Where the Lost Wander

by Amy Harmon

“The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”

Regardless of their possessions or their position, it seems everyone has the same dream. They all want something different than what they have now. Land. Luck. Life. Even love.

Hating never fixed anything. It seems simple, but most things are. We just complicate them. We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.”

“Put your energy into rising above the things you can’t change, Naomi. Keep your mind right. And everything will work out for the best.”

“Don’t say that. The man who says never is quickly made a liar.”

“Some cultures do not mix. It is like having fins but trying to live on land,” I whisper.

“The expressions. The wind can blow and the rains beat down, and a landscape can be transformed eventually, but a face is always changing. I can’t draw fast enough to keep up. And every face is different. Yours is the most different of all.”

“The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t,” Winifred muses. “If nothing matters, then there’s no point. If everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.”

I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of redirecting nature, but I’ve never pretended I can control it.

Grief and joy are complicated. Love and loss too, and I know tears aren’t always what they seem.

I suddenly understand why he is so private, why he keeps things locked down tight. It’s because the moment you let go, those feelings aren’t just yours anymore.

endurance . . . is a whole different kind of battle. It’s a hell of a lot harder. Don’t ever say you didn’t fight, because that’s never been true. Not one day of your whole life. You fought, Naomi. You’re still fighting.”

Are you angry with the bird because he can fly, or angry with the horse for her beauty, or angry with the bear because he has fearsome teeth and claws? Because he’s bigger than you are? Stronger too? Destroying all the things you hate won’t change any of that. You still won’t be a bear or a bird or a horse. Hating men won’t make you a man. Hating your womb or your breasts or your own weakness won’t make those things go away. Hating never fixed anything.

“Ma said transcendence is when we rise above the things we can’t change,”

“Sometimes the spirits leave tracks in the snow. The tracks can guide us. Sometimes they comfort us. Other times, they lead us home. I saw tracks after my sons died and again the morning after my granddaughter was born. Different tracks . . . but always . . . the same.”

The tracks of a woman . . . and a little Wolfe. “The mother came for her son,” I whisper, stunned. Overcome. “Yes. And now Naomi can go home.”

I realize now that life is just a continual parting of the ways, some more painful than others.