Like world describers before me, those mapmakers in the seventeenth centure, I had laid down my first faintly drawn border. With that one tentative mark, my world expanded by a few freeing degrees.
You know, sometimes the most direct route isn’t the right one. – Jacob.
You can see beauty in everything, except for yourself.
Silence, too, can be torture.
From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.
What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect?
There is real comfort in being quiet.
Safe, I decided, didn’t leave much room for fun.
You know, there are easier ways to meet a guy than to run him over.
A pathfinder’s job is hard enough – blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you’re hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.
Maybe we don’t have the same definition of about what’s beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.
But even quashed rebellions leave us different. Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.
I preferred my brand of beauty where Norah was more beautiful than any bimbette, and Mom was beautiful whether sized extra-small or extra-large. Where Peony could look at herself in the mirror and murmur, wow, look at me. Just look at me.
No power was total, no power permanent, no power absolute.
I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?
Teachers wondered why I didn’t speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you?
Inertia is so easy – don’t fix what’s not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting what is broken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation.
The pressure of his touch through my jacket and my sweater was more assurance than any promise ever made to me. It was a touch that said, I have your back and I am here for you. If a girl wasn’t careful, she could fall in love with a touch like that.
I swallowed hard. Erik thought my body was beautiful, Karin that it was enviable. At random times, people had noted that my hands were beautiful, or my hair. The Twisted Sisters had called my art beautiful. Mom had the best intentions and always told me before and after my laser surgeries that I would be beautiful. But no one had ever said that I was beautiful, all my parts taken together, not just the bits and pieces.
Isn’t it funny that what the Japanese authors consider their first page is our happily-ever-after last one? When you think about it, it’s not a bad way to approach life. What appears to be an ending – heartbreaking wounds that you can and cannot see – may just be a beginning, a start of a brand-new adventure.
All maps lie. Even the best maps distort the truth. Entire wars have been won and lost because of maps, these keepers of secrets.