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Quote by Donna Goddard

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The Love of Devotion

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Donna Goddard

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“...I submit that kinship, at least right now, is always a reference to something that is imagined to be inerasable; to "nature." Perhaps one day it will be fit for purpose again, who knows? Perhaps because the concept of nature has itself been turned inside out. But right now, even when it is conceptualized as practice-based, kinship functions as a linguistic appeal to something non-contingent that can ground a relation. And I am asking: can we suspend that fantasy of something non-contingent? Can we let go of it?”

NatureFamilyAbolitionKin
Book:Die Familie abschaffen: Wie wir Care-Arbeit und Verwandtschaft neu erfinden
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“People like to say that it--significance, import--is all about the family. But lots of people do not have rich networks of hilarious uncles and adorable cousins, who all live nearby, to help them. Many people have truly awful families: insane, abusive, repressive. So we work hard, we enjoy life as we can, we endure. We try to help ourselves and one another. We try to be more present and less petty. Some days go better than others. We look for solace in nature and art and maybe, if we are lucky, the quiet satisfaction of our homes. Is solace meaning? I don't know. But it's pretty close.”

FamilySolace
Book:Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
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“Jess and Polly stood without speaking, letting the sounds of the garden resettle. A flock of tiny fairy wrens darted busily in and around the base of a nearby plum tree, crickets ticked in the long grass, and a sense of timelessness, of nature, older and more pervasive than anything human beings and their histories could generate, grew thick and warm around them. "Shall we take a walk down together?" said Polly. Jess noticed a new note of self-possession in her mother's voice. Summery air threaded across the back of her neck, and she felt a pull, suddenly, deep inside her. She didn't know whether it was being here, in this place, or the beautiful weather that evoked long childhood days in which the hours stretched away to be filled only with pleasure, or the fact that it was Christmas Eve, or that her mother was standing here with her, solid and present in a way she hadn't been before, so that Jess was seeing her as if for the first time. But she felt a sensation in her chest that was quite the opposite of loneliness. "Are you with me?" Polly was searching Jess's face, waiting for an answer. Jess gave a nod and smiled. "I am.”

FamilyReconciliationNot AloneHomecomingMother Daughter Bond
Book:Homecoming
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