Kimberly Hirsh

I hate when my brain won’t read, which it won’t today. Reading is my core way of interfacing with the world. The tools we use shape our thought processes, and writing and reading have been my primary tools since I was a small child. Reading heals me, distracts me from pain, comforts me when I’m lonely, and gives me new ways of thinking.

I know this inability to turn other people’s words into things that cohere for me will pass. And I can do audiobooks some. But there’s also something about the physicality of reading that I miss when I do that. So it is a great companion to reading text, especially for times it’s not smart to focus on texts like when I’m driving or trying to fall asleep.

Maybe I’ll try reading something middle grade instead of YA or adult and see if that helps.

This is a gorgeous book, full of grief and beauty.

Selected quotes:

Water

In water
my sister is no longer
lonely. Her right leg is crooked and smaller
than her left, but she swims straight.
Her whole body is a glimmering fish.

Eating Alone

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas > fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.

Visions and Interpretations

Truth is, I’ve not seen my father
since he died, and, no, the dead
do not walk arm in arm with me.

Selected quotes:

Eidolons

We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
But really build eidolons.

To the States

…Resist much, obey little

Thou Reader

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.

Selected quotes:

6:45 pm

…God, it’s pretty.

But what does any of it mean?

A Unified Theory

You think, what if I am stuck like this? What if

I never change? So what.

Never change.

Moments are not for revision—

if they are lived honestly, they are open to one interpretation.
only. They make you like a child.

Of course that’s what they make.