savoury sentences from several sources, part 4

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 

“On her lapel was a gilt brooch large enough to be a small sculpture.”
—’The Things You Know’, Lemon Table,  by Julian Barnes.

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“Why is it that in every relationship a dismal moment arrives when one’s lover suggests the seaside?”

—‘Little Bird’, Oh, My Darling, by Shaena Lambert.

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“Omens are for example hearing someone say victory as they pass you in the street/ or to be staring/ at the little sulfur lamps in the grass/ all around the edge of the hotel garden/ just as they come on. They come on at dusk.”
—The Beauty of the Husband,  by Anne Carson

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“If you are offered a plover’s egg as a snack, that, too, is taken with the left hand.”
—The Finishing School,  by Muriel Spark

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“It was a time when people didn’t ask as many questions. That was the time it was.”

—Martin John, by Anakana Schofield

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“…vanity isn’t fussy; it’ll eat almost anything.”

—Boy, Snow, Bird,  by Helen Oyeyemi

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“…he yearned to be in love with the sort of woman who would fall for the kind of man he pretended to be.”
—Savage Love,  by Douglas Glover

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“I found myself more interested in the dialogue I’d stolen, and wondered if I was better at eavesdropping than writing poetry.”

—A Year of Days, by Myrl Coulter

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“There is no box to check for not wanting a box at all.”

—‘The Rest of My Chest’,Gender Failure, by Ivan Coyote

 

 

More sentences here 800px-thumbnail

and here.

And here.

it’s a spring thing

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

 
Every year I’m surprised by how much I miss my parents on this particular holiday more than any other. Surprised, I suppose, because I’m not prone to this emotion generally, but on a sunny Easter day I miss driving to their house in a slightly warmer part of the province where the forsythia are often in bloom while snow lingers in the shady bits of my own yard. I miss sitting on their patio, listening to stories about their life long before I knew them and how they’d correct each other, argue, decide the other might be right after all.
I miss walking on the beach with them on this first spring weekend and my mother finding wild rosebushes and making a note to come back in the fall to pick the hips for tea. Just for a day, I miss the smell of her kitchen with the windows wide open.

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red and black leggings

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A girl of maybe eight, dark blonde hair, almost wavy, almost thick, in a loose pony tail with strands unbound around her face. Red and black leggings in geometric pattern and a grey tee shirt that reads: LOVE. She twirls in the hallway, in the basement of the gallery, outside the room where I sit reading and writing, outside the room where her art class is going on. For just a few moments she dances oblivious and alone in the hallway between these two rooms, dances and twirls and twirls, to music that doesn’t play…

And then just like that, she’s gone.

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rainy day people

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

 
I was writing with a group of women at the shelter recently.
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I do this once a month; they call it a workshop, but really we’re just writing together.
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I’m always amazed by what gets said on paper by people who aren’t always used to holding a pen.
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Amazed also that in the middle of the madness that is currently their life, in the middle of everything they’re going through, have gone through for god knows how long, that they can write with such clarity, such honesty.
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They’re surprised when I tell them their words are beautiful.
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At first they don’t believe me and then, something happens, the magic of unlocking, of tapping into a part of themselves that so rarely gets out, the magic of being heard… and I can see something change and I know that it’s a tiny thing, but even that is big, because, even for just a while…
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…they believe, they know,  that something about them is beautiful still.
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“I hate the rain, but I love puddles.” ~ (shelter resident)