Quote of the day, courtesy of Tennessee Williams

About 10 years ago, I fell in love with a quote from Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. I hadn't thought about it in years until I was cleaning out my garage yesterday. (The garage sale was moved to next weekend, FYI.) The passage was scrawled into a notebook. The whole thing looked rather tattered and forlorn.

The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would've stopped, but I was pursued by something.

It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.

... I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger, anything that can blow your candles out. For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles ... and so good-bye.

Seems an apropos thing to run my fingers across a month before I move. Why go to the moon when you can go much farther? Sigh.