Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

It made me wonder how many times we forgive just because we don't want to lose someone, even if they don't deserve our forgiveness.

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together.

summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. for those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. you can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. summer just opens the door and lets you out.

Love can come when you're already who you are, when you're filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space.

The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.

I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.

A lady I will be, but a man's accessory, his handbag, no thank you. I will not be someone's ornament. I will not just be someone's honey, baby, sweetheart.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

...What is more like love than the ocean? You can play in it, drown in it...it can be clear and bright enough to hurt your eyes, or covered in fog, hidden behind a curve of roads and then suddenly there in full glory. It's waves come like breaths, in and out, body stretched to forever in it's possibilities, and yet it's heart lies deep, not fully knowable, inconceivably majestic.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

What they say is, life goes on, and that is mostly true. The mail is delivered and the Christmas lights go up and the ladders get put away and you open yet another box of cereal. In time, the volume of my feelings would be turned down in gentle increments to a near quiet, and yet the record would still spin, always spin. There was a place for Rose so deeply within myself that it was another country, another world, with its own light and time and its own language. A lost world. Yet its foundations and edges were permanent-the ruins of Pompeii, the glorious remnants or the Forum. A world that endured, even as it retreated into the past. A world visited, imagined, ever waiting, yet asleep

Here is something that Peach, one of the Casserole Queens, says about men and women and love. You know that scene in Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo is standing on the ground looking longingly at Juliet on the balcony above him? One of the most romantic moments in all of literary history? Peach says there's no way that Romeo was standing down there to profess his undying devotion. The truth, Peach says, is that Romeo was just trying to look up Juliet's skirt.

A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as feisty; we are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together...Layers, by their nature, are fragile things.

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.

There was something about her mouth that made me feel possibilities...the way a train ticket holds possibilities, the way a boat docked at sunset does, the way a voice on the radio announcing victory does. A mouth can have that it can seem brave, and bold. Finite and infinite. After a war, you need both of those things. "Why don't you kiss me, she said. "Celebrate a new world." And so I did. I could not forget that kiss. I still cannot. I put my fingertips to her face. Indeed,changed that day, but the change in life was no smaller or less significant. The moment took my sorrow and made it swarm the streets in victory, shouting in joy and rightness, and from that I have never quite recovered.

We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding.

...we are all a volume on the shelf of the... library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands.

We forget that just because something is honest it is not necessary the truth.

Men are trouble" "Amen to that." Peach said. "You were happily married for fifty years," Miz June said, "I don't understand why you are agreeing." "He Left Me." Peach said "He DIED." "Same thing.

Love in its purest form. Not television love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess. But just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.

Because what is more like love than the ocean? You can play in it, drown in it. It can be clear and bright enough to hurt your eyes, or covered in fog; hidden behind a curve of road, and then suddenly there in full glory. Its waves come like breaths, in and out, in and out, body stretched to forever in its possibilities, and yet its heart lies deep, not fully knowable, inconceivably majestic.

It was about the way a moment, a single moment, could change things and make you decide to try to be someone different.

A person is never as quiet as they seem, we are thickly layered page lying upon page behind simple covers.

A secret,” he said. “A secret is the heaviest thing in the world.

Maybe it was better to be who he thought I was than who I thought I was.

Her look was easy to read—she couldn’t understand, we’d always been able to talk, she was hurt. Mothers can give all of that to you in one brief look.

I love to see those paragliders weaving softly around Moon Point, their legs floating above you in the air. When they drift in for a landing, their feet touch the ground and they trot forward from the continued motion of the glider, which billows down like a setting sun. I never get tired of watching them and I've seen them thousands of times. I always wondered what that kind of freedom would feel like.

Sometimes a decision is not one monumental event, but many small, slightly unsteady ones.

The people who ask for advice are the ones who already know what they should do.