Sonya Lea > Quotes

“Ambiguous loss is considered by social scientists to be one of the most stressful kinds of loss owing to its nature: it is the loss that happens without possibility for closure.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“I wonder if who I am is who he is. I wonder if I am anything at all.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“His actual memory comes and goes. So does mine. So does yours. We are all making this up, even though the narrative form pretends that our life events are cohesive and understandable. Our stories are at best mash-ups: they point to things; they are not the thing.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“Entire civilizations have died out and new ones arisen, but I can't let go of the 'us' that I knew once.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“Home is disappearing along with the character I once called 'me.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“We were playing house. We knew that we were young and likely wouldn't last. We wanted to talk in ways we hadn't yet allowed ourselves. We wanted to speak of all the things we hadn't been able to say to each other. We entered into an unbounded dialogue each night.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“Or maybe the lost ought not to be reimagined.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“One million arid acres stretch out in the afternoon sun. The mile-high crust, layers of umber, russet, charcoal, goldenrod, burn sienna, and ochre, exposes two billion years of geologic history. We stand awe-smacked. We're the newest things on earth. Everything at the rim—all of the particles that big-banged themselves through the universe to be alive in just these forms—has been set in motion. Our lives are the vestiges of these events, events that seem to happen ceaselessly. As tired and grief-stricken as I am, there's still a part of me that knows that Richard's loss of memory, the death of his identity, his coming back as a new man, it all has its place in the order of things, or perhaps the chaos of things—just like these ancient, awesome rock formations.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“We met in 1976, at a high school dance. It was the era of Pierre Trudeau and glam rock and the Sex Pistols. He was the boy from out of town. I was the girl who wanted out. Like young people of every generation, we thought nonconformity and the acquisition of authentic wounds to be essential to our freedom. Our scars were there, waiting inside us, scars of disease and damage, bur we didn't yet know how they might undo us.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“We ask, 'What do you want to keep from over there?' I want to keep turning toward the people I disagree with, learning to respect them through the exchange of ideas. I want to know when to kiss in silence, when to erupt in hearty dialogue.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“Life after cancer eats what isn't true, our outworn notions, the ideas we hold on to because we want to do life 'right,' which mostly means what other people want us to do. But the body doesn't die. The body changes form, goes on to be dust or food or firmaments. That personality though, that story we grow attached to: dead, dead, dead.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir

“When I say I am going home, I mean I am going to where you are.”
― Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are: A Memoir