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I laugh. It’s one of those laughs where you’ve been about to cry, and then someone says something, and their words tack your boat into the wind and take you in a new direction—there’s a thrill in the snap change of emotion as your sail billows out on the other side of the mast.
“Where do you think the love goes, when no one’s left to tell the story?”
“Someone once told me that growing up feeling loved allows you to go on to love other people. Maybe love is simply a huge chain letter, passed down through the generations. The details of the stories begin not to matter.”
“When you are with someone for a long time, you grow into each other, like adjoining trees with tangled roots. It’s hard to extricate yourself and find the part that’s left—who you were before.”
“Most of us will never be the best at anything we do. It isn’t a reason not to do it.”
These are the details my waking mind forgets, but without them her memory might blur, eventually distilling her to a series of photos and anecdotes like Dad. I must hold off the distillation for as long as possible, so I’m grateful for the dreams.
“People like to fill in the gaps, to paint their own picture, but no one really knows the truth of someone else’s story.”
“I guess that’s why I have to believe the universe has a plan for me, because if it doesn’t, maybe I’m simply doing everything wrong.”
‘What are you doing with your life today?’ I think I told you my philosophy is not to look too far back, or too far ahead.”
Our histories, the stories we’ve been told, are like static snow globes—we know the patterns of settled snow made by the past.
“I think when you’re young, your parents feel infallible,” says Ted, “people who have all the answers. Then gradually you notice a few chinks, and it crosses your mind that occasionally they might be wrong. Then one day, you look at them, and you realize they’re just the same as you—cobbling it together, with no real clue.”
“The human heart is like a flowerbed, Laura. Once the first blooms die, there’s room enough for something else to grow, but it will never be quite the same as that first flower, the initial thrill of seeing what your heart is capable of.”
sighs—“maybe life’s more about carving out happy chapters than finding a single happy ending.”
“we must be guardians of stories more significant than our own.”
“Some people bring out the parts of yourself you like the most,” he says. “I like the version of myself I am when I’m with you.”
“I know what you mean. I feel the same, like I don’t have to filter myself around you. I’m not sure if this raw version of me even existed before.” “She was always there,” says Ted. “You just hadn’t met her yet.”
Maybe the only real legacy any of us can hope to leave is to be a link in the chain that keeps love flowing through the generations.
don’t hold on to these things too tightly. Objects only hold the meanings we give them.”
