Writer Between Worlds

Soulful writing about humans and places

Category: Life

Quote of the day

“Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates.” Emil Cioran – All Gall is Divided (1952)
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Quote of the day

“Fiction is strongest when it launches a moral question. When it goes out and seeks to answer. The questions that we couldn’t ask in life because the costs would be too much. Fiction and narrative art give us a vicarious opportunity to see these questions play out, at no true cost to our own.” –…
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Quote of the day

“Waitzkin characterizes medicine as an ideological system that “calls” the patient to be an identity that medicine maintains for him; the diagnosis is the most prevalent form of this identity. The ideological work of medicine is to get the patient to accept this diagnostic identity as appropriate and moral. When the patient accepts this identity,…
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The Impact of Fictional Truth: Embracing Escapism (reblogged)

An article I loved about the virtues of escapist reading and writing. The redeeming connection between the so-called escapist genres (romance, mystery, sci-fi) and wellbeing is not yet very well documented, but it intrigues me. In a literary landscape that tends to dismiss them as frivolous and not “real” literature, this confession (which matches my…
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Oamenii

(a poem in Romanian) Oamenii se taie cu aplomb unii pe alții Oamenii scot cuțitele și le înfig unii în alții se spintecă sfârtecă eviscerează își produc cicatrici lungi răni adânci găuri prin care poți vedea în zare o bucățică mică mică de albastru Oamenii își cară pumni se învinețesc își rup unii altora nasul…
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Quote of the day

“I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow…
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Carpathian cow-keeper

Come, come look at the cows, he says, just cross this little brook, don’t worry it is not too cold, and never mind this blue rope here, I will untie it in no time. I wrap it ‘round the bushes so the cows think it’s electric and don’t get away I tend to about 20…
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11 million electric bikes

The age of sweat is over. The age of skid marks is here. Deep trenches crisscrossing the country. Every which way, everyone’s rushing – each one of us thinking that we can squeeze more life into that cracked hourglass: 61 seconds to the minute (going on 62), can pedal faster than the rest and come…
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As mourning follows night*

back home I sleep with my ears unplugged the windows flung wide open into the guzzling night I remain watchful here, in the places my people have – one by one –trickled into the fatty earth I dive into the holes they left – deep dark enticing pools of fresh darkness – I eavesdrop: the…
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(Be)longing

belonging is not something you do. it is something that is done to you as early as your mother’s womb before it cramps and convulses and rips out its own lining to reveal breath. belonging is not something you chose. it is something the not-you chooses to surround you with, so your voice, screaming, can…
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Have you?

Have you completed the sacraments of life? Have you bowed to the April sunrise? Have you worshipped the brightness and the honeyed light dripping on the fresh leaves? Have you helped a blind mole across the gravel road and kept it safe from the fury of bikers? Have you touched bark or beetle and gladly…
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Springtide

Heat. April heat. Deep, penetrating. This afterwinter sky – unfamiliar, molten, aglow – splurges on timid leaves, permeates clothes,and burrows into skin. Out by the river I am sitting on a log. The gulls have just taken off, shrieking, treading water, flapping their wings against the dormant, mirror-cold, reflected images of trees. Seconds later, suspended,…
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