Looking back to nothingness.

"I was an abandoned island in the midst of the ocean, 

with no past, to be sure, but no future either. 

Soon I felt myself coming to a point where

 I thought no human voice could reach me..."

"I watched him walk away with sickness in my heart-though

 it was a pleasing kind of sickness, if such a thing exists. 

I mean to say that if you have experienced an evening more exciting than any in your life, 

you're sad to see it end; and yet you still feel grateful that it happened."

"Those of us with water in our personalities don't pick where we'll flow to.

 All we can do is flow where the landscape of our lives carries us."

"As I watch my arm sweep through the air,

 the smoothness of its movements seemed to express these feelings of sadness and desire. 

My arm passed through the air with great dignity of movement-

not like a leaf fluttering from a tree, but like an ocean liner gliding through the water.

 I suppose that by 'dignity' I mean a kind of self-confidence, or certainty,

 such as a little puff of wind or the lap of a wave isn't going to make any difference."

"At that moment , beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy."

"If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life

 becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it."

"When I heard these words, my tears simply broke through the fragile 

wall that had held them, and with a terrible feeling of shame, 

I laid my head upon the table and let them drain out of me."

"A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. 

Two men are equals- true equals- only when they both have equal confidence."

"Nothing is bleaker than the future, except perhaps the past."

"...I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. 

What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day 

watching for a man who would never come to me?

 What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, 

or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman

 even while my life was drifting away from me. 

And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? 

I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give."

"Your destiny and mine are intertwined...

 Perhaps the recovery, just like my meeting you in the first place, 

is simply meant to be."

"I could scarcely see her in the dark hallway outside, 

but just knowing she was there made me feel such warmth, 

I rose from the table to go and embrace her."

"To see him again after so long awakened something desperate inside me.

 I was surprised to find myself feeling sad, rather than joyful, as I would have imagined."

"Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining 

what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.

 He gave me a sad smile that I found so beautiful,

 I lost myself staring at the perfect crescent of his lips."

"When his glance flickered in my direction,

 I thought he might pick up some hint that I felt as worried

 about my future as he felt reassured about his. 

How strange it seemed, when I thought about it, that Nobu understood me so little. 

Of course, a geisha who expects understanding from her danna 

is like a mouse expecting sympathy from the snake."

"Every step I have taken in my life since I was a child in Gion, 

I have taken in the hope of bringing myself closer to you."

"But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean.

 Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them,

 all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper."

Excerpts from "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden.

Photographs by Jimmy Backius.

Hello, darlings. I was cleaning through my book shelves,

and found this lovely story hiding among the masses.

I remember how much I loved this book the first time I read it,

so if you haven't, you should pick it up asap!

Anyway, hope all you are all have an amazing week!