I was a mystery too, not to be explained. I was a story being told.

.....

Though at times relationship seems too rickety a shelter to enter, pummeled by change and teased by our weaknesses, the desire to know others remains If God lets that longing cling as it does, that desperate quiet for companionship, perhaps it's worth understanding, perhaps later we will turn to the buildings we once thought were so thin and see them as fortresses that held us, frail and failing though we were at the time.

.....

I remember a few sentances we spoke to each other, jingling around like remnants I have from the beginning of a journey - not necessarily treasures in themselves, but valuable because they are what I have kept.

- elisa stanford, "ordinary losses"