There are many that I know and I know it. They are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them themselves and they repeat it and I hear it. Always I listen to it. Slowly I come to understand it. Many years I listened and did not know it. I heard it, I understood it some, I did not know I heard it. They repeat themselves now and I listen to it. Every way that they do it now I hear it. Now each time very slowly I come to understand it. Always it comes very slowly the completed understanding of it, the repeating each one does to tell it the whole history of the being in each one, always now I hear it. Always now slowly I understand it.Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans
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As strange as this is, this is how I feel when I read. I think it's because I read so voraciously as a kid - I was constantly bumping across things I didn't always understand, and when I didn't understand, I read it again. Even now, I'll read the hardest books over and over, then step away to allow the things I don't realize I am absorbing to percolate up. It can take a while. It's a process of circling, of approach and retreat. If I am lucky, there is a bright flash, and I see something wonderful, something hidden.
Painting: Joseph Alleman: The Companion.
