The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Some things aren't meant to be known. Only believed.

My timing is off. But I had to get it out. Some things you have to tell, no matter how stupid they may sound. Some things you can't save for later. There might not be a later.

Pieces. A bit for someone here. A bit there. And sometimes they don't add up to anything whole. But you are so busy dancing. Delivering. You don't have time to notice. Or are afraid to notice. And then one day you have to look. And it's true. All of your pieces fill up other people's holes. But they don't fill your own.

Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't know they are connected.

I think that maybe forgiveness is like change - it comes in small steps. (256)

There is something about her eyes. Eyes don't breathe. I know that much. But hers look breathless.

I thought grandmothers had to like you. It’s a law or something.

Where we are going, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be the place that is important but the steps in between.

When you are perfect, is there anywhere else to go?

I don't want five hundred billion neural chips. I want guts.

I decide that sometimes definitions are wrong. Even if they're written in a dictionary. Identities aren't always separate and distinct. Sometimes they ARE wrapped up with others. Sometimes, for a few minutes, maybe they can even be shared. And if I am ever fortunate enough to return to Mr. Bender's garden, I wonder if the birds will see that piece of him that is wrapped up in me.

There are many words and definitions I have never lost. But some I am only just beginning to truly understand.

Pieces. Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?

...and time becomes a forgotten detail.

I know you have the patience of a rapidly decomposing turd.

Father says it will come in time. “Time heals,” he says. I don’t tell him that I don’t know what time is.

Awareness There is a dark place. A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words. I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die. But I can't. The darkness and silence go on forever. It is not a dream. I don't dream.

Do certain events in our lives leave a permanent mark, freezing a piece of us in time, and that becomes a touchstone that we measure the rest of our lives against?

Are the details of our lives who we are, or is it owning those details that makes the difference?

I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feel nothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing - something that happens over which I have no control. (6)

One small changed family doesn't calculate into a world that has been spinning for a billion years. But one small change makes the world spin differently in a billion ways for one family.

I almost could. I could almost leave and never look back. Like Mr. Bender, I could leave everything I was behind, including my name. Leave because of Allys and all the things she says I am. Leave because of all the things I am afraid that I will never be again. Leave, because maybe I’m not enough. Leave because of Allys, Senator Harris, and half the world knows better than Father and Mother and maybe Ethan, too. Leave. Because the old Jenna was so absorbed in her own needs that she said yes when she knows she should have said no, and the shame of night could be hidden in a new place behind a new name. But friends are complicated. There is the staying. Staying because of Kara and Locke and all that they will never be except trapped. Staying because for them, time is running out and I am their their last chance. Staying for the old Jenna and all she owes Kara and Locke and maybe all the new Jenna owes them, too. Staying because of ten percent and all I hope I might be. Staying because of Mr. Bender’s erased life and regrets. Staying for connection. Staying because two me is enough to make one of me worth nothing at all. And staying because maybe Lily does love the new Jenna as much as the old one, after all. Because maybe, given time, people do change, maybe laws change. Maybe we all change.

I used to be someone. Someone named Jenna Fox. That's what they tell me. But I am more than a name. More than they tell me. More than the facts and statistics they fill me with. More than the video clips they make me watch. More. But I'm not sure what.

Percentages! Those are for economists, polls, and politicians. Percentages can't define your identity.

How can you be sure?" "I'm a doctor, Jenna. And a scientist." "Does that make you an authority on everything? What about a soul, Father? When you were so busy implanting all your neural chips, did you think about that? Did you snip my soul from my old body, too? Where did you put it? Show me! Where? Where in all this groundbreaking technology did you insert my soul?

It's the unknown that I fear, the bites of memories that still have no connections.

I wonder at the weight of a Sparrow.

Tell me who I am. (29)

But I am more than a name. More than they tell me