Distant Shores

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

Promises were a lot like impressions. The second one didn't count for much.

It had been years since she question his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care.

My husband ran off with his secretary. His male secretary. the only passion I have lately seems to center around buying a handgun. Unfortunately, I can't decide which one of us to shoot.

I prefer to scare myself in the ordinary ways, Daddy. Like letting my children cross the country for college. Why bungee jump when you can put a kindergartener on a school bus? Now, that's real terror.

Elizabeth: "Maybe he'll surprise you." Meghann: "Birdie, they all surprise me. Last week, I hugged my date at the door and felt a bra strap.

We’re all afraid,” Anita said. “It’s the going on that matters.

It was the very bleakness of winter that made spring possible.

She ate life with unapologetic enthusiasm and took as many helpings as she wanted.

Hey, Meg," she said without preamble. I need you to write a letter of recommendation for me. I'm applying for grad school." Meghann screamed into the phone. "Oh, my God! I'm so proud of you. I'm hanging up now; I have to draft a letter that makes my best friend sound like da Vinci in a bra and panties.

The trip from Portland to New York City was like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. It went on and on, and by the time you reached your destination, there was no sensation left in your extremities.

Time. It was the rack everything hung on: life, loss, hope, love.

Promises were a lot like impressions. The second one didn’t count for much.

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. —Richard Bach, Illusions

True love is a rare thing. We lean on it for years without botherin’ to look at what’s holdin’ us up. It lasts forever, as the poets say, but life doesn’t.

She sat there a long time, talking to her daddy as if he were sitting right beside her.

She knew sorrow would hit her later, hit her hard, the sudden, aching realization that her father was Gone, that she’d never pick up the phone and hear his voice again, or go to her mailbox and get a letter written in his bold, sweeping hand.

She cried at last, for all the times she’d had been with her father and all the times she hadn’t, and for all the times she never would be. When the tears had worn themselves out and left her dry, she got unsteadily to her feet.

Hey, Daddy,” she whispered. It was a split second before she realized that she’d expected an answer. But, of course, there wasn’t one. His heart—the one that had loved her so well—had finally given up.

Life is short, her dad had said. She knew it was true. Every motherless child knew that. But just now, with her husband’s voice droning on and on, she couldn’t quite grasp hold of that. Because there was something else, equally true. When you were forty-five years old and missing out, it felt as if life were very long indeed.

Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs.

Soon, the crops would be planted. By July, the corn would be as tall as a man and go on forever. By October, the leaves would be brownish gold and thin as paper,and when the early winter winds came, the rustling stalks would sound like a hive of bees. That was the cycle of the land, the measure of time. Everything in her daddy’s world had been tacked to seasons. Things came and went and lived and died according to sunlight.

A cliché is just something that’s commonly true.

Elizabeth laughed. “No way. You’ll have to talk to Dad about this yourself, but I’ll tell you this, honey, it’s dangerous to quit something because you think you’re not good enough. That can be an ugly pattern that repeats itself throughout your life. Believe me, I know.

Jack had made a bad trade. True warmth for false heat.

She dipped her paintbrush into the color and began. Day after day

Shoes come in boxes; wine comes in bottles.

The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. —John Burroughs

You’ll always miss him, but after a while, the missing will be more of an ache, not so sharp a wound.