The Art of Racing in the Rain

by Garth Stein

Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present.

Why can’t they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid place that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What’s wrong with that idea?

Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.

Denny Creek,

Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street.

Bobby Deerfield is a very underappreciated film, as is Pacino’s performance in it.

The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer!

and Denny and I worked at slowing the beating of our hearts so we wouldn’t feel so much pain.

In Seattle we live among the trees and the waterways, and we feel we are rocked gently in the cradle of life. Our winters are not cold and our summers are not hot and we congratulate ourselves for choosing such a spectacular place to rest our heads and raise our chickens.

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to. When I am a person, that is how I will live my life.

If I ever find myself before a firing squad, I will face my executioners without a blindfold, and I will think of Eve. Of what she said. It is not the end.

People are always worried about what’s happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are not generally satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.

That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me. Is it true?

“There is no dishonor in losing the race,” Don said. “There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”

They left the next morning. Like the last strong autumn wind that rattles the trees until the remaining leaves fall, brief but powerful was their visit, signaling that the season had changed, and soon, life would begin again.

We do not see things the way they are, we see them as we are.