Circe

by Madeline Miller

That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.

Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different color, a different foam-capped height, but always the same restless intensity pulling towards the horizon.

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

He would not ask where, he would not even wonder. So many years I had spent as a child sifting his bright features for his thoughts, trying to glimpse among them one that bore my name. But he was a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.