airport chapel of your mind

 from someday this pain will be useful to you by peter cameron [farrar, straus and giroux, 2007]

". . . what she didn't know was that the story of the woman who disappeared like that didn't make me sad, i didn't think it was tragic that she left the world without effect. i thought it was beautiful. to die like that, to disappear without a trace, to sink without disturbing the surface of the water, not even a telltale bubble rising to the surface, like sneaking out of a party so no one notices that you're gone." (175)

"and i felt it was okay to think about the lady with the parrot and not think about why i was thinking about her if i knew why i was thinking about her, and i wanted to tell dr. adler that by wanting those things to be explained she was missing something else. i thought, it's enough that i've thought that, i don't need to say it. i don't need to share it. most people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. i suppose this is why people always want other people to say 'i love you.' i think just the opposite - that thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them, that it is best for them to stay in the dark climate-controlled airport chapel of your mind, that if they're released into the air and light they will be affected in a way that alters them, like film accidentally exposed." (175-176)

"she said this in a smug, pleased way that really bugged me. like because i had done something stupid in an effort to get close to somebody i deserved to be ostracized and ridiculed. it made me angry that my own mother welcomed my misfortune. i knew she thought it was probably good for me, a so-called learning experience. the problem is i don't ever learn anything from learning experiences. in fact, i make a special effort not to learn whatever it is the learning experience is supposed to teach me, because i can't think of anything drearier than being somebody whose character is formed by learning experiences."