Sean MacKenzie

“He touched me as if I were the curved and delicate handle of a china cup, but he held me tightly just as I was, flesh and blood and full of human flaws and fears. In his arms I wasn't a girl dreaming of sailing the high seas, and I wasn't a farm kid jumping the train, either, but a fully grown woman riding the soft side of a crescent moon.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Memories are fragile things to hold, but many times, it's what we have.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“We’d save up a penny or two, bring them down here, and set them on the tracks. When a train comes, it flattens out that penny, leaving it thin as paper and shaped long, like an egg. But it happens so fast, you can’t see where the train sends that penny flying… We’d look all around, in the sage brush and the prickly pear cactus, until we found them.. And you know what?”

He stopped walking and turned to gaze at me now. “We always found them closer than we thought.”

“After we’d looked all over Creation, we’d find them somewhere near the tracks, after all.”

He said, “Sometimes you do find what you’re looking for closer than you think.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“I’ve often wondered, even to this day, why during painful times some people seem to step away from themselves and make decisions that fall far out of their usual line of character and behaviour. Perhaps a natural reluctance to sit still is central, or perhaps, like the lesser animals, instinct forces us to go on even if grief has left us not up to the task…. In one fleeting moment, I stripped away the petals of my future, let them catch wind, and fly away”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days