A Spool of Blue Thread

by Anne Tyler

“Oh, now, it could be worse. It could be the Butthole Surfers,”

(Oh, the exhausting enthusiasm of small children hurling themselves into each new day!)

was easier, somehow, to reflect on them all from a distance than to be struggling for room in their midst.

For years, she had been in mourning for the way she had let her life slip through her fingers. Given another chance, she’d told herself, she would take more care to experience it. But lately, she was finding that she had experienced it after all and just forgotten, and now it was returning to her.

wrist bones as distinct as cabinet knobs.

I really believe that most people who seem scary are just sad.”

The clouds overhead were a deep gray now, churning like muddy waters stirred up from the bottom of a lake,