A Quote by John Haines
The physical domain of the country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing--- to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching.
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Away
Became
Brings
Came
Counterpart
Country
Desire
Direct
Domain
Early
Essential
Exploration
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Force
Forever
G Force
Gathering
Ground
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Hills
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Itself
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Land
Led
Longing
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Myself
Nearest
Out
Outward
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Reading
Realizing
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Study
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Tenacious
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Time
Trails
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I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing--to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back..Let the rest of mankind find me if it could.
I kinda came into my manhood, or what I thought was my adulthood, early. I had to show up, and I had to make sure I had gas money, food money, rent money, clothes money - everything was on me, startin' at that age, so that's what led me to start hustlin', that's what led me to start to try to find ways to fend for myself. And once I did that, I was full-time, bein' in the street, and, bein' in the street, it's cold. It's the way the streets operate, and you have to adapt to that.
That wasn't the way that things was supposed to be. And all because the so-called culture that I thought was right, that I thought it was cool, and I thought it was fun, and it was exciting at the time. It all led to me laying in a prison bunk by myself with no one to talk to but myself.
When it became easy enough to do dairy online, then I just thought, "Oh, I'll start doing this. I'll put the parts online that aren't going to get me in trouble. I'll save the rest for myself." It became also this kind of self-therapy. I could write about stuff that was bothering me, or personal stuff. And the very personal stuff I could edit out. But it was kind of the catharsis of getting it out and writing about it, that made me think, "Okay, I see why people do this, why they keep these diaries." So I thought, "Well, let's see what happens when I post some of it."
I kind of realized I could sing, so I played around with that for a while. And that led me to acting in itself, which I came more passionate about by the age of 15.
All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already two months before and, poor as I am, I bought myself an excellent revolver and loaded it the same day. But two months had elapsed and it was still lying in the drawer. I was so utterly indifferent to everything that I was anxious to wait for the moment when I would not be so indifferent and then kill myself. Why -- I don't know.
The mountain has left me feeling renewed, more content and positive than I’ve been for weeks, as if something has been given back after a long absence, as if my eyes have opened once again. For this time at least, I’ve let myself be rooted in the unshakable sanity of the senses, spared my mind the burden of too much thinking, turned myself outward to experience the world and inward to savor the pleasures it has given me.
In my thirties I found myself, to use a colloquial fiction, in a suburban house at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. Married and with two little daughters, I led a life which would have been recognizable to any woman who had led it and to many others who had not.
I hate the phrase “One thing led to another”. What kind of lazy writing is that? Isn't it your job as a writer to tell me how that made this happen? “Adolf Hitler was rejected as a young man in his application to an art school. One thing led to anotherand the United States ended up dropping two atomic bombs on the sovereign nation of Japan”.
Compliant children are very easily led when they are young, because they thrive on approval and pleasing adults. They are just aseasily led in their teen years, because they still seek the same two things: approval and the pleasing their peers. Strong-willed children are never easily led by anybody--not by you, but also not by their peers. So celebrate your child's strength of will throughout the early years...and know that the independent thinking you are fostering will serve him well in the critical years to come.
That happened when I was a freshman in high school. The guy reading it [the Bible] was dating my older sister. I thought he was the cutest thing that had ever happened in Nashville. He was nine years older than me and I thought, 'Mimi, I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to steal this guy away.' So I went to this Bible study thinking I was going to make this guy fall in love with me. I was fourteen. Hey, you know. But I was so overwhelmed by what they were talking about at this Bible study. I became a very serious, committed Christian.
The religious training inspired in me a desire for learning. In fact, I am immensely grateful for my Catholic education for instilling in me a desire for learning. However, the Catholic training also gave me a desire for questioning. The desire to question led me eventually to distance myself from the Catholic institution and its dogma.
I was always interested in music, I felt it was time to do it, coming out of the punk scene [1979]. I thought it was ideal that anyone could just put together a group and make it work. Then, of course, it became a little more detailed after starting it and realizing that it was something serious, not just a one-off situation. I had to put a lot more into it. Also I did it to get a lot of things out of my system, things that had been put there while I was growing up in my family. A sort of exorcizing of demons.
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
And what if we’d been utterly open? Made jokes about the first wife? What if we’d been that kind of family? Well, I would have been different, surely. But not because I knew the secret. For it wasn’t the secret—the secret that wasn’t a secret anyway—that led to the austerity in our lives. It was the austerity that led to the secret. And what I had been marked by, probably most of all, was the austerity. It had made secrets in my life too. Or silences, anyway, that became secrets. That became lies.
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