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Thrive

@dk-thrive

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Now, I believe in it all. Everything, all at once.

I have reflected on this moment many times in the years afterwards, and at no point more so than now that my understanding of the world and my place within it has almost entirely collapsed. I am not yet able to piece together my recent experiences in any way I can fathom, but I do find myself thinking again about the thin film of perception we call reality. It is impossible to experience what I have experienced and not be for ever altered. In the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, where Cistercians once committed themselves to the service of a higher power, I told my father that I believed in nothing. Now, I believe in it all. Everything, all at once. If you told me you had found certain proof of God, I would believe you. If you said you had encountered an angel and gripped her outstretched hand, I would know it to be true. If it were revealed tomorrow that we were living within a digital simulation; a computer-generated game driven by some vindictive nerd in the sky, I would not be surprised. I am not saying that I have found any one answer or that I can assert a unifying principle; simply that when ontological or existential questions arise, I have a new response: it could be so.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#fiona mozley#awake#belief#believe#god
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We are the product of our fantasies. Of our dreams. And I suppose...that there’s a lot... that is unresolved, that hasn’t yet been laid to rest. I think the past emerges at unexpected moments and in unexpected ways, like driftwood washing up on the shore.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#fiona mozley#awake awake#dreams#past#memories#fantasy
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And, although you may not believe it, although you may think there must have been some distinction, some shift in sensation between the true and the fictitious, in fact these memories were, indeed are, as clear to me as anything else that has ever happened in my life. There is no breach. There is no real and unreal. Only memory. All of it together.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#fiona mozley#awake awake#memories#recall
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We dwell deep within our memories... But now, I don’t trust myself.

We dwell deep within our memories. They are in us and we are in them. Without them our dimensions diminish. The plain upon which we move around becomes barren and flat, stretching out before us but with nothing there to furnish it. Our recollections give texture to that landscape; deep rivers and streams run across it, flowing past us then on to the horizon. I had always prized my memory. I could recall intricate, latticework details from my own life. From the deep pool of childhood and my vivid adolescence. I could bring to mind facts and figures as easily as if they were laid out on a page in front of me. But now, I don’t trust myself.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#Fiona mozley#awake awake#memories#past#memory#recall
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It was in that moment ...that I decided that I would never take shit from anyone ever again.

‘It was in that moment ...that I decided that I would never take shit from anyone ever again.’ ... It occurred to me that Eric was telling me his origin story. He apparently adhered to the notion that there was such a thing; that a human life could be discerned in dialogue with a single event and laid out in a neat line. He felt as if he had identified his point of reference – the key that would unlock a treasure trove of meaning and resolution. I did not. There was no such order; no narrative arc. History was chaos, top to bottom, back to front, and a human life was no different. Any attempt to decipher a lucid course would always be thwarted by the thrust of happenstance.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#Fiona mozley#awake awake#defining moment#random#chaos
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I remember the summer of 2003 as one of the happiest of my life. A gut-deep happiness; a sensation so distant from my current state that it is as if it were experienced by a different version of myself.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#Fiona mozley#awake awake#summer#happy#unhappy
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These memories have many facets, like a precious gem slowly rotating between a jeweller’s fingers.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#awake awake#memories#fiona mozley
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All is recollection save for the slender membrane of now. Every present thought, every present feeling, collides with a league of their familial ghosts. And if our lives in this moment seem flimsy, that is because they are. We dwell on that slim edge of experience while the waters of all that has been foam and swell.

— Fiona Mozley, Awake Awake: A Novel (Algonquin Books, August 4, 2026)

#fiona mozley#awake awake#memories#memory#thought#now#past#feel