STILL (to Bam Bam)

Still, this indiscrimnate love feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and everything in the world has its own secret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself. This determined, abiding fascination is what she thinks of her soul (an embarrassing, sentimental word, but what else to call it?); the part that might conceivably survive the death of the body (...) never speaks to anyone about any of that. She doesn't gush or chirp. She exclaims only over the obvious manifestations of beauty, and even then manages a certain aspect of adult restraint. Beauty is a whore, she sometimes says. I like money better.

Michael Cunningham