You don’t always have to pray for something, or to someone — you can just simply pray.
—Terri Guillemets
prose
None excluded
Prayer is for the grateful and for the
—Terri Guillemets
The feels & frights of aging
With each passing year, the body turns more prison than shelter.
—Terri Guillemets
S.W.A.K.
Love letter: an inky heartprint.
—Terri Guillemets
Away
Sometimes what gets to you most isn’t the large holes that get ripped from your heart but the fraying of its edges — when what held you together isn’t anymore.
—Terri Guillemets
Cold is relative
When you’re shivering with loss, let love keep you warm with memories.
—Terri Guillemets
Literary LOL
This tweet from a guy named Ben had me laughing harder than I have in a long while. —
Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” has perhaps the most memorable opening line in all of Western literature:
“I hope you [møtherf*@%ers] like reading about whales.”
—Ben, @pixelatedboat, 2018 August 12th, onegianthand.com
Middle
A headstone is just a bookmark in our unfinished lives.
—Terri Guillemets
Haunted
There are more ghosts in an unwell body than in an entire haunted mansion.
—Terri Guillemets
Know when
Some torture Fate beyond recognition rather than let him have his way.
—Terri Guillemets
Awake & alone
Night is filled with our loudest fears and a silent courage.
—Terri Guillemets
Raindrop days, lightning moments
We all have those moments in our lives that transform us — something small or big happens and we’re never the same.
Sometimes we remember these moments in our personal histories as leaps, or falls — or just serendipitous wanderings — from one life segment to the next.
Or we mark them like stars on a map of self — constellations of life-changing moments. Some seem crazy small and wouldn’t even register as stars in others’ systems. But in our own they blaze bright.
Or maybe our days are raindrops and our lives rolling clouds and these moments are lightning strikes. Raindrop days, lightning-strike moments.
These maps and moments imprint our souls, our minds, our memorious hearts. Our stories of self are made from them.
—Terri Guillemets
Morning lover
I don’t party at night with alcohol. I party hard in the morning with coffee and oatmeal.
—Terri Guillemets
Blur
Aging is an exponential clock — ticking in runaway years.
—Terri Guillemets
Scoresheet
No volume of history is insignificant, even the worst chapters. Especially the worst chapters.
—Terri Guillemets
Every morning
Dawn-giddy birds sing as if every morning is a special occasion. Wise,
—Terri Guillemets
Middle ground
Failure is not frailty.
Success never guarantees.
—Terri Guillemets
Creator with sense of humor
I know intelligent design doesn’t exist because whoever gave wings to sewer roaches wasn’t very bright.
—Terri Guillemets
Resilient
The best faith is not the stagnant,
—Terri Guillemets
Ten thousand fathoms deep
“You peer into my life to find a lingering past, but I tell you it was sunk ten thousand fathoms deep and weighted down with my dead self. You look into my breast to find that old, old open wound, but I tell you I seared it with my hot tears and only the cicatrix is there.”
—Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Prayer, 1904
Let every blessing strengthen you
You can’t count the bad things that happen. They don’t count against life. They are life. Only count the good things. Let every blessing strengthen you.
—Terri Guillemets
Refuge
Tea time — a brief recess from dodging life’s blowdarts.
—Terri Guillemets
Transform
Loss — the great redefiner of life.
—Terri Guillemets
Weathering it
Grief cries and life shines on — and hope paints a rainbow.
—Terri Guillemets
Fresh air & birdsong
An open window is good company, like the burning candle of Lichtenberg.
—Terri Guillemets
“Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”