I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?
I danced with her mother on an old wooden floor where rhythm was queen. I danced with her father as he held her mother. I danced with her mother when her belly was big, a sail blown full with the wind. I held her mother as she let go of the earth’s pull, as her family did its best to let the sweet dancing mother come home to me.
What Sidda did not know was how much more singing there was when Vivi was growing up. That’s the kind of thing the history books don’t tell you. How people sang outdoors all the time.
The soul needs the body.
The happiness in her eyes made my heart hurt.
She saw night lights in the rooms of the babies who dreamed soft seersucker dreams, drugged happy with the heat, their pink baby bodies curled against worn out cotton, not fearing Hitler yet, their strong, tiny hearts beating in unison with the trees and the creeks and the bayou.
Good Lord didn’t mean for us to hate ourself. He made us to love ourself like He do, with wide open arms.
That it is kindness that makes you rich.
Well, it’s finally happening. Vivi Abbott Walker has gone over the edge. What they don’t know is that I went over the edge years ago, and lived to tell the tale. Although not to many. Vivi ran.
I don’t care what the fire department says about fire hazards. I have lived through fire before.
Don’t think this means I’m giving you all my secrets. There is more to me than you will ever know.
Taking out the journal she’d packed, and intending to make some preproduction notes on The Women, Sidda began to write instead about the Ya-Yas. Her hand moved across.
I couldn’t wait until my own stroke was strong enough for me to follow in her wake.
I was stupefied. Had she once been a star and her bright burning had dimmed? Maybe because she had us? Or had Mama.
Siddalee looked at me like: You liar, Daddy, you big liar. I don’t know why I’m thinking.
I had just asked the kids what would have made them feel more loved. But.
I was near, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I’m always expecting too much from the girl, wanting her to know things she can’t.
Well, I could have predicted that something like this was going to happen. You can’t go anywhere with Mama without things getting nuts. If it’s going along too smooth she will invent something just to stir things up. Sometimes we’ll be downtown.
Life is not a book. You can’t just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.
Sidda and I will always have to be careful with each other.
I could have done better – but for now I had to tell myself I was doing enough.