A Gesture Life

...whether the people are happy or not in their lives, they have learned to keep steadily moving, moving all the time.

And though the implication is that I am the sort who is always careful and preparing, I that that's not right, either' in fact I feel I have not really been living anywhere or anytime, not for the future and not in the past and not at all of-the-moment, but rather in a lonely dream of an oblivion, the nothing-of-nothing drift from one pulse beat to the next, which is really the most bloodless marking-out, automatic and involuntary. [pp. 320-321]

...it seems to me that life's moments don't have to be so right or not right anymore, so fraught and weighted with "valve", but just of themselves, what they are...

It seems I have always been fortunate to be in a certain provident, which must be my sole skill, and worth, and luck. [p. 138]

I know again why I favor it so much here, how I esteem the hush of this suburban foliage in every season, the surprising naturalness of its studied, human plan, how the privying hills and vales and dead-end lanes make one feel this indeed is the good and decent living, a cloister for those of us who are modest and unspecial. [p. 130}

And I do not live in broad infamy, nor hide from righteous pursuers or seekers of the truth. I do not mask my face or screen my doings of each day. I have not yet been banished from this earth. And though nearly every soul I've closely known has come to some dread or grave misfortune, I instead persist, with warmth and privilege accruing to me unabated, ever securing my good station here, the last place I will belong.

I won't be seeking out my destiny or fate. I won't attempt to find comfort in the visage of a creator or the forgiving dead.