“That first pregnancy is a long sea journey to a country where you don’t know the language, where land is in sight for such a long time that after a while it’s just the horizon – and then one day birds wheel over that dark shape and it’s suddenly close, and all you can do is hope like hell that you’ve had the right shots.” —Emily Perkins
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Her Graces /
I think every woman has a dear friend who can't appreciate her own beauty. In fact, I think nearly every woman is a woman who can't appreciate her own beauty. How many women do you personally know like that? Even more important, how long have you been looking in the mirror and cursing what you see?
Read MoreOf Land and Roots and Belonging /
Sometimes I feel physically ill from the memory of what I left behind and the way that I left it. I am not capable of the acts I committed, the desperation I induced. I am that woman now, capable of such things. How long am I allowed to toil in heartache for the woman I can never again claim to be? Sometimes I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. I wake up often that way. Feels like every unbearable tension, climbing every root of every molar battling for dominance.
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