There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

“Well, this world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others, I’m afraid, abuse and brutality. But the best students are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave.”

“Words are like birds,” says Mr. Bradbury. “When you publish books, you are setting caged birds free. They can go wherever they please. They can fly over the highest walls and across vast distances, settling in the mansions of the gentry, in farmsteads and laborers’ cottages alike. You never know whom those words will reach, whose hearts will succumb to their sweet songs.”

“At thirty-one you’re barely an adult! Thirty-one still means scraped knees and scuffed elbows and a snotty nose. Besides, even when you are sixty, you’ll always be that little girl with scruffy hair to me.”

The author smiles. “It sounds like quite the gift to me. Perhaps you need time to discover how to use it. The sun is weak when it first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day goes on.”

One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it is left behind.

Actually, I agree with Euphrates. Better to be a gentle soul than one consumed by anger, resentment and vengeance. Anyone can wage war, but maintaining peace is a difficult thing. Because of this, I respect Euphrates more, but let’s keep it from our grumpy old Tigris, eh? No need to enrage him any further.”

The divisions that make up class are, in truth, the borders on a map. When you are born into wealth and privilege, you inherit a plan that outlines the paths ahead, indicating the shortcuts and byways available to reach your destination, informing you of the lush valleys where you may rest and the tricky terrain to avoid. If you enter the world without such a map, you are bereft of proper guidance. You lose your way more easily, trying to pass through what you thought were orchards and gardens, only to discover they are marshland and peat bogs.

Upon getting married, she took her husband’s surname. Now it will probably have to change again. Women are expected to be like rivers—readjusting, shapeshifting.

It is perhaps easier to justify the end of a relationship—both to yourself and to others—when there is a definite, tangible cause, no matter how painful. But it is harder to grasp the gradual evaporation of love, a loss so slow and subtle as to be barely detectable, until it is fully gone.

“A bit lonely,” says Zaleekhah. “But my cousin Helen was like a sister to me, if that counts.” “Cousins, friends, books, songs, poems, trees…anything that brings meaning into our lives counts.”

That’s the thing about failing: either it makes you super-afraid of failing again or, somehow, you learn to overcome fear.”

Uncle always says people like us cannot afford to fail. Immigrants, I mean.” Nen jams her hands in her pockets. “I don’t know your uncle, but I respectfully disagree. I’d have thought especially an immigrant would understand what it feels like to meet loss and still not be defeated.”