Status Updates From Cassandra at the Wedding

gay girl living in Berkeley heading to the Sierras … of course I’m loving it

“One thing about being alive is that you can swim. Other things too – you can look at the clouds in the daytime and the stars at night and think of space as something you can't terribly care about conquering. Let it go on being spacious while it can. There's lots of time if you think in terms of light-years.”

“I wanted to stop and explain it to granny, tell her it was my fault for not knowing what I should have known – that people like us can't really be people and live happy lives. There's a cloud over us and we’re caught in it together, then, now, and always. Unless, God forbid, death part us.”

“For a while there we were quiet, perfectly quiet. The frogs weren't and the crickets weren't, but we were. We've sat quiet a lot in our time, and it was that way again. We could have been eleven years old, or seven, all at ease with our house behind us and the river bottom down there and everything together with itself.”

“I took a sip and a half of brandy and realised that no matter how elaborately you try substitutions you end up thinking about people. […] People again. They set the standard every time, and all lines of thought, however devious or confused, lead back to them and force them on your consciousness.”