Iowa Gothic
- On humid September nights, sit on the back stairs and listen to the chirps of crickets in the timber. In October, listen to the screams of rabbits, dying in the teeth of foxes. In November the woods and fields are silent; by December there is nothing to hear, anywhere, at all.
- Every seven years, the cicadas come. You will know them by their wingbeats. You will know them by their drumbeats. You will run, but you will never run fast or far enough.
- The Mississippi River can be called by many names: Big Muddy, Old Man River, Old Blue, The Gathering of the Waters. The other names must be whispered, or screamed at midnight with your hands full of rich river mud and pig’s blood. Sometimes the river answers. You hope it doesn’t.
- “Des Moines” is derived from Rivière de Moines, meaning ‘River of the Monks.’ The reason has been lost. Sometimes, the Des Moines River flows red. Sometimes, people who wade into its waters have been healed of their maladies. Other times, they are never seen again.
- There is beauty in the fields by the light of a full spring moon. The new corn, the new leaves of soybean are touched with silver, and the slender, long-legged shadows that walk the rows have never been more visible.
Writing a story about a place calls that world into existence. Sometimes, as the author, you accompany it for a while. But even as you write, the characters have minds of their own.
Alan McCluskey (via writingquotes)
Top 5 drinks on a night out?
- amaretto sour
- anything mint chocolate
- margarita
- smirnoff Ice
- wine
ok so one of my fav lines in the musical from a purely aesthetic perspective has always been cosette’s “every day you walk with stronger step / you walk with longer step / the worst is over” part at the start of every day/a heart full of love (reprise) – honestly i just find the melody really lovely and the longer/stronger internal rhyme is #nice.
but then i actually thought about that line, and how marius has a hell of a lot more than physical injuries to recover from.
and now i’m thinking about cosette, with her incredible capacity for love and tenderness, supporting marius through every step of his grief: sitting up in bed with him for hours talking about nothing in particular when the awful nightmares stop sleep from coming; holding him tight when he has flashbacks, grounding him and reminding him that he’s safe; reassuring him over and over that it’s not his fault, that he doesn’t have to feel guilty for still being alive when his friends are not
and imagine her pride as he grows stronger and day by day his panic attacks grow a little less frequent, his sleep a little more restful, and eventually he’s able to leave the house again – just for the briefest of walks at first, but steadily longer each time. and then one day she catches him absent mindedly humming to himself as he makes a cup of tea, and its almost cheerful. and he starts talking about the future – things he’d like to do, places he’d like to go – instead of being trapped in the past, back in the barricade or the empty shell of the cafe musain. and of course they both know this kind of loss isn’t something you ever fully recover from, not really, but at last it looks like the worst might just be over
so now this is what i think about when i hear that line and it always makes me want to cry
