It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.
That was the thing to remember about all monsters, They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.
One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. “You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.
As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get used to certain luxuries that you start to think they’re necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don’t need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things – though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart – and at the ranch, I could see, we have pretty much everything we’d need but precious little else.
I felt best when I was on the move, going someplace rather than being there.
Then he pointed to the top of the fire, where the snapping yellow flames dissolved into an invisible shimmery heat that made the desert beyond seem to waver, like a mirage. Dad told us that zone was known in physics as the boundary between turbulence and order. “It’s a place where no rules apply, or at least they haven’t figured ’em out yet,” he said. “You-all got a little too close to it today.
To all families who, despite their scars, still find a way to love.
One day we heard on the radio that a woman in the suburbs had seen a mountain lion behind her house and had called the police, who shot the animal. Dad got so angry he put his fist through a wall. “That mountain lion had as much right to his life as that sour old biddy does to hers,” he said. “You can’t kill something just because it’s wild.
What struck me most was his crooked grin, like he saw the world in his own special way and got a kick out of it.
The road was called Agnes weeps, after the town’s first schoolteacher, who had burst into tears when she saw how plunging and twisting the road was and realized how remote the town must be. But from the first moment I laid eyes on it, I loved that road. I thought of it as a winding staircase taking me out of the traffic jams, news bulletins, bureaucrats, air-raid sirens and locked doors of city life. Jim said we should rename the road Lilly sings.
As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.
When Dad wasn’t telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle.
At the same time, Dad was working on a book arguing the case for phonetic spelling. He called it ‘A Ghoti out of Water.’ “Ghoti,” he liked to point out, could be pronounced like “fish.” The “gh” had the “f” sound in “enough,” the “o” had the short “i” sound in “women,” and “ti” had the “sh” sound in “nation.
There was no better way to read a man’s character than to watch him play poker. Some played with the aim of holding on to what they had, others played to make a killing. For some it was gambling pure and simple, for others it was a game of skill involving small calculated risks. For some it was about numbers, for others it was about psychology.
Mom asked me if I was okay. I shrugged and nodded. “Well, there you go”, she said. She said that sexual assault was a crime of perception. “If you don’t think you’re hurt, then you aren’t”, she said. “So many women make such a big deal out of these things. But you’re stronger then that”, she went back to her crossword puzzle.
Lori wanted Mom to try on the glasses, too. Mom slipped them on and, blinking, looked around the room. She studied one of her own paintings quietly, then handed the glasses back to Lori. “Did you see better?” I asked. “I wouldn’t say better,” Mom answered. “I’d say different.
It’s not being prejudiced,” Mom said. “It’s a matter of accuracy in labeling.
Everyone has something good about them,” she said. “You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
I think you’d make a wonderful teacher. You have a strong personality. The women I know with strong personalities, the ones who might have become generals or the heads of companies if they were men, become teachers.