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Kyo Maclear

Kyo Maclear Books

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Unearthing

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Stray Love

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“It was possible that he could care passionately about only one thing at a time. Or that he needed only one passion to feel order and purpose in the universe. But I had difficulty believing that birds and music were just transposable distractions, simple ways of "passing the time," as the musician was now explaining to me. Were they really just different but equal forms of "anti-death medicine"? Was that really what he believed? That our primary impulse in life was to fill the holes left by being human, to divert ourselves from life's central sadness? Did he not need music and birds for reasons beyond solace?”

LifeArtPassion
Book:Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
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“Waiting for a late friend. Waiting in line at the movies. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for the mail. Waiting at the checkout counter. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for the train. Waiting for the plane. Waiting in a darkened theater. Waiting in a foreign country. Waiting to give birth. Waiting for sluggish minors. Waiting for elderly parents. Waiting for something to go wrong. Waiting at the doctor’s office. The waiting of chronic illness. Eroded public services waiting. Waiting for the Messiah. Wait list waiting. The hoping and waiting, the waiting and hoping. The waiting of childhood. The waiting to grow up. The waiting of old age. Waiting to recover. Waiting for another stroke. Waiting for the body to let go. Waiting for inspiration. Letting-the-field-lie-fallow waiting. The thinking-of-nothing and thinking-of-everything waiting. Waiting just as the storm ends. Waiting for the sun.”

Waiting
Book:Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
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“I wasn’t asking to be admitted to the family. Or was I? I wasn’t kin and he didn’t owe me anything. Or did he? The questions were not just about myself but about all people who are, to a greater or lesser extent, shaky arrivals, showing up unannounced, trying to migrate into a kind of safety or homecoming. Some of us stood outside the door campaigning for admittance, and some of us were thinking It’s a minuscule country, for God’s sake, how many more can we fit? And every one of us was related.”

FamilyKinshipDna TestingDna Testing Memoir
Book:Unearthing
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“Later I will tell him: our courage comes out in different ways. We are brave in our bold dreams but also in our hesitations. We are brave in our willingness to carry on even as our pounding hearts say, “You will fail and land on your face.” Brave in our terrific tolerance for making a hundred mistakes. Day after day. We are brave in our persistence.”

CourageFailureMistakesPersistenceFaltering
Book:Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
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