#childhood

That's what makes it so right. Your eyes-- your soul is there, but the rest of you is still so undefined. That's the beauty of childhood. The eyes show everything you've seen so far, but the rest of you is still so open to possibility, to whatever you might become. ↗

— Bree Despain

#childhood #dark-divine #mr-barlow #possibility #soul

I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom upon the bough. It stands among the woodland ride, Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my three-score years and ten, Twenty will not come again..." and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples. ↗

— Garrison Keillor

#childhood #garrison-keillor #growing-up #lake-wobegon-days #beauty

You can recognize survivors by their creativity. In soulful, insightful, gentle, and nurturing creations, they often express the inner beauty they brought out of childhood storms. ↗

— Jeanne McElvaney

#abuse-survivors #childhood-abuse #childhood-sexual-abuse #effects-of-child-abuse #harrietta-s-happenstance

The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes were instantly soaked. She flung up her arms to the sky. Power ran to her fingertips. Excitement was communicated from the waiting trees, and the orchard, and the paddock; the intensity of their secret life caught at her and made her run. It was nothing like the excitement of ordinary looking forward, of birthday presents, of Christmas stockings, but the pull of a magnet - her grandfather had shown her once how it worked, little needles springing to the jaws - and now night and the sky above were a vast magnet, and the things that waited below were needles, caught up in the great demand. ("The Pool") ↗

— Daphne du Maurier

#excitement #excitement-of-youth #night #youth #communication

I knew he was unreliable, but he was fun to be with. He was a child’s ideal companion, full of surprises and happy animal energy. He enjoyed food and drink. He liked to try new things. He brought home coconuts, papayas, mangoes, and urged them on our reluctant conservative selves. On Sundays he liked to discover new places, take us on endless bus or trolley rides to some new park or beach he knew about. He always counseled daring, in whatever situation, the courage to test the unknown, an instruction that was thematically in opposition to my mother’s. ↗

— E.L. Doctorow

#father #courage

In therapy, to meet the needs of traumatized survivors of war and torture, the patient is requested to repeatedly talk about the worst traumatic event in detail while re-experiencing all emotions associated with the event. Traumatic memory, they say, is cleared by narration of whole life; from early childhood up to the present date ... this book is my therapy. I am awash with living memories. ↗

— Alfred Nestor

#alfred-nestor #author-alfred-nestor #childhood-therapy #hitler #hitler-s-germany

... I wrote about ... my childhood, when dreams were small and attainable for all. When sweets were a penny and god was a rabbit. ↗

— Sarah Winman

#growing-up #life-lessons #dreams

Have you noticed how children never bypass a puddle of water, but jump, splash, and slosh right through it?  That's because they know an important truth - Life was meant to be lived.  Puddles were meant to be experienced. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#children #experience #happiness #inspirational #learning

I warned myself against the danger of compassion in this case. How easy it would be to imagine the traumas of childhood that might have deformed her into the moral monster she had become, and then to convince myself that those traumas could be balanced - and their effects reversed - by sufficient acts of kindness. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#kindness #monsters #traumatic-experiences #experience

There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it's continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment ~ Jeanne McElvaney ↗

— Jeanne McElvaney

#abuse-survivors #childhood-abuse #childhood-sexual-abuse #effects-of-child-abuse #harrietta-s-happenstance