Tess of the Road

Maybe the world isn't really different, but I am different, and I am in the world.

She still held sorrows, but she was not made of them. Her life was not a tragedy. It was a history, and it was hers.

I gave you two choices as a test: there are never just two choices. That is a lie to keep you from thinking too deeply.

One foot in front of the other was all she could manage.

You will wander the dark places under the earth, but you will come back with the sun.

Your credo goes further than you realized: walk on, yes, but don't walk past people who need you. Uncurl yourself so you can see them and respond.

It matters less where you go than that you keep moving.

We curl around our own pain until we can’t see beyond ourselves. You want to walk on? Walk out of that shadow.

Dying took commitment. It was easier to go on living incompetently.

She was the river, and the river had nothing to be ashamed of.

Something terrible and wonderful and painful swelled inside Tess, but she could bear it. Tentatively she laid her head upon her sister's shoulder. "You never meant to hurt me." "We sisters have a particular talent for hurting each other without meaning to," said Seraphina. She hesitated a moment and then leaned her cheek against the crown of Tess's head. They sat that way for some time, watching the baby, talking quietly. They spoke of childbirth like they were veterans of the same war, comparing wounds, and Tess felt some of the scars on her heart loosen and dissolve. Phina kissed her cheeks when she left. Tess marveled that she could feel so hurt and comforted at once, so empty and full. Here was a life lived in joy-utl, and she was capable and capacious enough to endure it.

Light requires the high relief of darkness. Seeds sprout in darkness. Children are conceived, and the sun reborn. Death returns us to it. Darkness is not ... it’s not wrong.

The road was possibility, the kind she'd thought her life would never hold again, and Tess herself was motion. Motion had no past, only future. Any direction you walked was forward, and that was as must be.

Tess trembled so hard her teeth chattered. “So it is with the body,” said the nun, eyes narrowing fiercely. “The hated innocent becomes hateful. Goodness withers when it is continuously ground underfoot. We fulfill our parents’ direst prophecies, then curl around our own pain until we can’t see beyond ourselves.

How was the wolf to blame, if the sheep were roaming free?

The darkness was full, fuller than she would ever have guessed, and she found this curiously comforting.

To Tess's immeasurable disappointment, she woke up.

You won’t like hearing this, but sometimes you can’t fix what you broke. Sometimes you just have to live with it.

What was rage but a cover for some secret fragility, some sorrow?

The world is surprisingly hard to destroy, whereas saving it can be done a bit at a time.

We are adrift, and the thinnest breeze may blow us where it will.

Love and guilt are like ham and eggs. So many people enjoy them together, but there’s no rule saying you must have one with the other. They don’t even come from the same animal.

Anyway, it wasn't that flavor of love. She could leave and carry it with her. Time would not put a dent in it, nor distance snuff it out.

Get on with you, mooning about, wallowing in gooey sentiment. It doesn’t change anything. “It does, though,” said Tess, a blaze igniting in her heart, a blue flame. “Maybe the world isn’t really different, but I am different, and I am in the world.” Not just in it. She was it.

The most useful virtues, for one who walked on, were flexibility and a willingness to improvise.

There's nothing ‛just’ about stories. Stories are the most real.

His hair had clearly been up all night having adventures without him.

There are never just two choices. That is a lie to keep you from thinking too deeply.

The world is surprisingly hard to destroy.