The Warbler

by Sarah Beth Durst

I’d rather be gradually forgotten, like a sunny afternoon indistinct from other summer days.

when you can’t control when you go, it’s nice to at least control how.

I planned to visit the coffee shop first, but the bookstore has a cat.

all bookstores have the same kind of familiarity, a comforting sense of Here you’ll find what you need.

The best thing about books, at least for me, is that favorites can feel like home. Yet they’re portable and replaceable. Any copy will do. Even more, once you’ve read them, they’re part of you. You don’t need the actual book anymore. You can let them go without letting them go. It’s a rare and beautiful loophole in the rules that govern my life, and I’m grateful for it.

I am a rock skimming the surface of a pond, wanting to make ripples but afraid I’ll sink.

Paris. City of lights. City of romance.

Never make herself smaller for another person or for anyone else’s expectations. Never allow her dreams to die. You think you need to, she’d said, but you don’t—you can say no even when it feels like the entire world is screaming “yes.”

“Regrets aren’t a thing you can avoid,” Mom said. “They’re just a part of life. Every time you say yes, you’re saying no to a dozen other things you could be doing.”

“How we face what the world throws at us . . . that choice is the only thing that’s truly ours.”