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It’s years and years of frog kissing. It’s frog kissing for the rest of your life. It’s frog kissing with nasty side effects and unpredictable outcomes you can’t undo if you change your mind that results maybe in your being more princess and less scullery maid than before, but not quite in your being all princess and no scullery maid.”
But the other thing Claude saw everywhere in Bangkok, which was the miracle of Bangkok, were people—women—like him. Like Poppy.
Her burns will heal, and someday she will see real snow. You’ve saved that for her. And you’ve saved her for that. You’ve done very well.”
Claude remembered being an eight-year-old girl.
This was loss that ruined your life leading straight to gain that saved it. It wasn’t silver lining; it was a whole silver sky.
“It’s your story, sweetheart. Not just your story to pass on. Your story to make up as well. Over time, stories change; they shift; they become something new but with elements of the original and elements of what’s to come.”
“I don’t.” Penn shook his head. “I don’t want to erase your past. You were a perfect baby.
You proclaiming who you are and being who you want to be in a world that makes that hard is awe inspiring. I’m so proud of you, Poppy.
Just being yourself never worked, but if you made yourself up, you got to be exactly who you knew yourself to be.
You live in change, in in between.”
“You learn over lifetimes. You keep try. You will find middle way to be. This life. Next. You find your way.”
That was how, whatever else they were, Claude and Poppy became Buddhists for life.
She thought of the whole lifetime it takes to grow up and become an entire person. She thought of the day she and Penn—a family of two at the time—painted the nursery yellow, the color of either way, of dispelling fear, of not-knowing.
no matter what, I only, I always, see you.
For the first time in their whole, whole lives, there was a right door.
Ordinary. Nothing special. A miracle.
