Lana

“Marriages are nesting dolls too. We carry each iteration. The marriage we had before the children. The marriage of love letters and late nights at dive bars and train rides through France. The marriage we had after the children. The marriage of tenderness but transactional communication. Who’s doing what and when and how. And early mornings and stroller walks and crayon on the walls and sunscreen that always needs to be reapplied. The marriage we had towards the end, before we knew there was an end. The marriage of the silent treatment and couch sleeping and the occasional update email. Somewhere at the centre is the tiniest doll. Love. The love that started everything. It’s still there. But we’d have to open and open and open ourselves, our together selves, to find it. I can’t bear to think of it in there somewhere, the love. Like the perfect pit of some otherwise rotten fruit.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“What is home but a passage
I'm writing & underlining every time I read it”
― Maggie Smith

“Art is a site of wonder and discovery—or rediscovery. Art is a place where we might learn what we think, not a place where we teach the reader what we've already processed.”
― Maggie Smith, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

“Thank you for the pain you caused me, because that pain woke me up. It hurt enough to make me change.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful