Wild Geese, or something like it...

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.


Those words are from a poem titled, "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver. I hacked it up, plucked from it what I could use, and fully bastardized it with the best of intentions. Now I'll recite it every day.

That's kinda my thing...take something perfectly acceptable, bend it to my own liking, and then offer it back. It's a bad habit but it's worked for thirty-nine years and so I'll keep it.