Tina nods sagely and says yes and then something in Plautdietsch, probably something like heck yeah do we ever know what sad is. Sadness is what holds our bones in place.
She lived in her head and that’s why it glowed.
Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.
One night I heard my dad say to my mom: I can't help but think of the good times we're having now as being painful memories later on. And my mom saying, c'mon now honey.
Nothing happens in my life. Nothing has to happen, she said, for it to be life.
I could see my mother's beater Chevy way down below in the parking lot and I pushed the green button on her automatic starter to see how far away I could be from something to make it come to life. Not...
Do you know that hobo is an acronym for Homeward Bound?
Wealthier Mennonites even though they're not technically supposed to be wealthy do their drinking in North Dakota or Hawaii. They are sort of like rock bands on tour in that the rules of this town don...
They say nothing is my fault, and I wish they wouldn't say that. How can a man be forgiven if nothing is his fault?
The sun is setting, Ona reminds us, and our light is fading. We should light the kerosene lamp.But what of your question? asks Greta. Should we consider asking the men to leave? None of us have ever a...
She says isn't it funny how every second, every minute, every day, month, year, is accounted for, capable of being named - when time, or life, is so unwieldy, so intangible and slippery? This makes he...
Remember what mom used to say? Shred the guilt.
…just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.
Someday you’ll be gone, you’ll be dust, and then even less than dust. Nothing. There’s no other place to be. This world is good enough for you because it has to be. Go ahead and love it.
Where does violence go, if not directly back into our blood and bones?
She says isn’t it funny how every second, every minute, every day, month, year, is accounted for, capable of being named—when time, or life, is so unwieldy, so intangible and slippery?
Ona protests, quietly, that she doesn't believe that at all. She doesn't believe in authority, period, because authority makes people cruel. Salome interrupts: The people with authority or the people...
He's in love with the notion of shame and he traffics the shit like a schoolground pusher, spreading it around but never personally using.
But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build with that, gentlemen.
Alcohol, sadness, impulsive, regrettable behavior. Those were his reasons. The staples of discord. I understood. Sometimes he sends me e-mails that are so formal they seem to have been drafted by a ph...