Little Altars Everywhere

See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...

Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long.

Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.

Sometimes I wonder if any of us are cut out for the lives we lead.

Zip it kiddo. Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you later in life.

There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers. As {she} sat at the edge of {the lake}, memory blossoms floated unbounded, as though breathed, no words spoken. Like birds that fly across national borders, between countries at war at each other.

Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.

You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.

Sidda can't help herself, She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves those black letters marching across the white pages.

Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.

When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

hear anything about my lessons. When I try to show her Charlene’s numbers from The Pajama

to let anything connected with Charlene get criticized, so I said, Mama, you’re just jealous because you can’t dance like Charlene. Mama said, Shut your filthy mouth. Then I said, Shut your filthy mouth.

this architect who everyone misunderstands. I completely forget to ask what she and Charlene are going to laugh about. One evening Mama takes Baylor and Little Shep and Lulu and me to Fred’s Hamburger Drive-In where we eat at least

supposed to walk off my block, Sherry says, like a real whiny-baby.

want to be grown-up and drive my own convertible and live in a different town where nobody knows Mama or Daddy.

hope they remember that when they get older. When they count up the things I did and didn’t do. I never gave the drinking a second

far as I knew. Never thought one way or the other when Mama used to take her “naps” in the middle of Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. Never said to myself, Mama’s not napping, she’s passed-out drunk. Never even questioned

sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly

Siddalee looked at me like: You liar, Daddy, you big liar. I don’t know why I’m thinking

this dream where I just tell it all, and then this special-made vacuum cleaner comes and sucks all the crap out of my lungs. Stops me from drowning. Clean oxygen reaches deep in my chest like it hasn’t for so goddamn long. In the dream I tell it all, and I breathe like a baby. I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it’s gonna come. Siddalee asks too many questions. I don’t know where the child gets those thoughts. She pins me to the wall with all the stuff she asks. Sometimes I wish she’d lose her voice. And sometimes I want to go and sit in front of her and ask her questions. I’d like to say: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do—step by step—to get out of the mess we’re in here in this house. But I know it’s foolishness

thinking: I don’t want my little girl to come out blind or gouged up. I’m not cheap, I’m scared. It’s the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.

I was near, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I’m always expecting too much from the girl, wanting her to know things she can’t

Well, I could have predicted that something like this was going to happen. You can’t go anywhere with Mama without things getting nuts. If it’s going along too smooth she will invent something just to stir things up. Sometimes we’ll be downtown

social structure of Troop 55. There are

Edythe, I finally say, Why don’t you go on back to your bunk and eat your boogers for a midnight snack like you always do at home? Well, that comment really sends my friends, and I’m a big hit. But then I see Edythe’s face. It’s like something has fallen on it and crumpled it in. Somehow she looks so familiar that I can feel her bones inside my own body. And I start to feel sort of sick. She turns and walks away and

sits on the bedspread between her and Necie. I can smell that nail polish in the clean cool air of the woods. The minute Mama opens her mouth I realize she’s had at least four drinks. Her voice is loose and deep and content and amused, and she says: Edythe, don’t you ever

Honestly, Edythe, Mama says, like she’s going to give her the most important advice in the world, If you continue acting this way, you will be unpopular for the rest of your life. I wish I could go someplace far away