For the past week or so, I’ve been reading When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams.  Here are a few of the stand-out lines that really caught my attention.

“… then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts.  I believed in my capacity to stand back up again and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.”

“Each voice is distinct and has something to say.  Each voice deserves to be heard.  But it requires the act of listening.”

“I have experienced each encounter in my life twice: once in the world, and once again on the page.”

“To be read.  To be heard.  To be seen.  I want to be read, I want to be heard.  I don’t need to be seen.  To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters.  Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.”

These words are not mine, and they’re not about me.  Yet I read them and felt as if they were meant for me.