Teddy

“I want it all. Consuming passion and camaraderie, laughter and strength, hope and comfort.
It exists. I’ve seen it every time I look at Jonah and Calla.
And maybe I can have it for myself too.”
― K.A. Tucker, Running Wild

“Just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a single circumstance of a girl’s life erase who she was before.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“Women endure. That’s what we do.”
“That’s nonsense,” she replied more harshly than I expected. “A woman is more than a vessel meant to carry babies and grief.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“. . .To go as a river . .had taken me a long while to understand. . . meant. . .flowing forward against obstacle . . .like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else, and doing this had delivered me here, with two fists of forest soil in my palms and a heart still learning to be unafraid of itself. I had been shaped by my kindred— my lost family and lost love; my found friendships, though few; my trees that kept on living and every tree that gave me shelter; every creature I met along the way, every raindrop and snowflake choosing my shoulder, and every breeze that shifted the air; every winding path beneath my feet, every place I laid my hands and head, and every creek like the one before me, rolling off the hillside, gaining strength in gravity, spinning through the next eddy, pushing around the next bend, taking and giving in quiet agreement with every living thing.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River