Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again.

People talk about their grandmother's words. I don't. Mine left without words for me to repeat them as mantras.


My friend often says "mi abuela decía que..." and then she asserts something she takes without hesitation as a truth. Most of the time I don't agree with these words, I find them sexist. I don't think I would have liked her grandmother. But still, I appreciate the fact that my friend can repeat in moments we don't have an answer "mi abuela decía que...", and then we both have an answer even if it often leads me to the opposite direction of her grandmother's words.


I have read Marguerite Yourcenar, Marilynne Robinson, Tony Morrison, Alice Munro, Marguerite Duras and Herta Müller for years. I find in them words that I'm sure my grandmother would have liked me to use to understand the world that didn't understand her.

"The moment you realize you are the jerk" 

"I'm sorry but I'm afraid of you," I told the spider this morning before killing it with a shoe.

Marilynne Robinson on Faith, Capitalism and Democracy

female friendship as a kind of resistance 

Cat Power Be my Boy

Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind (Original)

Wild is the Wind - David Bowie

Four Women Nina Simone

Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down