water, sunlight, tender mercy

Jaakko Pallasvuo

—  Eileen Myles, The Importance of Being Iceland

I only met one other homosexual in the army. That was in Le Havre in 1917. We was on the boat coming home. I don’t know how these things work, whether it’s through conversation, or whether it’s the attitude of the individual concerned, but we seemed to come together, see. All of a sudden his arm was round my neck and this, that and the other, and then, of course, one thing led to another. And that was Phil, my affair that I had for seven years. When I come out of the army we stuck together. I was living at the time in Ilford. I rejoined the army in 1920, then I went out to Germany. I was living with Phil at the time and I saw him when I came home on leave and we kept a flat together. I was in the army because the army was my life at that period. He was somebody just like a wife to come home to…

… I don’t think our friends or family knew, yet they had a very good suspicion. Phil and I often talked about it, only he said, well, he says, as long as we love each other, what’s it to do with other people? And that was the true situation.

Text: First person account as told by Gerald, born 1892, Norfolk, England.  Excerpted from Between the Acts: Lives of Homosexual Men 1885-1967, Jeffrey Weeks and Kevin Porter (eds)

(story found thanks to: www.woolfandwilde.com)

“As long as we love each other, what’s it to do with other people?“ 

People Matching Artworks: An Unusual Photo Series By Stefan Draschan

People Matching Artworks: An Unusual Photo Series By Stefan Draschan More info: Website | Instagram…

I was really hoping these weren’t staged and the artist just spends weeks in art galleries and days in front of paintings to make these

Well guess what… That’s exactly what he did!

— Fernando Pessoa, from The Book of Disquiet

— Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy (via ourwakingsoules)

1 Isaiah 45:53, The Mountain Goats/The End, My Chemical Romance/Creep, Radiohead/A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.

A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon. Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.” A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend. Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.

— Ira Byock, The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life (x)

Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

I really want a shirt that says "THE ENORMITY OF MY DESIRE DISGUSTS ME" and I want to wear it to the grocery store.

all stories are about love in all forms or what the lack of love causes people to do. i speak only the truth. i am correct.

autumn landscape with four trees, vincent van gogh // southwestern territory