my delicious loose ends
Fireflies
“Perhaps I can will it to be true.”
—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders
“I know I will search for fireflies all the rest of my days, even though they dwindle a little bit more each year. I can’t help it. They blink on and off, a lime glow to the summer night air, as if to say: I am still here, you are still here, I am still here, you are still here, I am, you are, over and over again. Perhaps I can will it to be true.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Friendly Land
“The desert is on the whole a friendly land.”
—E.C. Jaeger, The California Deserts
“It has become a habit among writers to describe the desert as a region of desolation, cheerless and dreary, a land of relentless heat, with every plant vested in thorns and every animal poisonous or savage. They have dwelt upon the difficulties and perils of travel in mule-and-wagon days and would have us think that it is equally difficult today to make our way by auto over the miles of desert roads.”
“As a matter of fact, the desert is on whole a friendly land, its beasts no fiercer than those found elsewhere; nor is travel in it, except in rare instances, unusually dangerous for those who use discretion in taking care of themselves…” —E.C. Jaeger
Elements of Beauty
“We can enjoy things more, the more we know about them. Simply to be able to call the elements of beauty by their right names helps us to relive them… We take more pleasure in the stars if we know their names. We listen better to birds if we can distinguish them. We hear a symphony with deeper absorption if we know something of its harmonies.”
Rainforest Life
“I have strong memories of many moments of joy and amazement when I lived in the tropical rainforest: listening to the deep reverberations of chimpanzees drumming against large tree buttresses to mark their territories, or watching from the terrace of my bungalow in western Ghana as the carmine sun turned deep purple before going down over an unbroken canopy of rainforest trees. I remember my astonishment when big fish belonging to half a dozen different species jumped into our boat as we drove slowly up a narrow tributary of the Amazon River.”
—Claude Martin, On the Edge
