Balancing on one wounded wing

In honour of her forthcoming memoir, Wishful Drinking. She's one of my favourite writers, with an amazing gift for words

"But I figure if I had to give up everything I put between me and my feelings, I'd stand at the centre of my being and howl like a lonely old dog"
    Postcards from the Edge

"Sometimes I'm not sure I have any friends. I may just have a large group of people that I tell everything to. It's like I've made intimacy a superficial gesture."
   Postcards from the Edge

"Cora basically didn't believe in her ability to have a relationship. She doubted that she had the appropriate disposition or capacity to boil it down to something even approaching a learnable skill. She would have felt more optimistic if she'd even had the sense that she could fake it."
   Delusions of Grandma

"If my life wasn't funny, then it'd just be true, and that would be totally unacceptable."
   The Best Awful
 

  

Heard this over the closing credits of the movie, Grief.  Wrote it in my quote book immediately. Thinking of Jackie Beat reminded me of it

Maybe every cloud has a silver lining
Maybe every dog really has its day
And it matters to me to see you smiling
Why don’t we blow all your cares away?

Yesterday is gone and will be forgotten
And today is where every new day starts
Got to be free as the leaves in Autumn
You may be sad but it never lasts

And maybe, by the evening we’ll be laughing
Just you wait and see all the changes there’ll be
By the time it gets dark

We could go walking out in the sunshine
Look at all the people out in the street
Hurrying away to a business luncheon
Waiting for a taxi for aching feet

Light up your face, baby
Let’s get going
Wanna see a change in those weary eyes
We could have fun
Take a boat out rowing
Why on earth should life so serious?

And maybe, by the evening we’ll be laughing
Just you wait and see all the changes wi’ll be
By the time it gets dark

And maybe, by the evening we’ll be laughing
Just wait and see all the changes will be
By the time it gets dark

Lyrics by Gretchen Cryer (mother of Jon)

Every time I've lost another lover
I call up my old friend
And I say let's get together
I'm under the weather
Another love has come to an end

And she listens as I tell her my sad story
And wonders at my taste in men
And we ponder why I do it
And the pain of getting through it
And she laughs and says "You'll do it again"

But we sit in a bar and talk til two
'bout life and love as old friends do
And tell each other what we've been through
How love is rare, life is strange
Nothing lasts, people change.

And I ask her if her life is ever lonely
And if she ever feels despair
And she says she's learned to love it
'Cause that's really all part of it
And it helps her feel the good times when they're there.

Yes, we sit in a bar and talk til two
'bout life and love as old friends do
And tell each other what we've been through
How love is rare, life is strange
Nothing lasts, people change.

And we wonder if I'll live with any lovers
Or spend my life alone
And the bartender is dozing
And it's getting time for closing
So we figure that I'll go it on my own

But we'll meet the year we're 62
And travel the world as old friends do
And tell each other what we've been through
How love is rare, life is strange
Nothing lasts, people change.

Love is rare, life is strange
Nothing lasts, people change
Old friend.

"No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg."

• Frederica Mathewes-Green