"I am nonbinary and I feel that my gender dysphoria may be part of why I am sex-averse. I feel that there is a pro in that being asexual means that I am not distressed by any sex-aversion I experience due to my gender dysphoria." — Em Z., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"A lot of my ace identity is inherently a part of my trans identity. Being sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed is fueled by my lack of sexual attraction and my disconnection from my body. One example is that my aversion to wearing a bikini stems from not wanting people to be sexually attracted to me, but also that it accentuates the parts of my body that I am most uncomfortable with and what I see as counter to how I view myself." — Kara T., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"I am nonbinary/genderqueer and I feel like my gender is very tied with my ace identity. I think it took me such a long time to figure out my gender because I'm ace. I thought that I was uncomfortable looking like a girl because of how sexualized AFAB bodies are by general society." — Mattea, via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"As breasts are heavily sexualized in every form of media, I was never comfortable with my own. Even crossing my arms didn't feel right because I preferred to simply forget that they existed." — Finch, via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Often, aromantic-spectrum women will find themselves being compelled to reject "traditional" womanhood not because they have anything against it in particular, but because they so closely associate femininity with dating and romance. In these cases, it's not necessarily about a questioning of gender at all (although that can certainly be another layer of it), but about wanting to reject the stereotypes that surround gender." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Some aspecs also find themselves wanting to distance themselves from the parts of their gender or presentation that are sexualizing—or parts of their bodies that are not sexual by nature but often sexualized within the broader culture." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"I found a new kind of forgetting. Crystalline moments of freedom from searching for my old self. There was no other "me." Whoever I was, whoever I used to be, didn't matter. What mattered is that I was here, on a rock in the desert where an ocean once was. A place that barely resembled its old self." — Caroline Treadway "A New Forgetting", Summit Magazine, issue 321
"Because nature is not a place to visit. Nature is who we are." — Ada Limón You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World
"Public lands are our public commons, breathing spaces in a country that is increasingly holding its breath. ... These are places of peace and renewal, where landscapes of beauty become landscapes of our imaginations. We stand before a giant sequoia and remember the size of our hearts instead of the weight of our egos." — Terry Tempest Williams "Public lands are our public commons", The New York Times
"I know how seductive holding on to suffering can be because I’ve done it. In many ways it feels safe. I know how powerful the identity of brokenness can be and I have many versions of this story." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"The flip side of freedom is avoidance, and for years we’d been sliding into fixed, unspoken assumptions and interpretations of who we were, separately and together: I was independent and strong (read, unloving and stubborn). He was steady and reliable (read, emotionally unavailable). We’d been storing up these stories about ourselves and each other for so long that we’d started to believe them, and, at the same time, we hated them. Hated them so fiercely it sometimes felt as though we hated each other...If I can channel compassion, I am not mad." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"I have to believe in complete healing. I have to surround myself with people who believe it, too. I have to see it and feel it and live it. I have to train my mind to heal my body...This is how it works: my mind transporting me back to a time when I was healthy, and, at the same time, ahead to when I will be again...I dream about walking. The setting and characters change, but the plot is always the same: I’m injured and on crutches and then, without thinking, I take one free step and then another...I no longer refer to my left leg as my broken leg: it’s my healing leg...Recovery isn’t something that will happen. It is happening...Healing isn’t a mysterious, passive process that’s happening to me, but one that I am creating." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"It is a story of me, and a story about the stories we tell ourselves. It’s about the brain and the heart: mine and maybe yours. It’s a story of the binaries that draw us to the middle. It is black and white and right and wrong and joy and despair. It is success and failure and madness. It is the before and the after and everything in between." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"The words that really matter in the wake of passing are the stories we tell of our loved ones. Stories fill up the space they leave behind and we can see their faces and hear their laugh and reach into something shapeless and touch them. So long as we tell stories, they can never really die." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Grief can be an astonishingly beautiful response to loss and the pain of it can stir a renewed appreciation for life. It makes food taste better and feelings feel deeper and colors brighter. It amplifies love. Loss can imbue us with such profound gratitude for what we have, and I will always marvel that the void of death can be what makes us feel most alive." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb." — Najwa Zebian
"Words amidst tragedy rarely if ever touch the void of grief, let alone fill it. The need to speak is an attempt to bring something back...to undo something that can’t be undone. And platitudes aren’t all that comforting. Regardless, someone always says something like “At least they died doing what they loved.” The search for a silver lining, the stumbling to make sense of death, doesn’t make loss any less painful...Say what you can and mean what you say and when there are no more words just let the silence speak. For a moment, let the silence scream." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Maybe it’s the sun’s first light on these ancient cliffs, or the heavy current of the river, the feeling that this place exists outside of human time. But here, I start to feel like myself again." — Hilary Oliver She Explores, Episode 3, "Being Here: How the Outdoors Make Us Feel"
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." — John Burroughs
"I am growing increasingly aware that friendship is worth much more than success. Friends have remained and everything else is history." — Nejc Zaplotnik, translated by Mimi Marinsek Alpinist Magazine, Issue 74, "Nejc Zaplotnik, Mountain Poet", excerpted from "Pot"
