Range of Motion

Sometimes you know before you know.

I just don't know anymore. God! I'm in a bad mood! It's like walking around in an itchy coat.

I like to do things in bed. I fold the laundry on the bed. Food tastes better to me when I'm under the covers. Bed is the only place to read, the best place to talk on the phone.

He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the good place, and a heart-shaped leaf lay trapped in the hollow if his throat as though it were planned, though of course it was so perfect it couldn't have been planned.

We are assumed to be rather hopeless -- swallowed up by incorrect notions, divorced from the original genius with which we are born, lost within days of living this distracting life.

It feels strange to see him; it's been a while. I feel as though I need to meet him all over again.

I am living on a planet where the silk dresses of Renaissance women rustled, where people died in plagues, where Mozart sat to play, where sap runs in the spring, where children are caught in crossfire, where gold glints from rock, where religion shines its light only to lose its way, where people stop to reach a hand to help each other to cross, where much is known about the life of the ant, where the gift of getting my husband back was as accidental as my almost losing him, where the star called sun shows itself differently at every hour, where people get so bruised and confused they kill each other, where baobabs grow into impossible shapes with trunks that tell stories to hands, where rivers wind wide and green with terrible hidden currents, where you rise in the morning and feel your own arms with your own hands, checking yourself, where lovers’ hearts swell with the certain knowledge that only they are the ones, where viruses are seen under the insistent eye of the microscope and the birth of stars is witnessed through the lens of the telescope, where caterpillars crawl and skyscrapers are erected because of the blue line on the blueprint—I am living here on this planet, it is my time to have my legs walk the earth, and I am turning around to tell Jay once again, “Yes, here.” I am saying that all of this, all of this, all of these things are the telling songs of the wider life, and I am listening with gratitude, and I am listening for as long as I can, and I am listening with all of m y might.

Sometimes, just when you think you’re going to die from pain, rage steps in to save you. There’s only so much room in a human heart. Thank God. The

Here is another thing I like about a good friendship, the go-aheadness of it all. You don’t have to knock to come in the door. You don’t have to ask to look in a refrigerator. You want coffee? Pour some. These friendships, formed by time, are getting so rare. I worry about that. “How

Let others bring knowledge of anatomy and physiology, of pharmacology and statistics. What Lainey brings to her husband is faith. Hope. And an abiding love.

All these small things are the glue that keeps you bound to your own life. They are the things that make you you. And in that respect, they are not little at all. They are huge. They are grand.

I learned a lot about medicine in those years, but I learned more about human nature. I learned about bravery and resilience, about the many forms of grief, and especially about the importance of the little things in one’s life. I’ve said many times that nursing taught me the value of the “little” things that individuate and define our lives—the things that ultimately make it worth living.

For ten years before I began writing for a living, I worked as a registered nurse. Never mind that the work was hard—more than once, I literally had not time for even a bathroom break. (My husband never believed me about this, but it was true.) Never mind that I had to work on holidays and every other weekend and on people’s birthdays, my own included; I loved the job.

Didn’t I tell you about her? She stuck her fingers in her vagina and then rubbed the stuff behind her ears. She said it made the men crazy.” “That is so disgusting,” Alice says. “I know.” “God!” “I know.” “Did you try it?” she asks. “Of course.” “Did it work?” “Not for me.

the invisible dangers in a normal day wrought by overactive technology, fueled by greed. Soon we’ll have a whole world meeting for the purpose of saying, “Oops. What should we do?

They say that one of the reasons for tragedy is that you learn important lessons from it.

We are meant to use what we have, whatever it is. We are meant to be less mindful of our insides, more outwardly directed.