when you see someone from high school and they don’t recognize you that’s the exact opposite of the mortifying ordeal of being known. the gratifying relief of being forgotten

One real benefit of reading I rarely hear anybody mention is how much more interesting life becomes when you read a lot. It depends what you’re reading, of course, but most (good) books will teach you something you didn’t already know, and even if you have to give the book back to the library, you get to take that much with you. A lot of people talk about things they wish they’d studied in school–I’ve done it, too–but it’s a nice consolation prize that you can always pick up a book and learn something new. And as that library in your brain collects more volumes, everything around you gains new resonances, new context, and new connections which make your lived experience richer. In quarantine alone I’ve read about religion and politics and history and evolution and computer science and astrophysics without even leaving my house and it’s already a more interesting world. 

hades & persephone

can yall just like. be nice to each other. i PROMISE being vile and horrible isn’t worth it in the long run. like i promise being mean will not make you happier. being intentionally mean-spirited doesn’t make you cool and likeable. 

I periodically feel so fucking sad for women in history. I feel like birth control in countries where it is widely used has made women forget an aspect of male cruelty and sociopathy that is now less apparent (giving the illusion that men have improved when only women’s defences against men have)—the fact that for most of history men could live with a woman for decades and not care that they were slowly killing her with endless back-to-back pregnancies which not only resulted in early death more often than not, but also in a total smothering of the woman’s spirit and talents. I saw a quote by Anne Boyer the other day that called straight relationships for women “not only deadly, but deadening”—as I was reading Jill Lepore’s Book of Ages, a biography of Benjamin Franklin’s sister Jane, who was bright and loved reading and wrote some poetry, but had little time to make anything of her life in between her 12 pregnancies. Benjamin Franklin’s mother had 10 sons and 7 daughters. What could they possibly accomplish when their husbands kept impregnating them year after year after year throughout their entire adult life? 

Charlotte Brontë eschewed marriage longer than most (writing to Ellen Nussey that she wished they could just set up a little cottage and live together) but she finally married at 38, became pregnant, and died before her 39th birthday. If she had married younger would Jane Eyre exist? I was reading that biography of Charity & Sylvia last month and comparing their life together in their little cottage to the life of their married female relatives, which was honestly hell on earth. One of Charity’s sisters had 18 children. Charity’s mother had 10 living ones, and probably some additional stillbirths. She gave birth to her first child age 19, in 1758, then to a pair of twins in 1760, then another child in 1761, another in 1763, another in 1765, another in 1767, another in 1769, another in 1771, another in 1774, another in 1777. Charity was the last child and her mother had been sick with tuberculosis for months when she became pregnant with her, and she died soon after giving birth.

I wish people would call this murder—this woman was murdered by her husband, like countless other women who do not ‘count’ as victims of male violence because straight sex is natural, pregnancy is natural, childbirth is natural. But when after 20 years of nonstop pregnancies this woman had tuberculosis and suffered from severe respiratory distress, severe weight loss, fever and exhaustion, and her husband impregnated her again, her death was expected. He must have known; he just didn’t care. This woman’s sister—Charity’s aunt—remained a spinster and outlived all of her married sisters by several decades, living well into her eighties. (Ironically, male doctors in her century asserted that sex with men was necessary for women’s health. The biographer quoted from a popular home health guide which said that old maids incurred grievous physical harm from a lack of sex with men.) And this aunt had the time and liberty to develop her skill for embroidery to such an extent that two museums still preserve her embroidered bed drapes. She accomplished something, she nurtured her talent and self. Her name was also Charity, and I find it interesting that Charity’s mother named her last daughter, whose pregnancy & birth killed her, after her childless, unmarried sister.

When I see women reblog my post about Sophia Tolstoy’s misery with her 13 children, adding comments like “thank god marriage is no longer synonymous with this”, I wonder if they realise that men have not magically become any kinder or more concerned about their female partner’s health and fulfillment, it’s just that women now have access to better ways of protecting themselves from their male partner’s indifference to their health and fulfillment.

That line from Wuthering Heights, "You say I killed you — Haunt me, then," is such raw fucking emotion I just *slams head into wall*

Making someone happy with your blog is honestly the ultimate goal.

Just in case nobody told you today: I’m so proud of you. You’re doing better than you think you are.

— Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

You are a child of this infinitely large universe. You are worth no less than the trees and the stars; the sun, and the sea. You have every right to be here. You deserve to live.

I miss how simple things were when my soul was younger and old ladies complimented my hair and I didn’t hate my body or the person I’ve become

“aang is so childish!” bro, you’re not gonna believe this,

“aang acts like such a 12 year old!” wow it’s almost like-

sparrowinlondon