Perhaps this is the only way to grieve the big things—in snippets, pinches, little sips of sadness.
I had to check to be sure: Wait! What book are we talking about? This passage might have been lifted out of my most recent novel, Afterlife, coming out in paperback April 2021.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52898645-afterlife
My main character, Antonia, has just undergone a sudden, terrible loss. Alone, and not wanting to be a burden to anyone, she keeps to her routines, walking a narrow path through loss. . .occasionally taking “sips of sorrow, afraid the big wave might wash her away.” See what I mean? It turns out that twenty-seven years earlier, my Dedé had the same strategy for enduring her grief: taking little “sips of sadness” at a time. One day at a time, one breath at a time—makes it possible to endure. I once wrote a poem, “Small Portions,” that extends this idea not just to sorrows but to joys and sights and sounds:
“The earth is just too big, too beautiful:
I like it small, through a window, catching
the light at the day’s end.”
In any case, it’s not plagiarism—right?—if I’m only plagiarizing myself.
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