Portia

“Something about the physical labor moves me. It's as if I'm saying "all right, Maine. All right, winter. All right, time. You win.”
― Amity Gaige, Heartwood

“Eventually, I understood that motherhood, as the child imagines it, is unperformable. No woman is a star. No woman is a god or a tree or a magician.”
― Amity Gaige, Heartwood

“Then I climb my four back steps, walk over to the fireplace, sit back down, and read the whole damn thing, start to finish.
The fire crackles as I read.
When I 'm done reading, my eyes wet. I put the pages down and I stare into the fire for a long time.
Wood gives structure to back country life. So much time is taken, choosing a tree, felling it, limbing it,
chopping it into stove size logs, hauling the logs to the yard, stacking the logs, bringing them inside in armfuls.
What do I get for all my work? I get something wonderful. The crisp conversation of fire at night as it pops and creaks, like a storm in a jar.
A fire is a bedtime story. It starts fierce in high flame, but it's in the dying down that the fire is most itself
When the heat from the embers enters you and hushes all your intentions, both your goodness and your graft.
...
I have no regrets. I do not regret anything.”
― Amity Gaige, Heartwood

“Does it bother you that I never wanted children of my own? Maybe in private moments you think it speaks poorly of you or of your mothering. But the opposite is true. My choice reflects my awe of mothers. After all, as an anxious child, I understood the masochistic level of exposure a mother takes on the moment her child is born, how agonizing her position. Your response to life’s chaos was to over-function. You were a taskmaster, a list maker, a toer-of-the-line. Like mothers the world over, you labored simultaneously on multiple fronts, clocking in at work while still managing a family. (Sick child/flat tire/dirty grout/empty fridge.) Thank you for being conflicted. Thank you for how godawful you looked certain mornings. For your occasional deranged soliloquies of resentment. Honestly, they made me love you more.”
― Amity Gaige, Heartwood