you may know this already, but i collect quotations. i collect them like some people collect stamps (um…do people still collect stamps? i have no idea) or seashells…i seek them out, and when i find the ones i love, i write them in the little notebook i always keep with me. i’ve done this since i was 12 or 13, and when i find my old journals and paper, it’s not the melodramatic diary entries that tell me who/where i was….it’s the quotes i wrote along the margins. i go back to some quotes again and again. some of them i write on loose paper and tape them inside my calendar, others i use as bookmarks, ensuring i’ll read those calming, knowing words at least a few times a day. some of them are quite personal to me, reflections of “where i am”; things i’d like to think i could’ve/would’ve said myself if i had the same skill with words. others just strike me as “something i like”. when i find a good one (and this is how i recognized that i had become a real collector), i get excited. i take a deep breath. i smile and read it repeatedly, my mantra or confidante of the moment.
lately i’ve been getting a lot of them (as well as so much other inspiration) from the lovely Swirly Girl. it feels a bit like cheating sometimes, just transcribing the things she’s already posted, but i can’t help it; when i look back at this, my own little blogspace, i want to see the quotes i was collecting along the way.
2 comments in “quoted”
October 13th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Thank you so much for this quote/post Melissa. I was recently confronted with someone else’s idea of me and I have to tell you; it left me feeling numb. Now I know that we don’t all walk around expecting to be loved and admired by everyone, but I do my best to be kind and open to others. But I lacked so much when this person’s words were thrown at me with foul and disgusting intent. Would you believe that I put my camera down with the intention of never picking it up again? (it’s something I never thought about until having this recent “conversation”) Crazy, right??!! But thankfully there are people in my life who believe that my art is important. That I.am.important, This quote couldn’t have come at a better time. Thank you, friend. *HUGS*
October 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Your blog could have been written by me today. I have notebooks of quotations that I have been recording for 25 years. I refer to them often when I am needing guidance or encouragement in certain areas of my life. Some I have read so often that I have memorized them. And my poor daughters have to suffer through my repeating these quotes to them ad nauseum!
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