Quotes About Presence

The sun came through the branches of the tree above her, and Ruth looked up past them. I think she listens, she said, too softly to be heard.

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really hoose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down.

And a soul would run by a living being, touch them softly on the shoulder or cheek, and continue on its way to heaven. The dead are never exactly seen by the living, but many people seem acutely aware of something changed around them. They speak of a chill in the air. The mates of the deceased wake from dreams and see a figure standing at the end of their bed, or in a doorway, or boarding, phantomlike, a city bus.

He had to seek out her eyes. They weren't focusing on him. They seemed to be preoccupied, and he wished he could reach up and grab them and train them on here and now. On him.

Ruth, que quería que todos creyeran lo que ella sabía: que los muertos realmente nos hablan, que, en el aire que rodea a los vivos, los espíritus se mueven, se entremezclan y ríen con nosotros. Son el oxígeno que respiramos.

We're here, you know ... All the time. You can talk to us and think about us. It doesn't have to be sad or scary.

His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures...It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her.

How to stop rushing from place to place, always looking ahead to the next thing while the moment in front of me slipped away unnoticed.

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to get attention we do, except walk?

If you're silent for a long time, people just arrive in your mind.

Sofia the kind of woman no matter what she have in her hand she make it look like a weapon.

She look so stylish it like the trees all round the house draw themself up tall for a better look.

One good thing bout the way he never do any work round the place, us never miss him when he gone.

In that story I gathered up the historical and psychological threads of the life my ancestors lived, and in the writing of it I felt joy and strength and my own continuity. I had that wonderful feeling writers get sometimes, not very often, of being with a great many people, ancient spirits, all very happy to see me consulting and acknowledging them, and eager to let me know, through the joy of their presence, that, indeed, I am not alone.

I thank everybody in this book for coming. -A.W., AUTHOR AND MEDIUM

whenever you go someplace, you meet it, as if it were alive, which of course it is.

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.

Mientras pueda decir D-i-o-s, sabré que hay alguien conmigo.

I was by myself in this frightening place and SHE WAS NOT THERE! my heart sank. I had never felt more alone in my life, and then, just when I was on the point of dying of loneliness and lack of direction, I wailed: ;I: Oh, Grandmother, you are not here! And she said: But you are.

Has encontrado a Dios alguna vez en la iglesia? Yo, nunca. Solo a un puñado de gente que espera que se les manifieste. Si alguna vez he encontrado a Dios en la iglesia es porque ya lo llevaba conmigo. Y lo mismo le pasa a los demás. La gente va a la iglesia a compartir a Dios, o a buscarlo.

Yet I honestly think that in her absence, and over time, she became powerfully present to him. Perhaps this is simply the way it is with writers. It is when they don't see you that you matter. Because then you can belong to them in a way that permits them complete possession. You are determined by them. You are controlled. You are, generally speaking, exaggerated.

I'm pore, black, I may even be ugly, but dear God, I'm here! I'm here!

It's true that he didn't kill himself until I was nearly twenty. But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb. He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence steaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials... smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. But I ached as if he were already gone.