What can I say? I stand before this book amazed. I have been enfolded into her writing as if I am one of her specimens. She turns this work of hers, bugs and dust, into simple beauty. I rest with her as I read what she writes. I never would have thought it would be so beautiful.
She is a beautiful lyrical prose-ist, so interesting and unique of perspective. It feels so real, like this is how she writes in her daily journal, like beauty just pours forth from her thoughts. She has a gift. This is a gift. I cannot imagine that just anyone can write this way. To chronicle her experiences in this manner is amazing.
There is daily experience, the mundane, and the confusions intertwined with gentle philosophy: “—it’s a mistake to believe we know what we require. We are guided in directions we don’t know how to imagine.” Simple truths stated in beauty. I breathe them in because I don’t know how else to absorb them.
I am struck—and I am not a bug person—with a desire to see pictures of her work. I would imagine a beauty akin to her words and think it would be interesting to see.
At times, her experiences are evasive to me, yet poetic just the same. Does poetry mean more to the person writing it than most of the readers? I guess it depends on the writer, the reader, and the written.
“When I am not myself, Ilya tries to remind me.” When I am not myself…
“Slowly, the absence of pain arrives like snow falling.” I love her imagery. Simple, true.
My favorite sentence: “This moment could be any moment since the moment I arrived.” There is truth in this statement. Her word choice is succinct, perfect, unpretentious, beautiful, straightforward and deeply layered with transformations at the same time. Poetic genius…I know I am easily wooed, always have been but I would love to live in her soul for a while. I would emerge from the cocoon an entirely different creature.
Changes in moments of time…each moment a meaning. Why are her simple statements poetic? What makes it so? Is it only the precise and careful word choice? I feel like it is a pouring out of her soul. She is generous to share…How does she avoid cliché and sounding corny, or just plain? Her words are her own. She makes them her own. She owns them. I want to own my words…
I admire the simplicity…and the quiet…the most. I would steal it in a heartbeat if I thought I could. Her experiences could be crudely chronicled and there would be no beauty in it. She lives in the beauty of it. [the miraculous paradox].
Her everyday moments bring about profound questions: “I used to tell them when they asked about the things and places I’ve seen. I remember less and less. Who am I here in this village? Who am I anywhere?” Her ability to live and breathe in the moment and then to write it, is something I am lacking. I don’t see the beauty that would be my muse…I need to see.
I love her extreme focus on the tiny, the moment, the present experience—it is beautiful and to be emulated. I am repeatedly surprised when I turn the pages by how much I am moved by her writing. She certainly inspires me to write. I find myself writing in response to her. I love her!
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