life in the hours

Read something which literally pulsates with life in its words. It also really made me think of the amazing quality in all of us to live-despite all odds.

‘Here after all is the sturdy squalor of the park, visible under its coat of grass and flowers; here are the drug dealers and the lunatics, the stunned and the baffled, the people whose luck, if they had any, had run out. Still, she loves the world for being rude and indestructible, and she knows other people must love it too, poor as well as rich, though no one speaks specifically of the reasons. Why else do we struggle to go on living, no matter how compromised, no matter how harmed? Even if we are further gone than Richard, even if we are fleshless, blazing with lesions, shitting on the sheets; still, we want desperately to live. It has to do with this she thinks. Wheels buzzing on concrete, the roil and shock of it; sheets of bright spray blowing from the fountain as young shirtless men toss a Frisbee and vendors send pungent meaty smoke up from their quilted silver carts; old men and women straining after the sun on their benches, speaking softly to each other, shaking their heads; the bleat of car horns and the strum of guitars; leaves shimmering on the trees; a spotted dog chasing pigeons and a passing radio playing “always love you” as the woman in the dark dress stands under the arch singing iiiii.’
‘Michael Cunningham in The Hours’