We spent the weekend reading Rilke by the river, and also riding our bikes, and talking in the fragrant, humid evening air until after midnight drinking wine. We spent the weekend in a place in between: sky and river, self and other, navigating whatever it means to become, to begin, to be in this life together and separately, wholly, and with abandon.
* * *
These words made all the difference:
I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner!
From Rainer Maria Rilke‘s “Letters on Love”

So thankful you pointed me toward this quote. Can always use more Rilke in my life. Also, I just watched this TED talk today about kids teaching themselves, about being very much in the questions, and your post made me reflect on it again and decide to pass it along:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html
:)
Thanks Emily! How fascinating…
Lovely.
Aw, thanks Barb!
Sounds like a beautiful weekend, with beautiful conversation. So. Lovely. I love that picture of you. You are beautiful as well!
Thanks Meg :)
One of my all time favorite quotes. Looks like you had a beautiful weekend!
Beautiful pictures of what sounds like a glorious weekend. I think often of those beloved lines from Rilke, and find them so, so reassuring when I feel lost and confused, desperate for answers which feel frustratingly elusive. The words remind me that there’s value in the questioning alone. Thank you. xo
Yes, Lindsey, the entire letter is absolutely profound/tremendous… and there is such incredible value to living the questions alone…