When I Feel At Home

"When I feel at home (or when someone else truly makes me feel at home), I feel comfortable, supported, safe, and relaxed, like I don’t need anything. At those times, my past ceases to be a neon marquee of regrets, and my future is no longer an unending to-do list, bullet-pointed by unrealistic expectations. Feeling at home is the feeling that I can just be myself."

~ Ethan Nichtern

Daron LarsonMay 28, 2016Ethan Nichtern, home, feelings, past, future, waking upComment

Watching the Clock

"As conscious human beings, we know we die, and we therefore know our clock ends on, some level. So time just seems foundational. And I think a lot of the gymnastics that we do as human beings has to do with our relationship to the clock, or lack of a relationship to the clock. We squander time until it’s too late, et cetera. I love looking at the building blocks, the raw material, the irreducibles."

~ B.J. Miller

Practice in Life, Clarity, Notice Flow, GoneDaron LarsonFebruary 2, 2016On Being, B.J. Miller, death, time, imagination, suffering, health care, past, future, sensesComment

Passing through Nothing

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,
most intense when the wind blows through it
and the sound it makes equally strange,
like the sound of the wind in a movie—

Louise Glück

Daron LarsonNovember 20, 2014Louise Glück, poetry, poets, writing, paying attention, past, time, memoryComment

My Tribe is Scattered

Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!

~ Stanley Kunitz

Daron LarsonOctober 23, 2014Stanley Kunitz, poetry, self, self/other, identity, grief, past, future, uncertainty, transformation, changeComment

A Vital Part of Aliveness

"One of the beautiful things about the early twilight at this time of year, as it fades into the dark of the long nights, is that you can just surrender yourself to it. Allow the twilight to remind you that it is a time of consideration and renewal. Know full well that in this world the darkness and the light are one. There is no new dawn without the night; their seeming separateness disguises a unity that reflects the unity of life, an unfathomable dance of opposites. This paradox is the very essence of what it is to be alive—joy and pain, sickness and health, light and dark, wonder and fear."

~ Phillip Moffitt

Practice in LifeDaron LarsonOctober 13, 2014Phillip Moffitt, change, life, transitions, decision-making, doubt, past, present, future, suffering, photography, David PloskonkaComment

Now and Now and Now

"You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise."

~ Wendell Berry

Daron LarsonJanuary 10, 2014Wendell Berry, complete experience, gone, impermanence, life, memory, past, paying attention, poets, present, story, writersComment

Fiction Rules Our Lives

Daron LarsonSeptember 18, 2013Bookworm, Mark Slouka, fiction, memory, past, storytelling, time, truth, writers, writingComment

Versions of the Past

Daron LarsonApril 8, 2013André Aciman, fiction, identity, memoir, memory, past, present, writingComment

Let the Cage Rattle

"It’s ironic that the biggest potential problem associated with focusing on emotional discomfort is closely linked to one of its most powerful payoffs: our cage may get rattled a bit before it collapses."

~ Shinzen Young