Shannon > Recent Status Updates

merlyn turns wart into a perch here.

"...you can see the shafts of the huge chimneys and how cunningly the side flues were contrived to enter them, and how the little private closets, now public..."

love the way Merlyn is described, as though he is a nest for the birds, and a spider falling from a web on the tip of his hat!

"the aged gentleman was staring at him with a kind of unwinking and benevolent curiosity..."

unwinking: adjective (of a stare or a shining light) steady; unwavering. "the lights shone unwinking in the still air"

"If you're dead, you can't atone for anything."

"Home is where they want you to stay longer."

"sweetbritches"

bleak, dark, depraved, nauseating

so far these stories are about the (sometimes adult) children of bad parents and I'm wondering if that's the theme or just an ~(un)lucky side effect.

starts out with a story about an attempted abduction for rape. not a good sign.

"Understanding is not your task. Being Lilly Fields is all that is required of you."

I really am glad this is almost over.

quote: No, Karen didn't 'contribute' anything to society, but how many people really *do*? Perhaps she *did* contribute: She provided a platform on which people could hope.

"Day after day the rain had fallen patiently."

"their friendship was forged in the long hours on the boat in which neither spoke an unnecessary word."

"Here every bird and fish knew its course. Every tree had its own place upon this earth. Only man had lost his way."

"Fall came gently with the second blooming of the dogwood." this touched me because this year is the first year I witnessed (& learned) that dogwood blooms twice a year. I thought previously it only bloomed in the spring.

I think this entire book might be a koan. but I wasn't looking for a koan. and that's the way of the koan.

"You are doing well with the boat In another six months you will be almost as good as an Indian boy by the time he is ten."

"what does it matter if a man is lonely? one does not die of it."

Peter, the carver, heard a flight of wild geese pass over the village, honking loudly, and he counted the seconds of their passing as was his custom.

"getting into heaven could be no harder than reaching this village"

this is approximately the 20th time I've read the phrase "by the standards of western culture" and I'm tired of hearing how much better this author believes her standards are. oh well. abandoning.

"yearning for a soul mate is also a yearning for that reconnection with the Divine."

"the natural world is the outer expression of an inner grace."

'Vesper's an evening prayer, isn't it?' ... 'Actually the prayer's named for what a vesper really is -- an evening star. First one, the one you wish upon.'

"the air sultry and pepper with ... the immoderate perfume of women who'd been frightened away from what sex smells like."