“..to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance..."

By the River Piedra I sat Down and Wept 

~ Paulo Coelho

By the river Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river—leaves, insects, the feathers of birds—is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.

By the river Piedra I sat down and wept. The winter air chills the tears on my cheeks, and my tears fall into the cold waters that course past me.

Somewhere, this river joins another, then another, until far from my heart and sight all of them merge with the sea. May my tears run just as far, that my love might never know that one day I cried for him. May my tears run just as far, that I might forget the River Piedra, the monastery, the church in the Pyrenees, the mists, and the paths we walked together. I shall forget the roads, the mountains, and the fields of my dreamsthe dreams that will never come true.

I remember my "magic moment"that instant when a "yes" or a "no" can change one's life forever. It seems so long ago now. It is hard to believe that it was only last week that I had found my love once again, and then lost him.I am writing this story on the bank of the River Piedra. My hands are freezing, my legs are numb, and every minute I want to stop."Seek to live. Remembrance is for the old," he said.

Perhaps love makes us old before our time or young, if youth has passed. But how can I not recall those moments? 

That is why I write, to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance. 

So that when I finish telling myself the story, I can toss it into the Piedra. That's what the woman who has given me shelter told me to do. 

Only then, in the words of one of the saints, will the water extinguish what the flames have written.

All love stories are the same. 

And with love, there are no rules. Some may try to control their emotions and develop strategies for their behavior; others may turn to reading books of advice from "experts" on relationships but this is all folly. The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters.

All of us have had this experience. At some point, we have each said through our tears, "I'm suffering for a love that's not worth it." We suffer because we feel we are giving more than we receive. We suffer because our love is going unrecognized. We suffer because we are unable to impose our own rules.

"If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him. 

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."

“Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that i would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.” 

Wait. This was the first lesson I learned about love. The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways – and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don’t know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.” 

"Every day, God gives us the sun – and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived the moment, that it doesn’t exist – that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention in their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seems the same to us. But that moment exists – a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles."

"I’m going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. You are worth it.”

"The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no matter how foolish they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.

Love perseveres. It’s men who change.

“In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.” 

“But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering i could bear.” 

“And I began to feel sorry for myself; for so many years, my drawer full of memories had held the same old stories.”

“It's risky, falling in love.”

"I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

"But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love.”

"What a horrible way to put it," he said.” 

“You shouldn't have asked," I said. "Love doesn't ask many questions, because if we stop to think we become fearful. It's an inexplicable fear; it's difficult even to describe it. Maybe it's the fear of being scorned, of not being accepted, or of breaking the spell. It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is. That's why you don't ask-you act. As you've said many times, you have to take risks.” 

“Make whatever decision you wish but never forget one thing: all of you are much better than you believed. Take advantage of the chance that tragedy has given you; not everyone is capable of doing so” 

Tina Fey, Author of Bossypants - Quotes

“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”



“You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to fuck it.”


“If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” 


“Lesson learned? When people say, "You really, really must" do something, it means you don't really have to. No one ever says, "You really, really must deliver the baby during labor.” 


“I was a little excited but mostly blorft. "Blorft" is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.” When it's true, it doesn't need to be said.” 


“I was ten. I had noticed something was weird earlier in the day, but I knew from commercials that one's menstrual period was a blue liquid that you poured like laundry detergent onto maxi pads to test their absorbency. This wasn't blue, so...I ignored it for a few hours.” 


“I only hope that one day I can frighten my daughter this much. Right now, she's not scared of my husband or me at all. I think it's a problem. I was a freshman home from college the first time my dad said, "You're going out at ten p.m.? I don't think so," and I just laughed and said, "It's fine." I feel like my daughter will be doing that to me by age six.

How can I give her what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law. The Worldwide Parental Anxiety System is failing if this many of us have made sex tapes.” 


“Some people say “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.” 


“I experienced car creepery at thirteen. I was walking home from middle school past a place called the World’s Largest Aquarium—which, legally, I don’t know how they could call it that, because it was obviously an average-sized aquarium. Maybe I should start referring to myself as the World’s Tallest Man and see how that goes? Anyway, I was walking home alone from school and I was wearing a dress. A dude drove by and yelled, “Nice tits.” Embarrassed and enraged, I screamed after him, “Suck my dick.” Sure, it didn’t make any sense, but at least I don’t hold in my anger.” 


“(My proudest moment as a child was the time I beat my uncle Pierre at Scrabble with the seven-letter word FARTING.)” 


“It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring on live TV.” 


“I think someone should design exercise machines that reward people with sex at the end of their workouts, because people will perform superhuman feats for even the faint hope of that.” 


“Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: "Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that." Some photographers are compulsively effusive. "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous!" they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, "Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes!” 


“When choosing sexual partners, remember: Talent is not sexually transmittable.” 


“There was a rich old guy named John Donnelly who must have donated a bunch of money. He had forgotten his member card one day, and when I tried to explain that it was a four-dollar fee to enter without a card, he went batshit. "Don't you know who I am, goddammit?" I had never seen him before. "Do you know who I am?" I wanted to say. "Then how could I know who you are? We don't know each other.” 


“I was taken to an examining room where a big butch nurse practitioner came in and asked me if I was pregnant. “No way!” Was I sexually active? “Nope!” Had I ever been molested? “Well,” I said, trying to make a joke, “Oprah says the only answers to that question are ‘Yes’ and ‘I don’t remember.’ ” I laughed. We were having fun. The nurse looked at me, concerned/annoyed.” 


“Girls get a lot of mixed messages—they are told, ‘Girl Power!’ and what does that mean? It means you wear a T-shirt that says, ‘Girl Power!’ but you call each other bitches. You make fun of a girl for being a virgin and you make fun of a girl for having sex. There’s no right place to be.” 


“In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.” 


“When did you first feel like a grown woman and not a girl?” We wrote down our answers and shared them, first in pairs, then in larger groups. The group of women was racially and economically diverse, but the answers had a very similar theme. Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. “I was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, ‘Lick me!’” “I was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, ‘Nice ass.’” There were pretty much zero examples like “I first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team.” It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they’ve crossed into puberty? If so, it’s working.” 

The Confession - John Grisham

One of those books that really gets you thinking about what’s right and what’s not.

The book is based on the story of Donte Drumm, a high school football star with a perfect family and promising career. Until the town was shaken with the violent rape and murder of high school cheerleader Nicole Yarber. A black man arrested for the rape and murder of a white girl, Donte’s case was a defeated one even before it began.

Based in Slone, Texas, the story describes how Drumm is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and placed on death row. As he awaits execution, the real killer, Travis Boyette, looks on, waiting for the police and prosecution to correct their mistake. Nine years later, he is dying of an inoperable brain tumor and sets out to clear his slate, and save an innocent man’s life.

The novel describes the distress of the two families- Donte’s and Nicole's. It details the fight by Donte’s lawyer, Robbie Flak, and pastor Keith Schroeder whom Boyette approached when he decided to come clean and tell the truth.

Politics, bureaucracy and racial prejudices ensure Drumm does not get exonerated. He is led to the chamber, and executed. Quite a surprise for the readers who are by this point, completely convinced that Donte is innocent. 

Although Donte is exonerated post humously, the death penalty policy still managed to take another innocent man’s life.

Dont get me wrong, I was all for capital punishment up until now. I can come up with all sorts of arguments in its favour - message to the society, closure for the victims, costs associated with life imprisonment as opposed to death penalty, the list goes on.

Besides, the statistics on innocent executions weren’t as high as death penalty abolitioners make them sound.

And up until now, that was all they meant for me - statistics. Numbers.

There was no face to the names, no stories behind these numbers.

Reading this story of wrongful execution changed that.

Donte walked into the station to answer a few questions, and never got out again. His father died while he was still serving time. He couldn’t hug his mother for nine years. His last words before he got the needle were still a fight to maintain his innocence - a promising future ruined thanks to jail snitches, petty high school rivalry and the desire of those in power to pin the blame on someone. Anyone.

Sure its expensive and perhaps even dangerous to keep death row criminals on life imprisonment instead. But is it worth more than an innocent person’s life? And that of their loved ones?  Is it right to justify murder with another murder? Or is it just the easy way out? "The guy is dead - case closed."

Capital punishment is certainly not a question that can be answered in a day’s time. It’s been a hot topic of debates for years, and will probably continue to be. 

But I’m no longer certain which side I am on...