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The Pale Blue Dot /  by Rebecca Tillett

I'm not sure why I'm posting it here. Something about it resonated with me. I feel such sadness over it. I'm reminded of my dad, of Adam. Either of them could have written this comment. Though I'm mostly thankful for it, I sometimes resent that I've spent my entire life surrounded by people who can't take their eyes off the bigger picture, even just long enough to appreciate the smaller one - just for a moment.

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A Good Person in the World /  by Rebecca Tillett

The world must’ve seemed such a hostile place. It’s no wonder he could barely contain his rage and he tried all the ways he knew how to escape. Gosh, it’s amazing he held it together as much as he did. Yet you see him in photos and he was such a handsome vibrant person. My mom said that he had such potential, creative and artistic and otherwise. I remember him as having such a sense of humor, such a wry wit.

But what it all did to you.

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Glamorous and Romantic People /  by Rebecca Tillett

I remember when your dad and mom came up. I was fairly young. Oh, I thought they were the most glamorous and romantic people! Of course I knew Clay a little growing up (more on that later) but your mom. Wow. I thought she was the most gorgeous person! She had the most beautiful black/dark brown hair, and one time she got it highlighted with blue! I found that fabulous and shocking. And her accent – with a slight lisp, if I remember right. Even then I felt sorry for them, though, because Clay had never fit at the ranch and here he was with his new bride. 

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Moon (this is where I am these days) /  by Rebecca Tillett

"The Moon is a white strange world, great, white, soft-seeming globe in the night sky, and what she actually communicates to me across space I shall never fully know. But the Moon that pulls the tides, and the Moon that controls the menstrual periods of women, and the Moon that touches the lunatics, she is not the mere dead lump of the astronomist. . . . When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness." —D.H. Lawrence

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You Should Date An Illiterate Girl /  by Rebecca Tillett

"Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her." —Charles Warnke

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Every Good with Equal Force /  by Rebecca Tillett

"You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good--every good--with equal force." —Charles Dickens

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I Said Hearken /  by Rebecca Tillett

"Your cousin, Becky Tillett, is also completely intriguing. I can't help but think that you two spur each other on? She has some drawings on her site that are completely there, and I'm thinking you might help her with that and she might be your best critic, or something? Whatever the mix you have, it's working magic... Becky clearly has a highly-refined eye for image and concept... her color sense is sublime, and her sense of style is also unique, honest and striking. The honesty is what captured me... there's a blunt and courageous honesty that you both share, and that's captivating. I can only think you two are the best for each other! Such an incredible family. (yes, I waded through the historic shots on her flickr account - really some extraordinary people you hearken from!). And yeah, that's right. I said hearken. But it was in parenthesis, so it's more like thought. It's not like I would say hearken in daily conversation. But in electronic pseudo-conversation, it's fine. I hope." —John Foerster

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In Sweetness and Love /  by Rebecca Tillett

In Sweetness and Love is 160 pages of absolutely stunning Kodachrome photographs taken in the mid 1950s to 1960s by my great-grandparents John and Mabel Moore accompanied by poignant quotes, lyrics, and excerpts.

They spent as much time traveling as they did at home and locations captured include Wyoming, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, New York, Guam, Arizona, and the Philippines.

My sincerest gratitude to them for their diligence in documenting their later years and thus providing me with such a vivid glimpse into the beautifully small but significant intricacies of their wonderful lives 60 years later.

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A Scar is Never Ugly /  by Rebecca Tillett

“On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” ―Chris Cleave

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