-] Sometimes when you
pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands,
or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck.
-] This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.
-] You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny indeed - the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand.
-] Life turns on a dime, and - it turns out - so does one's conscience.
-] Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.
-] You build a wall to keep something unwanted out - or to hold something precious in.
-] Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.
-] If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.
-] But rules only work when everyone plays by them. What happens when someone doesn't, and the fallout bleeds right into his life?
-] Whats stronger- the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?
-] We have been naive enough to believe that we were invincible; that we could run blind through the hairpin turns of life at treacherous speeds and never crash.
-] "You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face.
"I had to," he said. "So you could save me back."
-] Just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.
-] There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.
-] But then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them. Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.
-] Does fate ever play by the rules?
-] I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.
-] Justification is a remarkable thing - takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.
-] You ask your readers if they can account for every minute of their lives, every thought in their heads, and be proud of it. You ask them if they've never jaywalked.... never gone thirty-one miles per hour in a thirty-mile zone... if they've never sped up when they saw that yellow light. And when you find that single, sorry person who hasn't taken a misstep, that one person with the right to judge me, you tell him he's just as human as I am. That tomorrow, his world could turn upside down and he might find himself capable of actions he'd never believed possible... you tell him, he could have been me.
-] After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.
-] The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, falling is the first step in learning how to fly.
-] And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.
-] Change your point of view, and the perspective is completely different.
-] "Can you see the pond?"
From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground.
When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?
-] After years of seeing the world in absolutes, he has taught me how to pick out all the shades of possibilities.
-] She isn't the girl who used to live next door, hasn't been for years. Back then she had freckles and jeans with holes at the knees and a ponytail yanked so tight it made her eyes pull at the corners. Now she wears pantyhose and tailored suits; she has had the same short bob hairstyle for five years. But when Patrick gets close enough, she still smells like childhood to him.
-] Where is this going to take me? she had asked. And Caleb's answer: Where do you want it to?
-] Just so you know: if this ever happens to you, you will not be ready. You will ask yourself How come; you will ask yourself What if.
-] You cannot be doomed, after all, as long as you can still see the faint outline of hope on the opposite shore.
-] "Is Understatement 101 a course in medical school?"
"Of course. It's the prereq for Lying Through One's Teeth."
-] A level of a house, his father has told him, is called a story.
Nathaniel likes that. It makes him feel like may be he is living between the covers of a book himself. Like may be everyone in every home is sure to get a happy ending.
-] There are a lot of places," I reply, "that I thought I'd never go."
-] When the door opens, I realize that the only thing worse than waiting is the moment you realize a decision has been made.
-] I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words.
-] "What would you like to be?" Nina asks.
Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth. "A superhero," he says. "A new one."
Caleb is sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. "What's wrong with the old ones?"
Everything it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.
"How about Ironman?" Caleb suggests.
Nathaniel shakes his head. "He could rust."
"Aquaman?"
"Needs water."
"Nathaniel," Nina says gently, "nobody's perfect."
"But they are supposed to be." Nathaniel explains, an d Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible.
-] ...because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of filler that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty.
-] I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't wear badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a buttoned down shirt. They look the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening - to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wisest.
-] They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware. There had to have been a moment where they made a conscious decision to turn away before they saw something they didn't want to.
-] Where is the line? We're taught to stand up for ourselves; we're taught to stand up for others we care about. But all of a sudden, there's a new line drawn by the law. You sit back, it says, and let us deal with this. ...what's morally right is considered wrong...and what's morally wrong, you can get away with.
-] But if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.
-] The future may unfold in indelible strokes, but it doesn't mean we have to read the same lines over and over.
-] How far can a person go... and still live with himself.
-] Those eyes, they've got a history with mine. They were the first things I saw when I came to, after being hit in the skull with a baseball thrown by Patrick at Little League. They were the fortification I needed at sixteen to ride the chairlift at Sugarloaf, although I am terrified of heights. For almost my whole life, they've told me I'm doing all right, during moments when it was not in my own power to answer.
-] The relationship between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.
-] And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? May be, Caleb thinks with a small shock, he isn't the same person he once was, either.
-] As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds.
-] Best place to be?" Adrienne asks after a moment.
On the other side of this wall. In my bed, at home. Anywhere with Nathaniel.
"Before," I answer, because I know she'll understand.
-] This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.
-] You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny indeed - the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand.
-] Life turns on a dime, and - it turns out - so does one's conscience.
-] Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.
-] You build a wall to keep something unwanted out - or to hold something precious in.
-] Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.
-] If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.
-] But rules only work when everyone plays by them. What happens when someone doesn't, and the fallout bleeds right into his life?
-] Whats stronger- the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?
-] We have been naive enough to believe that we were invincible; that we could run blind through the hairpin turns of life at treacherous speeds and never crash.
-] "You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face.
"I had to," he said. "So you could save me back."
-] Just when you think you've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with you.
-] There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.
-] But then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them. Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.
-] Does fate ever play by the rules?
-] I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.
-] Justification is a remarkable thing - takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.
-] You ask your readers if they can account for every minute of their lives, every thought in their heads, and be proud of it. You ask them if they've never jaywalked.... never gone thirty-one miles per hour in a thirty-mile zone... if they've never sped up when they saw that yellow light. And when you find that single, sorry person who hasn't taken a misstep, that one person with the right to judge me, you tell him he's just as human as I am. That tomorrow, his world could turn upside down and he might find himself capable of actions he'd never believed possible... you tell him, he could have been me.
-] After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.
-] The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, falling is the first step in learning how to fly.
-] And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.
-] Change your point of view, and the perspective is completely different.
-] "Can you see the pond?"
From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground.
When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?
-] After years of seeing the world in absolutes, he has taught me how to pick out all the shades of possibilities.
-] She isn't the girl who used to live next door, hasn't been for years. Back then she had freckles and jeans with holes at the knees and a ponytail yanked so tight it made her eyes pull at the corners. Now she wears pantyhose and tailored suits; she has had the same short bob hairstyle for five years. But when Patrick gets close enough, she still smells like childhood to him.
-] Where is this going to take me? she had asked. And Caleb's answer: Where do you want it to?
-] Just so you know: if this ever happens to you, you will not be ready. You will ask yourself How come; you will ask yourself What if.
-] You cannot be doomed, after all, as long as you can still see the faint outline of hope on the opposite shore.
-] "Is Understatement 101 a course in medical school?"
"Of course. It's the prereq for Lying Through One's Teeth."
-] A level of a house, his father has told him, is called a story.
Nathaniel likes that. It makes him feel like may be he is living between the covers of a book himself. Like may be everyone in every home is sure to get a happy ending.
-] There are a lot of places," I reply, "that I thought I'd never go."
-] When the door opens, I realize that the only thing worse than waiting is the moment you realize a decision has been made.
-] I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words.
-] "What would you like to be?" Nina asks.
Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth. "A superhero," he says. "A new one."
Caleb is sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. "What's wrong with the old ones?"
Everything it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.
"How about Ironman?" Caleb suggests.
Nathaniel shakes his head. "He could rust."
"Aquaman?"
"Needs water."
"Nathaniel," Nina says gently, "nobody's perfect."
"But they are supposed to be." Nathaniel explains, an d Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible.
-] ...because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of filler that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty.
-] I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't wear badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a buttoned down shirt. They look the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening - to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wisest.
-] They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware. There had to have been a moment where they made a conscious decision to turn away before they saw something they didn't want to.
-] Where is the line? We're taught to stand up for ourselves; we're taught to stand up for others we care about. But all of a sudden, there's a new line drawn by the law. You sit back, it says, and let us deal with this. ...what's morally right is considered wrong...and what's morally wrong, you can get away with.
-] But if I've learned anything, it's that we don't know half of what we think we do. And we know ourselves least of all.
-] The future may unfold in indelible strokes, but it doesn't mean we have to read the same lines over and over.
-] How far can a person go... and still live with himself.
-] Those eyes, they've got a history with mine. They were the first things I saw when I came to, after being hit in the skull with a baseball thrown by Patrick at Little League. They were the fortification I needed at sixteen to ride the chairlift at Sugarloaf, although I am terrified of heights. For almost my whole life, they've told me I'm doing all right, during moments when it was not in my own power to answer.
-] The relationship between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.
-] And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? May be, Caleb thinks with a small shock, he isn't the same person he once was, either.
-] As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds.
-] Best place to be?" Adrienne asks after a moment.
On the other side of this wall. In my bed, at home. Anywhere with Nathaniel.
"Before," I answer, because I know she'll understand.
I have been impressed again with the authors ability to keep me reading. In her first few pages she makes you think you have it figured out but she twists the story so well. She made me care for the people involved. It is so nice to find a smart and interesting writer.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. She does have a gift of writing and wraps you around the plot and the characters.
ReplyDelete