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It’s been quite some time since I’ve made any progress in what I’ve been referring to as the Mary Oliver Project (my quest to read her entire body of work) and I’m back with a collection of essays that absolutely floored me. It took me a few months to work my way through Upstream; I know because I’ve been writing my favorite quotes, of which there are many, in my journal. Words like: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I wanted to be.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her own life. I wrote that way too.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “Wherever I’ve lived my room and soon the entire house is filled with books; poems, stories, histories, prayers of all kinds stand up gracefully or are heaped on shelves, on the floor, on the bed. Strangers old and new offering their words bountifully and thoughtfully, lifting my heart.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “Beauty has its purposes, which, all our lives, and at every season, it is our opportunity, and our joy, to divine. Nothing outside ourselves makes us desire to do so; the questions, and the striving towards answers, comes from within.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “Let me be always who I am, and then some.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Today would have been Mary Oliver’s 87th birthday, and there was something special in finally finishing Upstream today while I listened to the sound of the rain. If you’ve never read any Mary Oliver, I strongly encourage you to do it. You can start anywhere. ID: I’m holding a kindle displaying the ebook cover of Upstream. There is lots of greenery (trees, bushes, ivy) in the background. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CiVTw65LyM0/