Danielle

“I like to think of sand like love. The thing that’s true ’bout both of ’em is you only ever see them for what they look like when they’re right in front of you. And isn’t that sorta reckless? To only believe the thing in front of your face, not knowing nothing about where it came from. I loved reckless once. I took what was right in front of me ’cause it looked something like love and I didn’t know different and that’s what gets us sometimes. We think we’re loving when, really, we’re believing. We’re choosing to believe the sand was always white ’cause when we sink our toes into it and the heat surrounds our feet like warm hands, it feels like it can only be God’s hands. That there wasn’t no way it wasn’t created with the earth itself. But real love—love that you see every glimpse of like knocking on the door of a glass room—shows all of itself before it materializes solid. Look close enough and you see your own face, your own hands leathery and creased. Step back and you see the whole world. The quartz tumbling down the mountain to make sand as white and soft as crushed bone.”
― Leila Mottley, The Girls Who Grew Big