We spent several difficult years hashing over the problems and the past, and worked out a fairly solid middle ground. I wouldn't say my relationship with either of them - they're no longer together - is exactly typical, but that would be difficult after all we went through. Marya Hornbacher mother father past The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive. Marya Hornbacher alive doe facts I do have faith. I don't have faith that a God exists, nor do I have faith that one does not; I have absolute faith that I do not know, cannot know, am only human, am an infinitesimal creature packed onto a cramped planet crowded with seven billion bodies, and as many yearning hearts, and as many questioning minds. Marya Hornbacher mind doe heart
