I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.
Interpretation
This quote reflects a deep awareness of one's environment and emotional state, using the glass of water as a metaphor for sensitivity to both nature and personal turmoil.
In this quote, Amy Hempel expresses a profound connection between the physical world and her internal feelings. The glass of water symbolizes clarity and perception; its level indicates either the tremors of the earth or the disturbances within her own mind. This interplay suggests how our emotional states can be intertwined with external realities, prompting introspection about the nature of one's existence and the duality of perception.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about mindfulness and awareness of one's surroundings.
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.
I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.
if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.
All of our actions have in their doing the seed of their undoing. ... That in her creation of her children there should be the unspeakable promise of their death, for by their birth she had created mortal beings.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.
Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
In this world, all--men, women, and kings--must live for the present. We can only live for the future for God
War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.
I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.
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